Climate Change

A century ago, world concern dwelt on many of the same topics that trouble us today.  War, immigration and terrorism were splashed across yesterday's newspapers. While climate change worries were not as widespread as today, there was ampprehension.  Following the hostilities in 1918, the world suffered through the coldest winters on record and my characters in Siberia felt the effects.

Ohio weather follows no pattern

I introduced the subject of climate change in the first half of my novel Slogans: Our Children Our Future.  Just like the present, my characters offered diverse and conflicting theories on the cause of the sudden dip in temperatures.  I tried not to take a stand on the cause of climatic fluctuation, but offered several scenarios that people of that period may have put forward, sometimes in a humorous manner.

The Ohio River near Paducah, Kentucky - 1918

The Old Believer Theory

Simon Petr, leader of the Old Believers, placed the blame for weather conditions squarely on the shoulders of the village's Polish Catholics.

* * *

It was the coldest February in memory.  During the day tree limbs burst like rifle shots and at night the stars whispered their deadly song.  Simon Petr greeted the phenomena by again donning sackcloth and parading through Unkurda announcing yet another sign of End Time. He attributed the temperature's plunge to divine wrath.  “Tis,” he proclaimed in a deep, Biblical tone, “more of God's displeasure with the unbelievers' Christmas Tide and the daily blasphemy of the Catholics.” 

* * * 

The Ohio River frozen over - 1918

The Orthodox Theory

The followers of the Orthodox religion blamed the cold on Red and White atrocities.

* * *

The Orthodox believed the reasons for God's punishment were legion.  The Tsar and his family, “may God have mercy on their souls,” had been slaughtered, churches defiled, uncountable innocent men hanged, women outraged and children starved.

* * *

Armored Czech Legion Train - 1918

The Catholic Theory

Unlike the other religions, the Catholics did not single out one group, but laid the blame at the feet of mankind.

* * *

Even the Catholics agreed the cold was God's doing, though they did not point an accusing finger.  The depths of man's sins they said, were vast beyond forgiveness.  However, instead of sending down fire and brimstone like He had on Sodom and Gomorrah, The Almighty was sending down ice and snow.  

* * *

 

The Front

The Freethinkers

Those who chose reason over religion found the source of their misery in scientific facts.

* * *

“God's wrath?  Ridiculous,” the freethinkers of the village responded.  “We may as well wear animal hides and sacrifice virgins like our prehistoric ancestors.  True, man is responsible for the horrid weather but not by sinning.”  Their explanation was scientific.  It was the war.  The smoke and dust from tens of thousands of cannons and uncounted burning farms, villages and cities had clouded the sky and was shielding the sun's warmth.

* * *

I couldn't find a suitable climate change cartoon online, so I created my own.

Original by Me

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is a character from Eastern European fold lore.  She is an evil crone embodying the worst evils of the forests and marshes of Ukraine and Belarus and appears in all three of my novels, serving a different role in each. 

Ikons

In Ikons: Saint Nicholas the Wonder Worker, Baba Yaga represents the independent spirit of the Belarus inhabitants of the village of Hutava centered in the Pripet Marches.  

Baba Yaga

* * *

As each succeeding invasion washed over the Slavic lands the population of the marsh dwellers increased.  Faced with the terrifying choice of death, enslavement, or flight many Slavs chose flight into the Pripet.  The Pripet's inhospitable environment was refuge for the fugitives and death to the unwary.  Even Vikings and Mongols trembled at the thought of the baba yagi, the ravaging marsh demons that were said to rip the flesh from invading armies leaving only stacks of dried bones.

In the marsh the fugitives remained, built their villages and raised families in a place safe from all things, but nature.  Unconquered and resistive, future generations would never know the yoke of the Tatar or the Mongol, or the whip of the Pole.  In time the inhabitants believed it was they, not the baba yagi that kept the invaders at bay.  They, so the new legends would go, were the marsh demons of the Pripet. 

* * *

Banners

In my second novel Banners: For God, Tsar and Russia, Baba Yaga became the boggeyman.  Kataya used the myth of Baba Yaga to terrify her young nephews, Stepha and Vanya.  In this scene I show the effects of Teta Kataya's stories on the two boys.

Stefa's vision of Baba Yaga

* * *

Boris looked with dismay at Stepha.  His grandson had removed his head wrapping and defiantly stood between Ultia and Vanya.  Suddenly Stepha’s lip began to quiver and tears rolled down his eyes.  “I will not let Baba-Yaga eat Vanya,” cried Stepha.  “The witch cannot have him.”

 
Boris grabbed Stepha and held him.  “How dare you speak to this kind woman like that.  She is a good woman, not Baba-Yaga.  Where do you get these ideas?”  No sooner did Boris ask the question than he knew the answer.  A look of disdain came over his face and he turned toward Kataya.   

“Haven’t these little ones suffered enough without more of your stories?”

* * *

Slogans

In my third novel, Slogans" Our Children, Our Future,   Baba Yaga, serves several different roles.  In the first she characterizes the old woman to whom eight-year-old Stepha delivers cheese and butter.  His first encounter with the woman does not go well.

Baba Yaga's hut on fowl legs

* * *

Stepha parked his cart at the end of the weed-choked lane and started up the path to Rosina's hut with a milk jug and cheese box.  He could still vividly recall the first time his mother had taken him to Rosina's and how he had screamed because he was sure it would be his last day on earth.  He was positive Rosina's hut would rise up on chicken legs, chase him and eat him.  But that was when he was little and didn’t understand.  Now he knew the giant bones lining the pathway were from beasts that had died many, many years ago and were there to frighten evil men, not little boys.  Even the immense tusks forming the arch before Rosina's hut now inspired awe instead of terror. 

* **

Rosina's physical characters gave reason for Stepha to fear her.  It also gave her a cover for the dangerous tasks she would take on.

* * *

Nice is not a word usually used to describe Rosina Ashtakova.  Twenty-five years ago it was true, but now Rosina's appearance was truly that of a baba yaga.  A self-exiled crone, Rosina lived in the forest several versti outside Unkurda.  Her widow's black garb covered a dowager's hump right in keeping with the traditional image of baba yaga.  Add a nose flattened by a prison guard's baton and Rosina was every child's nightmare.  In her prime, however, she was anything but.

* * *

I also used the legend of Baba Yaga to illustrate Akulina's position in the Siberian village.  In this exchange between Akulina and Ultia, the older woman explains why the villagers fear Akulina.  Akulina goes on to explain away her gift, but later admits to experiencing unexplainable events.

* * *

Akulina set the cup down and wiped her hands on her apron.  “I am not peering into God's world, Ultia.  I'm just thinking and the leaves help me concentrate.”

Ultia approached the table and stood beside Akulina.  “Thinking?  Some sayest otherwise.  Some sayest thou art in league with the devil.  Some sayest,” Ultia bent toward Akulina's ear and whispered, “thou art baba yaga.”

“Baba yaga?”  Akulina shook her head, laughed and blessed herself.  “Nyet, Ultia Yauhoraka, I can assure you I'm no baba yaga.  If I had magical powers, do you think I’d be happy toiling here in Unkurda?  I would be living in Moscow or Petrograd selling love-potions to nobles.  No, I am what you see, a simple woman.”  Akulina pointed to the chair next her.  “Sit Ultia Yauhoraka and give me your hand.”

* * *

Later in their discourse, Akulina admits to seemingly psychic powers.

* * *

“So, thou dost see the future.”

“The future is there for everyone to see, Ultia Yauhoraka.”  Akulina choked back her tears.  “Perhaps I'm just foolish enough to look."

* * * 

Baba Yaga and Me

Anyone who has followed my dispatches from the writing front, knows there are parallels in Stepha's and my experiences.  So it is with Baba Yaga.  My Baba Yaga was an old women who lived in a second floor apartment off Jefferson street in Joliet.  Her striking feature was her nose, she had none.  Instead, there was a liver-colored gap between her eyes and two holes for nostrils.  

She would lean out her apartment window and call out to us as we passed by.  "Boys," she yelled in a pronounced nasal tone, "can you help me."  The first time we stopped, we stared at her, then each other.  "Please," she pleaded.

Overcoming our fear we stood beneath her window and nodded.  From that day on, whenever we walked by she called out and lowed a basket with a shopping list and a quarter.  Sometimes she sent us to the bakery and others to the pharmacy.  There was no money other than the quarter.  The shop owners recognized her list, gave us the goods and we returned it to her basket.  She always gave us a quarter, no matter how many of us appeared.  Then one day her window was shut, not to open again.  We never did learn the fate of our Baba Yaga.

Coming of age with a hack, hack, cough, cough.

For generations, a boy's big step into manhood was the cigarette.  It was the time to show the other guys you were no longer a baby.  My big leap took place at the ripe old age of eight in a fort we had constructed in the woods near Joliet's West Park. 

As kids back in late forties, our main source of income was the returnable bottle.  Empty twelve-ounce pop and beer bottles fetched two cents each, and a prized quart bottle brought in a whole nickle.  It usually didn't take more than a few days of scrounging byways and alleyways to come up with the necessary currency for smokes.

Each bottle was worth two cents

Our goal was to collect enough money for a pack of Marvels.  Marvels was not great tasting cigarette, but it was cheap.  For eight bottles we could get a pack, plus a book of matches.  The grocery store clerk usually looked the other way when a handful of pre-pubs entered, plopped down their coins and nonchalantly ordered a pack.  If the clerk hesitated, a deep-throated, "They're for my old man," usually sealed the deal.

Cheap, but effective

We were wise enough to realize we would never get past our mothers with breaths reeking of tobacco, so we also purchased a box of Sen-Sen mints.  To our young minds, the licorice scented bits would cover any suspected mischief .  They didn't.

Didn't fool a mother's nose

In my novel  Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, I was not content to have my young protagonist, Stepha, just prove himself against wolves, bullies, and marsh witches.  I decided to have him take up smoking to show his mettle.  Of course, I used my own experience to describe this particular venture into manhood.  Like all boys his age, Stepha never admitted to being a novice.  No matter what, he was not going to let the older boys deem him unworthy.

***

There was no turning back.  Stepha accepted Kolya's lit cigarette and slowly brought it towards his lips.

“You've done this before, right?” Kolya asked.  “I didn't swipe these from Yakov just so you waste 'em.”

* * *

In his mind, Stepha considered himself a seasoned veteran.

* * * 

Stepha nodded and hoped a real cigarette wasn't too different from the twigs he pretended to smoke, allowing his wintry breath to drift away like Maksim's scented clouds.

* * *

Young Russian orphans share a smoke to ward off hunger

I wrote Stepha's reaction to his first cigarette just as I remembered mine.

* * *

After the sixth puff, Stepha began felt heady and leaned against the wall, relishing the feel of cold stone.

Tolya peered into Stepha's face and grimaced.  “You don't look so good, kid.  You better sit down before you fall over.”

Gingerly, Stepha lowered himself onto the snow, dropped his head against his knees and desperately gulped for clean air.

“That's the same thing that happened to me when I first smoked Turkish,” said a rapidly fading voice.

“Ah crap, he's passing out, just like ...” were the last words Stepha heard.

* * *

In a later chapter I used smoking to show Stepha believed he was ready to assume the mantel of manhood and rebel against his mother.  In this scene, Stepha acts out against Akulina for the first time.

* * *

Akulina's face reddened and her jaw tightened as another small blade pierced her heart.  “Oh, now my Stepha thinks he's a man,” she said and rose just a tad taller to look down into her son's eyes.  “Such a big shot you are that you think you can smoke and lie to your mother.  Hah.  Next you'll have me to call you Stefan Mataovich and be addressed as thou.”
 
Yes I would, Stepha wanted to say.  He also wanted to say he was a man because he worked like a man.  He sharpened tools, moved rocks, plowed the field, sowed the seeds, and sweated and ached just like Daduska.  Maybe his arms didn't have muscles as big as Kolya's, but he could flex his forearms and biceps and wrestle down Vanya or Oleg with ease.  And if he sat with the men after a long day and enjoyed sharing a cigarette and using course language, what of it?  But he didn't utter those words.  Instead he spun around and stormed out, leaving his thoughts hanging in the air.

* * *

Stepha was now a man

It's hard to believe in today's anti-smoking world that tobacco's haze once was prevalent everywhere.  For this reason I chose the cigarette as a prop in many of my novels' scenes.  After all, they are historic fiction novels and that's the way it was.  Same planet, different world.