Blessed obtuities. The cultural history of foolishness

Who are the holy fools and why in ancient Russia they were called obscenities? What is the difference between the fools for the sake from the ordinary crazy? Why is foolishness as an institution in Russia simultaneously with the autocracy? What was the attitude to the played, culturally interpreted madness in the Middle East and ancient Greece? Can Prince Myshkin or Vladimir Zhirinovsky be considered the holy fool? And Oleg Kulik and Pussy Ryot? Why should the monk go to the tavern? And for what purpose, in the end, is holy fool? Historian Sergei Ivanov, using a fantastic amount of materials, from ancient texts to modern research, gives an exhaustive, fascinating and incredibly informative description of foolishness as a religious-cultural phenomenon, tracking its history from the Byzantine empire to a new time