Even 300 years ago, trials for accusations of witchcraft were commonplace.
In July 1716, in Kamenets-Podolsk, near the house of the voyt (mayor), they caught a beggar Marina, who was pouring some kind of powder on the threshold. In court, she explained that she wanted to help one girl get married and collected dust on the road to pour it on the threshold, writes Roman Klochko in No. 12 of the Correspondent magazine dated April 1, 2016.
However, the judges were not impressed by the acquittals of the detainee. It was as if the bones and teeth of the deceased were found in the powder, and this already smelled of serious witchcraft. As a rule, such cases ended in a fine, but here the life of a representative of the authorities was threatened, and the witch was an ordinary beggar. Therefore, the court decided to subject the accused to torture and then burn her.
Alien laws
The first mentions of trials on charges of witchcraft in Ukrainian lands are found in the second half of the 16th century. Ukrainian researcher Yekaterina Dysa was able to process 198 such cases and talk about the peculiarities of the "witch hunt" in her book History of Witches. Judge about the spell in the Ukrainian provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 17th-18th centuries. In addition, she also mentions the processes in the territory of the Hetmanate, which turned out to be part of the Muscovy, and later - the Russian Empire.
What laws governed the then justice in such cases unusual for a modern Ukrainian? Most often, judges refer to the normative acts of German law - the Saxon Mirror and the Karolinska Code. However, they were often taken not from primary sources, but from a kind of "manual" - the book of Bartholomew Groitsky Extracting articles from imperial laws, where a whole section was devoted specifically to the processes against witches.
According to the laws of that time, those who tried to teach someone magic or harmed other people using various witchcraft techniques could be tried on charges of witchcraft. Also, witches could be considered those whose behavior was considered suspicious, obscure and whose actions were similar to the use of ritual magic. Groitsky recommended that judges not only thoroughly interrogate witches about their craft, but also arrange searches to find items that they used in their activities.
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In practice, all of these recommendations were often ignored. It was very rare to find detailed protocols of interrogation of witches, and even more so information about the searches carried out. Yes, and the norms of law at that time were interpreted by the judges very freely.
For example, in 1748 the Kremenets Magistrates' Court, referring to the norms of the "Saxon Magdeburg Law", pronounced the death sentence on Vincent Ruzhansky, who was considered a witcher. The local executioner had to chop off his head, although, according to the law, they had to burn at the stake for witchcraft.
And the other accused, Vaysek Vengrinets, was ordered to be flogged with rods because of his young age. But he warned that if he again fell for witchcraft, then he would definitely burn at the stake.
The norms of the law were interpreted in approximately the same way on the Ukrainian lands on the other side of the Polish-Moscow border. In 1675, the Lokhvitsky Town Hall Court passed a verdict in the witchcraft case, referring to Chapter 14, Section 38 of the Lithuanian Statute, where there was not a word about witches at all.
However, even such references to laws in the then legal proceedings were rare. Most often, the judges were guided either by their own intuition or by the traditions of magistrate proceedings, when either a fine or corporal punishment was relied on for practicing witchcraft.
Neighborhood Wars
How did those who were called witches end up in the dock? Most of the remaining cases are litigations between people of equal social origin. The reasons could be very different. Very often, the reason for the search for witches was problems in the family and household.
So, in December 1628 in the town of Ostra, four neighbors appealed to the magistrate's court with accusations against a certain Varvara Cergova. They accused the woman of the fact that because of her their families and livestock suffer from diseases, and indeed she creates a lot of problems and misfortunes in the community. The accused called their complaints slanderous and stated that she had never practiced witchcraft. And the neighbors confirmed their words under oath.
Yet the sentence was mild. The judges forced the defendant to swear that she had never practiced witchcraft, and warned that if she did start doing something like that, they would burn her at the stake.
Zuzanna Zhovnirchanka from the village of Chukva was much less fortunate. Having lived for a long time far from her native village and returning home, she also came under the close attention of neighbors, who were sure that in a foreign land she learned various witch tricks. Their suspicions were especially strengthened when one of the neighbors turned to her for help. As a result, at the complaint of fellow countrymen in February 1652, the court sentenced Zuzanna to eternal exile from the village.
True, often neighborly solidarity could save a person from unfair accusations. In court cases, there are many examples of neighbors giving good recommendations to those against whom they received complaints.
For example, in September 1728, the court of the city of Olyk considered the case on charges of witchcraft from Ustimia Dudchikha from the village of Metelnoe. She argued that she was not capable of anything like this, but could only remove the evil eye from children and adults, and also heal livestock. Two representatives of the court went to the village and questioned the neighbors, who confirmed her words and vouched for their countrywoman. Similarly, in 1730 the judges of the town of Satanov did the same when they tried the case of Malanka Syslova from the village of Veselets. The testimony of the neighbors confirmed her good reputation and the woman was released.
It happened that quarrels between neighbors became the reason for such claims. So, in 1731 the inhabitants of Kremenets Jan Leonchik and his wife accused the family of their neighbor Trochikha Khilkevich of witchcraft. They saw how her daughter collected garbage, and then the neighbor herself threw it out on their territory. The judges were angry with the complaint, and they forced the neighbors … to put up a fence so that such stupid conflicts would not arise again.
Witchcraft accusations were also used to eliminate competitors. In 1717, the Kamenets-Podolsky court considered a dispute between two innkeepers. One of them, Anna Koletskaya, was doing very badly and, according to her, she turned to a more successful “colleague”, the wife of Adam Mankovsky, for advice. She allegedly advised her to purchase from the executioner the rope left over after the criminal was hanged.
Apparently, such a "purchase" turned out to be too expensive for the innkeeper, and she decided to act in a cheaper way, spreading gossip about her rival - they say, all her wealth was acquired by witchcraft. To protect her reputation, Mankovskaya went to court. The judges demanded from Koltskaya to bring at least one witness who would have heard their conversation. But he also refused to testify.
As a result, the gossip girl hurt herself. She was found guilty of libel and fined. And since the family did not have money to pay the fine, Koltskaya's husband was thrown into a hole in debt.
The weapon of reprisal
The situation was much worse when accusations of witchcraft came from the authorities. Sometimes such people could be dealt with without waiting for a court verdict.
So, in September 1634, the voyt of the city of Auster Nestor Zopol convened a meeting to discuss sending an embassy to the king. At this time, a certain Semyonova entered the building, who had a reputation as a witch in the city. Angry officials assessed this as an unkind sign and an attempt to disrupt an important case.
With the consent of the voyt, they decided to burn the woman at the stake without going to court. Those who wished had already begun to carry brushwood, but then a certain Zhmailo Dzevitsky intervened, who cooled the ardor of the authorities, reminding them that there was a Cossack widow in front of them. The woman was reluctantly released, taking an oath from her that she had not bewitched anyone.
However, the decision of the court in such cases was often not in favor of the accused. For example, in 1730 the Kremenets judges considered the complaint of Lukash Malinsky against his serf Marina Peristaya from the village of Verba. She was accused of allegedly trying to bewitch his family. Witnesses said that she allegedly boasted among the peasants that she knew secret ways to subjugate the pan, as she had already done with his wife. In response, he set out to demonstrate who and to whom actually obey.
By order of the court, the woman was twice subjected to torture, which was attended by Malinsky himself. But she pleaded not guilty. According to the laws of that time, a person who did not admit his guilt under torture should have been released. But the judges made an "exception" for her and passed the death sentence.
The loudest case of witchcraft was initiated by Ivan Bryukhovetsky, hetman of the Left Bank Ukraine. To keep the mace, he found himself a wife in Muscovy - Daria, a daughter (according to another version, a stepdaughter) of the tsarist devious Dmitry Dolgorukov. But at first the couple did not get along with the children. Daria lost her first child, and the hetman, suspecting that it was someone's spell, started a “witch hunt”.
In 1667, the most massive witchcraft trial took place in Gadyach. According to the verdict of the court, six women were burned, who were accused not only of "kidnapping" an unborn child, but also of causing damage to the hetman and his wife.
Soon the couple had a daughter. But the fate of the spouses was unfortunate. Bryukhovetsky himself was killed in June 1668 by the insurgent Cossacks, and Daria died in captivity at the right-bank hetman Petro Doroshenko.
The era of the Enlightenment put an end to the processes of witchcraft. Gradually, witch trials were banned in European countries. In the second half of the 18th century, similar bans were introduced on the territory of Ukraine.
The era of the Enlightenment put an end to the processes of witchcraft. Gradually, witch trials were banned in European countries. In the second half of the 18th century, similar bans were introduced on the territory of Ukraine: in 1775 - in the Russian Empire, and a year later - in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
True, in practice, cases of witchcraft were considered in the following decades. The last such case was recorded in 1829 in the city of Lipovets in the Vinnytsia region. Fortunately, it ended well: the court found the accusations of a local priest against one of the residents as slander and ordered him not to bother the judges anymore because of such "nonsense".
