Castration and the Heavenly Kingdom: A Russian Folktale (Revised)

ISBN-13: 9780801436765 / Angielski / Twarda / 1999 / 304 str.

Laura Engelstein

Opis

Of the many sects that broke from the official Russian Orthodox church in the 18th century, one was universally despised. Its members were peasants from the Russian heartland skilled in the arts of animal husbandry who turned their knives on themselves to become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. Convinced that salvation came only with the literal excision of the instruments of sin, they were known as Skoptsy (the self-castrated). Their community thrived well into the 20th century, when it was destroyed in the Stalinist Terror.