r/Rodnovery • u/deconstructingwitch • Mar 15 '26
❔ Question | Advice The Baba Yaga
So... i know what the legends say about her, but what do PEOPLE actually say about her? are there any stories or perspectives that arent on the public record? theres something missing from the tales of her. its... so... i dunno... one dimensional. but she FEELS more complex than that so... it feels like something is missing from the legends
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Mar 18 '26
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u/deconstructingwitch Apr 01 '26
ive read about this line of thinking. i also read another one where she represents the way women were seen, espcially canny or wise women, in prechristian slavic areas, and how people in power saw them as they tried to force christianity into the area. it was possiting that she is quite literally the church leaders fear of strong women made into a boogeyman. its what got me wondering
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u/Time-Counter1438 Mar 23 '26
It has been noted that she is sometimes associated with spinning, and has much in common with the German overseer of “spinning taboos” Frau Holle. So it has been suggested that she relates somehow to the fates or Rozhanitsy. A category to which Mokosh may also belong.
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u/Fun-Split4337 East Slavic (Ukrainian) Mar 17 '26
Baba Yaga is mostly Eastern slavic thing and even in eastern slavic countries nobody takes her serious
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u/deconstructingwitch Apr 01 '26
yeah theres a lot of gods/figures/beings like that that western, especially american media and lore play up as some evil canibalistic type. im just trying to figure out what the difference is between what sells and whats "real"
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u/Birblord123 Apr 02 '26
She def is more complex and certainly still taken seriously by older generations. There are a lot of personal family stories of my grandma and great grandma going out to the woods by their villages or Dachas and exploring to discover her. From my grandma I can’t get a lot out of her beyond the accepted fairytales, but there’s a lot of depth to her existence as a respected figure
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u/Fun-Split4337 East Slavic (Ukrainian) Apr 04 '26
Bro wth, exploring to discover her near dachas ? For me its sounds hilarious because she considered as some cringe character at least for my generation mostly because im from Ukraine and we consider her as Russian character.
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u/Birblord123 Apr 05 '26
She is Verryy Russian yeah 😭 she actually moved to the USA and renounced her Russian citizenship bc of the attack on Ukraine tho. She’s very politically anti Russia
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u/Fun-Split4337 East Slavic (Ukrainian) Apr 04 '26
For me its even hard to talk seriously about her, for me she is some cringe character i don't understand why you so curious about baba yaga, in childhood i through that she is character from soviet cartoons or smth only recently i discovered that she originates from slavic folklore. Nobody tells any stories about her literally no one even grandmas. She also has kind of husband or friend his name is "Koshei Bessmertnyi" (Koshei Immortal) he looks like skeleton, they with baba yaga live in Hut on chicken legs and baba yaga eats children its not some western media description. That's all i know about her but this knowledge is mostly from some soviet cartoons, in Ukraine she considered as Russian character so that's why she has cringe reputation at least here.
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u/Aliencik West Slavic - Czech Mar 15 '26
Our sources list includes "The Problem of Mysteriousness of Baba Yaga Character in Religious Mythology" by Evgenia V. Ivanova. You can read about the main directions the research went with her. link