Baba Yaga by Viktor Vasnetsov.

Baba Yaga or Baba Roga (also known by various other names) is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant mortar, kidnaps (and presumably eats) small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs. In most Slavic folk tales, she is portrayed as an antagonist; however, some characters in other mythological folk stories have been known to seek her out for her wisdom, and she has been known on rare occasions to offer guidance to lost souls. According to Propp, she often fulfills the function of donor; that is, her role is in supplying the hero (sometimes unwillingly) with something necessary to further his quest.

Etymology and origin[link]

The name of Baba-Yaga is composed of two elements. Baba means "old woman" or "grandmother" in most Slavic languages; it derives from babytalk and often has come to have pejorative connotations in modern Slavic languages.^[1] The second element, yaga, is from Proto-Slavic (j)ęga, "Jędza"[Polish], which is probably related to Lithuanian ingis ("lazybones" or "sluggard"), Old Norse ekki ("pain"), and Old English inca ("question, scruple, doubt; grievance, quarrel").^[2]

An early recorded reference to yaga-baba in English appears in Of the Russe Common Wealth by Giles Fletcher, the Elder, in the section "About Permyaks, Samoyeds and Lopars",^[3] indicating a possible Uralic influence.^[4]

The name differs within the various Slavic languages. It is spelled Baba Jaga in Czech, Slovak and Polish (though Czech and Slovak also use Ježibaba). In Slovene, the words are reversed, producing Jaga Baba. In Russian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, it is Баба Яга́ transliterated as Baba Yaga (also Baba Yaha, in Ukrainian and Baba Yaha or Baba Jaha in Belarusian). In South Slavic languages and traditions, there is a similar old witch, written Baba Roga in Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian, and Баба Рога in Bosnian, Macedonian and Serbian - this name translates as "horned old woman/grandmother". In Romanian, which is not Slavic but one of the Romance languages, the name is Baba Cloanţa (roughly translated as "old hag with broken teeth").

Folklore[link]

Vasilisa the Beautiful at the Hut of Baba Yaga by Ivan Bilibin

In Russian tales, Baba Yaga is portrayed as a hag who flies through the air in a mortar, using the pestle as a rudder and sweeping away the tracks behind her with a broom made of silver birch. She lives in a log cabin that either moves around on a pair of dancing chicken legs, is surrounded by a palisade with a skull on each pole, or both. The keyhole to her front door is a mouth filled with sharp teeth; the fence outside is made with human bones with skulls on top, often with one pole lacking its skull, leaving space for the hero or heroes. In another legend, the hut does not reveal its door until it is told a magical phrase: "Turn your back to the forest, and your front to me."

In some tales, the hut is connected with three riders: one in white, riding a white horse with a white harness, who is Day; a red rider, who is the Sun; and one in black, who is Night. Baba Yaga is served by invisible servants inside the hut. She explains the riders if asked, but may kill a visitor who inquires about the servants.

Baba Jaga is the Wise Woman of Fire. Some Romani/Gypsy families portray her as a phuri dai, the words for grandmother or Wise Woman. She represents the element of Fire and harmonizes with the other three: the mortar symbolizing herbs--Earth--bird legs on the cabin represent Air, and the element of Water flows as a creek between the legs.

Baba Yaga is sometimes shown as an antagonist, and sometimes as a source of guidance; there are stories in which she helps people with their quests, and stories in which she kidnaps children and threatens to eat them. Seeking out her aid is usually portrayed as a dangerous act. An emphasis is placed on the need for proper preparation and purity of spirit, as well as basic politeness. It is said she ages one year every time she is asked a question, which may explain her reluctance to help. This effect, however, can be reversed with a special blend of tea made with blue roses.

Baba Yaga by Ivan Bilibin

In the folk tale "Vasilissa the Beautiful", recorded by Alexander Afanasyev (Narodnye russkie skazki, vol 4, 1862), the titular young girl is given three impossible tasks that she solves using a magic doll given to her by her mother. In the Christianised version of the story, Vasilissa is sent to visit Baba Yaga on an errand and is enslaved by her, but the hag's servants — a cat, a dog, a gate, and a tree — help Vasilissa to escape because she is kind to them. In the end, Baba Yaga is turned into a crow. Similarly, Prince Ivan in "The Death of Koschei the Deathless" is aided against her by animals whom he has spared.

The Polish folklore version differs in details. For example, the Polish Baba Jaga's hut has only one chicken leg. Monstrous witches living in gingerbread huts are also commonly named Baba Jaga.^{[citation needed]} Baba Jaga, flying on a broom and wearing black and red striped folk costume of Świętokrzyskie Mountains, is an unofficial symbol of Kielce region (it is connected with legendary witches' sabbaths on Łysa Góra mountain). In some legends Baba Yaga is also awarded the title Костяная Нога ("The Bone Leg") and considered a guardian between the real world and the land of the dead. This title later became an idiom, often used as taunt.^{[citation needed]}

Baba Yaga is used as a stock character by authors of modern Russian fairy tales, and from the 1990s in Russian fantasy. In particular, Baba Yaga is included in such books as Andrey Belyanin's cycle Secret service of Tsar Pea. The childhood and youth of Baba Yaga were described for the first time in the A. Aliverdiev's tale "Creek" ("Lukomorie").^{[citation needed]}

In some fairy tales, such as "The Feather of Finist the Falcon", the hero meets with three Baba Yagas. Such figures are usually benevolent, giving the hero advice, magical presents, or both.^[5]

Other recorded Russian fairy tales that feature Baba Yaga are "Teryoshechka", "The Enchanted Princess", and "The Silver Saucer and the Red Apple".^[6]

Cabin on chicken legs[link]

Nicholas Roerich, Izba smerti (Hut of Death, sketch, 1905), an artistic expression of burial traditions of the ancient Slavs

According to Russian folklore, Baba Yaga dwells, in the words of the preface to Alexander Pushkin's fantasy poem Ruslan and Lyudmila, in a "cabin on chicken legs... with no windows and no doors". Baba Yaga herself usually uses the chimney to fly in and out on her mortar. The door sometimes appears at the other side of the hut; to see it, a hero should say "Hut, O hut, turn your back to the woods, your front to me" and thus force the cabin to turn around and reveal the door.

Sami storehouse, Stockholm, Sweden

This may be an interpretation^{[citation needed]} of an ordinary construction popular among hunter-nomadic peoples of Siberia of Uralic and Tungusic families, invented to preserve supplies against animals during long periods of absence. A doorless and windowless log cabin is built upon supports made from the stumps of two or three closely grown trees cut at the height of eight to ten feet. The stumps, with their spreading roots, would give an impression of "chicken legs".

A similar but smaller construction was used by Siberian pagans to hold figurines of their gods. Recalling the late matriarchy among Siberian peoples, a common picture of a bone-carved doll in rags in a small cabin on top of a tree stump fits a common description of Baba Yaga, who barely fits her cabin: her legs lie in one corner, her head in another one, and her nose is grown into the ceiling.^{[citation needed]}

There are indications that ancient Slavs had a funeral tradition of cremation in huts of this type. In 1948, Russian archaeologists Yefimenko and Tretyakov discovered similar small huts with traces of corpse cremation and circular fences around them; this may be a connection to the Baba Yaga myth.^[7][8]

Literature[link]

Baba Jaga, a.k.a. ciocia Agnieszka (aunt Agnes) appears as a minor antagonist in Andrzej Pilipiuk's short story collection Wieszać każdy może. Main protagonist, Jakub Wędrowycz, mentions fighting her as a child and gets rid of her permanently when she tries to eat his great-grandson Piotruś.

Baba Yaga is a major character in Isaac Bashevis Singer’s children story Joseph & Koza, where she is described as having a face like a pitch, a red turned-up nose with broad nostrils, eyes burning like live coals, thistles instead of hair and a beard. Singer also mentions that the Mazovians believed in “many lesser babas” and “little imps called dziads.”^[9] In his novel The King of the Fields, Baba Yaga was a goddess to whom the prehistoric Poles made sacrifices.^[10]

Film and animation[link]

Baba Yaga is a favorite subject of Russian films and cartoons. The film Vasilisa the Beautiful by Aleksandr Rou, featuring Baba Yaga, was the first feature with fantasy elements in the Soviet Union.^[11] Georgy Milliar, a male actor, portrayed Baba Yaga in numerous movies from the 1930s to 1960s, including Vasilissa the Beautiful, Morozko, New Adventures of Puss-in-Boots and others.

The animated film Bartok the Magnificent features Baba Yaga as a difficult main character, but not an antagonist.

The John Duigan film Lawn Dogs uses the story of Baba Yaga as a plot device. The character Devon tells the story to herself, and to Trent as he escapes from the town at the end of the film. She gives him a towel and a comb, both of which he uses to evade capture by the townspeople.

The character of Baba Yaga appears in the film Jack Frost, which was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Baba Yaga also appears in the film Shrek Forever After, having been employed by Rumpelstiltskin to fight against Shrek, voiced by the film's director Mike Mitchell and in Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's 2010 short film Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess.^[12]

Art[link]

Victor Hartmann's The hut on hen's legs–clock in the Russian Style

Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, a suite for piano composed in 1874, features "The Hut on Bird's Legs (Baba Yaga)" as its penultimate movement. This suite was inspired by an exhibition of paintings by the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann held in his memory, a year after his death. This specific movement was inspired by the painting "The hut on hen's legs–clock in the Russian Style". Mussorgsky's suite has since been set in whole or in part for a variety of instruments. The most famous version for orchestra was made in 1922 by Ravel. The progressive rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer adapted Mussorgsky's suite for an album in 1971 that included the original Baba Yaga movement along with an original track entitled "The Curse of Baba Yaga".

Baba Yaga (opus 56), a symphonic poem by Anatoly Lyadov, was composed between 1890 and 1904. The music depicts the witch summoning her mortar, pestle and broomstick, then flying through the forest.

Tchaikovsky wrote a piece called "The Witch - Baba Yaga" (op 39).

Name in other languages[link]

Baba Yaga is an archetypal character in the culture of many eastern European countries, and is known by different names across the region, including "Baba Roga" and "Baba Ruta" in Macedonian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian; "Baba Cloanța" in Romanian; "Ježibaba" in Slovak as well as Czech; "vasorrú (literally "iron-nosed") bába" in Hungarian; "Баба (literally "Grandma") Яга" in Bulgarian; and "Bobbe Yakhne" in Yiddish. In other languages she is known as: ( /ˈbɑːbə jəˈɡɑː/; Bosnian: Baba Jaga; Belarusian: Баба-Ягіня, Baba-Jahinia; Bulgarian: Баба Яга, Baba-Yaga ; Croatian: Baba Jaga; Czech: Ježibaba; Latvian: Baba Jaga; Polish: Baba Jaga; Russian: Баба-Яга, Baba-Yaga; Serbian: Баба Јага, Baba Jaga; Slovene: Jaga baba; Ukrainian: Баба-яга, Baba-yaha).

See also[link]

• Muma Pădurii ‎

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

Notations[link]

• Maria Tatar (2002) "The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales", ISBN 0-393-05163-3 p. 175

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Baba Yaga

Look up baba, bába, bàba, babà, or babă in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Baba and similar words may refer to:

Geography[link]

• Baba, Masovian Voivodeship (east-central Poland)
• Baba, Mogilno County in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (north-central Poland)
• Baba, Rypin County in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (north-central Poland)
• Baba, Greater Poland Voivodeship (west-central Poland)
• Baba Mountain, Macedonia
• Baba Mountain, Serbia, a mountain in Serbia
• Baba mountain range, also known as Koh-i-Baba, in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan
• Baba Budangiri, a mountain and eponymous range in the Western Ghats of India
• Cape Baba, a cape in Turkey
• Baba Canton, a canton in Los Ríos Province, Ecuador
• Baba, a village in Horea Commune, Alba County, Romania
• Baba (Hungarian: Bába), a village in Coroieni Commune, Maramureş County, Romania
• Baba River (Ghelinţa), Romania
• Baba River (Putna), Romania
• Baba River (Macedonia), in the Republic of Macedonia, noted for Kolešino Waterfall

People[link]

• Baba (name), people with the given and surname
• Baba (honorific), an honorific used in several South Asian and Middle Eastern cultures

Folklore[link]

• Baba (goddess) or Bau, a Sumerian goddess depicted with the head of a dog
• Baba (Egyptian god)‎ or Babi, an Egyptian god in the shape of a baboon

Films[link]

• Bàba or Father, a Chinese film
• Baba (2002 film), a 2002 Tamil film
• Bába (2008 film), a 2008 short Czech film

Other uses[link]

• Baba (nickname), meaning father in Pakistan, Indian(Marathi/Maharastra), Middle Eastern, and African cultures & grandmother in Ukrainian, Macedonian, Serbian and other Slavic languages
• Baba (Alevism), an Alevi religious leader
• Babá, Brazilian politician
• Baba (cake) or Babka, a Polish yeast cake
• Baba (yacht), a line of yachts built in Taiwan
• Baba (Pillow Pal), a Pillow Pal lamb made by Ty, Inc.
• Baba (The Kite Runner), a character in The Kite Runner media
• Baba (Dragon Ball), a character in Dragon Ball media
• Baba (F-Zero), a character in the F-Zero universe
• Paopi or Baba, the second month of the Coptic calendar
• Baba, a character in Redbeard comics
• "Baba", a song by Alanis Morissette from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie

See also[link]

• Babaji (disambiguation)
• Bhabha (disambiguation)
• Babai (disambiguation)
• Babar (disambiguation)
• Babu (disambiguation)
• Ali Baba, a character in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
• Baba clan (disambiguation)
• Baba O'Riley, a song by The Who
• Baba Yaga, a witch-like character in Slavic folklore
• Gül Baba (operetta), an operetta by Jenő Huszka
• Standing Baba, a Hindu who has vowed to stand
• Baba Yetu, Lord's Prayer and song by Christopher Tin
• Baba ghanoush, a Middle Eastern eggplant dish
• Rum baba, a cake saturated in rum
• Guru Nanak or Baba Nanak, the universal enlightener
• All pages beginning with "baba"
• All pages with titles containing "baba"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

First edition, 1781

The Robbers (Die Räuber) was the first drama by German playwright Friedrich Schiller. The play was published in 1781 and premiered on 13 January 1782 in Mannheim, Germany. It was written towards the end of the German Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") movement and has been considered by many critics, such as Peter Brooks, to have influenced the development of European melodrama.^[1] The play astounded its Mannheim audience and made Schiller an overnight sensation. It later became the basis for Verdi's opera of the same name, I masnadieri.

The plot revolves around the conflict between two aristocratic brothers, Karl and Franz Moor. The charismatic but rebellious student Karl is deeply loved by his father. The younger brother, Franz, who appears as a cold, calculating villain, plots to wrest away Karl's inheritance. As the play unfolds, both Franz's motives and Karl's innocence and heroism are revealed to be complex.

Schiller's highly emotional language and his depiction of physical violence mark the play as a quintessential Sturm und Drang work. At the same time, the play utilizes a traditional five act structure, with each act containing two to five scenes. The play uses alternating scenes to pit the brothers against each other, as one quests for money and power, while the other attempts to create a revolutionary anarchy in the Bohemian Forest. Schiller raises many disturbing issues in the play. For instance, he questions the dividing lines between personal liberty and the law and probes the psychology of power, the nature of masculinity and the essential differences between good and evil. He strongly criticizes both the hypocrisies of class and religion and the economic inequities of German society. He also conducts a complicated inquiry into the nature of evil.

Dramatis personae[link]

Playbill of Würzburg performance, 1804

• Maximilian, Count von Moor (also called "Old Moor") is the beloved father of Karl and Franz. He is a good person at heart, but also weak, and has failed to raise his two sons properly. He bears responsibility for the perversion of the Moor family, which has caused the family's values to become invalidated. The Moor family acts as an analogy of state, a typical political criticism of Schiller's. The prince as a father of the nation is particularly condemned.

• Karl (Charles) Moor, his older son, is a self-confident idealist. He is good-looking and well liked by all. He holds feelings of deep love for Amalia. After his father, misled by brother Franz, curses Karl and banishes him from his home, Karl becomes a disgraceful criminal and murderous arsonist. While he maintains a general spirit of melancholy about the promising life he has left behind for a life of lawlessness, together with his gang of robbers he fights against the unfairness and corruption of the feudal authorities. This despair leads to the urge to express and discover new goals and directions, and to realize his ideals and dreams of heroism. He breaks the law, for as he says, "the end justifies the means." He develops a close connection with his robbers, especially to Roller and Schweizer, but recognizes the unscrupulousness and dishonor of Spiegelberg and his other associates. Amalia creates a deep internal twist in the plot and in Karl's persona. He swore allegiance to the robbers after Schweizer and Roller died for his sake, and he promised that he would never separate from his men, so cannot return to Amalia. In deep desperation due to the death of his father, he eventually kills his true love and decides to turn himself in to the law.

• Franz Moor, his younger son, is an egoistic rationalist and materialist. He is cold-hearted and callous. He is rather ugly and unpopular, as opposed to his brother Karl, but quite intelligent and cunning. However, since his father loved only his brother and not him, he developed a lack of feeling, which made the "sinful world" intolerable for his passions, and he consequently fixed himself to a rationalistic way of thinking. In the character of Franz, Schiller demonstrates what could happen if the moral way of thinking was replaced by the pure rationalization. Franz strives for power in order to be able to implement his interests.

• Amalia von Edelreich, his niece is Karl's love and is a faithful and reliable person (to learn more of their relationship see "Hektorlied" (de)).

• Spiegelberg acts as an opponent of Karl Moor and is driven by crime. Additionally, he self-nominated himself to be captain in Karl's robber band, yet was passed up in favor of Karl. Spiegelberg tries to portray Karl negatively among the robbers in order to become the captain, but does not succeed.

• Schweizer
• Grimm
• Razmann
• Schufterle
• Roller
• Kosinsky
• Schwarz
• Herrmann, the illegitimate son of a Nobleman
• Daniel, an old servant of Count von Moor
• Pastor Moser
• Pater
• A Monk
• Band of robbers, servants, etc

The play is referred to in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Fyodor Karamazov compares himself to Count von Moor, whilst comparing his eldest son, Dmitri, to Franz Moor, and Ivan Karamazov to Karl Moor.^[2]

English translations[link]

Peter Newmark notes three translations in the Encyclopedia of Literary Translation:^[3]

• Schiller, Friedrich; Tytler, Alexander Fraser (trans.) (1792). The Robbers. G. G. & J. Robinson. http://books.google.com/books?id=Awj-tgAACAAJ.  Public domain; widely available in many formats.
• Schiller, Friedrich; Lamport, F. J. (trans.) (1979). The Robbers, with Wallenstein. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-044368-4. 
• Schiller, Friedrich; MacDonald, Robert David (trans.) (1995). The Robbers. Oberon. ISBN 978-1-870259-52-1.  The same translation apparently also appears in Schiller: Volume One: The Robbers, Passion and Politics. Robert David MacDonald (Trans.). Oberon. 2006. ISBN 978-1-84002-618-4. 

Klaus van den Berg has compared the later two translations, "The two most prominent translations from the latter part of the twentieth century take very different approaches to this style: F.J. Lamport’s 1979 translation, published in the Penguin edition, follows Schiller’s first epic-sized version and remains close to the original language, observing sentence structures, finding literal translations that emphasize the melodramatic aspect of Schiller’s work. In contrast, Robert MacDonald’s 1995 translation, written for a performance by the Citizen’s Company at the Edinburgh Festival, includes some of Schiller’s own revisions, modernizes the language trying to find equivalences to reach his British target audiences. While Lamport directs his translation toward an audience expecting classics as authentic as possible modeled on the original, McDonald opts for a performance translation cutting the text and interpreting many of the emotional moments that are left less clear in a more literal translation."^[4]

Michael Billington wrote in 2005 that Robert MacDonald "did more than anyone to rescue Schiller from British neglect."^[5]

Unpublished translations[link]

• Millar, Daniel and Leipacher, Mark (2010). The Robbers. Presented by the Faction Theatre Company.^[6]

Adaptations[link]

• I masnadieri (1847), opera by Giuseppe Verdi
• The Robbers (1913) at the Internet Movie Database, film directed by J. Searle Dawley and Walter Edwin
• Die Räuber (1957), opera by Giselher Klebe

References[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Die Räuber (Friedrich Schiller)

• The Robbers at Project Gutenberg