Ivan the Fool: Russian Folk Belief: A Cultural History

This masterly and extremely readable survey covers folk superstitions and customs, house and nature spirits, pagan gods, Christianization, saints, icons, the Schism, Old Believers, religious sects, and the characters and symbolism in Russian fairy tales that could be called the origin of the Russian psyche.

Andrei Sinyavsky (1925–1997) was also known as Abram Tertz.