The sect of the castrates (skoptsi) in Russia, a reform of the older sect of the flagellants (khlysti), was founded in Orlov province in the second half of the eighteenth century by a peasant named Kondraty Selivanov. To combat the promiscuous behavior that generally accompanied the “zeals” of the flagellants, he introduced the practice of self-castration. The sect, which for some reason attracted many rich merchants, moneylenders, and goldsmiths, was condemned by the Church and forbidden by law.

From the Notes to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, London: Granta Books, 2001, p. 623.