Dr. Konstantin Golev will present his research proposal on the topic: "Witch-hunt in the Court of the Great Khan (Magic, Superstition and Their Political Usage in the Mongol Empire during the 13th Century)" on 7 July 2015 (Tuesday) at 16:30h at CAS Conference Hall.

 

Abstract:

 

The phenomenon of witch-hunt is an important part of the development of the Medieval societies in Western and Central Europe and attracts considerable attention in the contemporary Humanities. Currently, a significant number of researches are focused on these problems. But in this case, as in many other aspects of the Medieval studies, we are facing the problem of dominant and almost total Euro centrism of the existing scholarly literature. Yet, the phenomenon of the witch-hunt is far broader than the Medieval Catholic world and similar events are documented in a number of other European and Asian societies. Some of the European missionaries and pope's envoys reported the existence of such occurrences in the court of the Great Mongol Khans in the mid-13th century Any doubt that the Latin sources may project upon the events from their own European background disappears when one finds the same events described by the Persian and Chinese court historians of the Chinggisids. Of course the number and the volume of the mentioned records cannot be compared with the available sources in Western and Central Europe. But there is no doubt that the events that had shaken the Mongol imperial court in the mid-13th century can be categorized as an example for witch-hunt. The detailed examination of these cases is of considerable importance as it could demonstrate that the genesis of this phenomenon is not necessarily confined to Catholic Europe or to Christendom in general and could exist in completely different confessional and cultural environment.

The aim of the proposed research is to survey the phenomenon of witch-hunt in its own historical and cultural context and to compare it with similar processes in Medieval Europe and Russia. I hope, thereby, to find an answer of the question why despite the differences in the religious doctrine of the Christendom and the Mongols (whose Khans systematically demonstrated religious tolerance towards the main world-monotheistic religions in the empire and even in the imperial court, and carefully avoided favoring one to the expense of the others) eventually the course of the documented witch-hunts in Inner Asia strikingly resembles the analogous processes in religiously monolith West. This phenomenon, without any doubt, deserves a detailed and adequate analysis.