Self-immolation

The Old Believers – a religious Russian sect that refused to adhere to the dogmas of the reformed Orthodox Church in the seventeenth century, were heavily persecuted by the state. Many of the Old Believers preferred suicide through self-immolation to torture and public execution. This paper argues however, that some of these immolations could have been staged and used as an escape method via the clever use of superstitions. We show that the Old Believers purposefully staged their immolations in remote locations, effectively turning their burnt down villages into gravesites, in accordance with the superstition of the Orthodox Church that condemned suicide. We claim that this outcome was beneficial for both sides of the conflict. For the Old Believers, the staged immolation prevented further investigation and chase by the state armies through leveraging the fear of desecrating the newly created gravesites. At the same time, the Russian state was provided with a formal excuse to end the extremely costly investigation. Evidence from numerous historical sources supports our novel theoretical approach.