BABA YAGA
Sabat 3. THE CRONE ISSUE
BABA YAGA Decoding Russia’s most famous Witch.
By
Sonya Vatomsky @acoolniceghost Illustration by
Bill Crisafi
106 | 107
@billsafi
Photography by
Lucile Haute @luh2203
These days the name Baba Yaga is almost as well known in the Western world as in her Slavic homeland, immediately conjuring up images of a Witch who lives in a hut on chicken legs and flies through the forest in a mortar, pestle as rudder and a broom to hide her tracks. Her rejection of beauty and fearsome independence have made her a modern feminist icon, but translation has taken much of Baba Yaga’s bite: far from being a mere patriarchally-assigned Witch figure used to scare children, this crone “transcends definition” 1. Within traditional Russian stories, Baba Yaga performs a variety of functions — indeed, she is “unique among Witches and Witch-like characters in world folklore” 2. The Russian ved’ma we know as an almost Disney-style Witch riding cartoonishly in her mortar bears more resemblance to Greek Goddess Hecate, appearing primarily in heroic quest tales and serving (at her whim) as a guide and protector, as well as a mediary of the boundary between life and death. I will examine Baba Yaga’s historical roots and the elements of her story that were lost as it traveled West, hoping to paint a fuller picture of this woman as a figure of great power and agency. People often ask me where they should start when beginning to explore Russian fairy tales. Is there a book? Who wrote the story of Baba Yaga? Yet that is not how it works. In Russia, my Russia of the eighties, stories came not from books but from mothers and grandmothers, improvised on a whim and constantly in flux. While several tomes (such as Alexander Afanasyev’s collection of Russian fairy tales) are well-known and often-cited as primary sources of Russian folklore, a true primary source is always further back. Afanasyev’s famous anthology is a compendium of different tales from different regions, and frequently books of folklore include multiple versions of the same story, to show how it changes. Russian stories have a rich oral history,
and it is this flexibility which makes them, and stories of Baba Yaga in particular, so compelling. If a culture will change the grammatical declension of a noun because Pushkin once altered it for a rhyme, imagine what plot twists can appear at the discretion of a story-teller! Folklore rejects the concept of canon: what draws the most applause one night can become indispensable for years to follow. Though Baba Yaga appears in the West as a singular entity, there are, in fact, multiple Baba Yagas. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves — let’s backtrack a little. What does Baba Yaga mean? Well, “baba” is a dismissive and pejorative term for an old woman, for starters. It’s also part of the word “babushka,” or grandmother, often used along with a first name as a familial form of address. When children hear tales of Baba Yaga, as I did, grandmothers are likely the only other Babas they know. Baba Vera, my maternal grandmother. Baba Tamara, my paternal great-grandmother. And Baba Yaga. The latter part, “Yaga”, is not otherwise used in a country that as late as the eighties was still naming children almost exclusively after Orthodox saints. I will tell you a secret, though: the accent is on the second syllable — Baba Yagá — and the first syllable is usually condensed into a short i sound, something like Yigá. Charmed, I’m sure. Like most Goddesses (and unlike most Western Witches), Baba Yaga is both benevolent and dangerous — more unpredictable than evil. In many stories she appears in threes: a triune of Baba Yagas that are sisters or cousins and who guide the protagonist through their adventure. Baba Yaga has no allegiance to the devil or to God or even to the story-teller — she “decides on a case by case basis whether she will help or hurt people who come to her” 1. Furthermore, Baba Yaga often provides supplies and magical items crucial to a hero’s journey, and dispenses wisdom as often as punishment
BAC K Baba Yaga
popular culture echoes a linguistic phenomenon where time shifts meaning from positive or neutral to neutral or negative. A trend seen with the “gyno” in “gynecology,” which has its root in what was formerly the word for queen. A potent ruler has become a generic term for “woman,” and an “amalgamation of deities mixed with a dose of sorcery”1 has transformed into a commonplace — though slightly exotic — Witch. While Witches are currently enjoying a surge in positive associations, it’s important to consider the historical context of the term, which was used to strip women of power and knowledge as “the earlier ramified functions of the elderly woman as educator, record keeper, healer, arbiter of morality, and so on, [were] handed over to the patriarchal Church” 4. As we reclaim the title of Witch, we must also reclaim the titles Witch came to obscure and replace, and the multifaceted roles held by the crone. Of the three aspects of the Goddess it is this one which is the most feared, because it is this one that is the most dangerous to the patriarchy; this fear, however, should not be centered when we discuss the crone’s vital importance. Baba Yaga is many things, and even many women. She is an ogre and a cannibal, a gentle guide and wise teacher. She lives at the border of the land of the dead, but Bilibin’s famous illustration of her fence of skulls is perhaps more memento mori than morbid. She may be related to the Scythian goddess Tabiti or the Greek goddess Hecate, and she holds within her a piece of every mother and grandmother who has ever passed on her story. If you are brave, she will help you. If you are innocent, she will protect you. And if you come upon a forest clearing where a hut stands on chicken legs, say: “Izbushka, izbushka…”
TURN YOU R
TO T H E F O R E S T, AND YOU R F RO NT
108 | 109
— which she generally reserves for those who deserve it. She holds dominion over the forest and possesses magical powers, but she uses them primarily to teach children about etiquette and propriety. Folklorist Vladimir Propp believes that Baba Yaga tales are actually remnants of coming-of-age rituals, which aligns the crone more with Cinderella’s fairy godmother than with Snow-White’s Witch-queen. In fact, Baba Yaga actually has “very few characteristics of Western Witches [who were] demonized by the Church and portrayed as beautiful and seductive”1. This is notable because of the thin and patriarchally-drawn line between the archetype of the crone and the figure of the Witch — Baba Yaga has been boiled down, but is what remains her true essence? Propp classifies Baba Yaga as a “tester” and “donor”: Baba Yaga tales often show her sharing weapons and tools as well as assigning challenges. Koschei the Deathless, her sometimes-lover and sometimes-servant, is just one facet of her role in death and rebirth — she lives at the boundary of the underworld and guards passage in and out of it, and her connection with children and the hearth suggest an association with domestic Goddesses more than with villains. Her home on chicken legs, izbushka, is translated as “hut” but the word refers simply to a house made of hewn logs, not to a small or shabbily-constructed abode. She is also depicted at the loom, which brings to mind images of the Fates as spinners or weavers1, and her command over the Horsemen of Dawn, Sun, and Night in Vasilisa The Beautiful, perhaps the most famous Baba Yaga tale, has caused people to speculate that she is descended from a Pagan sun Goddess3. What has happened happened during Baba Yaga’s migration into Western
Sabat 3. THE CRONE ISSUE
" LIKE MOST GODDESSES (AND UNLIKE MOST WESTERN WITCHES), BABA YAGA IS BOTH BENEVOLENT AND DANGEROUS — MORE UNPREDICTABLE THAN EVIL.
FURTHER READING: 1. Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales by Jack Zipes, Sibelan Forrester, Helena Goscilo, Martin Skoro. 2. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale by Andreas Johns 3. The Scythian and Sarmatian Sources of the Russian Mythology and Fairy-Tales by Sergei V. Rjabchikov 4. The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power by Barbara G. Walker
TO M E .
BABA YAGA Decoding Russia’s most famous Witch.
By
Sonya Vatomsky @acoolniceghost Illustration by
Bill Crisafi
106 | 107
@billsafi
Photography by
Lucile Haute @luh2203
These days the name Baba Yaga is almost as well known in the Western world as in her Slavic homeland, immediately conjuring up images of a Witch who lives in a hut on chicken legs and flies through the forest in a mortar, pestle as rudder and a broom to hide her tracks. Her rejection of beauty and fearsome independence have made her a modern feminist icon, but translation has taken much of Baba Yaga’s bite: far from being a mere patriarchally-assigned Witch figure used to scare children, this crone “transcends definition” 1. Within traditional Russian stories, Baba Yaga performs a variety of functions — indeed, she is “unique among Witches and Witch-like characters in world folklore” 2. The Russian ved’ma we know as an almost Disney-style Witch riding cartoonishly in her mortar bears more resemblance to Greek Goddess Hecate, appearing primarily in heroic quest tales and serving (at her whim) as a guide and protector, as well as a mediary of the boundary between life and death. I will examine Baba Yaga’s historical roots and the elements of her story that were lost as it traveled West, hoping to paint a fuller picture of this woman as a figure of great power and agency. People often ask me where they should start when beginning to explore Russian fairy tales. Is there a book? Who wrote the story of Baba Yaga? Yet that is not how it works. In Russia, my Russia of the eighties, stories came not from books but from mothers and grandmothers, improvised on a whim and constantly in flux. While several tomes (such as Alexander Afanasyev’s collection of Russian fairy tales) are well-known and often-cited as primary sources of Russian folklore, a true primary source is always further back. Afanasyev’s famous anthology is a compendium of different tales from different regions, and frequently books of folklore include multiple versions of the same story, to show how it changes. Russian stories have a rich oral history,
and it is this flexibility which makes them, and stories of Baba Yaga in particular, so compelling. If a culture will change the grammatical declension of a noun because Pushkin once altered it for a rhyme, imagine what plot twists can appear at the discretion of a story-teller! Folklore rejects the concept of canon: what draws the most applause one night can become indispensable for years to follow. Though Baba Yaga appears in the West as a singular entity, there are, in fact, multiple Baba Yagas. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves — let’s backtrack a little. What does Baba Yaga mean? Well, “baba” is a dismissive and pejorative term for an old woman, for starters. It’s also part of the word “babushka,” or grandmother, often used along with a first name as a familial form of address. When children hear tales of Baba Yaga, as I did, grandmothers are likely the only other Babas they know. Baba Vera, my maternal grandmother. Baba Tamara, my paternal great-grandmother. And Baba Yaga. The latter part, “Yaga”, is not otherwise used in a country that as late as the eighties was still naming children almost exclusively after Orthodox saints. I will tell you a secret, though: the accent is on the second syllable — Baba Yagá — and the first syllable is usually condensed into a short i sound, something like Yigá. Charmed, I’m sure. Like most Goddesses (and unlike most Western Witches), Baba Yaga is both benevolent and dangerous — more unpredictable than evil. In many stories she appears in threes: a triune of Baba Yagas that are sisters or cousins and who guide the protagonist through their adventure. Baba Yaga has no allegiance to the devil or to God or even to the story-teller — she “decides on a case by case basis whether she will help or hurt people who come to her” 1. Furthermore, Baba Yaga often provides supplies and magical items crucial to a hero’s journey, and dispenses wisdom as often as punishment
BAC K Baba Yaga
popular culture echoes a linguistic phenomenon where time shifts meaning from positive or neutral to neutral or negative. A trend seen with the “gyno” in “gynecology,” which has its root in what was formerly the word for queen. A potent ruler has become a generic term for “woman,” and an “amalgamation of deities mixed with a dose of sorcery”1 has transformed into a commonplace — though slightly exotic — Witch. While Witches are currently enjoying a surge in positive associations, it’s important to consider the historical context of the term, which was used to strip women of power and knowledge as “the earlier ramified functions of the elderly woman as educator, record keeper, healer, arbiter of morality, and so on, [were] handed over to the patriarchal Church” 4. As we reclaim the title of Witch, we must also reclaim the titles Witch came to obscure and replace, and the multifaceted roles held by the crone. Of the three aspects of the Goddess it is this one which is the most feared, because it is this one that is the most dangerous to the patriarchy; this fear, however, should not be centered when we discuss the crone’s vital importance. Baba Yaga is many things, and even many women. She is an ogre and a cannibal, a gentle guide and wise teacher. She lives at the border of the land of the dead, but Bilibin’s famous illustration of her fence of skulls is perhaps more memento mori than morbid. She may be related to the Scythian goddess Tabiti or the Greek goddess Hecate, and she holds within her a piece of every mother and grandmother who has ever passed on her story. If you are brave, she will help you. If you are innocent, she will protect you. And if you come upon a forest clearing where a hut stands on chicken legs, say: “Izbushka, izbushka…”
TURN YOU R
TO T H E F O R E S T, AND YOU R F RO NT
108 | 109
— which she generally reserves for those who deserve it. She holds dominion over the forest and possesses magical powers, but she uses them primarily to teach children about etiquette and propriety. Folklorist Vladimir Propp believes that Baba Yaga tales are actually remnants of coming-of-age rituals, which aligns the crone more with Cinderella’s fairy godmother than with Snow-White’s Witch-queen. In fact, Baba Yaga actually has “very few characteristics of Western Witches [who were] demonized by the Church and portrayed as beautiful and seductive”1. This is notable because of the thin and patriarchally-drawn line between the archetype of the crone and the figure of the Witch — Baba Yaga has been boiled down, but is what remains her true essence? Propp classifies Baba Yaga as a “tester” and “donor”: Baba Yaga tales often show her sharing weapons and tools as well as assigning challenges. Koschei the Deathless, her sometimes-lover and sometimes-servant, is just one facet of her role in death and rebirth — she lives at the boundary of the underworld and guards passage in and out of it, and her connection with children and the hearth suggest an association with domestic Goddesses more than with villains. Her home on chicken legs, izbushka, is translated as “hut” but the word refers simply to a house made of hewn logs, not to a small or shabbily-constructed abode. She is also depicted at the loom, which brings to mind images of the Fates as spinners or weavers1, and her command over the Horsemen of Dawn, Sun, and Night in Vasilisa The Beautiful, perhaps the most famous Baba Yaga tale, has caused people to speculate that she is descended from a Pagan sun Goddess3. What has happened happened during Baba Yaga’s migration into Western
Sabat 3. THE CRONE ISSUE
" LIKE MOST GODDESSES (AND UNLIKE MOST WESTERN WITCHES), BABA YAGA IS BOTH BENEVOLENT AND DANGEROUS — MORE UNPREDICTABLE THAN EVIL.
FURTHER READING: 1. Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales by Jack Zipes, Sibelan Forrester, Helena Goscilo, Martin Skoro. 2. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale by Andreas Johns 3. The Scythian and Sarmatian Sources of the Russian Mythology and Fairy-Tales by Sergei V. Rjabchikov 4. The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power by Barbara G. Walker
TO M E .
