Baba Yagas, Kremlin and Cooks

Baba Yaga: The Wild Witch of the East in Russian Fairy Tales

Sibelan Forrester, transl. and ed. (Univ. Press of Mississippi, $45)

Baba Yaga is trending.

I know this not simply because we received two Baba Yaga books to review in the space of one month, but because a Scandinavian food cart in our little town has introduced a Baba Yaga wrap (roasted butternut squash, roasted mushrooms, caramelized onions, arugula and blue cheese dressing: $7 – notably, no chicken).

Of course, Baba Yaga has been trending for a long time. As Sibelan Forrester begins her introduction to this fine volume, “As the classic Russian fairy-tale witch, Baba Yaga has elicited fascination, trepidation and wonder in generations of Russian children and adults.”

The book contains not just 29 tales newly translated in a very fluid, enjoyable style (including some of the “better-knowns”: The Firebird, The Tsar-Maiden, Vasilisa the Beautiful and The Frog Princess), but copious footnotes and explanations, a lengthy introduction on everything you ever wanted to know about the witch, plus dozens of color illustrations from old books, modern designers, and artisans the world over.

If you are fascinated by Russian fairy-tales, this is one to savor.

Babayaga

Toby Barlow (FSG: $27)

In this modern tale, all the vedmas and babayagas are forced to leave the Old Country. Many expire in the process of emigration, but two end up in Paris. The younger of them, beautiful Zoya, has a hard time, because her lovers keep discovering she doesn’t age and, well, she has this need to finish them off rather graphically.

And that’s only in the first few pages. Soon things really spin out of control. There’s a policeman flea, weaponized LSD, some dangerous seeming jazz musicians, shady spooks, and a rather hapless American expat ad man. In short, pretty much what you’d expect to find in 1959 Paris.

In all, Babayaga is a fun, well-written romp and something of a meditation – fairy-tale style – on love, life, death, and... how to get along with witches.

Red Fortress

Catherine Merridale (Henry Holt: $35)

There is surely no world landmark that so personifies and encapsulates the state that contains it as the Kremlin. Across every inch of its architecture, buildings and rebuildings, it reflects the thousand-year history of the Russian state. The Kremlin is Russia and Russia is the Kremlin.

Indeed, the Kremlin is among those rare world structures that speak and have feelings (“Today, the Kremlin said...” “The Kremlin believes...”).

Yet, as Merridale aptly points out, this hypnotic, beautiful, historic fortress is also “deliberately contrived. There is nothing accidental about the Kremlin’s current appearance.”

Actually, some modern Russians might even have us believe there is nothing accidental about the Kremlin’s (i.e. Moscow’s) role in Russian history, that its preeminence was pre-ordained, the Third Rome rising to preeminence.

Yet, as Merridale shows, Moscow’s rise would have been difficult to predict 800 years ago, when the remote forest town was just another city-state vying for power in the land of Rus. History only turned in Moscow’s favor thanks to the canny Grand Prince, Ivan Moneybags (Kalita) – who struck a deal with the Mongol overlords, and to an ambitious Metropolitan who chose Moscow over Vladimir.

Of course, this is more than just a history of one architectural ensemble. It is a history of the Russian state as viewed through this highly representative conglomeration of bricks, oak, blood and ornamentation. As such, Merridale skillfully leads us through eight centuries that have been storied and bloody, pestilential and glorious... Whether evoking the muddy, fire-scorched founding centuries or the scandal-ridden days under Yeltsin, she tells this complex, fascinating history in a personal, approachable style, taking us behind doors locked to ordinary outsiders, while regaling us with stories and characters that could only ever have passed through the “magnificent, spellbinding” Kremlin.

Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking

Anya von Bremzen (Crown: $26)

If Merridale’s volume is 800 years of Russian history through the lens of the Kremlin, von Bremzen’s is 80 years of Soviet history viewed through the looking glass of food and personal history.

Indeed, this is a highly personal memoir, full of gastro-centric stories that are by turns rich and luscious, humorous and enlightening – each set in motion by the challenge of cooking one meal for every decade of Soviet rule. From the excess of pre-revolutionary kulebyaka, through the desolate years of Stalinist totalitarianism and Brezhnevian zastoy, to a flush return to the Rodina, it is also a tale of exile and return, of alienation and survival.

Von Bremzen writes in a wonderfully florid style that makes you eager to hear her account of Soviet history, even though you know the general line, because, in reality, her story is different, because her family was different (grandfather a spy, father a caretaker of Lenin’s corpse, mother an inveterate anti-Soviet). And truly fascinating.

“A complicated, even tortured relationship with food has long been a hallmark of our national character,” von Bremzen writes. And this is what she is truly exploring in her memoir, weaving her family stories with discussions of kvas and black bread, the various grades of sausage, the history of famines, why the post-revolutionary Kremlin had such awful food, the zakaz system, Uzbek melons, Eskimo pies, and on and on. In the process, she changes our perception of twentieth century Russia, illuminating the central role food (or lack of it) played in that history. Or, put another way, in Russia, food is always more than food.

NOTED IN BRIEF

Year of Night

Kate Beswick (Matador: £8.99)

Bewsick vividly recreates the mystery and danger of 1920s Paris, where protagonist Nadia Serova, who flees the revolution with her mysterious “uncle” Igor, seeks to extract herself from a tangled web of espionage, murder and deceit.

The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union

Peter Sadovnik (Basic Books: $27.99)

It hardly seems possible, with all that is known about the Kennedy assassination, that there are still blank spots. But apparently there has been little detail compiled about Oswald’s sojourn in the Soviet Union. Sadovnik rectifies this, interviewing and investigating previously untapped sources, and arrives at a convincing narrative and explanation for the tragedy.

Historical Dictionary of Russian Literature

Jonathan Stone (Scarecrow Press: $99)

Invaluable but expensive, this concise reference work offers a short chronology of Russian literature, useful appendices and over 100 cross-referenced entries on everything from authors to movements. It is mainly targeted at libraries, certainly, but would be of great aid and comfort to one deeply engaged in Russian literature.

Happy People

Werner von Herzog (documentary film)

This spellbinding film by the master of documentaries follows the modern life and fate of a small Siberian hunting village, showing the beauty of their simple, contented lives. And their super-dogs. Available for streaming on Netflix.

The Dark Matter of Love

Sarah McCarthy (documentary film)

An intimate, moving film about one family’s difficult journey of adopting a young Russian girl. Examines the ethical, medical and psychological issues of adoption, as well as the Russian system. Powerful.

thedarkmatteroflove.com