Heretics as Vampires and Demons in Russia
Author(s): Felix J. Oinas
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4, (Winter, 1978), pp. 433-441
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/307666
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HERETICS AS VAMPIRES AND DEMONS IN RUSSIA
Felix J. Oinas, Indiana University
In English,heretic(<Greek hairetikos"able to choose") means "a person
who professesany heresy;especially,a churchmemberwho holds beliefsopposed to the official church doctrines."'The meaningof the word eretik,
"heretic"in Russianis basicallythe same:"the followerof heresy,a person
who deviatesfrom the dogmas of the predominatingchurch."The question
regardingthe Old Believersis not clear:some do and others do not include
them as heretics.2Primarilyin the Russiannorth,"heretics"have developed
into a heterogeneousgroupof sorcerers,witches,and vampirescallederetik,
eretnik, eretica, eretnica, erestun, and others. Zelenin includes heretics
(eretnik)among sorcerers(Zauberer),and remarksthat they do not belong
to evil forces and do not have tails.3
In northern Russia and Siberia heretics appear after death as evil,
blood-thirstyvampires.Efimenko defines the meaning of the word eretik
currentin the Senkurskdistrictof Kareliaas "a personwho does not believe
in God and who repudiateshis laws, or who is not yet an Old Believer."He
continues:
There were such people, who roamed around at night in villages, captured people and ate them.
The eretiki were not alive, but dead. Therefore, if they really got on the nerves of the people, the
people gathered at the grave of the one who was known as a sorcerer during his lifetime, opened
it up with stakes, took out the eretik who was lying with his face downwards, and burned him in
a bonfire or pierced his back with an aspen stick.... The person-magician (kudesnik), wizard
(znaxar') or harmer (poreelnik) - who was called a "sorcerer" (koldun) in his lifetime, would
become an eretik after his death, if he walks around at night and begins to eat people, as it has
been going on for centuries. (186-87.)
This descriptionshows that the eretiki appear as clear-cutvampires:sorcererswho become vampiresafter their deaths,devourhuman beings, and
are destroyedby fire or stake.
According to the Academy Dictionary, the term eretik means
"heretic";"teacherof heresy,who does not believein the trueGod and does
not follow the churchcustoms and rites";"one who is associatedwith the
evil spirit; wizard, sorcerer";and "the spirit of the dead sorcerer." In
Siberia,eretikalso denotes"vampire."The ideas of the eretikas a vampire
are similarto those held in Senkursk:"Eretik... a dead personwho comes
SEEJ, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1978)
433
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Slavic and East EuropeanJournal
out of the grave ... [He] walked around as eretik, but they drove an aspen
stick into him, then he stopped." According to the same source, the term
eretik, eretnik is used widely in Russia, especially in the north, as a word of
abuse.4 In the same function, it has also become known in Ludic and
Vepsian.5
Rybnikov presents a different type of heretic as a vampire (erestun)
from Olonec:
Evil sorcerers do not give peace to Christians even after their deaths and become erestuny (or
xloptuny, kloxtuny, Soptuny);they seize the moment when a neighbor is near his death and, as
soon as the soul has left the body, they enter the deceased. After that, unpleasant things happen
to the family. There are erestuny who "transform themselves," i.e., acquire another person's
face and endeavor to sneak into their own or into another family. Such an erestun lives, it
seems, as is fitting for a good peasant, but soon people in the family or in the village begin to
disappear one after another; the erestun devours them. In order to destroy the transformed
sorcerer, it is necessary to take the whip used for a heavily loaded horse and give him a
thorough thrashing. Then he will fall down and give up his ghost. In order to prevent him from
coming to life in the grave, it is necessary to drive an aspen stake into his back between the
shoulders.6
According to this report, an ordinary person may become a vampire
(erestun) if an evil sorcerer enters his body while he is dying. Similar beliefs
are held by the South Slavs. According to the Bulgarians, "evil spirits enter
into the bodies of villains, robbers, and in general people with depraved inclinations, and they become vampires."7 The Serbian vampire (vukodlak) is
a person "who forty days after his death is entered by some kind of demonic
spirit, who revives him."8 This revival among the South Slavs refers to the
temporary animation of a dead vampire. The Olonecian erestun, on the
other hand, is a living vampire who, outwardly a good peasant, pursues his
vampiristic activity among the village people like a wolf in a sheepcote.
The eretica (pl. ereticy), known in the Elatomsk district (east-central
Russia), is a variegated figure. The following is part of a description given
by Zvonkov:
It is difficult to tell definitely who the ereticy actually are. According to the majority of
accounts, they are women who have sold their souls to the devil during their lifetimes and are
now [after their deaths] roaming the earth, turning people away from their genuine faith. In
daytime they walk around as ugly old women in rags, by the evening they gather in "heathen"
(poganyx) ravines, but at night they enter sunken graves and sleep in the coffins of the impious
dead. Sunken graves are often to be found in our churchyards, and each of them is considered
definitely to be the dwelling of an eretica. If you fall into such a grave up to your belt, you will
wither, and if you accidentally see an eretica there, you will cease to live in this world ....
Ereticy walk around only in the spring and late fall. If they do not get into a grave, they go
through the chimney to the bathhouse, loudly splash around, and jump and dance to the
accompaniment of the devil. One such eretica will later give birth to the Antichrist.9
Using this description as our guide, we have to agree with Zvonkov that it is
difficult to define the ereticy precisely. Their figure is very complex. That
Heretics as Vampires and Demons
435
they are basically sectarians is seen not only in their name which means
"(female) heretic," but also in the fact they they are said to turn people away
from their faith. However, ereticy have also acquired numerous traits from
witches, as is evidenced by the selling of their souls to the devil, dancing to
the devil's accompaniment in the bathhouse, and giving birth to the Antichrist. Gatherings in ravines for the evening and in cemeteries at night are
very similar to the witches Sabbat in the West.
Sleeping in sunken graves and in the coffins of the impious dead tends
to link ereticy with a special type of the dead - vampires. The fatal consequences of falling into such a grave or seeing an eretica there (his withering
or even dying) is clearly vampiristic. This vampirism appears graphically in
an episode further related by Zvonkov:
I was told in Temirev that a peasant's daughter died; he [the peasant] invited his godfather to
his house, treated him with food and drink, and asked him to dig the grave. Being drunk, the
godfather, who had taken a spade along, strolled directly to the cemetery. He found a sunken
grave, descended into it, and began to dig. The spade hit a coffin, and, all of a sudden, through
a rotten branch he saw the eye of an eretica. The peasant jumped out quickly and ran home
without looking back. When he arrived, he climbed onto the stove, but the eretica was lying
there and looking at him with the same evil eye. The man ran to the yard and then to the
manger, but the accursed eretica had anticipated him: she was lying in the manger, shaking with
demonic laughter. From that time on the godfather began to wither and wither. They held
services to Zosima and Savvatij, sprinkled him with holy water, but whatever they did, nothing
helped, and the godfather died. (78.)
In this description, special attention should be given to the detail concerning
the eye of the eretica. In Russia and Germany there is a belief that the open
eyes of a corpse can draw someone into the grave (Afanas'ev, 162-63). For
this reason, the eyes of the deceased are closed at the time of death. The
Kashubs believe that when a vampire (vieszcy) dies, his left eye remains open
(Afanas'ev, 162-63). Zvonkov's story is an indication that the Russians, like
the Kashubs, were familiar with the tradition of the vampire's open eye. According to the Gypsies of Yugoslavia, some parts of the human body, such
as the eye, can become vampires.10The godfather is constantly followed by
the eye of the eretica in the story recorded by Zvonkov. Here the eye seems
to function as a full-fledged vampire which draws out the godfather's life
substance and causes him to wither away.
While the eye of this eretica is clearly vampiristic, other traits, such as
her anticipation of the godfather's movements day and night and her
demonic laughter, are not. Laughter is typical of numerous spirits, for instance, water and forest spirits, but we have not come across laughter as
typical of vampires.
To summarize: the examples given here of "heretics" (eretik, eretnik,
erestun, eretica) show that the basic meaning of the terms as "the follower of
heresy, one who deviates from the dogmas of the Orthodox church" has
436
Slavic and East EuropeanJournal
generally been retained. The term "heretic" has acquired a strongly negative
connotation as "a person engaged in black magic, witch, sorcerer, wizard,"
and is used as a word of abuse. The same term with its different variants has
also come to denote various types of vampires: eretik - the deceased who
comes out of the grave and eats people; erestun - a living vampire, revived
by a sorcerer who has penetrated a person's body at the moment of his
death; and eretica - whose eye functions as a full-fledged vampire. The
means for destroying heretic-vampires are burning and staking, and, in the
case of the erestun, flogging. The heretic as a vampire appears primarily in
the Russian north, in Siberia, and in some parts of central Russia.
The heretic (eretik) denoting "vampire" and a word of abuse appears in
Russian literature as well. In Culkov's The Mocker or Slavic Tales
(PeresmeSnik ili slavenskie skazki, 1766-68), a rich peasant, a practitioner of
black magic, immediately after his death picks a fight with a dog next to his
coffin. The priest at first refuses to bury him and to read the burial service
"over such an heretic (eretik), who has the devil within him." After he is
finally buried, the corpse does not stay in the grave at night, but strolls
about the village, seizes people by the back of their heads, throws them out
of windows, and drags them by their beards along the street. People leave
the village. They dare to return only after a hunter has killed the corpse with
a hatchet."I
The corpse's behavior in this story is not strictly that of a vampire. Like
a vampire, he comes out of the grave at night, roams about the village, and
catches people. However, he does not eat them, as the Russian hereticvampire does, but abuses and harms them. It is obvious that this modified
figure of the vampire is the fruit of Culkov's own fantasy.
Zelenin suggests that "the idea of the bloodthirsty vampire has
penetrated only to the Ukraine and Belorussia (Ukr. upfr; BR vupor) from
Western Europe; it is not known to the Great Russians. This idea quickly
became familiar here, since it has much in common with the indigenous cult
of the unclean dead." (393.) Zelenin's position is not tenable. The vampire
has deep roots in Eastern Europe, especially in the Balkans (Bulgaria,
Yugoslavia, Romania), Poland, and among the Kashubs. In the European
south the image of the vampire has become almost completely mixed with
that of the werewolf, which indicates the great age of this tradition.'2
Among the East Slavs, in addition to the Ukrainians and Belorussians,
beliefs in the vampire are well-documented among the early Russians. The
term "vampire" appears as the name of a Novgorodain prince (Upir' Lixyj)
as early as 1047, and resurfaces as a peasant's name (Makarenko Upir') in
Novgorod in 1495. This term has also been recorded in western Russia as
both personal and place names (Klim" Upir", Upiry, Upirow). The previous
existence in Russia of a vampire cult is also illustrated by the fight clerics
waged in encyclicals against sacrifices to vampires.13We have to agree with
Heretics as Vampiresand Demons
437
Tokarev,who statesthat "the verybelief in 'a livingdead,'who bringsharm
to people, existed among all the East Slavs as well as among other
peoples."14
The term upyr',"vampire,"has been unknownamong the Great Russians duringthe past few centuries(Tokarev,41). How are we to explainthe
curious fact of the existenceof the notion of "vampire"among them, and
the lack of a specialtermfor it?Our position is that the beliefspertainingto
vampireswere transferredto hereticsand the term "heretic"was extended
to also include vampire. As a result, the term upyr' faded away in the
sixteenth-seventeenthcenturies.
The transferof the notion of vampiresto hereticsis connectedwith the
extremecruelty with which the hereticswere persecutedin Russia. Hosch
writes:
Russland lebt in der Erinnerung der Nachwelt als Hort einer unbeugsamen und
Orthodoxiefort, die QuirinusKuhlmann,den ProtopopenAvvakumandeine
unnachgiebigen
grosse Zahl Ungenannterauf die Scheiterhaufenschickteund jede Regungvon Heterodoxie
zu denen der Staat durch die Jahrhunderteseinen
mit brutalen Verfolgungsmassnahmen,
starkenArm lieh, unnachsichtigausrottenliess.15
was discussedand disputedin
Since the "heresytheology"(Ketzertheologie)
the inner circles of the church, the common people were not aware of the
theoreticalbasis of the struggleof Orthodoxyagainst heresy. They could
only witnessthe hystericalcampaignwagedagainstthe heretics,theirbrutal
imprisonments and executions. The joining of the ecclesiastical and
worldlypowers,includingthe grandprinces(laterczars),into this driveand
the fanfarewith whichit was done, musthave led the people to believein the
extremedangerconstitutedby the heretics.This dangercould have been no
less than the greatestsins imaginable- killing of Christians,drinkingtheir
blood and eating their flesh - just as the vampireswere believed to do.
In the confusion betweenthe vampiresand the heretics,an additional
fact should also be considered:the possibilityof the incorruptibilityof the
bodies of both. Some scholars argue that the views of the Roman and
Byzantinechurchesconcerningthe religiousrelicsweredifferent.If the flesh
of relicswas found intact, this, in Rome's view, was a sign of sanctity.But,
these scholars claim, Byzantiumbelieved the opposite: "the refusal of the
flesh to rot was a certain sign of heresy.. ."16Following this trend of
thought, the heretics shared with vampiresthe quality of undecomposed
flesh, which could have facilitatedthe transferof othervampiristicqualities
to them as well. In the heretics'garb and undertheirname, the vampirehas
continued to live vigorouslyin the Russian north.
A parallel can be found on the Greek island of Crete, where the
Saracensbecamedemons.Clad in iron, these demonsridewild and ironclad
horses and drag heavy chains behind them, frighteningpeople. During the
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summerand at noon they are seen exhibitingtheir immensewealth in the
sunshine.The demonizationof the Saracensin Crete has its origin in the
period 826-961,when the islandwas underthe dominationof the Saracens,
whose religion differedfrom the Greeks' and who oppressedthe Cretans
terribly.The demonizationprocesswas reinforcedby the pirates(also called
"Saracens"),who for centuriesafterwardsraided Crete and neighboring
areas.Imellos suggeststhat the term "Saracen"as the name of demonswas
substitutedin Crete for an original Greek name - a developmentthat
parallelsthe substitutionin Russia of such terms as eretik and erestunfor
the originalupyr'.'
The term inovercy("adherentsof differentfaith, creed")has been used
in Russia ratherloosely. It denotesthose who professsome faith other than
Russian Orthodoxy,and such sectariansas Old Believersand Flagellants.
Both of thesegroupswerestronglydiscriminatedagainstand, especiallythe
sectarians,werepersecutedby the government.Whenthe inovercydied, they
were identifiedwith the "unclean"dead (zaloznyepokojniki).As such, they
were not buried in cemeteries,but were left or thrown into the so-called
ubogiedoma- specialshackswith a large hole in them, or just plain holes
made for collectingthe "unclean"dead. Theirfuneraltook place only after
Semik - the seventhThursdayafter Easter.Discardingthe corpses in the
ubogiedomawas forbiddenin 1771,but people continuedthe practicefor a
long time.
This methodof disposingof the inovercyhas left its tracesin the beliefs
connectedwith them. Zeleninstates that in popularbeliefs the inovercyare
similarto the "unclean"dead. They died withoutconfession,that is, in sin.
Sincethey did not believein the trueGod (in the Orthodoxview), it is possible that they had servedthe Devil and were, consequently,sorcerers.It was
felt that therewas somethinguncannyabout the inovercy,and this sentiment
was extendedto the places where they were buried.In Nizgorod province,
therewas an old cemeterycalled Mordovskaja
gora (MordvinHill or Mountain), whichhad a verybad reputation:"God help you not to be late hereor
stay overnight.Surelysome evil spiritwill frightenyou, will turn you away
from the road, will leadyou into a ravine,breakyour carriage,or something
similar.All this was obviouslyascribedto the heathenMordvinswho were
buried there."'8
Occasionally the deceased inovercywere considered to have caused
prolongeddroughts,as the "unclean"dead did. In orderto bringrain, their
graves were opened and the corpses were abused. A leader of the sect of
Flagellants,Samborov,was buriedwith his adherentson Sionsk Mountain
(in the Saratovprovince)in the seventeenthcentury.During a drought it
was decided to exhume his body and throw it into the Volga River. They
found, however,only a deep hole wherethe gravehad been - so deep that
Heretics as Vampires and Demons
439
even the longest rope could not reach the bottom. There was no trace of
Samborov - he had vanished into the inferno. It was said that at night
black dogs ran barking out of Samborov's grave. In the Tarascansk district,
the grave of an Old Believer was opened in 1868, since he also was considered to be the cause of a drought. The people beat the skull of the corpse
while repeating "Give rain!" and poured water on it from a sieve. Afterwards they laid the corpse back into the grave. (Zelenin, Ocerki russkoj
mifologii, I, 70, 80.)
In Olonec it was believed that poluviricy (poluvericy), literally "halfbelievers," lived in the forest. The Brothers Sokolov reported that they were
evil beings who professed both the Orthodox and, at the same time, the
Devil's creed. A poluvirica was naked. She had a long face, long hanging
breasts and three braids of hair on her back; she walked with a child in her
arms. It was said that a poluvirica had been killed by an old woman who was
very bold - she was not even afraid of rapacious beasts or devils. According to a fabulate (byval'sina), a poluvirica, referred to as a she-devil
(certovka), had the habit of coming to a peasant's hut in the wilderness at
dinner time, after the men had gone to bed. Once when she came - naked,
with loosened hair, and a child in her arms-she sat upon the range that the
men had heated. She burned her buttocks, and never came again.19Zelenin
lists poluvericy as "petty forest spirits" (kleine Waldgeister) (Russische
(ostslavische) Volkskunde, 389).
The term poluviricy, poluvericy, denoting a kind of female forest spirit,
is no doubt identical with poluvericy, used in Pskov and Vitebsk provinces
for denoting half-Russified Estonians and Latvians.20 Similar terms,
poluvertsiki or poluverniki (Estonian poluvertsikud, poluvernikud), are also
used for the Russians in East Estonia-in Rapina, Mustvee, and Alutaguse
(northeast Estonia). The majority of these Russians fled to Estonia from
Russia in the seventeenth century to escape persecution by the czarist
government; some of them had gone there earlier. The faith of the
poluvertsiki is a combination of Greek Orthodoxy, beliefs of the sectarians
(especially the Old Believers), and Evangelical Lutheranism.2' The term
"half-believer" shows that only a part of their creed (the Orthodox) is
recognized as the real creed, whereas the other ingredients are considered
heretical.
The religious ideas and practices of the heretics-sectarians differed from
those of the majority of the people. This, coupled with the most vigorous
persecution by the church and government and the tremendous zeal with
which the sectarians themselves pursued their cause, made them highly
suspicious in the eyes of the Orthodox and led to their identification with
vampires and evil spirits.
440
Slavic and East EuropeanJournal
NOTES
1
Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (Cleveland and New York:
The World Publ. Co. 1964),679.
2
Bol'saja sovetskaja entsiklopedija, 2nd. ed. (51 Vols.; n.p.: Gos. naucnoe izd., 1949-58),
XV, 528. The term "heretic"has also been used in Russia by certainreligiousgroups,
primarilythe Old Believers,to designateall those who do not belong to them. See P. S.
Efimenko, Materialy po etnografii russkogo naselenija Arxangel 'skojgubernii (2 vols.; M.,
1877),I, 106, 186.
3
Dmitrij Zelenin, Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde (Berlin and Leipzing: Walter de
Gruyter,1927), 395.
4 Slovar'russkogojazyka(9 vols.;SPb.:Imp.Ak. nauk, 1891-1930),II/1, 123, 126.
5
Lauri Posti, "Kerettilainen," in Kielenja kulttuurinkentalta: Professori Igor Vahrokselle
hanen tayttiessiin 60 vuotta, vuotta, ed. Lauri Posti et al (Neuvostoliittoinstituutin
Vuosikirja,25; Helsinki, 1977), 137.
6 Pesni, sobrannyeP. N. Rybnikovym(3 vols.; M.: Sotrudnikgkol, 1910), III, 189-90.
7 A. N. Afanas'ev,"PoeticViewsof the SlavsRegardingNature,"in Vampiresof theSlavs,
ed. Jan L. Perkowski(Cambridge,Mass.: Slavica, 1976), 161.
8 VukStef.Karadji6,Srpskirjecnik(Belgrade:StamparijaKraljevineJugoslavije,1935),82.
9 A. Zvonkov,"Ocerkverovanijkrest'janElatomskogouezda,"Etnograficeskoe
obozrenie,
1889,kn. 2, 77-78.
10 T. P. Vukanovi6,"The Vampire,"in Vampiresof the Slavs, 207.
11 A. V. Zapadovand G. P. Makogonenko,eds., RusskajaprozaXVIIIveka(M.-L.:GIXL,
1950),99-100.
12 See for exampleMontagueSummers,The Werewolf(London:K. Paul,Trench,Trubner,
1933), 15.
13 KazimierzMoszyfiski,"SlavicFolk Culture,"in Vampiresof the Slavs, 185.
14
S. A. Tokarev, Religioznye verovanija vostocnoslavjanskix narodov (M.-L.: AN SSSR,
15
Edgar Ho6sch,Orthodoxie und Haresie im alten Russland (Schriften zur Geistesgeschichte
1957),42.
des 6stlichenEuropa,7; Wiesbaden:Otto Harrassowitz,1975), 12.
16 Paul Johnson,A Historyof Christianity(New York: Atheneum,1976), 165.And Ernest
Jones, On the Nightmare (New York: Liveright, 1971), 103-4, writes: ". . . the Greek
OrthodoxChurch- it is said in a spiritof oppositionto the RomanCatholicpronouncementthatthe bodiesof saintsdo not decompose- supportedthe dogma(sic)that it is the
bodies of wicked,unholy,and especiallyexcommunicatedpersonswhichdo not decompose. Just as the Roman Catholic Churchtaught that hereticscould be turned into
Werewolves,the Greek OrthodoxChurchtaught that hereticsbecame Vampiresafter
death."Some scholars,on the contrary,claimthat the non-corruptionof the flesh is, accordingto the teachingsof the EasternChurch,a sign of the processof Deification.See
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church(London: J. Clarke, 1957),
222-25, 104, and Arthur Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church (New
York: CharlesScribner,1862), 382. ProfessorGeorges Florovskyinformsme that the
views of the scholarsconcerningthe incorruptibilityof the corpseare contradictoryand
that in this questionthereare "no unifiedpracticesandno commoninterpretation"(personal communicationon 4 March 1978).
17 Steph. D. Imellos, "E demonopoiesist6n sarakenon en Krete," Anatypon ek tes
Epeteridostou KentrouEreynesEllenikesLaographias,Vol. K'-Kd (Athens, 1969).
18
Dmitrij Zelenin, Ocerki russkoj mifologii, I: Umersie neestestvennoj smert 'ju i rusalki
(Petrograd:A. V. Orlov, 1916),76, 293. A forcedconversionof the Mordvinsbeganonly
in the sixteenthcentury.
Heretics as Vampiresand Demons
19
20
21
441
Boris and Jurij Sokolov, Skazki ipesni Belozerskogo kraja (M.: Imp. ak. nauk, 1915), xlii,
72.
Vladmir Dal', Tolkovyj slovar' zivogo velikorusskogo jazyka (4 vols.; SPb.-M.: M. O.
Vol'f, 1903-09), 677.
Ju. Trusman, "Poluvericy," ?ivaja starina, I (1890), 35 ff.; Otu Liiv, Vene asustusest
Alutagusel kuni XVIII sajandi esimese veerandini (Tartu: Loodus, 1928), 35-36, 68-69.