BABA YAGA - slavic monster from woods
My name is Antonina Karnicka, I'm 19. I'm from Poland. I have finished art school and I'm going to enter Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. I'll go for scenography. This fanny creature I've made for a halloween contest in my school fiew years ago and I have won. I've made it in technique paper mache. I like doing masks and costumes.
In slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs. Baba Yaga may help or hinder those that encounter or seek her out and may play a maternal role and has associations with forest wildlife. According to Vladimir Propp's folktale morphology, Baba Yaga commonly appears as either a donor, villian, or may be altogether ambiguous.
Andreas Johns identifies Baba Yaga as "one of the most memorable and distinctive figures in eastern European folklore," and observes that she is "enigmatic" and often exhibits "striking ambiguity." Johns summarizes Baba Yaga as a "a many-faceted figure, capable of inspiring researchers to see her as a Cloud, Moon, Death, Winter, Snake, Bird, Pelican or Earth Goddess, totemic matriarchal ancestress, female initiator, phallic mother, or archetypal image.
Please check out my work. Your faithfully.
A.K.
