Russia and The Tarot

[Papageno]

Russian magic (this is something that I need to be research far more - Alex and I have some vague theories on this which we'd love to work on at some point - again, they are based on the linguistics of Roma and of Russian verbal magic) but one thing you do NOT see in Russian magic is the early use of cards - the first recorded instance of divination by cards in Russia is 1764.

going a bit OT here, I just wanted your opinion on this book:

The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia, by W.F. Ryan. University Park, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. viii, 504 pp. $65.00 U.S. (cloth), $22.50 U.S. (paper).

 

[baba-prague]

going a bit OT here, I just wanted your opinion on this book:

The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia, by W.F. Ryan. University Park, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. viii, 504 pp. $65.00 U.S. (cloth), $22.50 U.S. (paper).

It's excellent - THE book if you want a recent academic study of Russian magic. It is written like a virtually unrevised PhD thesis - in other words it's dull going in places and sometimes feels like it has more footnotes than text. But the sheer scale and depth of the research makes it an absolute "must" if this area interests you.

By the way, it's the book that has the reference to fortune telling with cards in 1764 (the exact date is off the top of my head, but I think it's right).

 

[Papageno]

thank you very much. I just ordered it from Amazon.

 

[Teheuti]

By the way, it's the book that has the reference to fortune telling with cards in 1764 (the exact date is off the top of my head, but I think it's right).

I wonder if this has anything to do with the following:
"1765 - According to Casanova his Russian peasant mistress would read the cards every day—laying them out in a square of twenty-five cards."

This, I believe, was taken from his autobiography.

Mary

 

[baba-prague]

Yes, you're quite right - and I'd completely forgotten it was Casanova's mistress. And I was a year out - 1765. I've just hauled out my Bathhouse at Midnight and it looks as though the reference has indeed been taken from "A Wicked Pack of Cards."

As for the tarot, the author (W.F Ryan) notes that the word isn't even mentioned in the major 19th century Russian dictionaries. This is not of course conclusive, but it does rather indicate that tarot was not well known.

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

It should be noted that Casanova wrote his memoires in the 1790s, and that the reference to his young mistresses divination is not in a "diary" from 1765, but from scholars' reconstruction of the chronology of his life based on his memoires, first published in his original French in a bowdlerlized edition in 1825.

His original words seem to have been (I don't have the transcription of the manuscript, but trust the editors): "Pour me convaincre de mon crime (of the night before), elle me montre un carré de vingt-cinq cartes où elle me fait lire toutes les débauches qui m'avaient tenu dehors toute la nuit. Elle me montre la garce, le lit, les combats et jusqu'à mes égarements contre nature. Je ne voyais rien du tout mais elle s'imaginait de voir tout.

Après lui avoir laissé dire, sans l'interrompre, tout ce qui pouvait servir à soulager sa jalousie et sa rage, je pris son grimoire que je jetai au feu.".

Ross

 

[Papageno]

my my that's a good one.

I wonder if anybody here has tried that one on their significant other