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.”
* * *
Later in their discourse, Akulina admits to seemingly psychic powers.
* * *
“So, thou dost see the future.”
* * *
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment