Alchemical Discourse among Orthodox Slavs of Eastern Europe in the 15th–17th Centuries: A Historiographical Overview
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71294/ers.2021.04Keywords:
alchemy, Slavia Orthodoxa, Eastern Europe, Hermetism, Hermes Trismegistus.Abstract
Abstract. The article reviews key publications containing information about alchemy in the Orthodox Slavs of Eastern Europe. It analyses a range of published materials that cover questions of archeologicy, early modern manuscripts, and major mythological and literary narratives that contain information on alchemy. Geographically, the materials come from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Moscow kingdom and the eastern part of the Polish kingdom. Three main types of sources are identified within this analytical framework for early modern alchemy among the Orthodox Slavs of Eastern Europe. The first type of source is known archaeological finds in the designated territory. The second consists of available preserved texts on alchemy. The third category includes tangentially-related stories (myths, poetry and fictional stories in modern historiography), which shed light on the main stereotypes about alchemy that were disseminated via the literature of the time. The article also considers proto-alchemical knowledge widely known in the city of Lviv, as well as the preconditions for the proliferation of alchemy in that context. The intersection of these sources allow the article to determine the main pathways of transmission for alchemical knowledge and to establish how it had been disseminated among pharmacists.
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