A cross-reference approach to conceptualising the Russian holy fool

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A cross-reference approach to conceptualising the Russian holy fool

Ming-Hui Huang

An interest in the holy fool, linking the mysterious exuberance of the pagan priest or shaman, is an example of presenting a dynamic conception which can be regarded as being endemic to the experience of ethnic and cultural integration in the Russian Empire. By being ambiguous, the status of the holy fool and shaman affords to adopt a variety of faces. The mystery of the holy fool and shaman has been recognised and mentioned not only by the religious authority, but also by various scientific movements which were inspired to characterise their abnormal symptoms. Although the tantalising hints of shamanism and its relation to the Russian holy fool were insufficiently given in different areas of interest. The idea of discovering the phenomenon of holy foolishness from cross-reference approach will, however, allow us to examine theories about the interplay of social-environmental factors upon the uncommon disorder.

Keywords: Holy Fool, Siberian Shaman, Avvakum, Stranniki, Abnormality.

Мин-Хуэй Хуан

После встречи с иными: сопоставительный подход к осмыслению русского юродивого

Интерес к юродству, учитывая мистическое рвение языческого жреца или шамана, является примером динамической концепции, которая может расцениваться как эндемическая в отношении опыта этнической и культурной интеграции в Российской империи. Будучи неоднозначным, статус юродивого и шамана позволяет принимать множество лиц. Тайна юродивого и шамана была признана и рассматривалась не только представителями церкви, но также и различными научными движениями, которые давали различные характеристики их необычным/анормальным признакам. Хотя в различных областях уже отмечалась связь шаманства и его отношения к русскому юродивому, идея раскрыть явление святой глупости с позиций сопоставительного подхода позволит изучить теории о взаимодействии социальных факторов окружающей среды и необычного заболевания.

Ключевые слова: юродивый, сибирский шаман, Аввакум, странники, юродство.

The holy fool (iurodivyi) is a label created to identify a man or a woman (iurodivaia) who represents an emblem of God's incarnation in the Orthodox hagio- graphic tradition and often comes to be regarded as an obscure figure in Russian culture. The phenomenon of holy foolishness (iurodstvo) is a term used to describe a circumstance in which art, literature, philosophy, sociology and other disciplines are involved in a discourse upon life surrounded and influenced by the stories or legends of the holy fool. Ever since they first appeared in ancient Russia, holy fools have occupied a privileged position in the context of religion, but also have had to contend with discrimination and marginalization because of their unusual position. For those orthodox advice-seekers, the eccentricity of the holy fool is related to mysterious genius, whereas abnormal behaviours as well as tattered clothing evoke fear amongst the people of the Russian peasantry and aristocracy who either displease or distrust the influence of the holy fool.

Against the background of the Orthodox canons or of the Western civilisation, the behaviour of the holy fool is taken as either exceptional or abnormal. According to Erving Goffman, all kinds of stigma terms appear only in the corresponding relationship. The stigma reveals itself with a given meaning only when it is placed in a relative position to an anticipated normal category [1, p. 15-16]. Hence, it is suggested in this paper that the abnormality of the holy fool is hardly a matter of disturbance if we treat it as a natural figure and place it amongst the people of various religions and ethnicities in Siberian Russia. Following on from the theories that have emerged in the discussion on the challenge of making a distinction between the normal and the pathological in the social context, I continue showing the condition in which the Russian holy fool as a model provides the case to either perpetuate or subvert the rules.

Defining the Holy Fool

There are methodological limitations in beginning with dictionary definitions. As described in Encyclopaedia Britannica, the holy fool is a form of radical Christianity that manifests itself under the mask of foolishness, yet holds the truth of the gospel, in the disguise of folly [2]. The Oxford Dictionary is in general agreement with the definition that the holy fool is `a person who does not conform to social norms of behaviour.' Whether or not it was considered a deliberate choice, his/her mental disability was regarded as having a compensating divine blessing or inspiration [3].

The Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary (1904) describes the holy fool as a person who appears to be a mad man (vid bezumnovo cheloveka) without being reasonable and does not feel shame of tempting behaviour (soblaznitel'nye deistviia) [4]. The

Explanatory Dictionary of Russian Language defines the holy fool as a madman (bezumets) who is believed to possess the divine gift of prophecy (proritsanie), while holy foolishness is used to describe people considered nonsensical (bessmyslennyi) or someone displaying preposterous (nelepyi) action [5]. It seems that there was a general agreement on the obvious characteristic of `madness' (bezumie or bezumstvo) which was attributed to the holy fool. To search the etymology of the holy fool under the canonical Russian definition is, however, not a rewarding attempt in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia. The index of the great volumes contains not a single entry of iurodivyi or iurodstvo and is not even mentioned under the subcategory of the word `Orthodox' (pravoslavie) [6]. Hence, one can hardly bridge the meaning of holy foolishness in the pre-revolutionary time with the understanding of the same meaning in the then- contemporary era. Nevertheless, the accustomed definition aligns the holy fool with the phenomenon of holy foolishness, described first in the vitae of Byzantine as well as in the vindicatory writing of Russian theologians.

The phenomenon of holy foolishness has its roots in early Christian heritage of Byzantine religious culture. Dipping into the textual illustration of the vitae of the Byzantine saints, namely Isidora (4^th c.), Alexis the Man of God (4^th c.), Simeon of Emesa (7^th c.) and Andrew of Constantinople (10^th c.), Svitlana Kobets claimed that all are considered fools in Christ who live it as `an ascetic exploit and [which] explicitly dwell on its practitioners' motivations for undertaking this feat' [7]. Considering the close relationship between the ancient Rus' and Byzantium in terms of religion, the phenomenon of holy foolishness is believed to have been a tradition passed down from Byzantine to Russian culture. This is a general argument that also has been supported by Per-Arne Bodin, who described holy foolishness as an important theme of the post-Soviet Russian culture in his monographs Language, Canonization and Holy Foolishness: Studies in Post-soviet Russian Culture and the Orthodox Tradition (2009). A similar return to the fully-fledged hagiographic apparatus was accomplished by the Russian scholar S. A. Ivanov. However, he argued that those Byzantine saints are purely literary fictions of certain timid holy fools, whose hagiographic portrayals were based on real-life characters (for example, St. Paul of Corinth and St. Grigentios) [8, p. 139-173]. Ivanov begins his study on the Russian type with a premise that `there is almost no evidence of how holy foolery spread beyond Byzantium's borders' [8, p. 244]. Hence, it should be accentuated that in Byzantium the spread of holy foolishness was limited. Although many scholars and theologians regard the Russian and the Byzantine paradigms of the holy fool as interchangeable [9]; [7,p. 368], Russian holy foolishness is somehow considered different from its Byzantine equivalent.

The Russian tradition of holy foolishness has its hybrid features. It includes figures such as monks or nuns (Mikhail Klopskii, Pelagia Serebrenikova), laymen (Vasily Blazhennyi), ascetics (Isaakii Pechernik of Kiev) and others (Prokopii of Ustiug) [10]. They are often the spiritual authority in the peasant village of the ancient Rus'. Although they were believed to be endowed with the wisdom necessary for the Russian Empire, it should be noted that there are elements of mystification in the social conduct of the holy fool. The record of their lives first appeared in the eleventh century and continued through to succeeding periods as diverse representations and traits to suit the needs of the ruling reign. In the sacred writings and saints' Lives, it was recorded that holy fools wore tatty and dirty clothes and were draped with heavy ironware, for example, chains or crosses over the back or around the waist. They were immune to the heat or cold and indecent in conduct and speech. They hurled a torrent of abuse, combined sometimes with cautionary predictions uttered in incoherent fragments, at the bustling crowds in neighbouring streets or in the marketplace [11]. Therefore, the holy fool was condemned at one point and condoned at another by the public.

Holy Fool and Shaman: A Comparison

The phenomenon of holy foolishness has been the subject of numerous academic monographs [12]. Moreover, it has come to my notice that scholars have generally studied the Russian holy fool by turning to the origin and the subsequent development of the Byzantine (Orthodox) hagiographic culture [13,p. 316-343]. To suggest however that the holy fool was a typical figure only in Byzantine context is an oversimplification of the issue. In studying the phenomenon of holy foolishness, one needs not be limited by the concepts and models of the Orthodox Church, but may approach it from a variety of perspectives. Turning now to what may be considered `alien' evidence and focusing on a particular personality, it should be mentioned that Ewa M. Thompson was one of the first to openly question the epistemological ground of the holy fool, thereby to draw attention to the subject and its relation to Eastern pagan beliefs. Her monograph, Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture (1987) signalled a major shift in the focus of studies in this area. Thompson attempted to treat the holy fool of the Russian origin as if it was a socially constructed model, a viewpoint from which her cultural and sociological discussion of the Russian Orthodox reforms began. Throughout her book, Thompson engaged in a discussion of holy foolishness by looking into religious diversity, eccentric behaviour, political inclination and even contemporary intellectual life and literary characteristics. The holy fool is a specific cultural and social phenomenon in the Russian civil society. Thompson held the general position that the holy fool could be traced back to the tradition of the hagio- logical veneration in eastern Christianity and proposed an alternative viewpoint for a debate.

According to Thompson, the Russian anthropologist Dmitrii Zelenin (1878-1954) was the first to suggest the conceivable existence of a link between the paranormal nervous state and shamanism on the one hand and holy foolishness on the other [14, p. 110-112]. The image of the holy fool resembles a character from an oriental folk religion, particularly that of the shaman. Holy fools with shamanic features were legalized by the state religion, the Russian Orthodox Church and the method of which was to explain the figure as a sacred type of the eastern Christianity. In viewing a fusion of the shaman and the Christian, holy fools are found to be identified in folk literature as saints who were regarded as healers or warlocks by profession. A shaman, which in origin is a Tungus word referring to a healer, exorcist and fortune-teller, is defined in terms of the services he or she provided; in terms of the ritual tools, such as amulets, charms and incantations, they employed. The shamans performed their great power by establishing contact with spirits and by controlling them through the projection of their souls and flying into the spirit world [15, p. 51-52]. Based on Thompson's analysis, it was in the tranceinducing dance and intonation of words where one could point to forms of behaviour in which shamans engaged and holy fools re-enacted [14, p. 109].

The evidence that Thompson used to support her arguments is found in nineteenth-century Russian journals and other publications as well as archives in the field of religion, medicine and anthropology. Her ultimate aim was to prove that the cultural phenomenon of holy foolishness was the most complete and vital demonstration in folk tradition and in the Orthodox religion of the dual belief in the Russian people's mind. The holy fool had a strong religious implication, but his/her relation to the Orthodox Church was unstable and ambiguous. Thompson interpreted the emergence and existence of the Russian holy fool as an indication of the strong influence of the folk tradition which was more pervasive than the Orthodox Church. The vague and lukewarm relationship between the Orthodox Church and the holy fool failed to stop the prevalence of the tradition of the holy fool, or to prevent it from becoming the main theme in the sacred stories of the Orthodox hagiology. On the contrary, the ordinary fool in the Russian folklore was ironically adopted to strengthen the claim of the legal status of the holy fool in the Orthodox history [14, p. 95-96].

Clearly, Thompson intended to identify the holy fool, in no uncertain terms, with the shaman. Scholarly reviews praise Thompson's contention for her fascination [16]. However, it is only reasonable to assume that the Siberian shaman exerted an influence on the holy fool. The tantalising hints of shamanism and its relation to the Russian holy fool were insufficiently given in different areas of interest. But the idea of discovering the phenomenon of holy foolishness from various perspectives will, however, allow us to examine theories about the interplay of biological and social- environmental factors upon the uncommon disorder. The emphasis should be placed on the formation of one's experience of a cross-cultural environment which involves literary representations of shamanism. Official discourse implicitly played an important part in setting both scenes as described afterwards, but it functioned as a backdrop for the main action, which took place during the Siberian exile or on royal stage. In tackling the image of and approach to shamanism for a discussion of an encounter with different others, the following cases possibly demonstrate the processes of adaptation and manipulation that were employed in a protracted struggle for presence and influence of every seemingly abnormal individual. While a number of figures bearing stigma of unfading mystery continued to captivate audience and generate diverse and animated responses, the shaman had been rendered prominent on an expedition to Siberia.

In Tsarist Russia, the shaman stood out as a figure whose manner and performance adhered to either a personal need for healing or to demands of the imperial policy on non-Russian natives. In my subsequent analysis, the shaman is re-evaluated and regarded as a distinctive individual in a discussion of a paradoxical ideology rather than an inhibited practitioner of a primitive religion. The presence of a shaman in the current context is by no means a typical religious cult but functions as an exemplar of indicating a dilemma about categorisation that is common upon first encounter with others. Religion provided a means for the Siberian natives to come to terms with their sufferings. Physical pain and mental discomfort had to be cured by the pagan priests, combining the practice of medicine and magic. The perplexity and fear of death and the unknown could only be dispelled by carrying out a ceremony that put men's faith in natural spirits. Hence, for us to associate shamanism with preliminary discussion on meeting with those non-conventional Siberian `others' of the imperial Russia was a useful strategy through which the living style of a religious person or group could be explained and comprehended.

Shamanism is one of the religious forms which provoke acrimonious debate on practices of divination or deceptiveness. For instance, it was in her field research and ethnographic study on old court records, N. A. Nikitina argued that Russian sorcerers were shamans in the era of paganism. Under the pressure of Christianity in the seventeenth century, they became in service to the dark forces and achieved their trance states by drinking alcohol [17]. It also seems evident in Dianne E. Farrell's discussion of woodcuts (lubki) of Baba Iaga folktales from the end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century that the creature Baba Iaga was fighting against was either a shaman of the Finno-Ugric people of northern Russia or a Russian sorcerer who was trained in his calling by a shaman [18]. Given the clues provided in the lubki of Baba Iaga, the use of drum and rattles or masks is important in shamanism, rather than in the practice of east Slavic sorcerers. The divergences of critical opinion were a commonplace of the process of selection between disciplines applied to define and categorise. The polemics surrounding this ancient religion would frequently expand to take in much broader issue of its obscured tradition and psychological experience which were also questions that made the holy fool in the Orthodox Church attractive.

In addition to the primitive Slavonic pagan customs, the introduction of shamanic ritual into Russia by means of commodity, trade or intermarriage with neighbouring Turks and Finns promoted an alien fool culture to social and religious concerns. Thompson examined the typical appearance of the holy fool, such as the style of dress, accessories (especially the preference for iron chains), nakedness or coverings with animal fur and blood and finally the conduct of transient ecstasy to support her theory. Her theory indicated that the holy fool was the key factor in smoothing the conflict that may have been created between Shamanism and Christian religions and thus demonstrated a peculiar type of religious devotion amongst the Russian people [14, p. 123]. However, the comparison that Thompson adopted for her analysis is still not clear to us whether or not the holy fool performed like a shaman in trance states. It is also not certain whether holy foolishness is a model of evolution (from the Byzantine culture) or an outcome of emulating another religious cult (of Shamanism). But regardless of how it has been called, entitled, labelled and compared to, the holy fool is valid for a topic of various debates that were expressed as a struggle for the definition of many parameters, between which strangeness was theorised for social control and comprehension of differences.

Boundaries define territory where people build up their prejudice against the meaning and the approach of non-traditional or uncommon origins. Everything that is included is the product of historical events, social forces and ideology. The following discussion demonstrates that the boundaries, which often have a vicious distinction and vulnerable separation from one another, may be obliterated by individuals and societies to ward off contradictions and conflicts from both within and without. Both cases present a scene where figures of different cultural backgrounds and social groups are juxtaposed in one setting of either a real life or an artistic production. There may be a feeling of shock, unease or amusement upon an encounter with strange figures or events. But a certain concession of recording, interpreting, producing and understanding shamanism resulted from the social condition and political compromise generates space for reconsideration of what difference really means. As an experience of cultural encounter evoking visual impact on the change in one's perception of abnormality, the reason why we give special emphasis to shamanism is not simply because Thompson has argued the concrete influence of shamanism on the tradition of holy foolishness. The hypothesis of associating the holy fool with the shaman is insufficient, yet such an idea inspires us to make a reflexive turn for better understanding the non- conventional others. Although the Siberian setting brings the holy fool apart from the depictions in the Orthodox tradition, our comparative analysis is elevated to a broader discussion on symbiosis reflecting the mechanism of interaction between different cultural identities in one nation state. The shaman, as an exotic figure, suitably functions as a thread for further research on questions of distinction and definition.

Avvakum and Shaman

No survey, however brief, of the holy fool would be complete without mention of the archpriest Avvakum (1620?--1682) who was taken to be one of the most famous instances when talking about the holy fool in the political sphere [8, p. 335]. Avvakum, a prominent leader who performed the resistance to the reforms introduced by Patriarch Nikon in the seventeenth century, was regarded as the first Old Believer. In the section of a discussion of the «Holy Foolishness as Social Protest» (lurodstvo kak obshchestvennyi protest), Panchenko mentioned the holy-foolish behaviour of Avvakum during his interrogation by the church authorities [19, s. 126-128]. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the Old Believers and their circle had shown an interest in exploiting the image of the holy fool for their own purpose. Avvakum's autobiographical vita, accomplished by himself between 1669 and 1672 and which, according to the textological studies of N. S. Demkova [20, p. 30-31] was edited in three separate volumes in 1672, 1673 and 1675, detailed and revealed his everyday comportment and reports of miraculous cures. A special attention will be given to an occasion when Avvakum and his family were in the Siberian exile by Nikon's order between 1653 and 1664.

Avvakum was in Tobol'sk, the administrative centre for Siberia and then taken on to the east to reach the Lena river. On this long journey they stopped over in Yeniseisk, visited the western regions of Dauria, crossed the Samanskii Rapids near Angara River and then settled with Afanasii Pashkov's troop (d. 1664), a military commander in the service of the tsar for collecting tribute and discovering arable lands, valuable metals and new routes into China. During his plight in this remote area, Avvakum tells us that three or four lunatics (beshannye) were brought into his place. Once by chance, he encountered two widows, Maria and Sofia, who were house servants of Pashkov. Avvakum saw them as if they possessed `an unclean spirit.' It was the devil who made the women `beat themselves and scream' [20, p. 65]. To our surprise, it was not uncommon that the peasant wizard and the sorcerer were ever mentioned in the conversation between Avvakum and whoever he came across during his exile.

Another shamanic ceremony was witnessed and described by Avvakum. For the ambition of expanding the territory or consolidating Russian control, Pashkov ordered his son Eremei, to enter into the Mongolian land of the living. The expeditionary force included Cossacks and several natives of Siberia. Before they departed, Pashkov `made a native Shamanise (shama- nitf in order to tell the fortune for the mission. The native, assigned to perform shamanic ritual, was regarded as a peasant sorcerer in Avvakum's eyes. To his astonishment, Avvakum wrote,

And that evening this peasant sorcerer brought out a live ram close to my shelter and started conjuring over it, twisting it this way and that, and he twisted its head off and tossed it aside. Then he started galloping around and dancing and summoning devils, and after considerable shouting he slammed himself against the ground and foam ran out of his mouth. The devils were crushing him, but he asked them, «Will the expedition be successful?” And the devils said, «You will come back with a great victory and with much wealth.” The leaders were happy and rejoicing. All the people were saying, «We'll come back rich!» [20, p. 71]

Avvakum's remark on the shaman, likely the first such description on record, was accurately substantiated by the later descriptions of the Siberian shamans who exercised their power as priests, healers and prophets.

Avvakum's testimony is crucial because it demonstrates and reinforces some points. Noticeably, the shamanised native is not equivalent to those women who were klikushi - the women suffered from `a nervous disorder' which caused hysterical seizures, screams and convulsions. The madwomen could be cured and `become whole in body and mind', whereas the shaman was beyond treatment. However, acts of both events were regarded as devilish. Paradoxically, all these descriptions were made by Avvakum, who either regarded himself as a saint when writing his own vita; or as a political holy fool while relating to Old Believers during the church schism. Nonetheless, it is evident that Avvakum met with shaman and knew about it in the same way as we understand it today. It is obvious in Avvakum's Life that unusual cases of possession could be healed by extraordinary exorcism or intercession. Naming Avvakum a holy fool and the native shaman is only a mechanical reaction whenever the dramatised scene recurs. Any potential imitation existing between them is not my concern. What makes it significant is the space and social condition which mark their coexistence in front of us. It is a momentous occasion when the holy fool and shaman bear a close parallel to each other without engaging into conflicts. One can sense a great tension, yet an ordinary encounter which happens particularly in Russia (Siberia) recurrently.

The Empress and her Comedy of the `Shaman'

A century later, the shamanic ritual was performed on stage before nobles and startled the audience with its motions and sounds. It was an era when mystical beliefs were distrusted by the sovereign. Such a paradoxical coexistence was an issue for the `enlightened' monarch. It had to struggle to defend the empire from charges of being uncivilised and backward. As research has discovered, criticism and opposition were depicted in a play, The Siberian Shaman, written by Catherine the Great and premiered in 1786 at the Hermitage Theatre.

According to O'Malley, Catherine dramatically and implicitly questioned the forms of Freemasonry, introduced to Russia during the 1730s, along with references to alchemy, theosophy and shamanism in the play The Siberian Shaman. In the comedy, Catherine, who played a dual role as the playwright and the Empress, regarded shamanism not only as a symbol of a fool and an impostor, but also as a `dangerously infectious form of insubordination' of her reign [21]. In principle, the unstable nature of the mystical belief system espoused by the Masons is considered to be anathematic to the Enlightenment sensibilities of the Empress [22, p. 124]. However, in some of the dramatic scenes the person in the trance has the appearance of one undergoing a mystical experience. On this level, Amban-Lai's (name of the shaman) label of being an exotic import from Siberia is less an ethnographic definition than a social allegory which implies the charlatan or deceiver that can be easily found in St. Petersburg. Despite her obvious distaste for the shamanic character, Catherine depicts the shaman not as a fool, but as worldly erudite.

In Catherine's comedy, it is the Bobins' who brought the shaman with them from Siberia to St. Petersburg. Following an explanation of Amban-Lai's unusual life experience, different characters in the comedy expressed their own views on this Siberian shaman [23]. Sanov says `many wondrous things are being said about him!... and so he's a good healer (on lechit' gorazd)!' Kromov also believes that `some describe him as a wise man (iako mudrets).' [Act I, Scene 4] On the other hand, people like Mavra would say `He feigns a great deal. a great deal. (mnogo pritvoriaetcia).' Prokofii continues to state that `an illness comes over him. In fact, we would say. it's madness (sumasshestvie)d Nevertheless, Bragin has confidence in saying `but I've heard just the opposite - that he is extraordinarily wise (budto umen neobychaino)) [Act I, Scene 12]

In the second act of The Siberian Shaman, the scene starts with the shaman performing his stage action - atypically without dialogue,

The stage presents the Shaman's chambers in the Bobin house. Lai, dressed in a short caftan or in a dressing gown, is sewing boots; having sewed several, he puts on Shamanic clothes and sits motionless on a chair with a rapt visage; before him or near him stands a table with an open book; several minutes have been past. [Act II, Scene 2]

The scene ends neither with any successive actions of the shaman, nor further dialogue. This abrupt manner leads to the astonishment of Bobin's visiting friends by saying `What a crazy man (Sumasshedshii chelovek)!' (Kromov); `He almost knocked us down (Vsekh sshib bylo s nog).' (Sidor Drobin); `In many ways, he acts just like village man in hysterics (na derevenskikh klikush).' (Judged by Bragin); and `I am amazed! I don't know what to think.' (Sanov). [Act II, Scene 3] To our surprise, many depicted elements of the trance state are accurate to actual shamanic practice,

Lai enters gravely with a rapt visage, holding a shamanic kettledrum (litavru shamanskuiu) in his hands. He strikes in intermittently at first, then quickens his steps and the blows and runs around Sidor Drobin, singing uu uu uu uu, producing a sound like the howling of a storm. [...] Lai continues his running around them all, shaking and frightening them, hopping and singing o o o o o o o, i i i i i i i i, eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh, a a a a a a a a. Then he runs straight up to the chair, where he falls as if unconscious (budto bez pamiati). [Act II, Scene 4]

Catherine's depiction of the shaman Amban-Lai indirectly shows her familiarity with ethnographic or anthropological details about real shamanic rituals and practices. In the age of Encyclopaedists, an era in which all knowledge was being catalogued, printed and disseminated, the `Schamans' were briefly, but succinctly explained under the Enlightenment perspective,

It's the name that the inhabitants of Siberia give to impostors, who serve the functions of priests, jugglers, sorcerers, and physicians. These shamans claim to have credence over the devil, whom they consult to know the future, to cure the illness, and to play tricks which appear to be supernatural to an ignorant and superstitious people; for this they use tambourines which they hit with force, while dancing and turning with a surprising rapidity; when they have made themselves insane from the strength of the contortions and from fatigue, they claim that the devil manifests himself to them when he is in the mood. Sometimes the ceremony finishes by feigning to pierce themselves with a knife, which intensifies the astonishment and the respect of the foolish spectators. These contortions are ordinarily preceded by the sacrifice of a dog or of a horse, which they eat while drinking a good many brandies and the comedy finishes by giving money to the shaman, who prides himself on his disinterestedness no more than other impostors of the same sort [24].

In the encyclopaedia which was full of trusted points of reference, shamanism presents a connotation that abnormality must be included for the sake of providing information about different subjects and defining what normality is. In any case, it is evident that the shamanic dance continued to perform its irrationality against the background of the Russian `progressive setting' on stage and in reality.

The above-mentioned stories and stage play are examples which help to understand the value of a mixed- cultural society in the experience of encounter, through the process of comprehension and the approach to representing such an occasion with or without political purposes. By discovering a century-long representation of shamanism in different manuscripts can we see the leap of describing it from a narrative in religious context to a reapplication for political purposes. The process of transformation of knowledge on shamanism provides us with significant sense to the question of holy foolishness. The task before us is not to define the role of the holy fool in the pagan cult of shamanism amongst Siberian natives, neither to relate the shaman to the holy fool. Within this bewildering variety of paranormal acts, a parallel between the shaman and the holy fool can only be singled out as directly relevant to understanding their behaviour of antinomy - patholo- gised miracle healers. The holy fool's abnormality was treated by some physicians as if it were an `ordinary mental illness.' Applying the same diagnosis to the shaman's ecstatic trances, S. M. Shirokogorov (1887-1939) the Russian anthropologist, would also state that in so far as the beginning of shamanic practice is concerned, the shamans are subject to an `intentional psychomental condition' which, when observed in the European complex, cannot be regarded as absolutely normal [25, p. 174, 304-305]. However, both holy fool and shaman are not mentally ill according to the perception of their peoples, or under a different social condition. The above mentioned studies and cases underscore that the phenomenon of holy foolishness or shamanism never occurred in isolation, but was always embedded in wider systems of thought and practice. Looking for a counterpart of the figure or phenomenon in other cultures can be risky in an atmosphere when the claim for uniqueness is superior to the idea of generality. Nevertheless, a linkage between any two forms of individuals in whatever the context is shows only an approach of better understanding oneself through each other.

Making a `Strange' Encounter an Extension to Knowledge

Contact is the first step in making the understanding possible. When the idea of internal colonization came to be a fact in the Russian history of the 1800s, the force for the positive transformation and progress was gathered to begin the forward motion. Mobility undoubtedly played an important role in Russian peasant social life. To state concisely, peasants often travelled to nearby villages to visit neighbours or relatives, to attend church ceremonies, or to buy and trade at volost' fairs. Furthermore, they occasionally departed for seasonal work (otkhod), or went on religious pilgrimages which might cover hundreds or thousands of versts. Various purposes for a `movement' (dvizheniia) during which the peasants had contacts with itinerant traders, troops on manoeuvre, stranniki, gypsies and other `wanderers', undoubtedly facilitated the spread of information and contributed to what peasants knew and thought about the world beyond their own village [26].

Particularly in the state of movement, encounters with stranniki were probably more frequent than with holy fools for the Russian peasants. A commonly sensed familiarity towards strannik or strannichestvo was often indicated by a preliminary impression of a stranger or a foreigner, which connects to the meaning of the Old Church Slavonic word strannyi. In biblio- legal terms, the state of wandering (stranstvovanie) was gradually distinguished as a goal in its own right. A rich nuance of meaning can be ascribed to strannik and strannichestvo which are translated as pilgrim and pilgrimage within the concept of the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike the conventional pilgrimage termed palomnichestvo in Russian, the subject of strannich- estvo is more often described as an outsider and foreigner. In this sense, the implicit idea in the language describing these eschatological types of piety and devotion was and is the notion of the `other.' Definitions of the word strannik proved to be certain types of terminology whose vernacular helps us to understand values and social attitudes of the past. Pal Kolsto, in an article on Tolstoy and his relation to the Strannik tradition in the Russian culture, listed a more widespread adoption of the Russian strannik as a symbolic way of thinking and acting. In reviewing what it was to be a strannichestvo, it has been suggested that Grigorii Trubetskoi provided a much more comprehensive exclusion of the strannik than the earlier one based on a particular schema (such as a deviant or oddity in society). He said, «Strannichestvo» - this is a form of folk-religiosity especially characteristic of the Russians. In religion, the Russian feels more of a strannik than a settled dweller on this earth. He cares little for the externalities that earthly realities have to offer. For him, this world is one of evil and tribulation. He searches for God's Truth (Pravda), through prayer, asceticism, and renunciation [27].

Nevertheless, Nikolai Berdiaev also aroused particular interest from `spiritual stranniki' who embody the characteristic of the unique phenomenon of strannich- estvo in Russia [28, s. 199]. These may offer a better approach forward than concern directed at stigmatised labelling.

The ethnographer S. Maksimov as well recognised a considerable variety amongst Russian stranniki by categorising them according to their willingness or unwillingness to wander around [29, s. 271-285]. Judging from Maksimov's estimation of the pilgrimages travelling to the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev in the 1860s, strannichestvo seemed to be a mass movement in the nineteenth century Russia. Therefore, the situation of wandering was not so much a matter of public concern for a certain period of time. Only when the stranniki were not in the position for long enough to be within the vision of the state and Church authorities, was their disordered behaviour thus concerned. Just as the German church historian Hans-Dieter Dopmann has indicated that `stranniki were seen as an untidy, undesirable and disturbing element who, with their restless behaviour and freedom from worldly cares and responsibilities, called into question the existing structures of society' [30, p. 167].

Accepting strange behaviours as a part of social characters in terms of religious experience, Russian peasants are experienced at adjusting themselves whenever the encounter happened. In the early Muscovite period, it was evident from the Russian chronicle as well as from other foreign scribes that with the advent of Christianity an image of the non-Christian `other' was constructed along with the expanding frontier [31, p. 9-26]. In the north-western sector of the Mongol Empire, the Khans of the Golden Horde (1219-1502, also known as the Ulus of Jochi or the Kipchak Khanate) ambitiously spread out their forces in sequence, conquered Rus' and constructed a military fortress of the empire, the capital Sarai (Astrakhan in Russia today) by the Volga river. Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Prince or Grand Duke of Rus', who arrived in Sarai to express political allegiance or a request for commercial trades, was seemingly able to have contacts with the envoy of the Roman Pope or Egyptian and Persian merchants [32, p. 77-93, 122-134]. Yet another historical event recorded in the Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles (Polnoe Sobranie Russkikh Letopisei), was when Prince Michael of Chernigov (1185-1246) travelled to the Golden Horde of Batu Khan (ca.1205-1255) to receive the patent (yarlik), which was an official confirmation of his right to rule his domain [33, p. 147-151]. He was unwilling to follow the Mongolian custom ordered by the Khan, that one has to pass through a row of fires and stone idols for the ritual of purification. In the end, he suffered martyrdom with bitter joy [34].

Considering the early relationship between ancient Rus' and Far Eastern Asia, a Soviet scholar M. I. Sladkovsky mentioned in his book, The Russian history of the commercial and economical relationship with China (until 1917) (1974), that the first occasion for the Russians and the Chinese to meet each other was possibly at the time during the Mongolian governance. According to his explanation and with reference to the official records of Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), the Mongols delivered prisoners of war to Beijing, China as frontier guards for the capital. In addition, the royal and official visitors from Rus' to the great camp of the Khan could have learned the hearsay about China and managed to have had contacts with the Chinese who served under the Mongolian Empire. Another example was the stance of the Prince of Novgorod, Alexander Nevsky's (1220-1263) relationship with the Mongols. Alexander visited the capital of the Mongolian Empire, the Karakorum, in 1247 (A. D.) to solicit for political acknowledgement. In 1263 (A. D.) he departed for the Golden Horde for the second time to request for Russia's exemption from being recruited to fight beside the Mongolian army in its wars with other people. Based on Sladkovsky's argument, we have a reasonably accurate idea of how the goods of Chinese silk and brocade made their way into Kievan Rus' through merchants from Central Asia [35]. These oriental products became popular throughout Russian cities in the thirteenth and fourteenth century. Although the tangent contact with these Chinese commodities was irregular for the Russian people, it could be suggested that ancient Rus' had an indefinite understanding of the Chinese people, geography and culture through these commercial acts [36]. Charles J. Halperin, a specialist in early and medieval Russian history, also suggested to readers to look beyond the fact that many Russians were presumably familiar with the Tatar language and the geographic overview of the Golden Horde's lands [37]. The Tatars, an ethnicity of the Russian Empire, as an abstraction were loathed on principle, but to the Russian elite their Tatar counterparts were far from being nameless, faceless enemies. To a certain degree, Russian aristocrats were possibly more acquainted with the higher levels of Mongol society than with the Russian peasantry [38, p.105-106].

In the years of romantic nationalism of the Russian Empire, people of different cultural background were not eligible, because they were not pure Russian in terms of language, faith, kasha and songs. It seems reasonable when N. A. Polevoi talks about Ermak, who said to the Siberians that there was no Russian heart beating in their chests. People of other origins were still being represented in terms of what they were not or what they did not care about, but the negative meaning of certain absence was reversed [39]. As Russia moved towards a modern state, the situation altered the way the peasants met with other people who were of different cultural habitus. In fact, it is not unusual to have those alien elements of Siberia in the capital of the Russian Empire. For instance, the Buryats, who practised shamanism then later Tibetan Buddhism, had frequent contacts with tsarist Russia. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a Russian scientist Rehmann invited a Buryat lama, Sultim Tseden, to St. Petersburg for the purpose of introducing Tibetan medicine to the West. In 1899, the thirteenth Dalai Lama's emissary, Agvan Dorzhiev (1854-1938) came to St. Petersburg and was allowed to build a Buddhist temple in the outskirts of the capital. It is reasonable to assume that Dorzhiev was plausible to have an encounter with Nicholas Roerich, as well as other renowned orientalists and some Russian elites such as Sergei Oldenburg, Fedor Shcherbatskoi and Prince Esper Ukhtomsky [40].

Already at the early stage of the empire, there was an acknowledgement since Muscovite times that cultural difference and policy decisions proved difficult to apprehend. With the conquest of Turkestan in the 1860s and 1870s, an impelling movement behind the administrative system of the tsarist forces over the region intended to invigorate the tsarist regime to reexamine its concepts of non-Russian native. In spite of the Mongolian heritage that was a crucial point for discussion about the Turkestan inhabitants and their belief in Islam, a minor uprising led by a Sufi religious elder also spread hostility towards the Russian colonizers and caused panic amongst Russian officials. It is noticeable that the Governor-General C. Dukhovskoi was forced to reconsider the policy of `disregard' (politika ignorirovaniia) of Islam initiated by K. Kaufman after his arrival in the province after the suppression of the Andijan uprising (1898). Under his leadership, new principles of religious policy were formulated in the region: 1) to deprive the local clergy of the dependence from foreign and Russian centres of Islam; 2) to reduce the impact of Sufism on the spiritual life of the Muslims of Turkestan; 3) to forbid any possible use of the endowment funds for anti-government propaganda and finally 4) to introduce the European origin into the programs of the Muslim schools [41, s. 241-261]. Regardless of how academicians or the government in Russia attempted to establish a programme in oriental languages and cultures of central Asia, a radical shift in attitudes towards the non-Russian natives appeared during the era of aggressive penetration of the East. Images of the peoples from Central Asia, the Kazakh Steppe and the Caucasus appeared frequently during the time when Russia competed with Turkey for control and influence over the region, including the Balkans. As Jeffrey Brooks noted, it was in the 1870s that images of the non-Russian natives were portrayed with mystery and ambiguity in the magazine of Niva or Budil'nik, because published media `resist attempts to fix the meaning and leave wide scope for different responses by different viewers' [42, p. 548-549].

Conclusion

To be sure, the knowledge of others and of their cultural performance which was previously unfamiliar or locally prohibited, continued to develop and accumulate its meaning and usage as appropriate across the vast Russian land. It is worth noting here that when the source of ideological difference has been located within the matrix of productive relationship, the attempts to organise and pattern the divergence upon a cultural phenomenon look very challenging yet stimulating. There is no denying that broad generalisations can serve a useful purpose in the characterisation and conceptualisation of the essence of an overall trend in the cultural evolution of a people and of several nations with close cultural ties. However, any condensed phrase or label can also risk oversimplification or distortion of the complex historical reality they were designed to capture. To remedy this inadequacy and take holy fool as a model for examination, it is believed that the cross-cultural encounter and/or integration could have provided different clues to understanding the process of constructing the value system which defines the abnormal figure in the Russian society.

The Mongols as well as other ethnic groups of northern Asia, for the most part, provided the medium or particular adaptation in the guise of which certain new ideas and forms of life beyond the territory reached the Russian North. Thompson's bold assumptions, based on the historical documents she used for reference, indicated that the Eastern Slavs could long have had the opportunity to see or of being told about the shaman in the state of ecstasy or their supernatural abilities of healing and divination while trading with the Siberian Turkic people. Besides battles, commercial acts also encouraged the occurrence of multicultural contacts. It seems that the lack of sufficient ancient records prevents continuous exploration of the evidence shown that the pagan customs and culture of the Turkics, Scythians, Sogdians and Mongolians, integrated with features of Chinese culture have appeared in the lives of the Slavs. It is not my intention to only demonstrate a series of figures, cases and occasions which may obfuscate the main issue of my research concern. On the contrary, this paper can be seen as the preparation for the future discussion on studies of the non-Russian natives in the late nineteenth century. The non-conventional figures in various religions or of different cultures mentioned above were taken as medium or message carriers whose social roles impressed the followers with an ability to cope with calamities and to overcome difficulties. The mysterious component of the prominent figure is attractive and thus can suitably be taken as a starting point for further inquiries about the decision on making distinction.

Upon encounter, it is unavoidable that one has to take a position. Taking a position means, in a positive way, becoming involved in the mechanisms through which identity (of self and the other) is articulated in encounters with and representations of cultural difference. As encounters happen, there should be no sovereign scientific method or ethical stance applied to guarantee the authenticity of every single identity. Any stereotype of understanding should be considered as a negotiated and continuing process. That is to say, a complex of personality traits is understood as a type of identity pattern which is defined by individuals in their relation to and interaction with others.

Reference list

1. Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs. - N J.: PrenticeHall, 1963. - 147 Pages.

2. «Christianity». (2011). In Encyclopedia Britannica.

Режим доступа:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/115240/Chri stianity

3. «Holy fool». (April 2010) Oxford Dictionaries. -