Yurodstvo (holy foolishness) is widely regarded as a "Russian national phenomenon". This Christian ascetic paradigm, though present in Eastern monastic literature since the fifth century, has gained wider cultural significance only in Russia. Christian Munch chronicles the interpretations of yurodstvo and the multiple religious, social and cultural significance the practice received in Tsarist Russia (1547-1917). Its main temporal focus is on the Imperial Period (18th-19th centuries), when yurodivye (holy fools) were persecuted by church and state, before they were placed in modern literature and theology by poets and thinkers who took notice of them. Based on an extensive corpus of texts ranging from medieval hagiography through legal decrees to modern religious literature and fiction, the study presents yurodstvo comprehensively and in all its facets.