What is this?
In the fourth circle of Kozachok's Inferno, we find the realm of Heresy. The definition of heresy is a belief or action at odds with what is accepted, especially when the behavior is contrary to religious doctrine or belief. In our context, we find those who behaved exactly as the opposite of what they were supposed to behave and teach about, those who took from the people who were supposed to get help and support.
What is going on here?
The circle hell of Heresy contains all sorts of people. We see merely a small portion of a gigantic sauna, and in more accurate words this would be described as a banya, a Russian type of sauna, a kind of steam bath.
This sauna or banya is never opened. Inside, the steam makes the air very difficult to breath, the skin gets blisters, burns and everybody is very fatigued and dizzy. There are plenty ponds of water, which is not boiling but is also more than just warm. In the middle of their desperation to find a way to escape this sauna, people try to climb around it and they often fall, splashing more water on the hot rocks, creating even more steam in there.
In this artwork we can see several priests who lived a life of hypocrisy, because in this circle, heresy is more about hypocrisy. Some might end here even when refusing to offer a burial to an old widow's husband living in poverty just because she can't afford the fees, while in the same time telling her to pray for a miracle to her problem. Some end here not because they didn't believe in their religion, but because they chose it, identified with it and then acted against it while still claiming to be part of it. An atheist would never end up here.
The gigantic pig humanoid guardian in the window of the sauna, symbolizes several things, however I will name just one note which is that the ones looking outside the window waiting for a hope for all of this to end, they will constantly be reminded of one thing. "Kozachok's Inferno" is a personal version, a customized representation of the 9 circles of hell, influenced by Dante's Inferno, the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy, which is a long Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321.
It is not a direct reproduction of Dante's Inferno, I do not follow the accuracy of those layers or circles of hell, except the main theme (eg circle of Lust, of Gluttony, of Greed etc), but the reasons and punishments of each circle of hell will be different in my version.
