Witchcraft has always been a popular topic of many countries’ folklore. People loved to write and read about what they feared, and throughout history, they mainly feared the unknown. Witches and wizards were people that didn’t fit social norms. They might have been lonely, antisocial, or they might not do things that were expected from them (single and childless women, unemployed men, people who didn’t go to church and/or believed in God). Sometimes women who were “too beautiful” were accused of witchcraft as well. Witches were sometimes people (usually women) with a strong intuition, those who could predict the future. Such people were feared because of their outstanding abilities, and were often killed (especially during the Middle Ages, when church was the main social institution and the creator of all the rules) or burned alive. Such attitude might sound wild to a contemporary reader, however, it was quite a normal thing for someone who lived back in the past. Witches were thought to be those forgotten by God and those who were standing on the way of God. They were mostly females, which traces back to the creation of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. This paper examines the most famous Russian witch called Baba Yaga and proves that her image illustrates all of the Russian beliefs and assumptions about the supernatural, age, women, good and evil, and afterlife. It is one of the most important characters to consider when one examines the culture and ethics of Eastern Europe.
Baba Yaga is an Eastern European (mainly Russian) literary character that is usually portrayed as an old female witch who eats people by inviting them to her hut and essentially fooling them by giving them food and shelter. There are plenty of stories about Baba Yaga, and in each of them there are some differences and some similarities in her personality and the way she treats other people. According to Russian folklore, Baba Yaga lives in a hut surrounded by a fence made of human bones. Her hut has a major significance in all the stories about her. It is usually the first thing that a traveler sees in an empty cold forest. In “The Princess Frog”, when Prince Ivan goes to look for his bride, he encounters the hut of Baba Yaga, which he asks to turn its front to him (Russian-crafts.com). According to Oldrussia.net, “her hut seems to have a personality of its own and can move about on its extra-large chicken legs.” As we can see, the hut is able to communicate with Ivan separately from Baba Yaga herself, which emphasizes her spiritual powers and makes the setting more mysterious. Additionally, her hut is sometimes considered to be the gates to the other world, and so everyone who steps in Baba Yaga’s hut basically dies, and escaping the hut means escaping death (Oldrussia.net). Obviously, if we look at the appearance of Baba Yaga, we can understand that she looked a lot like Death herself in other cultures.
The physical appearance of Baba Yaga is the same in every single Russian folklore tale. She is very old (which is in her fifties, in Russia, women age much faster and are considered old once they turn fifty), round-backed, often with obvious signs of gibbosity; her nose is big, and her eyes are frightening, and sometimes one eye is missing. She is very often referred to as “Baba Yaga Boney Leg” (Oldrussia.net), because one of her legs is supposedly artificial. In other sources, she sometimes has an iron tooth. All these things were considered “abnormal” for Russians back then, and if a lady had a wooden leg or an iron tooth, she could be easily considered to be a messenger of devil. It also tells us a lot about how people’s minds functioned in the past, especially in very conservative parts of the world: people were very judgmental, and the opinion of crowds mattered a lot. Rumors spread very fast, and that is how many people became isolated from the society. No one would approach them based on the talks that were going around. That is why Baba Yaga lives deep in the forest and talks to no one but her hut and her cat (or an owl.)
However, there has always been a controversy in the issue of good and evil. They say there is no pure good and no pure evil, which can be proved on the example of our fairytale. In “The Princess Frog”, Baba Yaga actually helps Prince Ivan by giving him food and shelter and a magical clew that leads him to his desired destination (Russsian-crafts.com) She seems to be very selective, as Prince Ivan himself saw human bones in her hut. Not only does she provide him with food and shelter, but she also gives him right directions of where to go and whom to ask about his wife Elena. When he entered the hut, she had no intension of boiling and eating him. In other stories, however, she is an obstacle on the way of main characters.
In another similar story called “Vasilisa the Beautiful”, Baba Yaga also acts like a helper rather than a witch. She helps Vasilisa get away from her cruel stepmother. However, before that, she forces her to undergo a number of dangerous tests in order to check the girl’s purity and courage. Stone calls the way Baba Yaga helps Vasilisa “terrible, revealing her as an unmoral, dangerous woman.” In his opinion, although she helps the main character, she is missing human traits of character like love and compassion. “Baba Yaga goes to extraordinary lengths to free Vasilisa, instigating three painful deaths – as well as causing Vasilisa much grief before letting her leave the hut—rather than merely helping Vasilisa escape her stepfamily.” (Stone, “Baba Yaga, The Confounding Crone of Slavic Folklore”). As we can see, Baba Yaga, unlike German or English witches, isn’t purely bad. Her personality changed from story to story, not really depending on any factor.
The image of Baba Yaga portrays the image of all women of her age in Russia in the past. As I already mentioned, Baba Yaga is in her fifties or sixties, but she looks very bad and has to intention of taking care of herself whatsoever. She is a typical Russian “babushka”, whose image is still alive today: short, poorly dressed, lonely and grumpy. Such sexless creature was something what women became once they turned thirty-five or forty. She is a person without a past who seems to have never been young. She doesn’t have children of a husband, and she has never lived among other people. This one fact is able to shape the image of women in Russia, since in Russian villages of the past, women were expected to get married as early as at sixteen years old, and have many children right away. Having a man choosing them and taking them away from their parents was the thing girls dreamed about since childhood. However, after marriage, their lives changed. They usually stayed at home and nursed children, while their husbands provided for large families. They were also expected to take care of the elderly. If that didn’t happen and women decided to live by themselves, they were considered strange and unnatural. That is why there were so many unhappy women in conservative countries. They never got to say their opinion. Baba Yaga, on the contrary, was a powerful character. She had her opinion on everybody who entered her hut, and wasn’t afraid to say it. She felt good when alone, and she could talk to the forest and animals. Such character was strange and scary, but simultaneously, she attracted attention and caused admiration. That’s why the fairytales that mention her were so popular in the old Russia.
Of course, such illustration of women doesn’t show Russia as a modern and liberal society. However, it is relevant for every country with long history. In China and India, women were facing an even more brutal attitude: they were taught to serve men for their entire lives, and, of course, they aged fast due to a great amount of work they had to complete. And by then, their men were allowed to take younger second wives who would be able to fulfil their physical needs. Such thing is hurtful and unfair to the women who gave their youth and strength to their husbands and children. The wickedness of women is something that we can see in Russian folklore as well. Just like in the Bible, where Eve is blamed for the main sin of the humankind (although Adam equally contributed into it), in Russian fairytales, being lonely and single and not needing a man and children meant being a witch. Folklore reminds us that although empires like Russia and China were strong and possessed a great army, the civilians, especially women, suffered. And in some of those countries, traditions are still standing firmly today, and unfortunately, they shape people’s lives and behaviors.
This paper studied the Russian main witch called Baba Yaga and proved that she had a major significance in the study of the Russian culture. She greatly portrays an image of a woman who didn’t have a family and lived a lonely life and the way such woman was treated by the society. That is an early-aged woman in her fifties, with a hooked nose and warts on her face. She was created ugly in order to scare the readers; she was also an image of the unknown that has always been frightening for the humankind. Interestingly enough, unlike other witches, including the Biblical ones, Baba Yaga is not purely wicked, as she sometimes helps the travelers. She doesn’t do it in a way we would expect her to, but she still does assist them. Characters like Baba Yaga have to be studied very closely when one researches a certain culture. Although folklore is not a reliable historical resource, it is something where traditions, morals and ethics are hidden.
Works Cited:
"The Princess Frog." Russian Folk Tale. Web. 08 Apr. 2016.
Stone, Ryan. "Baba Yaga, The Confounding Crone of Slavic Folklore." Ancient Origins. Web. 08 Apr. 2016.
"Baba Yaga." Old Russia. Web. 08 Apr. 2016.
