Case file · Witch trials
Peter the Great's decree against the 'shriekers'
In 1715 Peter the Great ordered that klikushi, women who fell into fits, shrieked and claimed to be possessed (often in church), be arrested and questioned as frauds, along with those who 'falsely accused' others of bewitching them.
1715 CE · 59.94, 30.31 · status: official
The account
Klikushestvo was common in Russian villages; a possessed woman often named a neighbour as the sorcerer who had 'spoiled' her, which could lead to violence. The state's view shifted from punishing sorcerers to treating the possessed as malingerers, and in the 19th century psychiatrists studied the condition as hysteria. Christine Worobec's 'Possessed' (2001) is the main history.