American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

The Monarch and the Mystic: Catherine the Great's Strategy of Audience Enlightenment in The Siberian Shaman Author(s): Lurana D. O'Malley Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 224-242 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/309734 Accessed: 08/09/2010 17:21
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THE MONARCH AND THE MYSTIC: CATHERINE THE GREAT'S STRATEGY OF AUDIENCE ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE SIBERIAN SHAMAN
LuranaD. O'Malley,Universityof Hawaiiat Manoa

You ask me why I write so manycomedies... Primo, becauseit amusesme; secundo,because I should like to revive the national theater, whichhas been somewhatneglectedfor lack of new plays;and tertio,becauseit is a good thing to the visionaries, to give a bit of a drubbing who are becomingquite arrogant.The Deceiverand
The Deceived was a prodigious success. ... The

creamof the jest was thatat the opening,people

called for the author, who . .. remained com-

pletelyincognito.1

The authorof these wordswrotethem afterthe 1786stagepremieresof two of her plays;althoughthe playwright may have ostensiblyremainedanonymous to the audienceat the St. Petersburg HermitageTheatre,whereboth of those most knew that this was no ordinary writer plays debuted, present and no ordinaryspectacle.The playswere by none other thanthe Empress EkaterinaII-Catherine the Great. And althoughshe assumedthe mask of anonymity,Catherine'srole-playingon this evening was every bit as as a man playfullydeceptive as when, one nightin 1763, she cross-dressed and spent the evening flirtatiously a woman a at court ball courting young
(Maroger 358-59).2

Given that the stage can be a potent means of shapingand reinforcing social values, the monarch-playwright is in a particularly powerful role. Catherine took advantage of this dual positioning by writing over two dozen plays and opera libretti. Her "anti-Masonic" trilogy,consistingof Masonic orders and mysticism-along with more direct preventivemeasures such as censorship and imprisonment.This article will provide a detailedanalysisof the last play of the trilogyto be writtenandperformed, TheSiberianShaman.Thatscriptpresentsa contradictory of interpretation to shamanism,for althoughCatherinemost often showsher title character be fraudulentand laughable, he sometimes appears to be credible and
SEEJ, Vol. 41, No. 2 (1997): p. 224-p. 242 224

The Deceiver [Obmanshchik], The Deceived One [Obol'shchennyi], and The Siberian Shaman [Shaman Sibirskii], was one of her weapons against

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genuine. While at times the spectatoris witnessto events that clearlyindict the shamanas an imposter,at other times the audienceis cast in the same role as many of the on-stage characters: that of impressionable onlooker. as a literaryand theatricalscholaras well as a Drawingon my background theatre practitioner, I will employ an approach which draws on performativetheories of reception, with attentionto the operationswhich a dramatictext performsupon its audience. Througha readingof the shaman's actions in The SiberianShaman,I will reveal Catherine'sdramatic and ambiguous strategy:by providinga contradictory portraitof the play's of she asks each audience member to assume representative mysticism, the for that character's trustworthinessactively responsibility discerning in theory, these same spectatorscould then applythose skills of judgment in their own lives as subjectsof Catherine's Empire. Although a public theatre existed briefly under Peter the Great, and court entertainments flourishedin the 1730sunder EmpressAnna, it was not until the reign of Elizabeth II that a permanentstate theatre was established, in 1756. The director of that theatre, Aleksandr Petrovich Sumarokov,was to become the first significantprofessionalplaywright writingin Russian (previousdramaticefforts had includedLatin liturgical drama or school plays). Just as in Petrine Russia, Western (particularly and in clothing. Sumarokov French) tastes were emulatedin architecture based his verse dramason Frenchoriginals,so that his plays treat Russian subjectmatterwhile strictlyadheringto Frenchneoclassicaldramaturgical rules. In comedy, Denis Fonvizin (with The Brigadier[Brigadir]in 1769 and The Minor [Nedorosl']in 1781) combinedneoclassicalcomedy with recognizablyRussian people and situationsto create a grotesquerealism that would anticipateGogol by several decades. Thus dramaand theatre were thrivingduringCatherine'sreign, and the Empressactivelyencouraged theatreas a social platform,as an enlightenedformof entertainment, and as proof of Russia'sculturalsophistication. In theatre, as in everything in her reign, Catherineendeavoredto foster the values of the European while seekingto preservea strongsense of Russiannational Enlightenment identity,language,and heritage. During Catherine'slifetime, many of her own plays were publishedin Russian,German,and French,and most were producedon Russianstages. However, the general critical consensus over the past two centuries has been to dismissthe plays as immatureand derivative.Many factors, perhaps includingCatherine'sstatus as a woman writer,have contributedto this lack of scholarlyinterest. In the nineteenthcentury,the adventof the Romantic movement in Russia became associated with the Decembrist revolt againstTsar Nikolai I. Catherine'swritingswere thus out of favor both on literary and political grounds, as the fight against neoclassicism became equated with the fight againsttsaristoppression.Not surprisingly,

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neither were Soviet scholars anxious to "rehabilitate" Catherine as a dramatist. Communist historians, critical of the repressive censorship of her late years, called Catherine's Enlightenment hypocritical for tolerating serfdom's inequity; they were thus hardly receptive to the Empress' drama, and tended to omit Catherine's writings in most studies of drama of this period. Although her dramatic writing will never rank artistically with those of Fonvizin or Gogol, the plays are notable for their remarkable diversity, frank satire, topical subject matter, and stylistic innovations, as well as for the extraordinary status and influence of their author. Catherine's neoclassical comedies have devices and characters familiar from Moliere: the use of confidantes, of stereotypical characters, of telling names, of scathing references to current social customs-particularly to hypocrisy. Early examples from the 1770s are Oh, These Times! [0 vremia!]; Mrs. Grumbler's Name Day [Imianiny gospozhi Vorchalkinoi]; Mrs. Tattlerand her Family [Gospozha Vestnikovas sem'eiu]. Of her many plays, the comic genre predominates; writing as she did in the popular neoclassical mode enabled her to use foolish or ignorant characters both to please (through their ridiculous dialogue and actions) and to teach. But although the neoclassical mode to some extent suggests a concern for universal human foibles, Catherine also addresses specifically Russian concerns and audiences. She tackles such contemporary national problems as ignorance, superstition, Gallomania, fear of progress, and mysticism-all through the perspective of an enlightened monarch who hopes to root out all traces of backwardness.3 Beyond their surface neoclassical plot concerns (such as the proper marriage of a young woman), the three plays which form the anti-Masonic trilogy are set against a very specific background of contemporary political pressures, trends, and intrigue. If Catherine's reign is usually considered to have moved from a period of relative openness and freedom to one of paranoia and severity, one can certainly chart a change in atmosphere by looking at the case of Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov (1743-1818). In the 1760s, Novikov was a prolific writer and editor of several satirical journals; by 1792 he had been arrested and imprisoned by Catherine. Her changing attitude toward him and his literary endeavors was a direct result of his increasing involvement in Freemasonry in both St. Petersburg and Moscow. Although Catherine eventually resorted to more direct measures, the trilogy was her means of publicly exposing-via comic/satiric strategies-the philosophical and social shortcomings of her intended target: Freemasonry. Freemasonry was introduced to Russia sometime in the 1730s via Western European Masonic contacts in London. By the 1780s, however, the Rosicrucian Order, brought first to Moscow in 1782 by Moscow University professor I. G. Schwartz, was to dominate all other strains of Freemasonry in Russia.4 Catherine distrusted the myriad forms of Freemasonry; in her

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andRosicrucianism interMartinism,5 writing,she uses the termsMasonry, changeably,along with referencesto alchemy,theosophy,and shamanism. In principle,the Empressopposed the mysticalbelief systemespousedby the Masons;the occultimageryandemphasison primalinstinctwere anathema to her Enlightenmentsensibilities(Baehr 124). But on a more pragmaticandpoliticallevel, Catherinefearedthe Masonsfor the same reasons Hitler persecuted them: their secret hierarchicalstructureundermined JohnAlexandercites also Freerigidnationalboundaries.Her biographer "contacts with courts masonry's foreign (especiallyPrussia),[and]its apparent ability to mobilize substantialfunds" (299). One potential Masonic convert was Catherine'sown son, GrandDuke Paul, avidlyinterestedin the secretivesociety; his contactswith Prussianking FrederickWilliamII, also a Freemason,must have been severelytroublingto Catherine. Catherine'srelationshipto Freemasonrycannot be understoodwithout reference to Novikov. Novikov has been made out, both by nineteenthcentury and Soviet-era Russian historians, as a heroic figure, fighting againstCatherine's tyrannical censorship.KennethCravenpointsout, howthat ever, that their relationshipbegan cordially,and, more significantly, introduction of to Russia owes most to the collabora"[t]he enlightenment tive publishingachievementsof CatherineII and Nikolai IvanovichNovikov"'(173).Fromthe mid 1760s,then, Novikovwas a well-respected member of the Russian literary scene as he and the Empress freely traded satiricalbarbsin theirrespectivejournals.6 After joiningthe Freemasons in St. Petersburg in 1775, he moved to Moscowin 1779when his connections helped him to obtain a post as directorof the Moscow UniversityPress. From this influentialposition, Novikovbeganto pursueFreemasonry with numberof Masonicmaterigreaterfervor;his pressproduceda substantial als, and he was appointeda Chief Director of the TheoreticalDegree of Rosicrucianism. Catherine,an ardentbelieverin the enlightening powerof the writtenword, also had reasonto fear that power.She did not sit idly by to see Novikov's Masonicviews promulgatedin print; she dismissedhim from his directorshipin 1788, and ordered his arrest for insurrectionin 1792.7This article will suggest that Catherine'sshamancharacterin her 1786 play The Siberian Shaman, written in the midst of a controversy Novikov'spublishing surrounding output,is in parta referenceto him, thus shamanic "cults" to Masonic ones. linking Another key figure who, for Catherine, symbolizedthe illogical and irrationalwas the famed Italian alchemistCount Alessandro Cagliostro (1743-1795), notoriousfor his allegedinvolvementin the FrenchDiamond Necklace Affair.8Cagliostro,despite his reputationas an impostorand a charlatan,was a very popularfigurewith connectionsin the highestcircles of European nobility. When he visited St. Petersburgin 1779, Catherine saw him as a dangerousinfluence;very likelyhe servedas the model for the

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alchemist Kalifalkzherston, title character of The Deceiver. Catherine ordered him out of the country without having met him, saying "I have never seen him near or far,-nor have I had any temptation to do so, for I do not love charlatans" (qtd. in Anthony 298). In 1779, the year of Cagliostro's visit to St. Petersburg, Catherine wrote the following in a letter to Grimm:
qrTO 3HaeTe-JIH,, KOTOpbIM'npeaBsaicA qejioBeiecKii pojwa, Incy BejmHqaHiimxb yKJIoHeHiii, npHHagnieamrHiT 4)paH-i-MacoHCTBo. I HMeJiaTepnTHHe npo'HTaTb, BSb neqaTH H Bb
pyKOnHmCSXb, BCB CKyIHbII HeiIinOcTH, KOTOpbIMH OHH 3aHHMaK)TCSI [... ] KaKK, OHH,

He pacxoxoqyrcs! (Ekaterina 61-62) scrps'BIacb MexAy co6OKo,

is one of the greatestaberrations to whichthe humanrace ([Do you knowthat]Freemasonry has succumbed. I had the patienceto plod throughboth published and manuscript sourcesof
all the tedious nonsense with which they busy themselves [ ... ] when they encounter one another, how can they keep from splitting their sides with laughter?)9

Six years later, Catherine had decided to marshal that laughter in a different direction by writing a series of comedies. The three plays that are collectively known as Catherine's anti-Masonic trilogy date from 1785-86. The Deceiver,l0 The Deceived One," and The Siberian Shaman (Pypin 1: 347-406) all contain quite similar elements, most noticeably the intermingling of two plots: that of a young woman's marriage and of an outside deceiver or charlatan whose deceptions are uncovered. The engagement of the young woman and the revelation of the charlatan's chicanery combine to create the comic ending to each play. Thus, all three plays have some form of mysticism as their topic, although the specific satirical target varies from Masonry (particularly Martinism), to Cagliostro's alchemy, to shamanism.12 The Siberian Shaman was the last of the three plays to be composed. According the diary of her literary secretary A. V. Khrapovitskii, the Empress gave him the play for corrections and amendments on June 16, 1786 (Barsukov 11).13The play was first performed on 24 September 1786 at the Hermitage Theatre (Barsukov 16).14 How was Catherine inspired to write a satirical treatment of shamanism? The Deceiver and The Deceived One are much more explicitly critical of Masonry itself, associating it with alchemy and foolhardy mysticism. In representing the native practices of Siberian peoples, linked since the 1552 conquest of Kazan to Russia's national identity as a colonizing force, Catherine expands her focus eastward. Mysticism is not only found in the elite temple-parlors of Europe, through Masonry, but also in the temple-huts of Siberia, though shamanism. Catherine's distrust of shamanic practices was shared by one twentieth-century inheritor of her Empire, Joseph Stalin, who persecuted shamans "as malicious deceivers" (Balzer viii). From early in her reign, Catherine had struggled to defend her empire from charges of backwardness and barbarity. After reading Abb6 Jean

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Chappe d'Auteroche's Voyage to Siberia (1761), a book highly critical of Russian traditions and behaviors, Catherine wrote her 1770 Antidote in response and defense.15 In it, she stressed Russia's civility, both in social customs and economic and political structures. At the same time, however, Catherine was not unaware of the significance of shamanism to Siberian culture. The historians and cartographers of her own Free Economic Society were exploring distant points in Siberia in the 1760s and 1770s, bringing back information about shamanistic rituals and practices (Flaherty 118).16 One other source of information was Diderot's Encyclopedia. In the letter Catherine wrote in French to Dr. Johann Zimmerman, dated 7 April 1786, after remarking on her plays The Deceiver and The Deceived One, she writes of The Siberian Shaman: " . .. the article on Theosophy in the Encyclopedia furnished the framework for it" (Pypin 1: 409).17That article, ostensibly a definition of Theosophy, is a lengthy diatribe against barbarity.
Here is perhapsthe most remarkable Those who professedit regarded kind of philosophy. humanreasonwith pity; they had no confidenceat all in its obscureand deceptiveglimmer; and divine, whichwas they claimedto be enlightenedby an interiorprinciple,supernatural in them, andwhichwouldfadein andout [ . . Iwhichviolentlyseizedtheirimaginaburning tion, whichagitatedthem, whichthey did not control,but by whichtheywere controlled,and whichconductedthem to the most important and hiddendiscoveries aboutGod and nature;
that is what they called theosophy [ .... ] It follows from the preceding that the Theosophes

were men of an ardentimagination; that they corrupted and Theology,obscuredPhilosophy, took advantage of theirchemicalknowledge,andit is difficult to say whetherthey have more harmed than served the progressof human knowledge.There are still some theosophes and amongus [ . .. ] who have taken a violent disliketo Philosophyand the Philosophers, who would succeedin extinguishing amongus the spiritof discoveryand of research,and in
plunging us again into barbarism .... (Diderot 16: 253-261)

The entry makes clear the dangerous nature of such practices, the threat to the reason and the progress of the age-the opposition of Theosophe to Philosophe is clear. Certainly Catherine's own sentiments were similar. Although the "Theosophy" entry does not mention shamanism, the Encyclopedia's entry on "Schamans" [sic] briefly but succinctly delineates the Enlightenment perspective:
It's the namethatthe inhabitants of Siberiagiveto imposters, who thereservethe functions of These shamansclaimto have credenceover the priests, jugglers,sorcerers,and physicians. devil, whomthey consultto knowthe future,to cureillnesses,andto playtrickswhichappear to be supernatural to an ignorantand superstitious people; for this they use tambourines whichthey hit withforce,whiledancing andturning witha surprising whenthey have rapidity; madethemselvesinsanefromthe strength of the contortions andfromfatigue,they claimthat the devil manifestshimselfto themwhen he is in the mood. Sometimes the ceremonyfinishes and the by feigning to pierce themselveswith a knife, which intensifiesthe astonishment are ordinarily of respectof the foolishspectators.These contortions precededby the sacrifice a dog or of a horse, which they eat while drinkinga good manybrandies,and the comedy finishesby givingmoney to the shaman,who prideshimselfon his disinterestedness no more thanotherimpostersof the same sort. (Diderot14:759)

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In true Orientalist fashion, the Encyclopedists' need to establish the shaman as compelling dissembler reveals both their fascination with the Asiatic Other as well as their need to create a European identity through difference.18 Perhaps it was the very presence of these two essays, published in volumes 14 and 16 of the Encyclopedia, that linked shamanism to theosophy and thus to Masonry in Catherine's mind.19Perhaps those final lines-"the comedy finishes"-provided the associative spark that brought together shamans and comedy. The plot of The Siberian Shaman revolves around the relationship of the Bobin family (Bobin, Bobina, their daughter Prelesta, and Kromov, Bobina's brother), who move from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg, bringing with them a Siberian shaman named Amban-Lai. Visitors arrive: they are the Drobin family (Sidor, Flena, and their nephew Karp-whom they are anxious to wed to Prelesta). Although Bobin is proud of Lai's powers, claiming that the shaman cured Bobina, the servant girl Mavra reveals to another visitor, Bragin, that the cure was a hoax. The tale of the shaman and his deceptions is paralleled by the story of Ivan Pernatov and Prelesta.20 The romantic intrigue of the play is a typically neoclassic construction: back in Siberia, Prelesta had loved Ivan, a man whom the Bobins did not consider wealthy or prestigious enough for their daughter. Prelesta, lonely and homesick for Irkutsk, grows ill, and the Bobins enlist Lai to cure her. Ustinia Mashkina, an affected old woman who is traveling with the Pernatovs, arrives on the scene. Ustinia pretends that she and Ivan will soon marry, thus increasing Prelesta's illness. Although Lai tries to cure Prelesta, his healing is revealed to be a sham, and in the end he is arrested for his trickery. In the closing scene, Bobin gives permission for Prelesta to marry the man she truly loves: Ivan (who, it turns out, has acquired a substantial inheritance). A twentieth-century reader in our post-colonial era, interested in the shaman's subjectivity, may question The Siberian Shaman's anti-mystical stance. Approaching the text from a romanticist/modernist predisposition to distrust "the civilized," (particularly the Western European ideals towards which Catherine strove), and to cherish "the natural," today's reader might be impressed by the shaman's rituals and by his apparent wisdom. While it is true that a large chasm separates eighteenth-century spectatorial conceptions of the Other from those of the present, the play does present certain paradoxes in the portrayal of its title character. On one hand, Catherine's intentions for the play and for the character of the shaman should be obvious. Clearly, Catherine saw her shaman character as a fraud. In her own words, the play is
a huge blow againstthe enthusiasts.Imaginea man who has passed through140 different beatitudethat insteadof degrees;why,if you please?to achievesucha degreeof intellectual the people who speakto him, he behavesin all sortsof eccentricways, crieslike a answering

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cat, singslike a rooster,barkslike a dog, etc. etc. etc. Yetfor all this, he is no less a pimpanda
rogue. (Pypin 1: 411)21

On the other hand, within the play itself Catherine often paradoxically depicts the shaman as intriguing, perhaps wise, and possibly even genuine. Given Catherine's goals of exposing and rooting out superstition, how are these moments of seeming magic reconciled with the image of the shaman as a fraudulent interloper? I will now analyze the play's strategies act by act, with particular attention to Act II, in which the shaman creates a trance performance that metatheatrically implicates the spectator. In Act I of The Siberian Shaman, Catherine employs the same strategy that Moliere used to introduce his famous faker Tartuffe-she postpones bringing her title character on-stage until Act II (in Moliere's five-act play, Tartuffe does not appear until the second scene of the third act). The audience must therefore form initial impressions based upon the reported observations of other characters. The Bobins, who have brought the shaman with them from Siberia to St. Petersburg, explain the exotic details of his origins to Kromov and to Sanov, a visiting friend. Born in China, the shaman was orphaned, reared by a Tungusic dvoedanets22and then sent to study with Mongolian shamans. When Bobins explain that Lai miraculously cured Bobina of her illness, the characters report their varied perspectives:
CAHOB. CKa3sbBaIoT, BcsKaro qeJoBKa . . . 6yaTo no awuy y3HaeTb yMOHatepTaHHe KPOMOB. M4Hbe ... onHcbIBaIOT, SKO MyApeUa ... HAo6po'1bTeJIeHb, BOBEiH. OH npoHHUIaTeIeH-b, 'qyBCTBHTeJIeHb KPOMOB. Apyrie ... Ha3bIBaoT ero KOJIfIyHOMb ... CAHOB; rFJynocTb H HeBTc KeCTBo Be3JSt BHURTb KOJIJOCTBOTyT'b, rrB CMbICJIn o6bIKHoBeHHbmiHXKpaTOKb HaxoAtHTCI. (Pypin 1: 353) (SANOV. Supposedly he can tell a person's character just by looking at his face.... KROMOV. Some describe him as a wise man. BOBIN. He is shrewd, perceptive, and virtuous.... KROMOV. Others ... call him a sorcerer.... SANOV. The stupid and ignorant, when they lack common sense, see sorcery everywhere.)

Just as in Tartuffe, the audience is exposed both to the devout believers (in this case, the Bobins), as well as to skeptics like Sanov. Before we have even met the shaman ourselves, however, Catherine adds a final blow to his credibility. In the act's final scene, Bragin (who we later learn is a friend of the young man Ivan Pernatov) questions the two servants about the shaman. Mavra and Prokofii reveal that they substituted water for the shaman's miracle cure-Lai's reputed healing of Bobina is a hoax. Mavra (also the name of clever servant girls in other Catherine plays such as Oh, These Times! and The Misunderstanding [Nedorazumenie]) comments that the shaman is either intentionally blinding the Bobins, or "caMHTaK-b 3axoTrJIM o6MaHyT6cs"(they wanted to deceive themselves) (Pypin 1:

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358). The play will return to this theme repeatedly-that the shaman himself is only fulfilling the desires of those around him to believe in him. The deceived are as culpable as the deceiver. The second act of The Siberian Shaman is in many ways startling and unexpected; its first scene is atypical of eighteenth-century comedy. In it, stage action-without dialogue-comprises the entirety of the scene:
1. Oeamp,b Bo6una. f6 oAM ZEfICTBHEn. 3IBJIEHHE noKoulIUamaHa npeocmaesiembb
canozu; nouusueu HSCKOAJbKO, nacdBHem-b nonyKaqbmane uau 6 xa.Came Uwbem-b euooMb7; npe6b oodejcy u cadem na cmyae Heo6u3cuM-b cib 6ocxuu4eHHbLMb IlaMactccKyro HUb UJiu603AJS nezo cmumb mO cmoJ c omeepcmoio Ktnu0zoo; nHcKOibKco Munym,' cnycmR, HnaHemcR: (Pypin 1: 360)
.JIaUa

chambers in theBobinhouse. Lai, dressed in (Act II. Scene1. ThestagepresentstheShaman's a shortcaftanor in a dressing gown, is sewingboots;havingsewedseveral,heputson Shamanic clothesand sits motionlesson a chairwitha raptvisage;beforehim or nearhimstandsa table withan open book;severalminuteslater[Act II, scene 2] begins:)

Russian neoclassical comedy, like its French counterpart, is primarily a dialogue form. Characters enter and exit a central site of action; that action consists of conversations (declarations of love, revelations of intrigue, displays of foolish thinking). Rarely do playwrights display non-conversational activities, such as duels. The genre itself is dependent on the intellectual clash of personalities-of wits rather than swords. Catherine's comedies are no exception, and indeed much of her writing suffers from the awkwardness of insisting that major events must take place offstage.23The stage space is a site for reportage and reaction, rather than for events and action. Too, neoclassical Russian writers rarely show a solo character in a scene. When a character does appear alone, it is almost exclusively to deliver a revelatory soliloquy, as when a lover, left alone, presents true inner feelings, or a wily servant discloses recent plans. Conventionally, the soliloquy is the doorway into the truth of a character, and the mode of the typical solo scene is almost exclusively verbal. Thus from the first moment of II.i, the scene is unusual. We see several successive actions of the shaman, none of which is accompanied by dialogue. If we compare the scene to a typical soliloquy, we would assume, despite Amban-Lai's silence, that he communicates through his actions, and that what he communicates is genuine. First shown in a dressing gown, he sews several boots-he thus confirms an earlier description by Bobin: "IHorXa OHWb 'HiTaeT-b KHTaHicKyIO KHHry... B'b pyroe BpeMs 'IHHHTETCBOIO xe mibeTb o6yBb" (Well, sometimes he reads a Chinese oeacy ... HJIH book ... or mends his clothes ... or sews boots) (Pypin 1: 353). After sewing several boots, he dons his shaman's clothes and sits motionless. What is the duration of these actions? The implication is that they are slow and sequential, appropriate for the behavior of someone alone and unwatched. Yet of course, Lai is watched; we the spectators find ourselves

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not in the positionof quietlylisteningconfidants (as with a soliloquy)but of silent voyeurs, seeing into the privatechambersof someone we have not yet met. If Lai's silent sewing is genuine, then perhaps so too are his subsequent actions: putting on shamanicclothing, sitting motionless "c indicatethat the shamanis feigningor crafty;he does not open his eyes to see if his foolish dupes are coming.Instead, Catherinegives a very specific durationalnote: that II.ii begins "severalminuteslater."Thus the shaman sits, unmoving,rapt, alone for severalminutes-the same shamanwhom, at the close of the previousscene, the seeminglytrustworthy maid Mavra revealed to be a faker and a charlatan.Catherineseems to thus offer two contradictorysets of information,from two very differentsources. Both the initial praises and criticismof Amban-Laiare relayed to us by other characters;it is on the basis of Mavra'sverbal recollectionof past events that the audience is led, at the end of Act I, to mistrusthim. But rather than givingus hearsay,in II.i Catherinegives us visualevidence. We must of a shaman judge the shamanby what our own eyes see: a demonstration assuminghis ritual attire and enteringa trance state-a series of actions that, in the scene itself, has no connotationof disingenuousness. One possible explanationis that Catherinerelies too heavilyon Mavra's narrativeaccount of the shaman'sdeception, misjudgingthe voyeuristic power of this solo scene. In this view, to show a scene in whichthe shaman But Cathererror,a misjudgment. appearsto be genuineis a dramaturgical ine was almostalwayskeener and more capablethan one anyoneexpected her to be. Rather,scene II.i may be a deliberatestrategywherebyCatherine casts her audiencein the role of observer.We, like the Bobins, rely on what we see of Lai's behavior. Using a scientificmodel of observation, Catherineallows us to judge Lai as one of her court explorer-historians might have-through a viewingof externalbehavior.And from that viewpoint, the tranceitself does appearto be authentic.If we thinkso, we have been alliedwith the Bobins, and must awaitthe unfoldingof events, to see how we too have been duped. In the solo scene of the shamanalonein hisroom,the spectator is in a state of doubtandsuspense.But in the followingscene, watching Laiinteract with the Bobins and theirguests, that same spectatorformspredictable alliances with the normativefamily members, with whom she or he can identify. Catherinedirectlycontraststhe shaman'sbehaviorwith that of the other characters.To achieve this juxtaposition, Catherine employs the metatheatricaltactic of the play-within-the-play, or ratherin this case, the shamanicritual-within-the-play. drawson assumpSeeing this ritualthroughthe lens of metatheatricality tions articulatedby the field of performance studies, whichin the past two decades has broadened our emphasis on "theatre,"as a rigidly defined
M eau6o." At this moment in the play, Catherine does not eocxuu4enneHH

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social event, to include "performance," a broadly conceived and interdisciplinary construct. Looking at the interstices of ritual and performance can emphasize commonalities between the drama and the ritual, such as the presence of both performers and spectators (often in the same ritual), the use of mask, costume, music, of a specified site, the presence of structural elements that may parallel the dramatic notion of plot, etc. Thus, reading Amban-Lai's shamanic ritual with twentieth-century eyes, we are inclined to view his actions as the elements of a performance.24The metatheatrical element becomes apparent when we contrast the ritual performance's style with the highly formalized, rigid conventions of the neoclassical comedy The Siberian Shaman in which the ritual is contained. That contrast is yet another source of humor, and of commentary. Amban-Lai's shamanic ritual takes place in two scenes in Act II: scenes ii and iv, separated by a brief scene when he is offstage. In the former scene, Lai is in a trance state but is not yet verbally communicative. The comic premise of the scene is simple-to get him to talk. Bobin explains that they must find something that will seize hold of his imagination. Their several attempts get various non-verbal reactions from him; rather, Lai responds in gestural statements. When Sanov asks to listen to his wisdom, Lai "isnaem-b naHmoatuHy, 6ydmo ezo Ko u4eKoiemb" (does a pantomime as if someone is tickling him) (Pypin 1: 362). They show him a crutch; he shakes his head to the right and to the left as if saying "no." They show him the clock, and he "KU6aem,b ZO.JO6OiO 6b nepe-b, u no 6oKa.Mb, KaKb KumaucCKi KCyKa.bl" (nods his head forward and to the side, in the manner of Chinese dolls) (1: 362). Lai's silence contrasts with their banter as he moves, gestures, runs, pantomimes, nods. The comic suspense builds. Finally, when Bragin shows him a purse full of money, Lai stretches out his hands and begins to speak. At this moment, the performance-within-the-play commences, and Catherine has succeeded in comically revealing the hidden charlatanismof her shaman, who even in trance is drawn to money. The performance begins, and is presented in three distinct sections: (1) Amban-Lai's initial verbalization (after he is shown the money), (2) his return into the room with drum, and (3) the "ballet" performed by his followers at the end of the scene. These events are clearly distinguished from his behavior in the remainder of the play; in later scenes, he converses in (somewhat) comprehensible Russian, and in general, assumes a more "civilized" demeanor. In the first part of the ritual/performance, when Amban-Lai finally breaks the silence, he approaches four of the men present (note that only men are brought into the shaman's chambers), and for each has a different animalistic verbalization: to Sidor Drobin, he barks like a dog;25to Karp Drobin, he meows like a cat (which Sanov mistakes as Chinese); to Kromov, he sings like a rooster; and to Bragin he clucks like a hen. By

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vocally imitating various animals, the shaman embodies the physically expressive, irrational, animalistic; he is everything that the other characters are not, with their rigid and predictable bodily movements, their prescribed diction, their stiff formality. He then pushes the others apart, and leaves the room. Throughout this initial sequence, the visitors each attempt to force Lai to communicate on their terms, refusing to accept his utterances as serious or communicative. Kromov asks Lai if he is pretending, and Bragin states that Amban-Lai must be joking. After a brief scene with the dumb struck men, Lai returns in scene four of Act II, entering with the same rapt visage indicative of the trance state, this time holding a shamanic drum. Catherine's theatrical strategy shifts once again; no longer do we see Lai interact with the family members. In this second segment of the ritual, Lai strikes his drum, runs around the room, sings, howls, and screams various vowel sounds before collapsingmany of these elements are accurate to actual shamanic practice. The stage directions specify that the men are frightened by his actions. Would a spectator, perhaps a member of the nobility, safely ensconced in a seat in the Hermitage Theatre in 1786, have been frightened as well? A. F Anisimov, a present-day Russian ethnographer of Evenk culture, found that one shaman's performance was "so deftly accompanied by motions, imitations of spirit-voices, comic and dramatic dialogues, wild screams, snorts, noises, and the like, that it startled and amazed even this far from superstitious onlooker" (101). To what extent could such a display on-stage have produced a comic effect; to what extent did it provoke wonder and fear in its audience, thus further underscoring their (our) own credulity? The third segment of the ritual is described in a single sentence. "Cb no KpaTKOM%b 6ajieT yxoJFITlb" (His followers leave him HHM'bnpHmejnmie after a short ballet) (Pypin 1: 364). The presence of shamanic followers (referred to later by Sidor Drobin as "pliasuny" or dancers) comes as a surprise to the reader of this play. How and when do they enter the scene? Moreover, while the stage directions seem to imply a shamanic, ritualistic dance, paradoxically the connotations of the word "balet"itself are strictly European in origin-high art, elite, formal. Again, whatever dance Lai's followers performed must have been read against the background of its setting: a "civilized" Russian domestic interior rather than a shamanic tent. As in her description of Lai alone, here Catherine does not specify that this dance is comic in nature, although humor might result from the perception of incongruity. In scene v, when Lai awakens from his trance, he speaks intelligibly and in Russian to those around him; for the first time in the play, the audience can rely on the shaman's own statements. He explains that he cannot remember what transpired during the trance, and that his goal is to use silence as a means toward the attainment of non-existence. Interestingly,

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the shaman brags about his marvelous book, in which he claims everything is written, including information about each person in the room, each one's umonachertanie (frame of mind). The shaman's book may be in a larger sense a commentary on Catherine's age, the age of Encyclopedists, an era in which all knowledge was being catalogued, printed and disseminated. The very idea of a "shamanic book" must have seemed an oxymoron to Catherine-a book having connotations of the rational and quantifiable, shamanism having very much the opposite. But Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov was making just such mystical books available to Catherine's subjects; thus Lai's book can also be seen as a reference to Novikov's Masonic publishing efforts.27 After Lai impresses the gathering with his observations, they leave and Catherine shows us yet another view of Lai: with his guard down, in conversation with the butler. In marked contrast to the philosophical discussions of the previous scene, the two men discuss boots:
gBOPELKOfI. AM6aH, He xoqeIIb JIUH apKyBO)OKH? JIAft. JlaBaH,6parb ... f5 ycran,i. IBOPEUKOfI. CKOpoJIHrocnojlcKHecanora nocnriboTb? JIAIf. )AaBHO6bI nocnnIM ... na BHjIHmb,Heaocyrb. BSJIC ... IIIHJI HBOPELUKOIf. TO-TO, 6paTb ... 3a MHOrO .... (Pypin1: 367-68) 6bITbIcanorH nonpIHJiKHae.

(BUTLER. Amban, don't you wanta glassof vodka?

LAI. Give it to me, brother ... I'm tired.

BUTLER. Will the master'sboots be done soon? LAI. They wouldhave been done a while ago ... but you can see how busyI am. BUTLER. Yes, brother... you undertooktoo much.... Youshouldsew boots
a little more diligently .. )

This exchange again puts wisdom in the mouth of a servant character; as does Mavra, the butler sees through the shaman. Just as the shaman can reveal someone's true nature by consulting his book, the butler "reads" Lai by calling him brother and treating him as a bootmaker rather than as an esteemed sorcerer, even scolding him. The solidarity between the two men-both working men-is evident, and the scene subtly serves to demystify Lai. Thus, within the first two acts of her play, Catherine has created contradictions in the representation of her title character: between the reported and witnessed perceptions, between his trance persona, his public demeanor, and his (presumably) more genuine behavior alone in his room and in interaction with the butler. Rather than behaving as a type, Lai is an unstable presence in the play; it is up to the spectator to resolve this instability into the single moral perspective required by the play's genre. In Act Three, Catherine introduces us yet another unseen but crucial character: the Bobins' daughter Prelesta. Her story is thus intertwined with

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the shaman's. Because she is suffering from an undetermined illness, the Bobins ask Lai to heal her. The shaman is reluctant, explaining his theory
that, "Bo BCqIKOM', TSRB cyTb nHpHBJeKaTeJIbHbI BBS CHJIbI, OIHa nIJ b OT H3rHaHiI 3aBHCHTE CTEIXiI,a Apyras aJIi Tsjnec-; H3JIeqeHHe6oJIT3HHI HJIH yMHOKceHiS TOi HIJIHnpyroi" (In all flesh there are two forces of

attraction, one for the elements, and the other for the bodies. Healing an illness depends on the expulsion or increase of one or the other) (Pypin 1: 374). However, he soon goes off, first to the Pernatovs to heal the ill woman traveling with them, then on to Prelesta.28Before his return in Act IV, then, the shaman has met with Ivan Pernatov (Prelesta's true love) in an offstage scene-and The Siberian Shaman's two plots intersect. In the third scene of Act IV, when Lai returns, Sanov praises him for having cured the Pernatov woman by attributing the cause to jealousy between the husband and wife. Again, Catherine points out Lai's natural shrewdness; if his cures lack magic and mystery, he is an excellent judge of character. As he himself explains:
HanJIHq BcAKaro rTJIaeT'bHaqepTaHiH qeJOBaKa: Beceine, paIocTb, CTpacTbKHcTi)l CBOe4i HepTMIHMOCTb, 3aBHCTb, IOKcb, MUieHie, TBepIocTb,ynpsMCTBO, cepAue, rneianb, peBHOCTb,
TSHCTByIOT?bC' HapyKHI [ ... ] 3HaB'b, qeMTb JIIOJH JIBHKHMbI, TpyrJHO JI TO HpO'HTaTb B

TOM HJIH Oco6bI?(Pypin 1: 385-86) HapyxcHoCTH HIHOH

(Passion'spaintbrushsketches on the face of every person: happiness,joy, anger, grief,

jealousy, envy, falsehood, vengeance, indecision, stubbornness, steadfastness-all affect the exterior [ . . ] When one knows what motivates people, is it hard to perceive this or that detail in external appearances?)

If understood from a spiritual perspective, these words attest to the power of Lai's abilities; a rationalist, like the playwright herself, interprets these words rather as a con-man's credo, a shyster's scheme for exploiting naivete by a way of a few careful observations. The play constantly oscillates between these two perspectives, but in the end comes down on the side of rationalism and a view of Lai as a con artist who easily persuaded others to accept his pronouncements as supernatural if "they wanted to deceive themselves." Such strategies fall through for the shaman in IV.iv, when Lai and Prelesta meet face to face and alone. The scene is unusual in that few young heroines in neoclassical comedies are left alone with men; most women of marriageable age appear together in scenes with their maids and their mothers, and only rarely meet alone with their fiances-except in happy denouement scenes. But no character raises an objection to leaving Prelesta alone with the shaman; his status as a healer seems to override his ethnic and class differences. Perhaps also because of those differences, he is clearly not a suitor and therefore not a threat to chastity. Lai's plan is simple: his cure for Prelesta's illness is a letter in which Ivan Pernatov professes his love for her. Prelesta is scornful and stubborn, however,

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refusing to read his "prescription," and speaking disparagingly of his handno MyHraJIbCKH! ... . no BaIIeMyHe writing: "Hy, KaK-bTbI HaMapaJ-b in if scribbled it but Mongolian, I won't understand pa3yMeio" (Well, you realize that the prescription is a letter 1: she does When it!) (Pypin 387). from Ivan, she refuses to read it, convinced that he is engaged to Ustinia. Ultimately her father enters and reads the letter to himself. When Bobin realizes Lai's duplicity in proffering a cure by means of a love letter, he angrily orders the shaman to leave. The shaman does not appear in the remainder of the play; through an ever-escalating series of reported stories, the audience learns of several offstage events: that a group of followers has assembled in Lai's chambers, forming a shaman school of sorts; that many curious people have gathered in the courtyard of the house, all eager to learn more about the famed shaman; later, that Lai has been arrested for swindling a widow out of her fortune. The audience sees none of these events firsthand; nor does Lai return to defend his behavior. At the play's conclusion, then, the shaman is revealed as a sham. In a parallel plotline, Ustinia Mashkina is also shown to be a fake; her feigned engagement to Ivan is unmasked as a fraud. Catherine ties together her two plotlines by explicitly acknowledging the parallels between Ustinia's deception and Lai's lies. In the play's allimportant moralistic closing pronouncement, Kromov compares Ustinia to the shaman Lai:
BbI OJHaKO CXOJICTByeTeCb IIIaMaHaMH: BbI H OHH, CJITrIy MHHMbIMTb npaBHimaM-b, o6MaHbIBaeTe c-, Haqana caMHce6s, a no TOM BaM-b noaaioTb IHTnXT, KOH Bsapy. (Pypin 1: 406)

(You resemble these Shamans; both you and they, following rules you've invented, at first deceive only yourselves, but then deceive everyone else who puts their faith in you.)

In these final moments, Catherine contrasts both Lai and Ustinia with Prelesta, the play's heroine. In the last scene, Bobin carefully coaxes Prelesta into revealing her love for Ivan. By speaking a third person tale, she is able to give voice to her wish to marry Ivan over Karp Drobin. Although through much of the play Prelesta has appeared shallow and foolish, the scene emphasizes her sweetness and modesty. Where she is naive, Lai is shrewd. Where she is modest, Lai is the opposite; where she underestimates her own rights and powers, he overestimates his; where she gains her happiness, he, like Ustinia, loses all. What, finally, is Catherine's case against Amban-Lai, her Siberian shaman? As a monarch, it is abundantly clear from her writing that she regarded shamanism (along with Masonry and alchemy and other practices she saw as anti-rationalist) not only as the highest form of folly but as a dangerously infectious form of insubordination to the goals of her reign. Yet as playwright, she employed a subtle strategy of characterization; rather than rigidly determining the audience's perceptions of the shaman

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from start to finish, she allows them to remain ambiguous, shifting constantly until the denouement, and the final revelation of his duplicity. The fixity of that conclusion (the shaman's arrest) provides a needed moral and interpretive anchor to the play. In employing this unique strategy, Catherine was able to cast her spectators, who were also her subjects in a political sense, in the role of active truth-seekers. In essence, the play became a kind of practice for "real life;" her ideal spectator-subjects would learn the tools by which to recognize deception, possibly having themselves been deceived by aspects of the shaman's performance. Catherine thus implicates the audience in the narrative and metatheatrical structure of her play. If read against a background of Catherine's battle against Freemasonryits organizational structure, its political power, its impact on the world of publishing in Russia-the comedy The Siberian Shaman can be seen as the last installment in the trilogy's critique of Novikov and his Masonic circle. The shaman himself is another parody of Novikov, who through his high status in the Rosicrucian Order and his publishing efforts, sponsored a range of inquiry outside the bounds of Catherine the Great's version of the Enlightenment. From Catherine's perspective, his Masonic ideas were just as nonsensical as a dog barking; like a shaman, Novikov was capable of entrancing the people-her people-through his strange ideas. In Catherine's view, the shaman Novikov deceived those who wanted to deceive themselves; part of the enlightening strategy of her playtext was to awaken her audience from the trance of his mysticism.

NOTES
1 From a letter to FrederickMelchiorGrimmon 3 April 1785 (Pypin 1: 345); translated from Frenchby Pinkhamin Troyat259. Unlessotherwiseindicated,all translation from Frenchor Russianare my own. 2 Muchof Catherine's most literary outputwasoriginally published anonymously, although scholars agree that her authorshipwas well-knownto her audience and readership (Gukovskii68-69). The general scholarlyconsensusis that Catherinewrote the plays with the assistanceof her literaryadvisorsIvanElaginandAleksandrKhrapovitskii; see Shchebal'skii 105-112 for an outlineof the evidence.Yet othersdoubtthather influence went muchbeyondproviding a guidingidea for a play;see Vsevolodskii-Gerngross 252254 for a refutation of Catherine's claims.In my viewwe can considerthemto authorship be her creations not only because she herself often referredto them as her own in not only because she has traditionally been held as the authorof the correspondence, collectionof manuplays in question. The most convincingevidenceis the substantial own scriptsof her publishedand unpublished plays, most of which are in Catherine's (see note 13 below). handwriting 3 Catherinewrote in severalother dramatic modes. Her collectedworksincludeadaptations of Shakespeare's plays: This'tisto haveLinenand Buck-Baskets [Votkakovoimet' korzinu i bel'e] (an adaptationof The MerryWivesof Windsor)and The Spendthrift

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Slavic and East European Journal (an adaptationof Timonof Athens).Another series of Russianhistorical [Rastochiter] does awaywith fashionable neoclassical structures such playsin the style of Shakespeare as the unitiesin favorof a freerimitationof Shakespeare-quite a daringstylistic innovation decadesbefore Pushkin.These includeFromthe Life of Riurik[Iz zhizni Riurika] and TheBeginning upravlenie of the Reignof Oleg[Nachal'noe Olega].Otherof Catherine's worksincludeoperalibrettianddramas basedon folk material andsongs.All scripts of Oh, can be found in Russianin volumes 1-4 of Pypin. My own Englishtranslations These Times!and The SiberianShamanare forthcomingfrom Gordon and Breach's RussianTheatreArchiveseries. See Ryu for a detailedconsideration of Schwartz and Rosicrucianism in Russia. were the followersof Louis-Claude, Martinists authorof the Marquisde Saint-Martin, de la Verite, in Russianin 1785. 1775Des Erreurs published Catherineis generallyconsideredto have been the editor and mastermind behindAll Sorts [Vsiakaiavsiachina];see Herzen for a refutationof this assumption.The most famousof Novikov'sjournalswas TheDrone[Truten']. When Paulaccededto the thronein 1796, Novikovwas releasedfromprison.For a fine figure,see Jones. exegesisof Novikov'spositionas an Enlightenment In this 1785incident,Cagliostro wasimplicated, Rohan,in an alleged alongwithCardinal was subsequently plot to sell a false necklaceto MarieAntoinette;Cagliostro imprisoned in the Bastille. From a letter to Grimmof 7 Dec. 1779;Englishtranslation from McArthur 531-532. The Deceiverconcernsa alchemistwho attemptsto swindlea gulliblefamily.His name, is perhapsa punningconnectionto Cagliostro Kalifalkzherston, (Pypin1: 247-286). The DeceivedOne'scentralcharacter is the mysticBarmotin,a swindlerwhose actions associatehim with Freemasonry (Pypin1: 289-340). David J. Welshfindsin Barmotina clearreferenceto Novikov'sclose friend,the MasonS. Gamaleia(23). The plays were not Catherine's firstliteraryattackson Masonry.Her The Secretof the Anti-AbsurdSociety, Discoveredby an Outsider[Tainaprotivo-nelepago obshchestva, ne prichastnym and Masonicorganizaonomu]was "a satireon Freemasonry otkrytaia tions and parodiesMasonicrituals,emblems,and doctrine" (Gukovskii67). The work, writtenin Frenchin 1780,was backdated witha 1759publication date, possibly probably to avoid the appearanceof being a direct commentary on contemporary issues. See Shchebal'skii 112-113 for a discussion of the datingcontroversy. See Shchebal'skii 123 concerningKhrapovitskii's ambiguouswordsin this diaryentry, that he received Shamanto copy from the original,as he had done with Catherine's version of The MerryWivesof Windsor.Shchebal'skii notes that this referenceto an
original seems to be a slip of the tongue: "BepoaTHoeMy nopyIeHO 6bJIOnepenHcaTbH

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13

was entrustedto re-copyand to make cilejaTbHcnpaBJIeHi" (Probably, [Khrapovitskii] corrections).During my researchin Catherine'sarchives,I examinedthe two extant of the play. Both are in Catherine's and each containsmany manuscripts handwriting, in the drafts. examplesof the Empress'writingprocess,throughchangesand alterations See the RussianStateArchiveof EarlyActs [Rossisskii arkhivdrevnikh gosudarstvennyi aktov (RGADA, formerlyTsGADA)] in Moscow(fond 10, opis 1, delo 336). Archival researchfor this articlewas supportedby a grantfrom the International Researchand of State (Title VIII) and ExchangesBoard, with fundsprovidedby the US Department the NationalEndowmentfor the Humanities. None of these organizations is responsible for the viewsexpressed. 14 Vsevolodskii-Gerngross 471 gives performance datesin Moscowas August11, Sept. 15, and November5 of 1787. 15 The full Frenchtitle is Antidote,ou examendu mauvais livreintitule en Siberie Voyage fait en 1761;see volume7 of Pypinfor the completetext.

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16 One particularly noteworthypublishedaccountis Pallas;because Catherineand the ImperialAcademyof Sciencesdirectlysupportedhis work, she is certainto have been with Pallas'saccountsin specificshamanistic familiar customs. 17 Note that this letter to Zimmerman for predatesher givingthe copy to Khrapovitskii amendment,and also predatesthe premiere. 18 See Flaherty, chapterfive, on Diderot'sinterestin shamanism. 19 Catherine had drawnheavilyon the Encyclopedia twentyyearsearlieras she formulated her Instruction [Nakaz](Alexander101). 20 The surnamePernatovmay derive from the adjectivepernatyi(feathery).Prelestais a speakingname with severalpossibleconnotations. Althoughin generalusage, the word othersynonymsincluded prelest'meansloveliness,or charm,in the eighteenth-century, obman(deception)or soblazn(seduction)(Gribble). 21 Froma 30 Sept. 1787letter in Frenchto Grimm. 22 Literally, one who paystwo tributes; in thiscontext,mostlikelyreferring to one who paid iasak(tribute)to both Russiaand China(Dal'). 23 Cf. scene III.iii of The Deceiver:when the alchemistKalifalkzherston's cauldronbursts offstage. 24 Pallas comparedthe shamans'ritualsto such dramaticforms as farces or pantomimes (Flaherty73). 25 The wordfor barkingusedhere is the Russianword".nai" or lai meaning thusit barking; is a pun on Lai'sname. 26 Theirpossiblepresencein II.i complicates the readingof this scene as a gesturalsoliloquy. Werethese followerspresentwhen Lai was alone in his chamber? 27 One possiblevisualclue thatthe Ambanis beingsatirized as a Freemason is the presence of the open book. A Bible, opened to a particular passageas a sourceof wisdom,is a traditional partof the settingin a Masoniclodge (Mackey113). 28 In my colleagueRuthP. Dawson'sforthcoming essay,she examinesthe issuesof marriage and familystabilityas they relateto occultismin this trilogy,observing that in both The Deceiverand The SiberianShaman,it is the female characters who are ill and must be cured.

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