Why They Were Superstitious
2023, Steven B. Zwickel
A young man was telling me he’d walk around the block rather than let a black cat cross his path, so we got to talking about superstitions and different cultures and why people believe in them. That got me to thinking more about why my family emigrated to the US from Galicia (Galicia comprised parts of Eastern Poland and Western Ukraine) and what led some of them to believe in curses, spells, and magic.
In an earlier post about my family’s immigration experience, I wrote about how “food shortages, overpopulation, disease, and poverty” pushed them to leave Eastern Europe. The more I looked into this, the clearer it became that they were often the victims of forces over which they had no control. Here are some examples of just how awful life must have been in the old country and which may explain why, in the days before science and technology were available to help, they may have been superstitious.
Food shortages and Famine
Famines in Galicia, resulting in 50,000 deaths a year from malnutrition, were frequent and have been described as endemic. (See Wikipedia entry for “Famines in Austrian Galicia” < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Austrian_Galicia>)
According to Wikipedia, “Famines in Austrian Galicia were a common occurrence, particularly in the mid to late 19th century, as Galicia became heavily overpopulated. Triggered primarily by natural disasters such as floods and blights, famines, compounded by overpopulation, led to starvation, widespread malnutrition, epidemics, poverty, an average of 50,000 deaths a year, and from the 1870s to the beginning of World War I, emigration.”
Famines in Galicia during the 19th century
[Sources cited in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Austrian_Galicia are indicated by letters]
1804–1806 a
1811–1813 a
1832 a
1836 Heavy flooding destroyed crops
1844 grain and potato crop failure after severe rains and floodingb and famine lasted until 1848a
1845 potato blight {Phytophthora infestans}d followed by more flooding and blight in 1846 c d
1847 partially caused by political unrest and rioting in 1846.b The 1847 famine is estimated to have affected ~90% of the Galician population, and resulted in at least 227,000 deaths.b
1848 famine, ~140,000 deaths.e with reports of cannibalism. b
1849 famine f with some 40,000 deaths. e
1850 famine due to potato blight. b
1853–1854 starvation h “The Great Famine”
1855 famine f
1865 famine f
1865–1866 starvation h
1871–1872 starvation h
1876 famine f
1880 g
1889 famine f For more on the famine of 1889, see <https://doroshheritagetours.com/galician-tragedy-in-1889/> and Martin Pollack The Emperor of America: The Big Escape from Galicia.
And a large famine affected many Eastern European territories, including Galicia, as late as 1913.
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Sources cited in < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famines_in_Austrian_Galicia>
a Maria Skowronek (1987). Losy Polaków w XIX-XX w: studia ofiarowane prof. Stefanowi Kieniewiczowi w osiemdziesiątą rocznicę Jego urodzin. Państwowe Wydawn. Nauk. p. 61. ISBN 978-83-01-06985-8. [The fate of Poles in the 19th and 20th centuries: In honor of Prof. Stefan Kieniewicz on his 80th birthday. State Publishing. Science.]
b Keely Stauter-Halsted (28 February 2005). The Nation In The Village: The Genesis Of Peasant National Identity In Austrian Poland, 1848–1914. Cornell University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-8014-8996-9.
c Stefan Kieniewicz (1951). Ruch chłopski w Galicji w 1846 roku. Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolińskich. p. 328.
d Stanisław Grodziski (1976). W królestwie Galicji i Lodomerii. Wydawn. Literackie. p. 175
e Stefan L. Zaleski (1921). General Demography of Poland. Committee for the Polish Encyclopaedic Publications. p. 142
f Alison Fleig Frank (2005). Oil empire. Harvard University Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-674-03718-2.
g Larry Wolff (9 January 2012). The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture. Stanford University Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-8047-7429-1.
h Krzysztof Dunin-Wąsowicz (1956). History of the People's Party in Galicia. Ludowa Spółdzielnia Widawnicza. p. 19
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The direct reasons for famines are often given as bad weather and blights (in particular potato blight), but other factors contributed. Most people living in Galicia were subsistence farmers and nearly all of the crops or livestock raised were used to feed and care for the farmer’s family. People had almost no cash to buy tools or other items.
Because they used primitive farming techniques, unchanged since the Middle Ages, agricultural productivity in Galicia was the lowest of all the provinces of Austria and one of the lowest in Europe. (Markovits, Andrei S. & Sysyn, Frank E. “The Ukrainians in Galicia Under Austrian Rule” Nationbuilding and the Politics of Nationalism: Essays on Austrian Galicia. (1982, Harvard University Press) at http://jgaliciabukovina.net/ ISBN: 9780674603127 p.52)
Epidemics
The Jews of Galicia lived under very difficult housing and health conditions.Farmers living in close proximity to farm animals (and their waste), rodents, insects, and lacking clean water suffered terribly from the diseases mentioned. About 60% of eastern Galicia's Jews lived in cities and towns and urban life in Galicia wasn’t much better. (Encyclopedia of Ukraine <http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/pages/J/E/Jews.htm> ) Neighborhoods were often dirty, crowded, and dark. With their immune systems weakened by an unhealthy diet, diseases like tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, typhoid fever, and dysentery spread and killed people.
Modern medicine—with its understanding of infection, sanitation, nutrition, and hygiene—didn’t reach Galicia until the late 1800s. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 1900s that the health service eliminated smallpox by vaccinating infants. (Berner, Włodzimierz. “Stan sanitarny, ochrona zdrowia i sytuacja epidemiologiczna chorób zakaźnych we Lwowie w okresie autonomii galicyjskiej”. (Lata 60./70. XIX W. -do 1914 R.) [“Sanitary conditions, medical care and epidemiology situation of infectious diseases in Lvov in the period of Galicia autonomy” (from the 1860s/70s to 1914)]. Przegl Epidemiol. 2007; 61(4): 815-25. Polish. PMID: 18572515. <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18572515/>)
Epidemics in Galicia during the 19th century
Cholera epidemics spread to Galician towns in 1854, 1873, and 1894 and the people, already weak from lack of food, died by the thousands. (Wrobel, Piotr “The Jews of Galicia under Austrian-Polish Rule, 1867-1918” (1994, Austrian History Yearbook, 25) pp.97-138.))
Other epidemics that affected Eastern Europe (Michał Szukała “Ashes, Ashes We All Fall Down”: A History of Epidemics in Poland <https://polishhistory.pl/ashes-ashes-we-all-fall-down-a-history-of-epidemics-in-poland/ >) included:
1829 Cholera — Began in 1826 in India; in 1830, 37595 killed. By 1831 in Russian cities and towns (197,069 deaths in 1831); especially severe in Volhynia, Podolioa, Grodno, Vilna; brought to Poland by soldiers: Warsaw April 14, 1831; Hungary, June 1831 (100,000 deaths).
1831 Influenza — Began in China 1829; November 1830 –Moscow; January 1831-St. Petersburg; February- Baltic; March-Warsaw; April-Breslau, Berlin, East Prussia; May- Budapest, Prague, Vienna; October-Hamburg. Low mortality
1831 Cholera pandemic — August 1831-from Poland to Berlin; October 1831-Hamburg <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1826–1837_cholera_pandemic>
1831 Plague in Moldova & Wallachia — merged with cholera
1836 Influenza — November 1836-Russia; December-Berlin, Hamburg. More deaths than previous pandemics.
1847 Cholera
1847 Typhus (or some other, unknown fever)
1848 Cholera pandemic — All over Europe.
1850 Bubonic Plague pandemic
1851 Cholera — Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia. Spread to adjoining Russian provinces and Prussia.
1854 Dysentery, Cholera, Scurvy, Typhus — Crimea/Ukraine spread during Crimean War
1854 Cholera — Galicia The Wielka Cholera (The Great Cholera)
1867 Cholera — Europe, Russia, Germany (115,000 deaths), Austria (80,000 deaths), Hungary (30,000 deaths).
1870-75 Smallpox — Europe
1873 Cholera — Galicia (The Little Cholera). Germany (33,000 deaths), Hungary (190,000 deaths) July-August-troops retreating from Poland and Galicia; Volhynia, Minsk, Mogilev and Grodno.Influenza Asia, Europe Mid-November 1889-Central Europe; late November-Gdansk, Warsaw, Berlin; by December most of Europe. Morbidity ⅓–½. Overall mortality 0.75–1 deaths per 1000 (Highest death toll of any 19th century disease).
1899 Cholera pandemic
1910 Cholera — June 1910-Eastern Ukraine (230,000 cases with 110,000 deaths-case fatality rate 45%) Ekateinoslav (18,894 cases); Kiev (4077 cases).
1914 Cholera — Austria [outbreak of WWI diseases spread with armies and refugees]
1915 Typhus — Russia
1915 Cholera — Russia July-August-troops retreating from Poland and Galicia; Volhynia, Minsk, Mogilev and Grodno.
1918 Influenza pandemic— 30,000,000 deaths <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics>
Epidemic Diseases — cures and prevention today
Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingesting contaminated food or water. Two oral cholera vaccines are now available. Cholera is now treated by replacing lost fluids and electrolytes with oral rehydration salts (ORS), which is available as a powder mixed into boiled or bottled water. Without rehydration, approximately half the people with cholera die. <https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/cholera/symptoms-causes/syc-20355287>
Influenza is a highly contagious viral infection of the respiratory passages causing fever, severe aching, and catarrh, and often occurring in epidemics, such as SARS and Covid-19. Nowadays there are vaccines that provide protection against the most dangerous effects of influenza and drugs can be used to treat the disease. <https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/flu/symptoms-causes/syc-20351719>
Plague is a life-threatening diseases caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacteria found in small animals and in their fleas, which bite humans and spread the disease. There is no vaccine available to protect people from bubonic plague. Antibiotics such as streptomycin, gentamicin, doxycycline, or ciprofloxacin are used to treat plague. <https://www.cdc.gov/plague/index.html>
Tuberculosis (TB) is a bacterial infection of the lungs. Tuberculosis can spread when a person with the illness coughs, sneezes or sings. This can put tiny droplets with the germs into the air. Another person can then breathe in the droplets, and the germs enter the lungs. <https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tuberculosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20351250> It became epidemic in Europe in the 18th and 19th century, showing a seasonal pattern, and is still taking place globally. Today TB can be treated with a combination of anti-bacterial drugs.<https://www.who.int/activities/treating-tuberculosis>
Typhoid fever is spread through food that's come into contact with fecal Salmonella bacteria. Typhoid fever is spread through food that's come into contact with fecal bacteria, often in contaminated water. Nowadays there is a typhoid vaccine to protect people from typhoid fever. Antibiotic therapy is the only effective treatment for typhoid fever. <https://www.cdc.gov/typhoid-fever/index.html>
Typhus (Spotted Fever) is an infectious disease caused by rickettsiae (very small bacteria), characterized by a purple rash, headaches, fever, and usually delirium. It is also called camp fever, jail fever, and war fever, names that suggest overcrowding, underwashing, and lowered standards of living. and was historically a cause of high mortality during wars and famines. Typhus is transmitted by lice, ticks, mites, and rat fleas. Typhus can now be cured by antibiotics like chloramphenicol and by the tetracyclines. A vaccine for typhus was developed during World War II and is quite effective. <https://www.britannica.com/science/typhus>
Is it any wonder, then, that faced with starvation, sickness, and grinding poverty, they turned to magic—superstition, amulets, faith healers, and charms—to try to ward off the evil forces that made life so painful (and short)?
✒ For more about mysticism and superstition among Eastern European Jews (and their non-Jewish neighbors), see Men of Silk : the Hasidic Conquest of Polish Jewish Society; Glenn Dynner (2006; Oxford U. Press)
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