tall, stately, lush, ruddy, they offer to marry tsar ivan, who is not distinguished by great physical strength, but nevertheless quite lively, suddenly in 1696 ivan alekseevich dies, proskofiia has only one support left, this is tsar peter, and peter is offered to her. fun of a completely different kind, he says: how about a performance with my ladies at the most humorous and most drunken council? since the eldest man in the family says so, then it must be so, and tsarina proskovia participates in all these amusements of peter i, they say, that she began to drink a lot, they also said that proskovia feodorovna barely knew how to read and write, but was full of superstitions and prejudices. vasily

tatishchev called her court: a hospital for freaks, hypocrites and empty-headed people. the widowed queen had a special favor with the clerk timofey arkhipovich, who had once been a promising icon painter, and later became a fool. however, he himself, however, presented himself as a prophet and saint. proskovia is united with tsaltykov by another circumstance, in the end the secret chancery also became interested in her. she persecuted. the clerk in every possible way, here this vasily derevyanin, who stole her encrypted letter to her tsarina's clerk and also a favorite, by the way, this favorite, he was not from some peasants, but from a very famous noble family of the yuzhkovs, with whom she lived soul to soul. not one decade, everything

was quiet, because it was quiet and homely, no rumors about the tsarina went, suddenly her connection with - with the clerk could be revealed and that she was not faithful to the memory of her husband the tsar, it goes without saying that the clerk vasily was subjected to all the fury of an angry woman, ordered the arrest of his entire family and... personally beat him with a stick, and ordered him to be doused with vodka and set on fire, kept asking in every way, where is that letter? it seems she didn't get to the end of it, but after that questions arose for proskovia feodorovna herself, however, she soon died, and that was the end of it. it is unknown how well pyotr soltykov knew the biographies of his relatives who had played with fire, perhaps he did not study them at all. but the most important thing is that soon after

the birth of his first child from his wife, who had become hateful to him, he moves on to decisive action, namely instructs his managers, a certain tolmachev and antonov, i quote, to find him sorcerers capable of the job. tolmachev and antonov, apparently not daring to contradict the master, begin their search. it is not surprising that this search was ultimately crowned with success, since witchcraft in russia historically was widespread literally everywhere, in villages and cities, although in most cases it was about so-called everyday witchcraft: fortune telling, spells, healing, appeasement of all kinds of evil spirits. to hang out with the devil in russia in in certain cases it was considered quite acceptable, if you are, say, a miller, how can you avoid it? people have believed since ancient times that a mill attracts evil spirits, so when building such a structure, a special pledge was always made. the miller also had to be able

to interact with evil spirits, so that evil spirits would not interfere with the work, but rather would contribute to it. if the mill was an ordinary one, it was necessary to communicate with the shishiga kikimora, if it was a water one, then of course, with the water one. by the way, it is for this reason mills in russia tried not to light. many witchcraft rituals migrated into signs and superstitions that are still alive. for example, if a person got lost in the forest, it meant that leshy was taking him away. it was necessary to turn your clothes inside out and move on. almost every village told a story about how the forest itself parted after this and the traveler reached where he needed to go. the authorities were quite loyal to folk magic for a while, perhaps because they themselves were not without sin. our tsars were superstitious in many ways, about this various documents, some monuments, describing the life of the tsars

of the middle ages, i mean the 14th, 15th, 16th centuries, but already under alexei mikhailovich the situation began to change radically. in it, along with indecent games and other things, sorcery was also condemned. in 1655, it got to the point that tsar alexei mikhailovich wrote to the archimandrite of the goritsy monastery hermogen, saying that in pereslavl-zalessky, that is, not far from moscow, sorcerers, sorcerers and bogomersky women were calmly having fun, well, where are they at all? it's good, urgent measures must be taken. one thing is disconcerting: the secret chancellery, created already under peter the great, could hardly be interested in such things. they simply did not consider even magical cases where there was no obvious criminal intent, and the mere fact of witchcraft from a formal

point of view was not yet a crime. in the main code of laws of the russian kingdom in the cathedral code there was no clear punishment for witchcraft, so someone carried away in something like this could be beaten with batags, sent to a monastery or shaved into the soldiers. the exception was the article in the cathedral code related to the intent on the health of the sovereign. if a sorcerer tried to harm or even harmed the autocrat, the matter could end in the death penalty, and this is exactly the case of pyotr soltykov. however, if it still did not come to the death sentence, it means that the attempt on the life of empress elizabeth petrovna really was. or for some reason leniency was shown in relation to the chamberlain, but the law is the law, or, really, there was another set of laws according to which witchcraft was punished and very harshly, it was published in 1715 under peter i, it was called the military article with a brief

interpretation, according to it it was possible to easily punish any sorcerer, and not only if he performed sorcery in relation to... the sovereign emperor. we found a digitized version of the article in the russian national library, here is what it says there. if any of the military people is found to be an idolater, a black magician, a gun-conspirator, a superstitious blasphemous sorcerer, he is in severe confinement, in irons, driven by spitzrutans, according to the state of affairs punished or very much burned, has to be. of course, some of those instructions that were addressed to the military, they are stricter. than legalizing all people in russia, because the task of the commander or the task of the general, commander, commander-in-chief, was that his army was stable, that it was working and any

nuances that brought any discord into such a military unit in general. suffered, the sorcerer could only be roughly scolded, in extreme cases, sent to goldward, that's all. pyotr vasilyevich soltykov was an ekamer. this is a serious rank, akin to a general, but still a court rank, not a military one. then why was

a case opened against him on charges of witchcraft, as prescribed by military regulations. and then, if a case was opened, but obviously they could not prove malicious intent with respect to the sovereign's health, well, that is, in our case. soldykov did not lose the sovereign and his life, which is why the investigation lasted for several decades, is it really all about court intrigues, maybe we don't know something, and komerger simply crossed someone's path? however, according to the words experts, under elizabeth petrovna the attitude towards witchcraft was no longer as severe as under her father and grandfather. the empress saw such acts as ignorance and stupidity rather than malicious intent. and in most cases it ended with church repentance, although anything could happen. here is a story that even the moscow gazette wrote about. in 1752, the serf irina ivanova confessed that she had put a live frog under her mistress's pillow, and later another dried one, which she had gotten from a local sorcerer. during the interrogation,

ivanova confessed that she wanted to kill her mistress in this way. well, everything worked out with the lady, but the serf herself was exiled to orenburg. but this is from... history is perhaps an exception, even serfs were not often reproached for witchcraft. the landowner ovdoti polevanov once found out that two of her young girls, that is, domestic servants, maids, were slipping the mistress, that is, charmed salt, to her. naturally, they reported it to the police, the girls were detained, they endured several interrogations, but in the end they confessed that they did not mean anything bad, but simply wanted the baron was kinder to them, she had a very tough character, both were eventually found not guilty. in the russian state archive of ancient acts, we managed to find several more testimonies about cases opened under elizabeth on the fact of witchcraft. for example, in 1753. fodeyev did not achieve his goal, here

he almost killed a woman with witchcraft. around the same time in st. petersburg, the spiritual consistory, it was located in this building, now nevsky prospect-178, examined the case, i quote, about the punishment for witchcraft of anton bozhena. they used the so-called magical letters of conspiracy, but one thing is that peasants

are quite another, a nobleman, a chamberlain, a representative of a noble family, alas, pyotr soltykov turned out to be no better than them. according to the case materials, soltykov ordered his serf vasily kozlovsky, as well as the estate managers tolmachev and antonov, to find capable sorcerers for him. the following persons were involved in the case as saltykov's accomplices: a sorcerer from tver, trofim zherebets, peasants from the kolumensky district nazarov and alekseyev, a healer nastasya ostafieva, her delivered all the way from malorussiya, that is, from ukraine, petersburger ignatiy nikitin from liteinaya street, gavrila ivanov from peterhof, vlas efimov from aranenbaum, as well as a number, a number of others. and what did the above-mentioned subjects do? and ordered to give it to his wife along with kvass, it did not help, in relation to the mother-in-law a slightly different procedure was proposed,

i quote: to send through the servant to the mother -in-law charmed grass, to sprinkle that grass around the mother-in-law's house forever to forget about the old princess, well, it is true that the sent person was afraid of something and did not sprinkle the grass, in in general, it did not come to practical tests, another accomplice, vlas efimov, advised soltykov to wear a charmed herb in a shoe, and then put it in his wife's shoe. the effect was zero. the peasant alekseev ordered to wear a magic root and a piece of wax around the neck, again it did not work. but nastasya ostafieva, on the contrary, showed humanism and refused to conjure death. instead, she offered another option so that soltykov and his wife could live in love and advice, but here too, the charmed herb could not do without. it is necessary to boil the lady who took a black shirt, certainly black, which she will take off in clean water. in that water

boil that grass, whoever boiled that grass will give it to the lady to drink instead of tea, and the gentleman would drink, and when they drink three cups, then they will live in harmony. obviously, such a conciliatory recipe did not suit our hero, and as subsequent events showed, in vain. after several years of unsuccessful attempts, soltykov seemed to understand: neither his wife nor his mother-in-law were going to die. nikitin did not contradict the customer, instead he asked for an advance. nikitin assured

soltykov that everything would be ready in a week: two vials with a potion, a wonderful powder. the vials had to be emptied into the river, one on one bank, the other on the opposite bank, and the powder had to be scattered in the palace, where the empress walks. and as soon as she steps on that powder, you, pyotr vasilyevich, will have happiness and royal favors. well, and the wife. a week later, soltykov came to nikitin, and he solemnly handed him the promised. soldykov, of course, was glad, if everything. works out, he promised, i will pay 30 rubles on top. nikitin assured the chamberlain that everything, of course, will go in the best possible way, not you, pyotr vasilyevich, are the first to come to me from the palace, everything is logical here, what business without self-promotion? having received the magic powder, soltykov began to act. from soltykov's testimony. i went to the palace, and

when i arrived, i entered the hall, poured the said powder from a piece of paper into my hand and squeezed it in my throat. and then, as i passed behind the standing.

and then even less, in general, with such savings it could have been enough for an entire army of sorcerers, and there would have been some left, in a word, very strange behavior, it seems that catherine the second was right in her assessment of soltykov, he was a fool, or again, it's not that simple, you know, all russian courtiers of the 18th century had debts, in order to live a lavish life, as required... location, it was necessary, colossal amounts of money were needed, no one ever managed to fit into it, it was easy to go broke in st. petersburg, all the same, the motivation for soltykov's actions looks extremely strange, it's not like all this was self-incrimination, after all , professionals worked in the secret chancery, during a thorough interrogation, you can

tell anything, during the time of elizabeth petrovna the secret chancery was located in peter and paul fortress, that's where.