Who is Baba Yaga? origin versions. Baba Yaga - a mythical character or a real woman The real legend of Baba Yaga in various mythologies

Who is Baba Yaga?

Research project for schoolchildren. Theme: Baba Yaga

methodologist of the MUDO Children's and Youth Department of Cheremkhovo Olga Nikolaevna Pilipei.
Material Description: This material will be useful to teachers and students of educational institutions, teachers of additional education.
slide 1 (title)

Research

My research topic: Baba Yaga - a mythical character or a real woman.
(slide 2) Purpose of the study: To study and analyze the image of Baba Yaga.
(slide 3) Research objectives:
- Get acquainted with the features of the image of Baba Yaga.
- Learn the history of the name.
- Learn the historical basis of the image of Baba Yaga.
(slide 4) Hypothesis:
Let's assume that Baba Yaga is a real woman. Then why is she a representative of the dark forces in Russian folk tales, lives alone in a dense forest and everyone is afraid of her. Let's try to figure it out!
1. The story is a beautiful work of art. (slide 5) Scholars interpret the story in different ways. Some of them seek to characterize fairy tale fiction as independent of reality, while others wish to understand how the attitude of folk storytellers to the surrounding reality was refracted in the fantasy of fairy tales. (slide 6 photo of B.Ya. with a bear)
We are accustomed to consider a fairy tale something implausible. Remember Pushkin's: "A fairy tale is a lie ..."? (slide 7) However, our ancestors took fairy tales more seriously. There was no talk of any "fairytale fiction". In ancient times, the world of a Russian person was divided into two equal parts - the good world, reality, and the evil, otherworldly, but also absolutely real. These worlds are constantly in contact with each other. (slide 8 photo B.Ya.) We all remember how difficult and full of dangers the road to Far Far Away is, that the entrance to the mysterious world is somewhere on the border of earth and sky, in a dense impenetrable forest, where no man has yet set foot. So the image of Baba Yaga appeared in fairy tales. Whom to ask the way to an unseen country, who to learn the truth about magic spells and unheard of weapons? Only at Baba Yaga.
Who is this Baba - Yaga - one of the most famous figures of Russian folk tales or unknown? (slide 9 poll who is Baba Yaga?)
I asked this question to children from my children's association and offered 3 answers: most of the children (73%) believe that this is an old witch living in a dense forest. In the view of other guys (27%), this is a witch and a sorceress.
(slide 10) Baba Yaga is the most complex and controversial image in the fairy-tale world. According to the most general ideas, this is a terrible Old Woman, with a long nose and a bone leg, who mainly lies on the stove in her hut on chicken legs, (slide 11 photo B.Ya.) or rushes over Russia on his mortar, and has a very bad character. Although, if you talk politely with her, then she can take pity and even show the way and give the coveted ball that will bring you to the place.
2. Many scientists and researchers tried to guess what is hidden behind the terrible shell of this Old Woman. (slide 12 poll Why is B.Ya. called Yaga?) Why is Baba Yaga called Yaga? I asked the guys from my association about it. Of the proposed answers, 44% chose the option: because she is lame and hunchbacked; 39% of the class consider Baba Yaga Yaga because she flies in a mortar; and only 17% of the guys chose the option: they live alone and don't dress like everyone else.
As the encyclopedic dictionary tells us:
“YAGA, - Baba Yaga, a fairy-tale character living in a dense forest; witch".
Vladimir Dal, in his Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, writes that the yaga is "a kind of witch or an evil spirit under the guise of an ugly old woman."
The image of Baba Yaga in fairy tales is made up of different details. (slide 13) According to V.Ya. Propp, "the fairy tale knows three different forms of yaga". This is, firstly, the yaga-donor, to which the hero comes. She asks the hero, gives the horse, rich gifts. (slide 14) The second type is a kidnapping yaga who carries off children. (slide 15) The third type is the yaga-warrior.
(slide 16) Baba - the first part of the name shows that our heroine is of a very advanced age. After all, our words “baba - grandmother” are intended to refer to people of the older generation who have grandchildren. Therefore, the first part of the name not only notes that she is a woman, but also indicates her childbearing infirmity, a certain life experience.
Yaga - the second part of the name cannot be unambiguously interpreted. Some believe that our ancestors called the forest woman “yaga”, noting her absurd character or special clothes.
(slide 17 photos of Yagi in a mortar) Baba Yaga usually also moves like a witch or an unclean spirit. So, in fairy tales, she rides in an iron mortar, chasing it with a pestle and covering her tracks with a broomstick.
In fairy tales, Baba Yaga lives most often in a dense and impenetrable forest thicket, in a hut on chicken legs; Moreover, not only its appearance, but also the very way of life is unnatural to human.
(slide 18 photos of huts)
The fence around her hut is made of human bones, and skulls hang on the fence instead of pots. In the oven, Baba Yaga roasts (or at least tries to roast) the kidnapped children.
The appearance of Baba Yaga is practically not described anywhere. She is always in action - she flies on a mortar, shouts at her servants, catches up with the heroes. And judging by her actions, she is not a weak and infirm old woman, but rather energetic, strong and strong-willed.
(slide 19) After analyzing the literature, I came to the conclusion that Baba Yaga is:
- an old woman endowed with magical powers, a witch, a forest old sorceress, warriors and kidnappers;
- female evil spirit, thief of children, evil spirit;
- in most beliefs, Baba Yaga was very reminiscent of a sorceress, as well as forest and elemental spirits (goblin, mermaid) and spirits that live in a hut and are associated with spinning.
3. (slide 20, 6 photos) All fairy tales about Baba Yaga begin with the fact that the main character leaves his home, and his fate leads him to a strange strange world.
The fact is that among the ancient peoples there was a rite of initiation - the initiation of young men into men. The young man had to prove that he was already old enough, that he could be relied upon, that he had learned the wisdom of his elders, that he was a worthy warrior and hunter. The rite of passage has always been accompanied by various tests in strength, dexterity and ingenuity. Who conducted such tests and where?
It had to be a special person, wise by life experience, and the rite had to take place in a special place - where, according to the beliefs of the ancients, young people could receive Wisdom and Knowledge from their ancestors. It may very well be that Baba Yaga in reality is a female priestess, the head of the clan, who tested applicants for adulthood in a secluded and sacred place in the forest. She is wise and able to teach anyone - from Ivan Tsarevich to Ivanushka the Fool.
Scientists are very interested in the fact that in some fairy tales, not only young men, but also red girls get to Baba Yaga. And they live long, do hard work. It may very well be that in ancient times, beautiful and intelligent girls (Vasilis the Beautiful and Vasilis the Wise) were assigned a special role in the tribe, and they also underwent a certain rite of passage. By the way, there is another interpretation of the word "Yaga" - it means "decisive".
Another prototype of Baba Yaga in real life could be healers and witches who settled away from people, often in the forest. There they collected medicinal herbs and, if necessary, treated sick people from the surrounding villages. Many considered them connected with evil spirits and were afraid. Therefore, in the imagination of people, they could well be embodied in the terrible and mysterious image of Baba Yaga.
(slide 21 poll Do you like B.Ya.?)
CONCLUSION
During my research, I found answers to many questions. Based on fairy tales and additional literature, I concluded about the essence of the image of Baba Yaga. Conducting a survey among the students of my association, in conclusion, I asked, do you like Baba Yaga? Half of the guys said: "not very" (50%), 45% of the Baba Yaga class do not like it. And only 5% of the guys find Yaga an interesting character.
(slide 22 during the research…)
Many more generations of children will grow up on Russian fairy tales, where Baba Yaga is evil and insidious, but at the same time funny and funny. Recently, more and more positive traits have been found in Baba Yaga and they even call her the keeper of the hearth.
(slide 23 photos of Yagi) The study showed that the image of Baba Yaga carries a great semantic load. I found out that the fairy tales about Baba Yaga are largely a reflection of folk myths and beliefs, and those, in turn, are half-forgotten facts from real life. In Baba Yaga, which modern people consider just a fairy-tale character, once believed not only children, but also adults. Tales of Baba Yaga are a repository of information about the ancient life of the people, about real events that took place a very, very long time ago.
(slide 24 literature)
Thus, we can say that the goal and objectives set in this work have been fulfilled by me. This completes my work. Thank you for your attention!

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Dal V.I. Encyclopedia of the Russian word. - M., 2002.
2. Russian fairy tales. LLC Publishing house "Rodnichok" M., 2011.
3. Propp V.Ya. The historical roots of fairy tales. - M., 1989.
4. Oral folk art // Russian literature: Encyclopedia for children. - M., 1998.
5. Etymological dictionary / Semenov A.V. - Moscow 2003.

Presentation for research work.

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In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga has several stable attributes: she knows how to conjure, fly in a mortar, lives in the forest, in a hut on chicken legssurrounded by a fence of human bones with skulls. She beckons good fellows and small children and roasts them in the oven (Baba Yaga is a cannibal). She pursues her victims in a mortar, driving her with a pestle and sweeping the trail with a broom (broom). According to the largest specialist in the field of theory and history of folklore V. Ya. Propp, three types of Baba Yaga are distinguished: a donor (she gives the hero a fairy-tale horse or a magical object); kidnapper of children; Baba Yaga is a warrior, fighting with whom "not for life, but for death", the hero of the fairy tale moves to a different level of maturity. At the same time, the wickedness and aggressiveness of Baba Yaga are not her dominant features, but only manifestations of her irrational, indeterminate nature. There is a similar hero in German folklore: Frau Holle or Bertha.

The dual nature of Baba Yaga in folklore is associated, firstly, with the image of the mistress of the forest, who must be appeased, and secondly, with the image of an evil creature that puts children on a shovel to fry. This image of Baba Yaga is associated with the function of a priestess leading teenagers through an initiation rite. So, in many fairy tales, Baba Yaga wants to eat the hero, but either after feeding, giving him drink, he lets him go, giving him a ball or some secret knowledge, or the hero runs away himself.

Russian writers and poets A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky (“The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf”), Alexei Tolstoy, Vladimir Narbut and others repeatedly addressed the image of Baba Yaga in their work. Picturesque interpretations of her image received widespread among Silver Age artists: Ivan Bilibin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Alexander Benois, Elena Polenova, Ivan Malyutin and others

Etymology

According to Max Vasmer, Yaga has correspondences in many Indo-European languages ​​​​with the meanings of “illness, annoyance, wither, get angry, annoy, mourn”, etc., from which the original meaning of the name Baba Yaga is quite clear. In the Komi language, the word "yag" means forest, pine forest. Baba is a woman (Nyvbaba is a young woman). "Baba Yaga" can be read as a woman from a forest forest or a forest woman. There is another character in Komi fairy tales Yagmort (forest man). "Yaga" is a diminutive form of the female name "Jadwiga", common among the Western Slavs, borrowed from the Germans.

Origin of the image

Baba Yaga as a goddess

M. Zabylin writes:

Under this name, the Slavs revered the infernal goddess, depicted as a monster in an iron mortar, having an iron staff. They brought her a bloody sacrifice, thinking that she feeds her two granddaughters, whom they attributed to her, and enjoys the shedding of blood. Under the influence of Christianity, the people forgot their main gods, remembering only secondary ones, and especially those myths that have personified phenomena and forces of nature, or symbols of worldly needs. Thus, the Baba Yaga from an evil hellish goddess turned into an evil old sorceress, sometimes a cannibal, who always lives, somewhere in the forest, solitude, in a hut on chicken legs. ... In general, there are traces of Baba Yaga only in folk tales, and her myth merges with the myth of witches.

There is also a version that the goddess Makosh is hiding under Baba Yaga. At the time of the adoption of the Christian religion by the Slavs, the old pagan deities were persecuted. In the people's memory, only the deities of the lower order, the so-called. chthonic creatures (see demonology, folk demonology), to which Baba Yaga also belongs.

According to another version, the image of Baba Yaga goes back to the archetype of a totem animal, which ensures successful hunting for representatives of the totem in prehistoric times. Subsequently, the role of a totem animal is occupied by a creature that controls the entire forest with its inhabitants. The female image of Baba Yaga is associated with matriarchal ideas about the structure of the social world. The mistress of the forest, Baba Yaga, is the result of anthropomorphism. A hint at the once animal appearance of Baba Yaga, according to V. Ya. Propp, is the description of the house as a hut on chicken legs.

Siberian version of the origin of Baba Yaga

There is also another interpretation. According to her, Baba Yaga is not a native Slavic character, but an alien one, brought into Russian culture by soldiers from Siberia. The first written source about her is the notes of Giles Fletcher (1588) “On the Russian State”, in the chapter “On Permians, Samoyeds and Lapps”:

According to this position, the name of Baba Yaga is associated with the name of a certain object. In N. Abramov's "Essays on the Birch Territory" (St. Petersburg, 1857) there is a detailed description of the "yaga", which is clothing "like a dressing gown with a turn-down, a quarter, collar. It is sewn from dark non-spewers, with wool out ... The same yags are collected from loon necks, with feathers out ... Yagushka is the same yaga, but with a narrow collar, worn by women on the road ”(a similar interpretation in the Tobolsk origin is given by the dictionary of V. I. Dahl) .

Appearance

Baba Yaga is usually depicted as a large (nose to the ceiling) hunchbacked old woman with a large, long, hooked and hooked nose. In popular prints, she is dressed in a green dress, lilac kichka, bast shoes and trousers. In another ancient painting, Baba Yaga is dressed in a red skirt and boots. In fairy tales there is no emphasis on the clothes of Baba Yaga.

Attributes

A hut on chicken legs

In ancient times, the dead were buried in dominoes - houses located above the ground on very high stumps with roots looking out from under the ground, similar to chicken legs. Domovins were placed in such a way that the hole in them was turned in the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest. People believed that the dead were flying on coffins. People treated their dead ancestors with reverence and fear, never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble on themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead man, and children were often scared by her. According to other sources, Baba Yaga among some Slavic tribes is a priestess who led the rite of cremation of the dead. She slaughtered sacrificial cattle and concubines, who were then thrown into the fire.

From the point of view of supporters of the Slavic (classical) origin of Baba Yaga, an important aspect of this image is that she belongs to two worlds at once - the world of the dead and the world of the living. A well-known specialist in the field of mythology A. L. Barkova interprets in connection with this the origin of the name of the chicken legs on which the hut of the famous mythical character stands: edge, but then the entrance to it is from the side of the forest, that is, from the world of death.

The name “chicken legs”, most likely, came from “chicken”, that is, fumigated with smoke, pillars, on which the Slavs put the “hut of death”, a small log house with the ashes of the deceased inside (such a funeral rite existed among the ancient Slavs back in centuries). Baba Yaga inside such a hut seemed to be like a living dead - she lay motionless and did not see a person who came from the world of the living (the living do not see the dead, the dead do not see the living). She learned about his arrival by smell - “it smells of the Russian spirit” (the smell of the living is unpleasant for the dead). “A person who meets the hut of Baba Yaga on the border of the world of life and death, the author continues, as a rule, goes to another world in order to free the captive princess. To do this, he must join the world of the dead. He usually asks Yaga to feed him, and she gives him the food of the dead. There is another option - to be eaten by Yaga and thus end up in the world of the dead. Having passed the tests in the hut of Baba Yaga, a person turns out to belong to both worlds at the same time, is endowed with many magical qualities, subjugates various inhabitants of the world of the dead, overcomes the terrible monsters inhabiting it, wins back the magical beauty from them and becomes the king.

The localization of the hut on chicken legs is associated with two magical rivers, either fiery (cf. jahannam, over which a bridge is also stretched), or milk (with jelly banks - cf. characteristic of the Promised Land: milk rivers Chis. or Muslim Jannat).

Glowing skulls

An essential attribute of Baba Yaga's dwelling is the tyn, on the stakes of which horse skulls are planted, used as lamps. In the fairy tale about Vasilisa, the skulls are already human, but they are the source of fire for the main character and her weapon, with which she burned down her stepmother's house.

Magic Helpers

Baba Yaga's magical assistants are swan geese, "three pairs of hands" and three riders (white, red and black).

Characteristic phrases

Steppe Baba Yaga

In addition to the "classic" forest version of Baba Yaga, there is also a "steppe" version of Baba Yaga, who lives beyond the Fiery River and owns a herd of glorious mares. In another tale, Baba Yaga has a golden leg at the head of an innumerable army fighting against Bely Polyanin. Hence, some researchers associate Babu Yaga with the "female-ruled" Sarmatians - a pastoral horse-breeding steppe people. In this case, the stupa of Baba Yaga is a Slavic rethinking of the Scythian-Sarmatian camping cauldron, and the name Yaga itself is elevated to the Sarmatian ethnonym Yazygi.

Mythological archetype of Baba Yaga

The image of Baba Yaga is associated with legends about the hero's transition to the other world (Far Far Away). In these legends, Baba Yaga, standing on the border of the worlds (a bone leg), serves as a guide that allows the hero to penetrate into the world of the dead, thanks to the performance of certain rituals. Another version of the prototype of the fabulous old woman can be considered the ittarma dolls dressed in fur clothes, which are still installed today in cult huts on supports.

Thanks to the texts of fairy tales, it is possible to reconstruct the ritual, sacred meaning of the actions of the hero who comes to Baba Yaga. In particular, V. Ya. Propp, who studied the image of Baba Yaga on the basis of a mass of ethnographic and mythological material, draws attention to a very important detail, in his opinion. After recognizing the hero by smell (Yaga is blind) and finding out his needs, she always heats the bathhouse and evaporates the hero, thus performing a ritual bath. Then he feeds the visitor, which is also a ritual, "mortuary", treat, which is not permissible for the living, so that they do not accidentally enter the world of the dead. And, “by demanding food, the hero thereby shows that he is not afraid of this food, that he has the right to it, that he is“ real ”. That is, the stranger, through a test with food, proves to Yaga the sincerity of his motives and shows that he is the real hero, in contrast to the false hero, the impostor antagonist.

This food “opens the mouth of the deceased,” says Propp, who is convinced that a myth always precedes a fairy tale. And, although the hero does not seem to have died, he will be forced to temporarily “die for the living” in order to get into the “thirtieth kingdom” (another world). There, in the “thirtieth kingdom” (the afterlife), where the hero is on his way, many dangers always await him, which he has to foresee and overcome. “Food, treats are certainly mentioned not only when meeting with Yaga, but also with many characters equivalent to her. ... Even the hut itself is fitted by the storyteller for this function: it is “supported with a pie”, “covered with a pancake”, which in children's fairy tales of the West corresponds to a “gingerbread house”. This house, by its appearance, sometimes pretends to be a food house.

Witches and sorceresses who lived far from the settlements in the depths of the forest could serve as another prototype of Baba Yaga. There they collected various roots and herbs, dried them and made various tinctures, if necessary, they helped the villagers. But the attitude towards them was ambiguous: many considered them to be associates of evil spirits, since living in the forest they could not help but communicate with evil spirits. Since they were mostly unsociable women, but there was no clear idea about them.

The image of Baba Yaga in music

The image of Baba Yaga is dedicated to the ninth play "The Hut on Chicken Legs (Baba Yaga)" by Modest Mussorgsky's famous suite "Pictures at an Exhibition - a memory of Viktor Hartmann", 1874, created in memory of his friend, artist and architect. The modern interpretation of this suite is also widely known - "Pictures at an Exhibition", created by the English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer in 1971, where Mussorgsky's musical pieces alternate with original compositions by English rock musicians: "The Hut of Baba Yaga "(Mussorgsky); "The Curse of Baba Yaga" (Emerson, Lake, Palmer); "The Hut of Baba Yaga" (Mussorgsky). Baba Yaga is dedicated to the symphonic poem of the same name by the composer Anatoly Lyadov, Op. 56, 1891-1904 In the collection of musical pieces for piano by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky "Children's Album" of 1878, there is also a piece "Baba Yaga".

Baba Yaga is mentioned in the songs of the Gas Sector group My Grandmother from the album Walk, Man! (1992) and "Ilya Muromets" from the album "The Night Before Christmas" (1991). Baba Yaga also appears as a character in the musicals: "Koschey the Immortal" by the Gaza Strip group, Ilya Muromets by the Gas Attack Sector duo , and in one of the episodes of the musical Sleeping Beauty by the Red Mold group. In 1989 in Sicily, the city of Agrigento, the international folk group Baba Yaga was founded.

The Na-Na group has a song "Grandmother Yaga", written by composer Vitaly Okorokov to the words of Alexander Shishinin. Performed in both Russian and English.

The Soviet and Russian composer Teodor Efimov wrote the music for the song cycle about Baba Yaga. The cycle includes three songs: "Baba Yaga" (lyrics by Y. Mazharov), "Baba Yaga-2 (Forest Duet)" (lyrics by O. Zhukov) and "Baba Yaga-3 (About Babu Yaga)" ( Sl. E. Uspensky). The cycle was performed by VIA Ariel. In addition, the third song of the mentioned cycle was performed by the theater of musical parody "Bim-Bom". There is also a song by David Tukhmanov based on poems by Yuri Entin "The Kind Grandmother Yaga" performed by Alexander Gradsky, which was included in the "Horror Park" cycle.

The image of Baba Yaga is played out in the album "The Hut of the Zombie Grandmother" by the Russian folk-black group Izmoroz.

The development of the image in modern literature

• The image of Baba Yaga was widely used by the authors of modern literary fairy tales - for example, Eduard Uspensky in the story "Down the Magic River".
• Baba Yaga became one of the main sources of the image of Naina Kievna Gorynych, a character in the story by the Strugatsky brothers "Monday starts on Saturday".
• The novel "Return to Baba Yaga" by Natalia Malakhovskaya, where three heroines and three styles of writing go through trials and transformations (going to Baba Yaga), modify the plots of their biographies.
• In the Hellboy comic book series by Mike Mignola, Baba Yaga is one of the negative characters. She lives in the afterlife at the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil. In the first volume of the series ("The Devil's Awakening"), the defeated Rasputin takes refuge with her. In the novel "Baba Yaga" Hellboy, during a fight with Yaga, knocks out her left eye. Unlike most modern literary interpretations, the image of Baba Yaga in Mignola does not carry a satirical load.
• The image of Baba Yaga also appears in Alexei Kindyashev's graphic story "Mosquito", where he plays the role of one of the main negative characters. The fight between the mythical insect, designed to protect our world from the forces of evil and the witch, takes place in the very first mini-issue, where the positive character defeats the negative one, thereby protecting the little girl. But not everything is as simple as it seems, and at the end of the issue it is found out that it was only a copy created to test the powers of the mythical protector.
• Also, the image of Baba Yaga is found in the modern author of Russian literature - Andrey Belyanin in the cycle of works "The Secret Investigation of Tsar Peas", where, in turn, she occupies one of the central places in the role of a positive hero, namely, an expert-criminalist of a secret investigation under court of King Peas.
• The childhood and youth of Baba Yaga in modern literature are first found in the story "Lukomorye" by A. Aliverdiev (the first chapter of the story, written in 1996, was published in the magazine "Star Road" in 2000). Later, Alexei Gravitsky's story "Berry", V. Kachan's novel "Youth of Baba Yaga", M. Vishnevetskaya's novel "Kashchei and Yagda, or Heavenly Apples", etc. were written.
• Baba Yaga also appears in the Army of Darkness comic series, where she is represented as an ugly old woman who wants to get the book of the dead - the Necronomicon, in order to regain her youth. She was beheaded by one of the deadly sins - Wrath.
• The novel "Baba Yaga Laid a Testicle" by the modern Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic uses the motifs of Slavic folklore, first of all, fairy tales about Baba Yaga.
• The novel "Black Blood" by Nick Perumov and Svyatoslav Loginov Baba Yogami - they call the sorcerer of the clan - expelled in ancient times by a shaman, to Baba Yoga Neshanka, who lives in a charmed place, in a hut on two stumps - resembling bird paws, they turn for help to Unik, Tashi, and Romar, then Unica herself will become Baba Yoga.
• In the cycle of Dmitry Emets "Tanya Groter" Baba Yaga is depicted in the image of the ancient goddess, healer Tibidox - Yagge, the former goddess of the ancient destroyed pantheon.
• Baba Yaga is also one of the main characters in Leonid Filatov's fairy tale "" and in the animated film of the same name.
• Baba Yaga is one of the characters in the 38th issue of The Sandman by Neil Gaiman, which takes place in the forests of an unnamed country. Of the other attributes of Baba Yaga, the issue contains a hut on chicken legs and a flying stupa, on which Baba Yaga and the main character overcome part of the way from the forest to the city.
• Elena Nikitina's Baba Yaga acts as the main character, in the form of a young girl.
• Baba Yaga appears in the book "Three in the Sands" of the cycle "Three from the Forest" by Yuri Alexandrovich Nikitin. She is one of the last keepers of ancient female magic and helps the heroes.

Baba Yaga on screen

Films

More often than others, he played the role of Baba Yaga Georgy Millyar, including in films:

"Adventures in the Thirtieth Kingdom" (2010) - Anna Yakunina.

The name of the Slavic woman sorceress became popular in Western Europe. In 1973, the Franco-Italian film "Baba Yaga" was released (ital. Baba Yaga) directed by Corrado Farina (ital. Corrado Farina) with Carroll Baker in the title role. The film was created based on one of the erotic-mystical comics by Guido Crepax (ital. Guido Crepax) from the series "Valentina" (ital. Valentina (fumetto)).

cartoons

• The Frog Princess (1954) (dir. Mikhail Tsekhanovsky, voiced by Georgy Millyar)
• "Ivashko and Baba Yaga" (1938, voiced by Osip Abdulov)
• The Frog Princess (1971) (dir. Yu. Eliseev, voiced by Zinaida Naryshkina)
• "The End of the Black Swamp" (1960, voiced by Irina Mazing)
• "About the evil stepmother" (1966, voiced by Elena Ponsova)
• "The fairy tale affects" (1970, voiced by Clara Rumyanova)
• "Flying Ship" (1979, women's group of the Moscow Chamber Choir)
• "Vasilisa the Beautiful" (1977, voiced by Anastasia Georgievskaya)
• "The Adventures of a Brownie" (1985) / "A Tale for Natasha" (1986) / "The Return of a Brownie" (1987) (voiced by Tatyana Peltzer)
• Baba Yaga is against! "(1980, voiced by Olga Aroseva)
• "Ivashka from the Palace of Pioneers" (1981, voiced by Efim Katsirov)
• "Wait for it! "(16th issue) (1986)
• "Dear Goblin" (1988, voiced by Viktor Proskurin)
• “And in this fairy tale it was like this ...” (1984)
• "Two heroes" (1989, voiced by Maria Vinogradova)
• "Dreamers from the village of Ugory" (1994, voiced by Kazimira Smirnova)
• "Grandma Ezhka and others" (2006, voiced by Tatyana Bondarenko)
• "About Fedot the archer, a daring fellow" (2008, voiced by Alexander Revva)
• " Dobrynya Nikitich and Serpent Gorynych" (2006, voiced by Natalya Danilova)
• "Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf" (2011, voiced by Liya Akhedzhakova)
• "Bartok the Magnificent" (1999, voiced by Andrea Martin)

Fairy tales

"Motherland" and Baba Yaga's birthday

Research

• Potebnya A. A., On the mythical meaning of some rituals and beliefs. [ch.] 2 - Baba Yaga, “Readings in the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities”, M., 1865, book. 3;
• Veselovsky N.I., The current state of the issue of "Stone women" or "Balbals". // Notes of the Imperial Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, vol. XXXII. Odessa: 1915. Det. impression: 40 s. + 14 tab.
• Toporov V. N., Hittite salŠU.GI and Slavic baba-yaga, "Brief reports of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR", 1963, c. 38.
• Malakhovskaya A. N., Heritage of Baba Yaga: Religious ideas reflected in a fairy tale, and their traces in Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries. - St. Petersburg: Aleteyya, 2007. - 344 p.

Games character

• In the game Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Baba Yaga is one of the famous witches. It is said about her that she likes to eat for breakfast (possibly both for lunch and dinner) of small children. She can be seen on a collectible card in the famous witch group, she is featured on card #1.
• Baba Yaga is one of the characters in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
• In the first part of the game Quest for Glory, Baba Yaga is one of the main enemies of the hero. Later, the old woman reappears in one of the subsequent games in this series.
• Baba Yaga is mentioned in one of the plot conversations between the Anderson brothers in the game "Alan Wake". In addition, the house on Lake Cauldron has a sign with the inscription "Birds leg cabin", which can be interpreted as a hut on chicken legs.
• In the game "Non-Children's Tales", the character of Baba Yaga assigns quests to the player.
• In the game The Witcher, there is a monster Yaga - an old deceased woman.
• In the games “Go there, I don’t know where”, “Baba Yaga is far away”, “Baba Yaga learns to read”, Baba Yaga is studying a subject with a child, getting into various troubles with him.

see also

Notes

1. enchanted castle
2. Yan Deda and the Red Baba Yaga
3. Encyclopedia of Supernatural Beings. Lokid-MIF, Moscow, 2000
4. Propp V. Ya. The historical roots of fairy tales. L. : Publishing House of Leningrad State University, 1986.
5. Yurgan TV channel
6. Komi mythology
7. Zabylin M. Russian people, their customs, rituals, legends, superstitions and poetry. 1880.
8. "Baba Yaga - a goddess?"
9. Mikhail Sitnikov, Innocently tortured Yaga. "Spiritual avant-garde", like the Taliban, scolding Christians as "crusaders", smears the mythological Baba Yaga with tar, Portal-Credo.Ru, 13.07.2005.
10. Veselovsky N.I. Imaginary stone women // Bulletin of Archeology and History, published by the Imperial Archaeological Institute. Issue. XVII. SPb. 1906.
11. Some observations on the evolution of the image of Baba Yagiv in Russian folklore
12. Dancing in front of Yaga
13. Petrukhin V. Ya. The beginning of the ethnocultural history of Russia in the 9th-11th centuries
14. Barkova A. L., Alekseev S., "Beliefs of the ancient Slavs" / Encyclopedia for children. [V.6.]: Religions of the world. part 1. - M .: Avanta Plus. ISBN 5-94623-100-6
15. Marya Morevna
16. Swan geese
17. Finist - Clear Falcon
18. Vasilisa the Beautiful
19. Ivan Tsarevich and Bely Polyanin
20. About Slavic fairy tales
21. Decline as a result of the Sarmatian invasion
22. In the collection of A. N. Afanasyev, there is the first version of the fairy tale “The Finist’s Feather is Clear of the Falcon”, where the triple Baba Yaga is replaced by three nameless “old women”. This variant was later developed

TEACHER

Legend of Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga - a character of Slavic mythology and folklore (especially fairy tale) Slavic peoples, an old sorceress, endowed with magical powers, a witch, a werewolf. By its properties, it is closest to a witch. Most often - a negative character.

The forest old woman-sorceress, one of the most famous characters in the folk myth-making of the Slavs. Her appearance is not just terrible, but emphasized repulsive: one leg like a skeleton, a long nose reaches the chin. The eccentric appearance of the evil old woman also corresponds to an unusual way movement: Baba Yaga flies on a broomstick, a tong or in a mortar, sweeps her mark with a broom. obey Baba Yaga all animals, but her most faithful servants are black cats, crows and snakes. She lives in a hut on chicken legs, which stands in a dense forest behind a fiery river and turns in all directions. You only need ask: "Hut, hut, become the old way, like a mother put: back to the forest, front to me! - and the hut will obediently fulfill the request. The fence around the hut is made of human bones, on the fence there are skulls, instead of a lock there is a mouth with sharp teeth. In ancient times, Baba Yaga was considered a gatekeeper between the world of the living and the dead, and her hut was considered the gate to the other world.

In fairy tales, Baba Yaga often acts as an antagonist of heroes who fight with her and win by force or cunning. Witch (brews all sorts of potions) and a cannibal, she kidnaps children and is not averse to destroying a traveler who accidentally wandered into her hut, but, as a rule, she is fooled and punished. Sometimes Baba Yaga appears in the form of a donor, an assistant to the heroes. Then she helps them, shows them the way, supplies them with magic items and gives wise advice.

According to the largest specialist in the field of theory and history of folklore V. Ya. Yagi: giver (she gives the hero a fairy-tale horse or a magic item); kidnapper of children; Baba Yaga warrior. There is a similar character in German folklore: Frau Holle or Berta. "Mystam-kempyr"- they call Babu Yaga in Kazakh fairy tales.

Russian writers and poets A. S. Pushkin, V. A. Zhukovsky repeatedly turned to the image of Baba Yaga in their work ( "The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf", Alexei Tolstoy, Vladimir Narbut and others. Picturesque interpretations of her image are widely used among artists of the silver century: Ivan Bilibin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Alexander Benois, Elena Polenova, Ivan Malyutin and others.

Origin of the image

In ancient times, the dead were buried in dominoes - houses located above the ground on very high stumps with roots looking out from under the ground, similar to chicken legs. Domovins were placed in such a way that the hole in them was turned in the opposite direction from the settlement, towards the forest. People believed that the dead were flying on coffins. The dead were buried with their feet towards the exit, and if you looked into the domino, you could only see their feet - hence the expression "Baba Yaga bone leg". People treated their dead ancestors with reverence and fear, never disturbed them over trifles, fearing to bring trouble on themselves, but in difficult situations they still came to ask for help. So, Baba Yaga is a deceased ancestor, a dead man, and children were often scared by her.

More often than others, Georgy Millyar played the role of Baba Yaga, including in films: "Morozko", "Vasilisa the Beautiful", "Fire, water and ... copper pipes", "Golden Horns"

In the films "There, on unknown paths ..." the role of the kind Baba Yaga was played by Tatyana Peltzer. In the film "Fire, Water and ... Copper Pipes" the role of Baba Yaga's daughter was played by Vera Altaiskaya. In the film "New Year's Adventures of Masha and Vitya", the role of Baba Yaga was played by Valentina Kosobutskaya. In film "At the thirteenth hour of the night" Baba Yaga - Zinovy ​​​​Gerdt. In film "Miracles in Reshetov"- Yola Sanko. In film "Start", director Gleb Panfilov, the character of Inna Churikova - Pasha Stroganova, plays the role of Baba Yaga in an amateur theater. How Ivanushka the Fool went for a miracle - Maria Barabanova

In 2004, the village of Kukoboy, Pervomaisky District, Yaroslavl Region, was declared "homeland" Baba Yaga, the museum of Baba Yaga was also created there. The Russian Orthodox Church came out with sharp criticism of this undertaking.

Introducing children to the heroes of folk tales, we will definitely dwell on this image. Children with laughter dress up in a Yaga costume, play small scenes, imitate the habits of the heroine in Baba Yaga aerobics, play folk games with the participation of a folklore character. Anya was recognized as the best Baba Yaga.

We sat here on the weekends with the child and did useful things. Now we read a fairy tale, then we watch a cartoon ...

And somehow, in the evening, my child asks me, they say, who is Baba Yaga. I immediately took a smart look and prepared to broadcast. The question is easy! "Baba Yaga is..." - I started and stopped. Who the hell knows who she is! Harmful old woman from the forest? Like, no. In general, I promised the child to tell everything about the old woman in the morning, and while she was sleeping, I dug into smart books and found out the whole truth about Baba Yaga.

Once upon a time there was an old woman

So offhand: how to characterize Baba Yaga? A vicious, ugly old woman, with a long hooked nose, who sits in a dense forest in a dirty and untidy hut. Granny is not averse to having a bite to eat as a hero of a fairy tale and doing him any harm. The old woman also occasionally trades in kidnapping (abducts children). In general, she does not do anything good. But is it? If you remember all the actions of the granny, then it suddenly turns out that she has not committed a single nasty thing in her life.

Let's go in order. She lives in a dense and dark forest. This alone is already repulsive. But on the other hand, what's the difference in FIG, who and where lives? Well, she wanted to settle here and that's it.

Move on. With the appearance of Yaga, too, no luck. The nose is unpleasantly hooked, there is no hairstyle - she walks disheveled, poorly dressed. Unpleasant? Certainly. But, again, there is no crime in this. Yaga is a free and unmarried woman, so she can afford to walk as she pleases.

Following. Is it true that the old woman at least once ate someone? But you remember. Well? You can not? Correctly. Granny tried to do this many times, but every time she was fooled, and the food slipped away at the last moment. Well, no one will judge for one desire to dine.

Now with regard to various dirty tricks to the main characters of fairy tales. Well, they weren't! The old woman, on the contrary, does not mind helping everyone. Either he will give a magical ball, pointing the way, then he will give wise advice, or he will throw a sensible thought. Or give a good horse. And then remember how she receives Ivan Tsarevich. Here he will have a bathhouse, and excellent food with overseas desserts, and after that - a soft bed awaits. And what else does a hero need after many days of a grueling journey? So the granny is actually not an evil old woman at all, but a quite decent woman.

Excuse me, someone will exclaim, but what about cases of kidnapping of children? It was! We will not hide. But there is a positive side to this as well. At least one child kidnapped by Yaga is missing? Not! They were all rescued as one and taken to their home. And although Yaga sent after a punitive expedition under the guise of swan geese and herself in a mortar, she still remained with her nose. What, she didn’t have the power to catch up with some children? Drop it! Granny was a very experienced woman in magical matters. If I really wanted to catch up, I would.

And here we come to the most important question: who is Baba Yaga really? Is it a fairy tale heroine? It turns out that not at all!

Not an old woman, but a guard

As it turned out, Baba Yaga is one of the most ancient and truly mystical heroes of fairy tales. The old woman is not as simple as it seems.

Let's figure it out again. Russian folk tales are firmly tied to myths and legends. Many heroes on the test turn out to be not just “hilarious old women and three-headed snakes”, but symbols of something. So, Baba Yaga, who lives in a dense forest. And what kind of forest is so strange? And where is he? Does every forest have its own Baba Yaga? It turned out - no.

The dark forest (necessarily dense and therefore very dark!) is the border between our real world and the afterlife! Or magical. Remember, after all, real wizards and sorcerers meet a positive hero EXCLUSIVELY after meeting Baba Yaga. That is, only when he leaves his world and finds himself on the other side. In this case, the role of the granny becomes clear - she is a guard, a guard who stands exactly on the border of two worlds and it is she who decides who to let through and who not.

And now a new question: why did Baba Yaga get the role of a guard? Do you remember what her full "title" sounds like? Baba Yaga - Bone leg or in some other versions - Golden Leg. What happened to her leg? Let's figure it out again. And we will have to remember some common expressions and beliefs.

It turns out that many peoples believed that the human soul is in the foot! Recall at least the expression "The soul went to the heels"! Our granny has no foot, which means there is no soul! That is, it is not alive, but not dead either (the second leg, apparently, functions perfectly and has a "piece of the soul"). An ideal option in order to really stand guard over the living and dead worlds.

One more thing. Remember how Yaga moves. On the mortar, waving a broomstick. As it turned out, these items are indispensable elements of the Old Slavonic burial ceremonies. It was the mortar and pestle that was placed in the grave of a dead woman. And with a broom they swept all the way from the house of the deceased to the cemetery. This was done so that the deceased would not find his way home and start misbehaving there.

Yes, I almost missed one more important detail. Do you remember Yagi's house? Yes, yes, the same one on chicken legs. This, as it turns out, is no accident. It turns out that the ancient Slavs had such a custom: to bury their relatives in houses with very high legs! It was believed that from such a coffin it was easiest to get into the kingdom of the dead.

On the road

Oh, not an easy Russian fairy tale! Oh, smart! We have already found out that Baba Yaga is the guard at the entrance to the world of the dead. And she is a very good caretaker. She won't miss anyone.

How does the main character see the hut? She stands behind the hero. And he says here a sacred phrase: “Stand in front of me, and back to the forest!” And actually, why is the hut so strangely worth it? Yes, because the doors turn everything into the same kingdom of the dead! However, the hero unfolds it and is immediately subjected to “interrogation” by the guard: they say, why did the good fellow come? What's a hero? And he doesn't miss! It seems that he doesn’t seem to hear the grandmother’s question, but bends his line: “First you drink, feed, steam in the bathhouse, and then ask.” Is this some kind of arrogance? Youthful prowess? Not at all.

The hero is well aware of where and why he is going. His path is to the dead. And there they do not favor living people at all, and the hero will have to die for a while. He is not at all rude to granny, but shows that he knows the whole ritual that has to be passed.

Take a steam bath - wash off the "Russian spirit" - the smell of a person - from the body. Remember how Yaga says - "Chu, the Russian spirit smelled!". In other words, a living person. There is nothing to do with such a smell in the afterlife, you need to get rid of it.

The second stage is to eat ritual food, which will allow him to be "stranger" for the living and "own" for the dead. In addition, this food will give him the ability to both see and speak in the realm of the dead.

And finally, the hero asks to put him to bed. If we translate this request from the fabulous one, it turns out that he wants to be buried in a house with high legs. Again, in order to easily get into the world of the dead.

How about back

Finally, all rituals are completed. Our hero goes to the dead sorcerers and performs a number of feats there. And here the question arises: if he is now "dead", then how will he return to the world of the living? After all, in no fairy tale does the hero return to Baba Yaga, who could carry out the procedure in the opposite direction.

Let's revisit fairy tales. In almost every one of them, already when Ivan Tsarevich returns home with a victory, enemies suddenly attack him and kill him! Here it is! This is another ritual. Then the hero's friends appear and wash him first with "dead" water, and then with "living" water. And - oops! - our hero is full of strength and energy again, but he is already in the world of the living! There is no need to go to Yaga.

So Baba Yaga is not at all a malicious old woman, as it seemed in childhood, but a quite decent hero, without whom not a single Ivan Tsarevich would ever have reached his Vasilisa the Beautiful. Note that such heroines are found in many national epics among different peoples. And everywhere they symbolize almost the same thing - the sacred guardian on the verge of two worlds.

Well, who does not know this fabulous character. An evil old woman, flying on a mortar with a broomstick, stealing children and famous for cannibalistic inclinations. Yes, but not everything is so simple. No wonder they say: "A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it." It is hard to believe, but according to some researchers, Baba Yaga is not evil at all, on the contrary, she is an ancient goddess of the Slavic pantheon.

The word "Yaga" is a coarsened "Yashka".

Yasha in Slavic songs was called foot-and-mouth disease - who once lived on earth and disappeared progenitor of all living things; hence our more understandable - ancestor.

Baba Yaga was originally the progenitor, a very ancient positive deity of the Slavic pantheon, the guardian (if necessary, militant) of the clan and traditions, children and around the home (often forest) space.

It is believed that during the period of the spread of Christianity in Russia, which did not take place in a peaceful and benevolent way, all pagan deities were given demonic features. Their whole essence was distorted, a terrible appearance and evil intentions were attributed to them.

There is evidence that some Muslims also took part in this.

They observed a ritual when a woman representing Yaga put babies in the oven. There was a chamber in the furnace where neither fire nor heat entered. It was a ritual of purification by fire.

But the Arabs told everyone that Baba Yaga - eats babies.

So the kind and caring coastline turned into a terrible witch.

There is another version of who Baba Yaga really was. If you read our fairy tales, it turns out that no matter how terrible the witch is, the main character would not be able to do anything without her. She gives wise advice, magical things that help the hero, and also feeds, waters and soars in the bathhouse the prince who came for a hint.

Fairy tales are just a repository of information forgotten by the people about events that took place so long ago that it is difficult to remember. Any fairy tale carries at least two levels of information: general and hidden. The general one tells what is good and what is bad in a given society. But the hidden one indicates the nuances of life in ancient times.

So, if you imagine the era of matriarchy and ask yourself the question - who was at the head of the tribe at that time? That answer will be:

the elder of the society is a woman of sufficient age to have the right to teach all the others, and young enough to be able to defend her place in society physically. That is, not a girl, but not an old woman either - a real woman in the normal sense of the word.

It was to such a chapter that they came for advice, treatment, and also for the right to their own lives.

And what does "Yaga" mean then?

There are many points of view about deciphering the word "Yaga". One of them defines this word as "decisive".

As you know, in many tribes, various procedures for initiation into full-fledged members of society were carried out for young people. Many of them were difficult and even painful. Similar tasks were given by the elder, she also made the decision whether the applicant coped with them or not.

The time of matriarchy was ending, but female priestesses remained. Most likely, they went to the forest, where it was more convenient to test applicants for adulthood. Of course, the tasks provided by the future Baba Yaga were different - a man had to be able to hunt, herd, make weapons, and, in the end, be aware of what to do with his wife. The latter is rarely spoken about and rarely written about, but this is reflected in fairy tales, as well as in serious studies.

Naturally, all kinds of difficult tasks were perceived badly by the subjects, so gradually Baba Yaga began to be attributed to negative, but necessary characters.

To be continued.