Identifying Impressions of Baba Yaga: Navigating the Uses of Attachment and Wonder on Soviet and American Television

Abstract

Baba Yaga. Her name conjures up images of dark forests, glowing skulls, grotesque bodily features, cannibalism, and her iconic flying mortar-and-pestle and chicken-legged hut. Many of these images were introduced to Western audiences through the exquisite artwork of fin de siecle Russian artist Ivan Bilibin, and her stories reached Western audiences through translations of Aleksandr Afanasyev's Narodnye russkie skazki (Forrester, xiii). Baba Yaga is the most popular and complex figure in Russian truly national Russian, and virtually all Russians are familiar with her through books and animated films (Balina et al. 13). Her story has been passed down through generations, wars, and revolutions. Although Baba Yaga is firmly associated with Slavic traditions, her popularity and presence have been on the rise globally at least since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, facilitated by print and audiovisual media forms.Baba Yaga is probably the most well-known and evocative Russian folklore character in the West. Although she rarely is the protagonist, her presence is felt and appreciated in books and film and on television and the Internet- from children's TV and supernatural drama to fairy-tale blogs, YouTube channels, and GoodReads comments. Online blogs and reviews develop recurring theme of Baba Yaga appreciation and fascination. People identify her as an intriguing, ambiguous, dangerous, and memorable figure. For instance, GoodReads reviewers point out the ongoing ambiguity and enjoyment evoked by Gregory Maguire's Baba Yaga in his 2014 middle-grade novel Egg and Spoon. A few readers complain that contemporary American references, such as when Baba Yaga anachronistically mentions the breakfast cereal Cheerios, are a bit jarring or ring false because they do not represent her in her native Russia. Still, most of the reviewers claim her as favorite character (I loved every scene with Baba Yaga), with several lamenting that she does not appear until later in the book (Egg and Spoon Reviews).1 In an interview Maguire also relished Baba Yaga's eccentric character and confessed that he himself took dictation whenever Baba Yaga decided she had something to say (Diaz, n.p.).2There could be many reasons for Baba Yaga's enduring presence and popularity. One cause is pure curiosity and wonder about her character. Baba Yaga is ambiguous, and her personality and function change from to tale (E. Warner 73). She can be child-eating ogress in one tale, and in the next she can possess the knowledge of immortality or help the protagonist find his missing bride. Baba Yaga herself encompasses the paradoxes of nature: life and death, destruction and renewal, the feminine and the masculine (Balina et al. 13). Perhaps for this reason readers and viewers of Baba Yaga are, as Sibelan Forrester suggests, intrigued by Baba Yaga's potent dualities (death/ life, senility/fertility, destruction/renewal, villainy/benevolence, masculine/ feminine) and thus seem as responsive to her magic as previous generations (xlv).3Baba Yaga certainly does leave an impression on readers and viewers in the twenty-first century, and her popularity and presence on television allow us to explore viewing associated with an intriguing and powerful traditional character. In her book Fairy Tales Transformed? Cristina Bacchilega discusses fairy-tale web that analyzes and writing practices through intertextual associations, media adaptations, and cultural critique (ix). Although there is wonder in reading traditional tales and their contemporary adaptations, there is also power in viewing stories. Viewing requires intertextual, and intermedial, to analyze and interpret how and why stories, particularly fairy tales, continue to leave impressions on their audiences. How audiences identify with specific characters relates to the variety of viewing afforded by film and television. …