The Baba Yaga - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 9/11/24

want you to find her. But it's the word evil I want to explore, because so often she is put into this Disney caricature box of what an evil witch must look like. But she is so complex and she has some there we say life coaching amid her folk tales that are definitely worth exploring.

showing her that you can be brave. She can actually become almost a donor type fairy cod mother like character who can transform someone's life from miserable to so much better. And it's one of those aspects that I think is so fascinating, especially in this moment in modern history, where sometimes we have shadows that's around us. Sometimes we have darkness. Sometimes when you look around the world, it's terrifying, it's horrific. It's the darkness feels like every once in a while

it is creeping in. But when you look at old world stories that have stuck around not only for generations, but for hundreds thousands of years, those stories exist for a reason, and Baba Yaga specifically reminds us that when there's darkness in the world, don't be afraid of it, because sometimes through that darkness and finding our way to endure through that darkness is where our greatest transformations exist.

and just how she interacts with people changes. There's always a threat of she will eat you up for supper, which I mean as the best of storybook witches sometimes can have that threat, But there are so many different derivations of her. So I started studying her a long time ago. I think growing up in a household that was a mix of kind of contemporary American pop culture but also long held Ukrainian traditions. I'm first generation American on that side of my family. Hearing the dichotomy of

belief systems and understandings and just cultures intrigued me. And I remember when I was a little kid. I was probably nine years old, and there was this conversation around the dinner table, and it was probably three different generations around the dinner table, family friends as well as family, and all of a sudden, this conversation sparked about witches and darkness. And this is coming from a generation, my grandparents generation who survived World War two and World War

two in Ukraine. The story that is not often told I could actually tell you about that too. My most recent book, before Becoming Bobby Yaga, is actually a novel that is called The Bobby Yaga Mask that actually goes

into World War two Ukrainian history. But anyway, I was as a child, I was sitting around the dinner table and the stories shifted to witches and Bobby Yaga, and I remember, as a nine year old child, standing up excusing myself as politely as I could, because at my grandparents' Ukrainian dinner table, one must always have the best of manners, as we all know from our grandparents. But I excuse myself, ran to my bedroom where I had one of those

this is going to date me a little bit. I had a tape recorder with those many cassette tapes, and I ran and I got it, and I kind of kept it under my dinner napkin, and I sat back at the table very quietly, and I put my napkin on top of it, and I just recorded this conversation of all of my grandparents' friends discussing witches and folklore and beliefs. And I was just hooked from that moment. And the studies haven't really stopped.

own culture, and just say let us exist. Not getting into contemporary events on this conversation, but it's a familiar story and the horrors of freedom fighters and just survive will amid horrific things. These were stories that we heard around the dinner table, stories of survival and how to

find food and witnessing terrible events. And maybe it was an old belief that it was one of those things that you told your family stories better understand not only each other and your blood and your strength of what you can get through, but also just to be prepared for absolutely anything. So Yes, there was no shortage or limitations of darkness or scary tales when I was a child.

some history. And then when you start digging into the history, the answers to questions like what you just asked will become a little bit more clear.

that you see around you. And when you look at old fairy tales, when you look at old folk tales, when you look at the origin of Bobby Yaga herself, her first written record was in seventeen fifty five, and that's her first known written record, and that was in a Russian and in that book there was a list of deities across the world, and so you had Jupiter was next to the relevant Slavic god, who is next to the relevant Norse god, and you had all of

these different people who exist together. And then in this chart of gods and goddesses around the world, you had Bobby Yaga. And so in this first written record of her, she was not a storybook, which she was understood as a deity in that time. And so that's the first part of her intrigue is, Okay, we know her through storybooks, but she has this legacy of a deity. But then the more intriguing fact of it is there was this table of who were comparables the world over, and yet

Baba Yaga stood alone. There was nobody across the world in this book that was the same as she was. This force of strength for women, this force of strength of preservation of the earth, this force of nature, understanding the cycles of life and death and transformation. And I think it is this idea of transformation for her that people really lean into today.

who she may still be. And you're finding all of these breadcrumbs of deities across about a thousand years of Europe, where we have deities of the earth, where there are traditions where it was forbidden to spit on the earth, because the spit on the earth was to spit on your mother. There was an idea of digging a hole in the earth and whispering into it. So this goddess of the worst Earth could hear your deepest secrets or

greatest confessions and listen and respond to you. The idea of an old, terrifying woman on the edges of society. This is not a new idea. This is an idea that has been twisted and molded and shaped so much dependent on the teller of the tale. But when it comes to Baba Yaga and who who she is and who she has been, and the women who may have inspired her just as much as any traditions of deities, that's what is also intriguing in this conversation because who

is it who tells the stories to our youth. It's not always the most active society who are sitting down with the children and telling their stories. So often, especially historically, it's the grandmothers who are telling the stories to the children. Because the grandmothers sometimes are having more time than the parents who are running this direction and that direction. And that is not a modern phenomenon. Parents are always doing their best to take care of the one hundred things

that are necessary in life. But if you have the grandmothers who are the ones between generations telling the tales of this fearsome which Baba Yaga, there's some ownership in age and wisdom and strength and experience, and telling of small children and also adults alike, that you know what. The world can sometimes be scary. Sometimes it may feel as if you might be eaten for supper. Sometimes it feels that if you walk into the woods, someone might

get you. If you are not being your best self, if you're not being respectful, if you're not being good hearted, if you're not being brave, if you're not being hardworking. It's a lesson from the grandmothers to the children that has passed down in countless ways. And thus we have Bobby Yaga today, and she's popping up in pop culture all over the place. In movies, she's in Goodness, She's in the John Wick series John Wick Keanu Reeves character, her name is Bobby Yaga, and she's popping up there.

She's popping up in music, she's popping up in fiction. In the past decade, Bobby Yaga has emerged from the woods and popped up in the Western world, and so often she's this force of horror. But every once in a while there's a slightly deeper exploration where audiences sit back and go, who is this woman who is this witch, and there is where my explorations begin and I've so much deeper.

see the old country. So she hops a fly to you Europe. She steps up the plane and she disappears. And thus we have the story of a wild goose chase across contemporary Eastern Europe. Of these two sisters, won a new mother and one a free spirit, shall we call her, on this wild goose chase finding their grandmother. But in the midst of it, they're uncovering their grandmother's history,

their families, history, Ukrainian history and traditions. The part of that grandmother's disappearance and this is not giving away any plot. Is this concept of this woman who grew up knowing and believing in Bobby Yaga, not just as a storybook character, but as a force in the wood who was there to empower the world. This grandmother ends the Baba Yaga mask decides, you know what, the world is scary. The

world is horrific. Haven't we all had that moment where we look around and say, the world is falling apart? So this grandmother and that novel says, you know what I'm going to do. I am going to scare the world to being a better place. I am going to take up the inspiration of Bobbiyaga and see what I can do here. And so I love that inspiration for a character in fiction. Of the world is horrific, maybe we need to scare it into being a better place.

This is not the life strategy I'm discussing, but it's an interesting way to look at how folk tales and different belief systems have exist in human civilization for a very long time.

the hearts of humans for forever. But there is a story of a girl who she lived with her stepmother and stepsisters, except for the last fire goes out in their household. So this girl of Vasalisa is sent out into the woods to get fire back for their household because the only one who can access fire is the witch of the woods, Babba Yaga. So she goes to Bobby Yaga, and Bobby Yaga forces her to not just have the fire, but she forces her to prove herself

worthy of eight guests. And again this is where there's such a similar formula and all of the in all of the tales that when especially when young women come to seek her, if they are respectful to her, if they prove themselves good hearted, if they prove themselves hard working, and if they prove themselves brave, Those four traits will enable an individual to conquer anything.