Οι ευνούχοι/ες του Θεού

[Costas]

Η σέχτα των Σκόπτσι στην τσαρική Ρωσία· την αγνοούσα τελείως. Δυστυχώς, το άρθρο δεν μπαίνει σε τεχνικές λεπτομέρειες (π.χ., πώς κάνανε μαστεκτομή).

 

[LostVerse]

Ορισμένες επιπλέον πληροφορίες ίσως έχει η ρωσική wiki ή οι πηγές της αν ξέρεις ρωσικά ή αν σε καλύπτει το google.

 

[nickel]

Τους θυμήθηκα με φρίκη διαβάζοντας τη βιογραφία του Πάτρικ Λη Φέρμορ που έγραψε η Άρτεμις Κούπερ. Η ίδια δεν δίνει λεπτομέρειες:

He also noticed the horse-drawn cabs, driven by stout figures in long blue caftans with tiny eyes, soft skin and a strangely high-pitched voice. He later discovered they were Russian and belonged to the Skopzi, a religious sect spread across Bessarabia and southern Russia. The adult males, having married and sired one or two children, castrated themselves to achieve a closer union with God.​

Λεπτομέρειες δίνει ο Λη Φέρμορ στο βιβλίο του The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos (κεφ. 6):

When, enlarging on the glories of Odessa, Tania told me that there were three opera houses in the city, I told her that I had been invited to the Opera next day. The Opera? She glanced at my mud-caked puttees, worn breeches and hobnailed boots; what would I wear? I mentioned the more respectable clothes in my rucksack: not perfect, but better. We’ll get the girls to iron them, she said, as she had to go shopping. Apropos of Russia, I asked her: who on earth were these peculiarly dressed, high-voiced Muscovites who drove all the carriages? She began to laugh, and interrupted the general conversation to relay the question in Rumanian. Laughter broke out all round: the Muscali! The Skapetz! Viorica clicked her tongue twice, making a brisk scissoring gesture with her forefinger and its neighbour in mid-air twice. Tania explained. They belonged to a religious sect widespread in Bessarabia and southern Russia, and their Rumanian headquarters were in Galatz, in the Danube delta. After marriage and producing one or two children, she wasn’t quite sure, the men castrated themselves, hence the beardlessness, the high voice and the expanse, and the general eunuch-like style. Their wives were said to submit to some similar ambiguous ceremony, I learnt. Some said the women began to grow beards. (This extraordinary news – at least about male emasculation – was quite true. I visited a whole street of them later on in Galatz. They were coachmen all over the Regat. In Galatz they were assiduous beekeepers. One of their tenets, I was told, was the belief that Czar Paul, the murdered son of Catherine the Great, would one day return again as the Messiah.)​

​

‘They are bad-tempered men,’ Tania was saying, ‘always cross. I’m not surprised.’ A smile hovered on her face. ‘Of course, we don’t see much of them here . . .’​

Με βάζει σε σκέψεις...