Sąsiedzkie czarowstwo – historia ukraińskich wiedźm

Neighborly Witchcraft: The History of Ukrainian Witches The author reviews Kateryna Dysa’s Ukrainian Witchcraft Trials: Volhynia, Podolia, and Ruthenia, 17th–18th Centuries (2024), focusing on the socio-political functionalization of witchcraft in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of the 17th and 18th centuries. The review is primarily descriptive but also highlights the most significant achievements of research in this area. Dysa relies mainly on Polish-language historical documents. In characterizing the specificity of her research, she employs the metaphor of the “anatomy of witchcraft accusations.” By framing her methodology in this way, she signals that her primary interest lies in the socio-cultural context, and thus she attempts to reconstruct the worldview of the contemporary community. Keywords: witchcraft, witch trials, Ukraine, witch, neighborly conflicts