The Shadow of the Gloomy East. Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski
time before had been enraptured by the comrades of the many-coloured Malvina, and the drunken idlers who in the years 1901-1906 had so greatly Impressed the Russian youth. Gorky desired to point out the existence of those whom Russian ethnography has somehow not yet discovered, who formed "a state within the state," a number of egotistic and irresponsible groups of men in the loosely-cemented Russian society. But Gorky, knowing so well the turbid side of his anarchic people, solicits unintentionally our sympathy for those who shed the blood of the unhappy, hated bourgeoisie.
His genius succeeded in convincing Russia of the amiability of these cavemen of Odessa and of the motley crowd which thronged the public-houses of the ports. According to him they were the "eagle's breed" whom the bourgeois reptile crawling on the ground tried to imitate with awkward clumsiness.
Thus it came that all of a sudden, like the hawk upoii a flight of sparrows, the "barefooters" fell upon the Russian society—drew the knife concealed in their bosom and started the slaughter for, … there was then no policeman and no prison bar.
"How many were there in all Russia?" asks the curious reader—"one thousand, one hundred thousand, or a million?"
There is an answer to this question. The main support of the Soviets are eight provinces situated round Moscow. Thirty million peasants, for a long time deprived of land, of every tie with their native village, enjoying the "famous" freedom of wandering from factory to factory, from mine to mine, from port to port, from prison to prison. …
They defeated the Soviets, created the Third International, formed the leading Russian Communist Party, and crushed Kornilov, Denikin, Kolchak—the last supporters of statehood in Russia.
They were the "barefooters" living from hand to mouth like lords, feeding on the offal that fell from the table of the Russian society and State.
Far truer is the word of another Russian writer, Rodionov, who found their origin and fatherland in the village.
Rodionov wrote a number of articles and novels, of which the most instructive is Our Crime.
It is not even a novel, but rather a police record of village crimes: drunkenness, profligacy, unpunished murder, theft, ruin of family, disregard of authority, extinction of national consciousness an inferno too loathsome to describe.
If we read Rodionov's revelations, we are reluctantly obliged to admit that the Russian village, to which Tolstoy looked for the rejuvenation and renascence of the nation, is not much better than a foul quagmire.
CHAPTER III
The Shadpws of the Village
THE Russian village was celebrated in song by the greatest masters of the pen. But were Russia's writers ignorant of their country's village, or have they idealised it, perceiving in its shadows something they desired to see and which was not there, could not be there?
Let us cast a glance on the Russian village, no matter where it is situated, whether near a great city or In a virgin forest, somewhere north of Vologda or on the shores of the Kama. Obviously, the farther from civilisation, the clearer appear its most significant characteristics.
I know well the hamlets and the villages of the provinces of Petrograd, Olonetz, Novgorod, Pskov, as well as the Siberian villages and settlements.
The chief place in these hurriedly patched-up cottages of thatched roofs and rough log walls is occupied by the House of God—an Orthodox church or chapel; sometimes, near by, in a deserted cottage is the village school, Indefinitely attended by the children of peasants. There is a priest, there is a school-teacher, of whom the former seems chiefly occupied with getting contributions from the peasants, the latter with revolutionary propaganda; both add drinking to their daily work.
In close neighbourhood with these leaders of religion and education, near by in some similar room live the wizards, sorcerers, and hags … they are the survival of primordial paganism. Their traditional school has been preserved, and their prescriptions, having lived through centuries, are handed down from generation to generation.
The sorcerers are generally old people who possess the secret science of curing men and animals of diseases, of appeasing the house demon whenever he gets into too great a fury, of stanching blood, freeing insect-infested houses of vermin, cleaning the vapour baths—standing outside the village—of devils, who chose them as their abode, haunting people; of tracking horse thieves; of invoking the souls of the dead; of foretelling the future; of discovering treasures hidden underground and similar black arts. In reality the wizard or the witch has a good knowledge of botany, and through the dark pages of the history of the Russian village runs a sinister trait of the crimes of poisoning.
I will describe some of the wizard practices from my own experience.
In the province of Petrograd, near the station of Weymarn, there is a village called Manuilov. There some ten years ago lived a man called Sokolov, with his numerous family. It was a typical peasant household in a suburban village. The daughter, Helena, served for some time as a maid in the town of Yamburg, but was caught stealing and was sent away. Then she drifted to Petrograd, and being without occupation became a prostitute. Sokolov's two sons were factory hands, but not relishing work, they fell into evil ways and ended by committing murder, whereupon one of them was sent to prison for four years, the other to Siberia. The latter, on his return from exile, became the leader of a band of robbers who for a long time terrorised the neighboring highways, sharing their spoils with the local police. The head of this worthy family enjoyed great fame as a wizard; his reputation was well established over a whole countryside embracing several districts. He was particularly popular on account of his medical practice.
I used to come often to Manuilov, invited to shooting parties by the owner of a local estate, Mr. Pavlovich.
I remember once a number of patients having been brought to Manuilov from the Gdov district, amongst whom were lepers, some sick of typhus and venereous diseases. Then began the cure. The leper was put into a cask, half full of hot water, and covered hermetically with many clouts. Into this the sorcerer threw herbs, muttering incantations in which the words "nostradamus" and "shugana" occurred most frequently. Then he proceeded to fumigate the cask with the smoke of burnt grass and herbs, drawing upon it with pitch some complicated signs.
After an hour the diseased, who had become unconscious, was taken out of the cask; he was red like a boiled lobster; his eyes had a vacant stare. The wounds upon his lips, nose, and arms seemed to be even more horrible than they had been before. While the patient was recovering from his swoon, Sokolov made him drink a large glass of water taken from the cask in which he had spent an hour, and then took his head into both his hands, looked for a long time into his eyes, and said with a grave and commanding voice:
"Go! go away, shugana, chygana of disease! The Black One wants it! The Black One commands you! Go! Go away!"
I do not know if this cure benefited the leper, but I heard that the Government was obliged to establish a hospital owing to the rapid spread of leprosy in the districts of Yamburg and Gdov.
The same Sokolov treated the typhus patients in an equally original manner. The sick, raving with fever, shivering with alternate heat and cold, was first laid down upon the snow for a few minutes, then wrapped into new raw linen and tied up with a strong cord.
He was then fed forcibly with hot, soft, black bread mixed with the powder of dried and pulverised bugs, and on his belly one after another thirteen bricks, covered with secret signs and warmed to a considerable temperature, were laid amidst mysterious incantations.
It was said that this treatment usually effected a speedy cure; in the particular case I witnessed, however, one of the sick died of peritonitis, and a member of the Petrograd Academy of Medicine, Dr. Abramychev, who happened to be one of the shooting party, brought Sokolov before the Court.
But the protocol which was taken down on the spot was lost in the offices of the country police, who, as it transpired, frequently availed themselves of the "advice" of the wizard.
The