Drinking to death: Suicide, vodka and religious burial in Russia

Past and Present

Volumn 186, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 117-146

  Morrissey, Susan K ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

CMV disease; CMV infection; CMV monitoring; CMV prophylaxis; Kidney transplantation

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750254381     PISSN: 00312746     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gti002     Document Type: Article

References (148)

1. These cases are cited in A. Levenstim, Sueverie i ugolovnoe pravo [Superstition and Criminal Law] (St Petersburg, 1897), 75-7.
2. Ibid., 4, 79.
3. On the history of suicide in Russia, see Irina Paperno, Suicide as a Cultural Institution in Dostoevsky's Russia (Ithaca, 1997), esp. ch. 2.
4. In Russia, the ahistorical theory of survivals was embedded in the concept of dvoeverie, literally 'dual belief', according to which peasant belief was composed of a superficial veneer of Christianity over a pagan core. This theory shaped approaches to popular religiosity well into the twentieth century. See Eve Levin, 'Dvoeverie and Popular Religion', in Stephen K. Batalden (ed.), Seeking God: The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia (DeKalb, 1993).
5. The pioneering work was Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1971).
6. See also Roger Chartier, 'Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern Europe', in Stephen L. Kaplan (ed.), Understanding Popular Culture (New York, 1984).
7. For an extension of such an approach to late imperial Russia, see Stephen P. Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856-1914 (Berkeley, 1999).
8. On secularization theory, see Steve Bruce (ed.), Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization Thesis (Oxford, 1992).
9. For a particularly cogent critique, see Thomas Kselman, 'Funeral Conflicts in Nineteenth-Century France', Comparative Studies in Society and Hist., xxx (1988), 328-30.
10. See also the influential article by Clifford Geertz, 'Religion as a Cultural System', in his The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, 1973).
11. Vladimir Dal', Tolkovyi slovar' zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka [Defining Dictionary of the Living Great-Russian Language], 4 vols. (St Petersburg, 1903-9), ii, 1757, 1764.
12. In an otherwise nuanced and thoughtful article, Christine Worobec translates opoitsa as someone who died from alcohol poisoning. See her 'Death Ritual among Russian and Ukrainian Peasants: Linkages between the Living and the Dead', in Stephen P. Frank and Mark D. Steinberg (eds.), Cultures in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1994), 30 n. 82.
13. Dal', Tolkovyi slovar', ii, 1764.
14. Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York, 1984), 78.
15. The historiography is vast. In addition to Worobec, 'Death Ritual among Russian and Ukrainian Peasants', see Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, which provides insightful analysis and further references.
16. Odin iz zhitelei g. Onegi [A Resident of Onega], 'Zatrudnitel'nyi sluchai iz prikhodskoi praktiki' [A Difficult Case from Parish Practice], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1879), no. 35, 14.
17. On Onega, see G. M. Lappo (ed.), Goroda Rossii: Entsiklopediia [Cities of Russia: An Encyclopedia] (Moscow, 1994), 329-30.
18. The 1897 census listed 2,694 residents, Entsiklopedicheskii slovar' Rossii [Encyclopedic Dictionary of Russia] (1898; repr. Leningrad, 1991), 123.
19. 'Zatrudnitel'nyi sluchai iz prikhodskoi praktiki', 14.
20. Ibid.
21. Onezhanin [A Native of Onega], 'Eshche o zatrudnitel'nom sluchae iz prikhodskoi praktiki' [More about the Difficult Case from Parish Practice], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1879), no. 45, 15.
22. Ibid.
23. Odin iz zhitelei goroda Onegi [A Resident of Onega], 'Eshche o zatrudnitel'nom sluchae iz pastyrskoi praktiki' [More about the Difficult Case from Pastoral Practice], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1879), no. 51/52, 22-3.
24. Rule 14 of Timotheos of Alexandria (and rule 178 of the Nomokanon), repr. in Pravila Pravoslavnoi tserkvi s tolkovaniiami Nikodima [Rules of the Orthodox Church with the Interpretation of Nikodim], 2 vols. (St Petersburg, 1912), ii, 486-7.
25. This rule was included in the various collections of canon law in medieval and modern Russia: See P. Ivan Žužek, Kormčaja kniga: Studies on the Chief Code of Russian Canon Law (Rome, 1964).
26. A large historiography on suicide in the Western tradition now exists. For key studies, see Alexander Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998-2000)
27. A. Bayet, Le Suicide et la morale (Paris, 1922)
28. Georges Minois, Histoire du suicide: La société occidentale face à la mort volontaire (Paris, 1995)
29. Michael MacDonald and Terence R. Murphy, Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1990).
30. Scholars have only begun to investigate the history of death in medieval Russia: See Daniel H. Kaiser, 'Death and Dying in Early Modern Russia', Kennan Institute Occasional Papers, no. 228 (Washington DC, 1988)
31. Ludwig Steindorff, Memoria in Altrußland: Untersuchungen zu den Formen christlicher Totensorge (Wiesbaden, 1994).
32. '1416 g. sentiabria 23. Ego zhe gramota pskovskomu dukhovenstvu' [1416 September 23. His (Fotii's) Charter to the Pskov Clergy], Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka, 39 vols. (St Petersburg and Moscow, 1872-1927), vi,
33. Pamiatniki drevnerusskogo kanonicheskogo prava [Monuments of Medieval Russian Canon Law] (1908), Pt 1, no. 43, col. 379.
34. For further examples, see 'Voprosy i otvety o raznykh sluchaiakh pastyrskoi praktiki' [Questions and Answers about Various Cases of Pastoral Practice], ibid., no. 124, col. 861
35. 'Letopis' Avraamki' [Chronicle of Avraamka], Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei, 41 vols. to date (St Petersburg and Moscow, 1846-), xvi, 301.
36. Philippe Ariès, The Hour of our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York and London, 1981), 10-13.
37. This is a tremendous simplification of a complex and fascinating argument: See Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages, ii, ch. 13.
38. My version is from a sixteenth-century manuscript. See 'Iz "Izmaragda"' [From the 'Izmaragd' ('Emerald')], Pamiatniki literatury drevnei Rusi [Monuments of the Literature of Medieval Rus], 12 vols. (Moscow, 1978-94), vii, esp. 64-5.
39. In discussing this passage, historian of Orthodoxy G. P. Fedotov instead argues that the fear of sudden death reflected a belief that dying without penance and absolution increases the chances of damnation. Yet this passage does not refer in any way to the sacramental rituals of death. See G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1966), ii, 89-92.
40. For more on the 'good' death, see Daniel E. Collins, 'Early Russian Topoi of Deathbed and Testament', in Michael S. Flier and Daniel Rowland (eds.), Medieval Russian Culture, II (Berkeley, 1994).
41. The demeanour at the time of death also played a role in the judgement of accidental deaths in Western Europe, and the church hierarchy combated such beliefs only half-heartedly: See Ariès, Hour of our Death, 11-12.
42. Fedotov, Russian Religious Mind, ii, 100-3
43. Eve Levin, Sex and Society in the World of the Orthodox Slavs (Ithaca, 1989), 57.
44. The condemnation of drunkenness was not absolute. Levin has also found that drunkenness was sometimes seen as a misfortune, even an illness curable by prayer: Eve Levin, 'Miracles of Drunkenness: The Culture of Alcohol in Muscovite Hagiography and Miracle Tales', Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (1997). I thank the author for letting me read her manuscript.
45. Smolenskaia 'nakaznaia' gramota Vserossiiskogo Mitropolita Makariia: Po rukopisi prot. Aleksandra Gorskogo iz sobraniia MDA no. 108 (Iz istorii Stoglava) [The Smolensk Charter of 'Instruction' of the All-Russian Metropolitan Makarii: According to the Manuscript of Archpriest Aleksandr Gorskii from the MDA Collection No. 108 (From the History of the Stoglav), ed. T. A. Isachenko (Moscow, 1996), 186-7.
46. 'Iz "Izmaragda"', 62-5.
47. Swings were a standard feature at the Russian fairground and carnival, and churchmen frequently condemned such forums of entertainment: See Catriona Kelly, Petrushka: The Russian Carnival Puppet Theatre (Cambridge, 1990), 24
48. Fedotov, Russian Religious Mind, ii, 102-5.
49. Quoted in I. M. Snegirev, Pokrovskii monastyr': Chto na ubogikh domakh v Moskve [Pokrovskii Monastery: On Wretched Houses in Moscow] (Moscow, 1872), 8, 16.
50. For additional examples, see the 1658 'Zakaznaia gramota Markella, Arkhiepiskopa Vologodskogo i Belozerskogo' [Charter of Instruction of Markell, Archbishop of Vologda and Belozero], Akty sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiiskoi Imperii Arkheograficheskoiu ekspeditsieiu Imp. Akademii Nauk [Documents Collected in the Libraries and Archives of the Russian Empire by the Archaeographic Expedition of the Imperial Academy of Sciences], 4 vols. (St Petersburg, 1836), iv, 146
51. and the ruling of Petr Mogila, Metropolitan of Kiev, as quoted in N. S. Tagantsev, O prestupleniiakh protiv zhizni po russkomu pravu [On Crimes against Life According to Russian Law], 2 vols. (St Petersburg, 1870-1), ii, 407-9.
52. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii [Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire], 1st ser. (St Petersburg, 1833), iii, no. 1612, pts 20-1, p. 417.
53. On the spread of vodka, and the state monopoly, see David Christian, 'Living Water': Vodka and Russian Society on the Eve of Emancipation (Oxford, 1990), 26-31.
54. On the transformation of the Church in the seventeenth century, see Georg Michels, At War with the Church: Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Russia (Stanford, 1999)
55. Paul Bushkovitch, Religion and Society in Russia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1992)
56. Max Okenfuss, The Rise and Fall of Latin Humanism in Early-Modern Russia: Pagan Authors, Ukrainians, and the Resiliency of Muscovy (Leiden and New York, 1995).
57. For the articles on suicide in the Military and Naval Regulations, see Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, v, 370; vi, 77.
58. For the broader context, see Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven, 1998), 121-32.
59. The death penalty was later replaced by other measures, including public knouting and Siberian exile. On this system, see Abby M. Schrader, Languages of the Lash: Corporal Punishment and Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 2002).
60. See, for example, a subsequent church decree that directly contradicted the letter and spirit of the new statutes: Quoted in I. Pavlovskii, 'Zakon o trekhdnevnom sroke dlia pogrebeniia I vopros ob usypal'nitsakh' [The Law on the Three-Day Period for Burial and the Question of Tombs], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1878), no. 43, 5 n. 4.
61. Furthermore, a study of local judicial records in eighteenth-century Moscow did not find cases of suicide, and I have confirmed this absence in a personal conversation with the author: See Christoph Schmidt, Sozialkontrolle in Moskau: Justiz, Kriminalität und Leibeigenschaft, 1649-1785 (Stuttgart, 1996).
62. Although drunkenness was a public offence, its legal status throughout this period was in fact highly ambiguous. Both the 1649 Penal Code and Catherine the Great's 1782 Police Ordinance punished crimes committed by drunkards or in drunkenness with particular harshness, yet also stipulated lenience in cases of an unintentional or unpremeditated crime committed in drunkenness (but not habitual drunkenness). Compare articles 21.69-72 with 22.17-18, in The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649, ed. and trans. Richard Hellie (Irvine, Calif., 1988).
63. For the Police Ordinance, see Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, xxi, no. 15379, art. 256.
64. This ambiguity persisted in the nineteenth-century Digest of Laws: See Svod zakonov ugolovnykh [Digest of Criminal Laws] (St Petersburg, 1836), art. 113.
65. This account is included in a weekly report on crime and everyday occurrences in St Petersburg province compiled by the governor for the Empress. See 'Doneseniia gubernatora Petra Konovnitsyna po upravleniiu Peterburgskoi gubernii' [Reports of Governor Petr Konovnitsyn on the Administration of Petersburg Province], Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov [Russian State Archive of Medieval Acts], Moscow (hereafter RGADA), f. 16, d. 526, ch. 1-7, here ch. 1, 1. 263.
66. In the series of reports from Konovnitsyn, for example, 41 out of 113 cases of suicide refer to drunkenness: See RGADA, f. 16, d. 526, ch. 1-7 passim.
67. See Kselman, 'Funeral Conflicts in Nineteenth-Century France', 314, 319-20
68. and Michael MacDonald's 'Reply' to Donna T. Andrew, 'Debate: The Secularization of Suicide in England, 1660-1800', Past and Present, no. 119 (May 1988), 169-70.
69. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Nizhegorodskoi oblasti [State Archive of the Nizhnii Novgorod Region], Nizhnii Novgorod (hereafter GANO), f. 176, op. 94 (1829), d. 33. 64 GANO, f. 570, op. 558 (1852), d. 232. A similar case dates from the end of the century: See GANO, f. 570, op. 559 (1888), d. 48.
70. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of the Russian Federation], Moscow, f. 109 (4aia eksp), op. 175 (1835), d. 72. Drunkenness was seemingly at issue only in cases complicated by additional crimes
71. see, for example, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv [Russian State Historical Archive], St Petersburg (hereafter RGIA), f. 1151, op. 2 (1838), d. 60.
72. See Howard I. Kushner, 'Suicide, Gender, and the Fear of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Medical and Social Thought', Jl Social Hist., xxvi (1993).
73. Laura Engelstein discusses these issues in a different context: See her The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Happiness in Fin-de-Siècle Russia (Ithaca, 1992).
74. Tablitsy k statisticheskim svedeniiam o Sanktpeterburge [Tables to Statistical Information about St Petersburg] (St Petersburg, 1836), chart nos. 56-8.
75. See also the more detailed description of these cases in Statisticheskie svedeniia o Sanktpeterburge [Statistical Information about St Petersburg] (St Petersburg, 1836), 191-8.
76. For further examples, see V. Androssov, Statisticheskaia zapiska o Moskve [Statistical Description of Moscow] (Moscow, 1832), 88.
77. K. S. Veselovskii, Opyty nravstvennoi statistiki Rossii [Experiments in the Moral Statistics of Russia] (St Petersburg, 1847), 33.
78. Genrikh Liudvig fon Attengofer, Mediko-topograficheskoe opisanie Sanktpeterburga [Medical-Topographical Description of St Petersburg] (St Petersburg, 1820), 142.
79. See also the tables 'Chislo lits lishivshikhsia zhizni ot neschastii i prestuplenii' [The Number of People Losing their Lives Due to Accidents and Crimes], Zhurnal Ministerstva vnutrennikh del (1844-5), passim.
80. A Digest of Laws was produced in the 1830s and a new penal code in 1845. For the articles on suicide, which remained in force between 1845 and 1917, see Ulozhenie o nakazaniiakh ugolovnykh i ispravitel'nykh [Code on Criminal and Corrective Punishments] (St Petersburg, 1846), arts. 1472-6.
81. S. V. Kalashnikov (comp.), Alfavitnyi ukazatel' deistvuiushchikh i rukovodstvennykh kanonicheskikh postanovlenii, ukazov, opredelenii i rasporiazhenii Sviateishego Pravitel'stvuiushchego Sinoda (1721-1895g. ukliuchitel'no) [Alphabetical Index of Active and Guiding Canonical Resolutions, Decrees, Decisions and Instructions of the Most Holy Governing Senate (1721-1895 inclusive)], 2nd edn (Kharkov, 1896), 211-12.
82. Ibid.
83. RGIA, f. 1345, op. 240 (1842), d. 700, esp. ll. 1, 7-9, 26-7.
84. The reprinted decrees appeared in late March. See 'Otnositel'no pogrebeniia umershikh ot p'ianstva' [Regarding the Burial of Those Who Died from Drunkenness], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1879), no. 12/13, 18-19.
85. The first letter from Onega was published in late August (no. 35). The decrees were also printed in G. Mikhailovskii, 'O pogrebenii samoubiits i lits, umershikh neestestvennoiu smertiiu' [On the Burial of Suicides and Persons Who Died an Unnatural Death], Kavkazskie eparkhial'nye vedomosti (1878), no. 7, 262-5.
86. On the judicial reform, see Richard S. Wortman, The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago, 1976)
87. Jörg Baberowski, Autokratie und Justiz: Zum Verhältnis von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Rückständigkeit im ausgehenden Zarenreich, 1864-1914 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996).
88. These included the invalidation of wills, the denial of Christian burial and, for suicide attempts, church penance. For the legal argument on decriminalization, see, for example, Aleksandr Lokhvitskii, Kurs russkogo ugolovnogo prava [Course of Russian Criminal Law] (St Petersburg, 1871), 545-6
89. Tagantsev, O prestupleniiakh protiv zhizni po russkomu pravu, esp. ii, 412-16, 423-36.
90. For an attempt to publicize the correct procedure, see 'O poriadke proizvodstva del o samoubiitsakh' [On Procedure in Cases of Suicide], Sudebnyi vestnik, 17 Sept. 1866.
91. Most cases of suicide and attempted suicide would not reach the courts, with police investigations becoming the standard response as in Onega: see A. Kistiakovskii, 'O samoubiistve po russkim ugolovnym zakonam' [On Suicide According to Russian Criminal Laws], Zhurnal grazhdanskogo i ugolovnogo prava (1882), no. 3. In 1887, the Senate investigated how courts handle crimes involving insanity and found significant variation with many courts not issuing a formal ruling: See RGIA, f. 1354, op. 6, d. 998, esp. ll. 2, 5-6.
92. The Senate upheld the Church's view. For the circumstances of these cases, see RGIA, f. 1354, op. 4, d. 215 (Filipov); d. 323 (Geibovich); d. 577 (Myznikov). The decisions were published in the serial Resheniia obshchego sobraniia pervogo i kassatsionnykh departamentov Pravitel'stvuiushchego Senata [Decisions of the General Assembly of the First and Appellate Departments of the Ruling Senate], in the case of Filipov, decision no. 15 (1872)
93. Geibovich (28 Oct. 1874)
94. Myznikov, decision no. 72 (1879).
95. For further discussion, see William Wagner, Marriage. Property and Law in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford, 1994)
96. Engelstein, Keys to Happiness, chs. 1-2.
97. RGIA, f. 797, op. 90 (1878), d. 11.
98. For the Synod's decree, see Tserkovnyi vestnik (1881), no. 41, 220.
99. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1891), no. 31, 489,
100. repr. in N. Nikol'skii and M. Izvol'skii (eds.), Sistematicheskii sbornik nedoumennykh voprosov i otvetov na nikh vstrechaiushchikhsia v tserkovno-prikhodskoi praktike [Systematic Collection of Puzzling Questions and the Answers to Them as Encountered in Parish Practice] (St Petersburg, 1896), 121.
101. Priests were further warned of the legal consequences of defiance: See 'V oblasti tserkovno-prikhodskoi praktiki' [In the Sphere of Parish Practice], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1894), no. 10, 154.
102. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1897), no. 4, 110
103. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1894), no. 38, 603
104. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1894), no. 23, 360
105. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1897), no. 19, 607
106. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1891), no. 11, 170
107. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1903), no. 8, 243.
108. On the controversy, Mikhailovskii, 'O pogrebenii samoubiits i lits, umershikh neestestvennoiu smertiiu', 254-9.
109. On its resolution in favour of clergy, see S. V. Bulgakov, Nastol'naia kniga dlia sviashchenno-tserkovno-sluzhitelei [Reference Book for Priests], 2nd edn (Kharkov, 1900), 1249 n. 5, 1251 n. 5.
110. The medical and scientific literature is too extensive to be reviewed in this article and will be discussed in my forthcoming monograph on the history of suicide in Russia. For a discussion of the sciences of suicide and the problem of free will, see Paperno, Suicide as a Cultural Institution, chs. 1-2
111. Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (Cambridge, 1990).
112. I. Pasternatskii, 'Statisticheskoe issledovanie samoubiistv v S.-Peterburge za 1870, 1871, i 1872 gody' [Statistical Investigation of Suicide in St Petersburg for 1870, 1871, and 1872], Meditsinskii vestnik (1873), nos. 35-8 and nos. 40-1.
113. See the report on a certain Cherkasov, who was acquitted of theft and attempted suicide - despite his free confession: 'Interesnoe ugolovnoe delo v S-Peterburgskom okruzhnom sude' [An Interesting Criminal Case in the St Petersburg District Court], Nedelia (1866), no. 42, 667-8.
114. The literature is extensive: See, for example, P. I. Kovalevskii, P'ianstvo, ego prichiny i lechenie [Drunkenness, its Causes and Cure] (Kharkov, 1889)
115. T. Krol', 'K voprosu o vliianii alkogolia na zabolevaemost', smertnost' i prestupnost'' [On the Question about the Influence of Alcohol on Morbidity, Mortality and Crime] (Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine, Military Medical Academy, St Petersburg, 1897).
116. For further discussion, see George E. Snow, 'Perceptions of the Link between Alcoholism and Crime in Pre-Revolutionary Russia', Criminal Justice Hist., viii (1987).
117. He cited the influential Austrian psychiatrist, Richard von Krafft-Ebing: See A. N. Ostrogorskii, 'Samoubiistva, kak psikhologicheskaia problema' [Suicide as a Psychological Problem], Pedagogicheskii sbornik (1893), no. 1, 35.
118. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1891), no. 1, 3
119. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1895), no. 39, 1238-9
120. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1897), no. 19, 607
121. Tserkovnyi vestnik (1903), no. 8, 243-4.
122. Ibid. (1895), no. 39, 1238-9.
123. Bulgakov, Nastol'naia kniga, 1252 n. 2, 1251 n. 2, 1250 n. 1.
124. I thus disagree with Paperno, Suicide as a Cultural Institution, 65-6, who concludes that priests eagerly submitted to medical opinion.
125. See, for example, A. P., 'Usilenie manii samoubiistv v novoi Evrope' [The Intensification of the Mania of Suicide in the New Europe], Tserkovnyi vestnik (1882), nos. 17-18
126. A. Bronzov, 'Khristianskoe samoliubie' [Christian Self-Respect], Khristianskoe chtenie (1897), no. 8, 245-9
127. I. Popov, 'O samoubiistve' [On Suicide], Bogoslovskii vestnik (1898), no. 3, 390-2.
128. See also Paperno's insightful analysis of Dostoevsky's views in her Suicide as a Cultural Institution, chs. 5-6.
129. P. S. Efimenko, 'Materialy po etnografii russkogo naseleniia Arkhangel'skoi gubernii' [Material for the Ethnography of the Russian Population of Archangel Province], Trudy etnograficheskogo otdela imp. Obshchestva liubitelei estestvoznaniia, antropologii i etnografii Moskovskogo universiteta, xxx (1877), bk 5, no. 1, 137.
130. A. Borisovskii, 'Primety, obychai, i poslovitsy v piati volostiakh Nizhegorodskogo uezda' [Omens, Customs, and Proverbs in Five Localities of Nizhnii Novgorod District], Nizhegorodskii sbornik (1870), no. 3, 212.
131. Countless ethnographic sources mention demonic possession. For further discussion and documentation, see D. K. Zelenin, Ocherki russkoi mifologii: Umershie neestestvennoiu smert'iu i rusalki [Notes on Russian Mythology: The Unnatural Dead and Rusalki] (1916; repr. Moscow, 1995), esp. 46-8.
132. See n. 32 above.
133. Eve Levin, 'Supplicatory Prayers as a Source for Popular Religious Culture in Muscovite Russia', in Samuel H. Baron and Nancy Shields Kollman (eds.), Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine (DeKalb, 1997).
134. For further discussion, see Zelenin, Ocherki russkoi mifologii
135. V. N. Dobrovol'skii, 'Nechistaia sila v narodnykh verovaniiakh: Po dannym Smolenskoi gubernii' [The Unclean Force in Popular Beliefs: According to Data from Smolensk Province], Zhivaia starina, xvii (1908), no. 1.
136. See, for example, the untitled report in Podol'skie gubernskie vedomosti (1890), no. 38, 198
137. S. B-khin, 'Korrespondentsii' [Correspondence], Khar'kovskie gubernskie vedomosti (1887), no. 132, 2
138. K., 'Iz Aleksandrovskogo uezda' [From Aleksandrovskii District], Novorossiiskii telegraf, 19 June 1887, 3.
139. Scattered sources from the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries point to popular beliefs linking the burial of those who had died from hanging or drowning to natural disasters and to the desecration of such graves: See the summary in Zelenin, Ocherki russkoi mifologii, 92-3; and for lengthy excerpts, see Evgenii Petukhov, Serapion Vladimirskii, russkii propovednik XIII veka [Serapion of Vladimir: A Russian Preacher of the 13th Century] (St Petersburg, 1888), 167-77.
140. Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 181.
141. Smolenskii vestnik, 2 Oct. 1892, 1.
142. It was rumoured that as the head was removed before burial, the law on desecration had not actually been violated. This case involved Catholic rather than Orthodox peasants. See Kaluzhanin [A Native of Kaluga], 'Vesti iz gubernii' [News from the Province], Kovenskie gubernskie vedomosti (1894), no. 2, 2.
143. Claiming ignorance was also, of course, a traditional tactic employed by peasants to evade punishment. For another example, see the case of the female opoitsa whose body was dug up and dumped in the Volga - following the directions of a village elder. 'Sudebnye protsessy: Prestuplenie na pochve sueveriia' [Judicial Trials: A Crime Arising from Superstition], Nedelia (1891), no. 23, 710-12.
144. N. Ia. Nikiforovskii, 'Ocherki Vitebskoi gubernii' [Notes on Vitebsk Province], Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, viii (1896), no. 4, 80-1.
145. MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, 6.
146. Kselman, 'Funeral Conflicts in Nineteenth-Century France', 328-30.
147. Andrew makes this point in her 'Debate: The Secularization of Suicide in England'.
148. See the approach of Ronald Hutton, 'The English Reformation and the Evidence of Folklore', Past and Present, no. 148 (Aug. 1995).