2.10.2015

A Discovery of Russian Witches


When I sat down to write this post I couldn't resist playing with the title of Deborah Harkness' 2011 book, as it fit so perfectly. I felt like I discovered my own special witches when I was coming up with the stories for my latest release Polar Day and its prequel The Turnagain Arm.

I knew I wanted to use a witch as the antagonist in Polar Day but I also knew I wanted the character to be male as opposed to the more popular or traditional female witch. While doing a little research on the history of witchcraft, I learned that when witch hunts swept across Europe during the seventeenth century, a different kind of witch hunt inspired terror in Russia. Unlike the religious-based trials in Europe, the Russian trials were concerned with stopping "witches" who they feared would use magic to inspire revolt against the system of serfdom and aristocracy that ruled the land. The Russians weren't worried about devil worship; they were worried about social agitators. And their primary targets were men.

I couldn't believe how perfectly this real world history fit in with the history of my fictional universe. Aleksei Nechayev, the antagonist in my first novel Polar Night, was Russian, so I had already established a Russian backstory. Once I discovered this history, my new characters came to life and the stories played out from there.

A line of male Russian witches is introduced in my novella The Turnagain Arm through a saloon owner named Vasyl Dzubenko. While he is a witch, he's not the antagonist of that story. Vasyl is a good man who uses his power reluctantly and only to stop evil. Unfortunately his descendant Jamie, the Polar Day witch, is a very different story.

As a history buff, I couldn't have asked for better inspiration for my story than a real life horror such as the Russian witch trials. History never ceases to fascinate me.

Any other history nuts out there?

Polar Day is now available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle. To celebrate my new release, I'm offering The Turnagain Arm free this week, through Friday, 2/13. If you'd like to get to know my witches, get your free download here.


About Polar Day:

The midnight sun bakes Fairbanks, Alaska as residents gather for the annual summer solstice baseball game. Amidst the revelry and raucous shouts of “Play ball,” a spark alights and a jogger bursts into flames. Detective Danny Fitzpatrick, still reeling from his near death at the hands of vampire Aleksei Nechayev, watches in horror as the man burns alive.

Someone is burning Fairbanks and its residents and leaving nothing but smoldering embers behind. As the city sweats under a record-breaking heatwave and unexplained fires claim more victims, Danny and his colleagues struggle to find an arsonist who can conjure fire out of thin air.

To Danny’s horror, the only one who may be able to help him stop the arsonist is his nemesis Nechayev. Will the vampire help in the hunt for a witch?



22 comments:

  1. History as it was taught to me at school was dates and battles. And bored me to sobs. History, as a way of finding out how people lived, fascinates me. So many differences, so many similarities.
    And Polar Day sounds amazing. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really loved Vasyl and his witchy background when I read The Turnagain Arm. How cool that it has a basis in actual history! Can't wait to see more of the witchiness in Polar Day... :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not much of a history nut, but history like this fascinates me. Something about witches and ghosts and other spooky things appeals to me. Not sure why!

    ReplyDelete
  4. History never ceases to amaze me. Once we rid ourselves of the propaganda taught in school we get to see the real world with all it's horrors and truths.
    Love knowing the background for your stories! Kudos!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm looking forward to picking this up. I love it when tidbits of actual history make it into fiction.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love history. I look forward to reading both of these books, Julie. I used some in Rifters and hope to pen a historical series sometime in the future... after more research.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Love history and how horrible the witch hunts were but, for some reason, i never thought of Russia and they are deep in folklore. This finding turned out perfect for your novel

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanks for the free book :) This sounds very exciting. I know I will love it. Witches and their history of persecution is an interesting subject for a story. I like fiction with historically accurate settings.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I'm not the biggest history buff, but I do love hearing a great story. It's interesting to have some of history melt into the process and story development.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Congrats, Julie! I love when you find nuggets like that in history that work out well for your story. I do love history, although I'm more into ancient history with some early colonization/Revolutionary War stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That is so cool that it fits your story well. I love history and find so much inspiration from it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The Russian witch hunts are news to me! Thank you for furthering my Renaissance education, though! :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Well that is fate if ever i heard it. I love history, so hearing about the Russian witch hunts is definitely my thing.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Writers help to keep history alive, and that's what you do in this book. I like your twist on the witch from female to male.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Awesome. Of course the European witch hunt was pretty much the same thing, except the church was pretty much the government, hiding behind a "religious" emblem. (Disgusting use of power.) Fascinating though. You make me want to go dive into the history and learn about these trials.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I loved all this info! My current WIP has many Russian characters, but I'm "creating" as opposed to researching a history for them. The real life history of witches is amazing. Wishing you much success! :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. History is amazing, isn't it? Great post. :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thank you, all! I'm glad I'm not the only one who loves this kind of history. And it was so fascinating to learn that the trials went on in Russia as well, I still find it so strange that I was never taught that anywhere. I think Russia is a fascinating place and it really wasn't covered in any of the history classes I took, so it's interesting to learn more about it now. Thanks again so much for your comments!

    ReplyDelete
  19. That's cool it all fell together since you already had Russian ties in your story.

    ReplyDelete
  20. That sounds so typically Russian, only concerned with someone upsetting the latest authoritarian regime. Never heard of agitators referred to as witches.

    ReplyDelete
  21. I'd never heard this before, Julie. This is really cool. It also sounds alarmingly like more modern history, with authoritarian regimes using a scapegoat to deflect people's attention from losing their rights... sigh.

    ReplyDelete

What's happening in your dimension?