Among the many pre-revolutionary researchers of our region, one of my favorites is the ethnographer Pyotr Vasilyevich Ivanov. He is the very same person about whom the great Nikolai Fedorovich Sumtsov wrote in his book *Slobozhans*:
Pyotr Vasilyevich Ivanov did an extraordinary amount to raise awareness of the Kharkiv region. He was born in 1837 in Chuhuiv and initially began working as a naturalist, collecting and studying various harmful insects, but later became interested in the lives of the people and began collecting songs and recording customs with the help of rural teachers. The vast amount of material Ivanov collected was published in *Sbornik Kharkiv Historical -Philological Society,” in the “Kyivskyi Star,” and in the “Ethnographic Review.” The collector himself compiled his materials. All of his collections are fully indexed and contain a table of contents. In 1885, Ivanov published an article in the *Kyivskyi Star* about folk healers and spells, and thereafter, almost every year, he released new collections and studies—on werewolves, on beliefs about the soul, collections of beliefs related to the home, to curses from fathers and mothers, about treasures, children’s toys, about Ukrainian witches and ghouls, and stories about fate. The most comprehensive and useful from a scholarly perspective are Ivanov’s collection of Ukrainian legends, published in *Ethnographic Review* in 1890 and 1891, and the collection of calendar beliefs and folk tales of the peasants of Kup’yans’k County, published by the Kharkiv Historical -Philological Society in 1907.
Having devoted his entire life to the field of Ukrainian studies, collecting folk songs, beliefs, customs, and the like a bee gathers honey, Petro Vas. Ivanov rendered a great service to Ukrainian studies and deserves respect
Indeed, Ivanov’s contribution to the study of the legends and myths of our native Sloboda Ukraine is simply enormous, although, alas, he has been undeservedly forgotten in our time. Take, for example, the domovoi! Many people probably immediately think of the cheerful and restless hero of the four-episode animated series of the same name, “Kuzya the Domovoi.” Or perhaps the fairy-tale house spirit Dobby from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
But, alas, we know nothing about our own Slobozhanshchina house spirits. Although as early as 1893, a detailed study by Pyotr Vasilyevich Ivanov was published about them in the pages of the *Collection of the Kharkiv Historical and Philological Society*. So, who exactly is this “domovoy” according to the beliefs of our distant ancestors? It turns out that opinions on this matter were far from unanimous. According to some, the domovoy is a spirit of an ancestral progenitor who takes part in the lives of his descendants. Others, on the contrary, considered the domovoy to be an evil spirit who devises all manner of schemes “to the detriment of people.” Petr Ivanov also wrote:
If nearly every one of our cities, every settlement, every parish community, and every monastery has its own saint—mostly a local patron saint—then it is only natural that every home should also have its own, a role that has traditionally been assigned to the house spirit.
At the same time, according to folk beliefs, the house spirit’s brutal acts—such as killing newborn children—were in no way at odds with the notion of him as the protector of the clan and the head of the family. After all, since ancient times, it was the eldest member of the family who held the right to decide on the life or death of a newborn child. The appearance of the house spirits themselves in the form of various animals also had a simple explanation. The fact is that in those distant times, the construction of every hut was literally carried out “on someone’s head.” According to custom, before beginning construction, the carpenter would go out three mornings in a row at dawn to listen for voices. If he heard a human voice then, it was believed that the owner of the hut would die; “if the lowing of cattle or the crowing of a rooster was heard, the hut was built on their heads.” It was believed that after the house was built, the spirit of a deceased person or animal would settle in the house, becoming the house spirit. In addition to Ukrainians, Russian peasants also lived in the Kup’yans’k District. In some respects, the legends about the house spirit among these two peoples differed radically. For example, Ukrainians did not believe that a house spirit could have sexual relations with women by lying on top of them at night. Among Russian peasants, however, such legends were far from rare. According to the beliefs of our ancestors, certain deceased sinners could also become house spirits. The following legend was told on this subject in the settlement of Kaban’ya in the Kup’yans’k District:
Once, a great sinner died. Some time after he was buried, the house spirit of the home where the deceased had lived took a special “house spirit” drink with him and went to the cemetery. There, after finding his grave, he dug a hole in it and then poured the drink he had brought into it. As soon as the drink touched the corpse, the dead man immediately came back to life and became a house spirit.
It was possible to see a house spirit under certain circumstances around Christmas, Epiphany, New Year’s, Maundy Thursday, or Easter. The reasons for this were quite practical. It was believed that if a house spirit was seen wearing woolen clothing, the owner would become rich, whereas a naked house spirit foreshadowed poverty. Descriptions of the house spirit’s appearance in the folklore of Sloboda Ukraine vary considerably. In some tales, he appears to people as a man of enormous stature, dressed in black corduroy pants, a black frock coat, and a red shirt. In others, he is a man in a red cap, sometimes sitting atop a large snake. And in still others, the house spirit is gray, hairy, with long, protruding ears, resembling a large cat or a big ball of fur.
There was also a custom of offering the household spirit various food offerings. However, Ivanov, when discussing this, points out that by 1892 such practices were rare among peasants and were typically observed only once or twice a year on major holidays.
In addition to taking human form, the domovoy could appear to people as a dog, a bear, a ram, a calf, a rat, or a cat. There were countless legends and folktales on these themes among the inhabitants of Sloboda Ukraine. For example, here is a legend about a house spirit in the form of a cat that was popular among the residents of the town of Kup’yans’k. So, an old man and an old woman moved into a new house. Night fell. They went to bed, blew out the lamp, and began talking about how, since it was their first night in the house, the house spirit was bound to appear to them. The elderly couple then moved on to a highly contentious and pressing question: which of the two would the house spirit strangle that night? No sooner had the loving wife said to her husband, “Let him strangle you—I’m afraid!” than she felt a cat on her chest. In fear, the old woman grabbed it and threw it onto the floor. Then the couple got up and lit the lamp in the hut, but there was no one in the room. So they concluded that it had been the house spirit and were actually quite pleased about it. For, despite her fright, the elderly woman had managed to notice that the cat was covered in thick, soft fur—which, according to the beliefs of the time, foretold a happy life. (I can say it’s a good thing there weren’t any “Sphynx” cats back then.)
And, of course, there were quite a few superstitions associated with house spirits. Some of them, however, are completely beyond my comprehension.
— If one house spirit, sitting in the attic, poses a riddle to another house spirit—there will be a fire in the house. But if it’s a fairy tale, the whole village will burn down.
— If house spirits are fighting and one is clothed while the other is naked, the owner will have plenty of livestock and a new house. If both are clothed, the owner will have plenty of money.
I’m sorry, of course, but how can you see and find out all this?! They’re supposed to be invisible, after all. Well, naturally, if the house spirits misbehaved in the stable, there were various ways to get rid of them. The most effective method was said to be bringing a goat into the stable and hanging a dead magpie there. It was believed that the house spirit would ride the goat, while the hanging dead magpie would simply protect the stable from its intrusion.
And everything described above is just a small part of the many legends about house spirits collected and published by researchers of our region (including Ivanov) in the early 20th century. Not to mention that quite a few similar legends and folk beliefs about leshy, vodiany, and mermaids have also survived to this day from those times. Does this Sloboda Ukraine mythology—even if it is sometimes not entirely understandable—deserve to be compiled into a single collection? I fully admit that it does. However, I believe that the legends and beliefs of Sloboda Ukraine deserve to be read and known just as much as those from elsewhere. After all, there is no shortage of the fantastical and mysterious right here in our own lands.
