Kateryna Dysa’s book is a groundbreaking study of witchcraft trials in the former Ukrainian voivodeships of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The author proposes new contexts and questions for sources that have long been the subject of research, such as the 1877 book “Czary. Dokumenty – procesy” (Witchcraft. Documents – Trials) by Ukrainian archaeologist and ethnographer Volodymyr Antonovych. She also reaches for documents that no one has studied before, such as “The Black Book of Krzemieniec 1747-1777”. In total, she analyzes 198 cases of witchcraft trials, mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries. In the book, she also deals with the scientific discourse on the subject of witchcraft, referring to contemporary debates. She also convincingly proves that on Ukrainian lands, witchcraft trials gained momentum primarily when representatives of power felt threatened and wanted to use the court as a way to silence the disobedient.

Guests: Katarzyna Nadana-Sokołowska – academic editor, Anna Łazar – translator, moderation: Mariana Kril and Monika Rudaś-Grodzka

Kateryna Dysa (born 1977 in Moscow) is a historian, lecturer at the Department of History of the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, director of the Jerzy Giedroyć Centre for Polish and European Studies operating at this university. She was a fellow at Harvard University, Stanford University and the Institut d’études avancées in Paris, as well as a visiting professor at the University of Basel. She is currently conducting research at the Department of History at All Souls College, Oxford University, on a British Academy scholarship. She is the author of the book “Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials: Volhynia, Podolia and Ruthenia, 17th-18th Centuries” (Budapest, New York, 2020) and the author of numerous articles on the history of witchcraft, sexuality and medicine in early modern Ukraine. She is currently working on a project on the construction of the image of Kyiv in travel literature from the 18th to the early 20th century.