East Carelia and Kola Lapmark (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... strong and stubborn resistance of the Solovets monastery, Kem Carelia and Kola would have come to belong to the Swedish sphere of power. From a religious point of view it was at first of quite insignificant importance. There are interesting statements in the Russian records which show how slowly the new doctrine took root among the Carelians. Archbishop Makarii complains in the year 1534 that the Tchuds, Ishors and Carelians (he is referring chiefly to Ladoga Carelia) worshipped in their sacrificial places forests, stones, rivers, bogs, springs, mountains, hills, the sun, stars and lakes... and offered to evil spirits blood sacrifices of oxen, sheep, and all sorts of beasts and birds. The writer also says that he has heard that they slay their children in secret, throw into the flames the holy images of saints, and seek in every way to propitiate the devil. And they have an ordinary man whom they regard as their priest and call arbui (wizard); he performs all deceitfulness, and gives the children their names. In consequence of this complaint the monk Ilya was sent in the same year to put a stop to such evil practices; he destroyed the places of worship, hewed down and burned the groves, and threw the stones (i. e. the idols) into the water. In the following year he abolished various Tchudish customs, he forbade the women to wear over their head and shoulders wimples of the same cloth as was used for winding sheets, or to cut their hair, and he commanded all to give up magic. If the inhabitants of Ladoga Carelia, where the new civilising influences were already entrenched, were still such heathens in the sixteenth century, it is easy to imagine what Christianity was like in more...