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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with

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Speaker 2: you our special guest Chris Pzech with us, an editor

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Speaker 2: and author dedicated to helping other writers, fully believes that

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Speaker 2: well rid words in Walt stories have always changed the

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Speaker 2: world and that they will continue to do so. The

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Speaker 2: latest book is called Becoming Baba Yaga. Chris, welcome to

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Speaker 2: the program.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. George.

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Speaker 2: What is the Baba Yaga?

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Speaker 3: Oh, that's such a fabulous question. So Baba Yaga is

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Speaker 3: a folk tale story book which who has stories has

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Speaker 3: been a giant telephone game over centuries and perhaps millennia

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Speaker 3: of this evil crone who lives deep in the woods,

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Speaker 3: who lives in a house that stands upon chicken legs,

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Speaker 3: So of course her house can stand up and turn around,

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Speaker 3: so you can never find her front door, or else

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Speaker 3: can stand up and run away if she really doesn't

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Speaker 3: want you to find her. But it's the word evil

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Speaker 3: I want to explore, because so often she is put

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Speaker 3: into this Disney caricature box of what an evil witch

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Speaker 3: must look like. But she is so complex and she

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Speaker 3: has some there we say life coaching amid her folk

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Speaker 3: tales that are definitely worth exploring.

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Speaker 2: Does this come primarily from Slavic and the Ukrainian folklore

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Speaker 2: Slavic falklor.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I'm Ukrainian myself, so I've known Bobby Yaga for

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Speaker 3: a very long time. Sometimes when people speak of her,

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Speaker 3: they speak of her as a Russian witch. But really,

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Speaker 3: if you look anywhere in Eastern Europe, there are little

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Speaker 3: breadcrumbs of who this character is, what her legacy is,

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Speaker 3: what her belief system is, all across that region. So

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Speaker 3: you can really pinpoint her in about ten different countries

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Speaker 3: in that region. But no, quite, there are no borders

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Speaker 3: that exist for bob Yaga.

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Speaker 2: Is there supposed to be an alter? You go to

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Speaker 2: Baba Yaga a good one.

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Speaker 3: That's the wonderful thing about her, because she is a

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Speaker 3: force of darkness, but she always has this identity to

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Speaker 3: her where if you come to her and you show

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Speaker 3: her for specific character traits, which I love because this

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Speaker 3: is kind of where the evolution and transformation come with her.

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Speaker 3: If you come to her deep in the woods according

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Speaker 3: to oli her stories, and you're showing her respect, and

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Speaker 3: you're showing her that you have a kind heart, and

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Speaker 3: you're showing her that you're a hard worker, and you're

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Speaker 3: showing her that you can be brave. She can actually

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Speaker 3: become almost a donor type fairy cod mother like character

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Speaker 3: who can transform someone's life from miserable to so much better.

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Speaker 3: And it's one of those aspects that I think is

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Speaker 3: so fascinating, especially in this moment in modern history, where

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Speaker 3: sometimes we have shadows that's around us. Sometimes we have darkness.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes when you look around the world, it's terrifying, it's horrific.

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Speaker 3: It's the darkness feels like every once in a while

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Speaker 3: it is creeping in. But when you look at old

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Speaker 3: world stories that have stuck around not only for generations,

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Speaker 3: but for hundreds thousands of years, those stories exist for

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Speaker 3: a reason, and Baba Yaga specifically reminds us that when

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Speaker 3: there's darkness in the world, don't be afraid of it,

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Speaker 3: because sometimes through that darkness and finding our way to

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Speaker 3: endure through that darkness is where our greatest transformations exist.

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Speaker 2: Of course, how did you become so knowledgeable about Baba Yaga?

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Speaker 3: So she's a character I have known from just family

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Speaker 3: bedtime stories since I was a young child, But because

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Speaker 3: she is so ambiguous. Sometimes she is evil, sometimes she

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Speaker 3: is good. Sometimes she falls into this trickster category. And

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Speaker 3: she is so complex that her physicality changes between different stories,

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Speaker 3: and just how she interacts with people changes. There's always

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Speaker 3: a threat of she will eat you up for supper,

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Speaker 3: which I mean as the best of storybook witches sometimes

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Speaker 3: can have that threat, But there are so many different

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Speaker 3: derivations of her. So I started studying her a long

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Speaker 3: time ago. I think growing up in a household that

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Speaker 3: was a mix of kind of contemporary American pop culture

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Speaker 3: but also long held Ukrainian traditions. I'm first generation American

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Speaker 3: on that side of my family. Hearing the dichotomy of

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Speaker 3: belief systems and understandings and just cultures intrigued me. And

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Speaker 3: I remember when I was a little kid. I was

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Speaker 3: probably nine years old, and there was this conversation around

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Speaker 3: the dinner table, and it was probably three different generations

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Speaker 3: around the dinner table, family friends as well as family,

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Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, this conversation sparked about witches

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Speaker 3: and darkness. And this is coming from a generation, my

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Speaker 3: grandparents generation who survived World War two and World War

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Speaker 3: two in Ukraine. The story that is not often told

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Speaker 3: I could actually tell you about that too. My most

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Speaker 3: recent book, before Becoming Bobby Yaga, is actually a novel

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Speaker 3: that is called The Bobby Yaga Mask that actually goes

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Speaker 3: into World War two Ukrainian history. But anyway, I was

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Speaker 3: as a child, I was sitting around the dinner table

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Speaker 3: and the stories shifted to witches and Bobby Yaga, and

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Speaker 3: I remember, as a nine year old child, standing up

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Speaker 3: excusing myself as politely as I could, because at my grandparents'

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Speaker 3: Ukrainian dinner table, one must always have the best of manners,

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Speaker 3: as we all know from our grandparents. But I excuse myself,

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Speaker 3: ran to my bedroom where I had one of those

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Speaker 3: this is going to date me a little bit. I

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Speaker 3: had a tape recorder with those many cassette tapes, and

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Speaker 3: I ran and I got it, and I kind of

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Speaker 3: kept it under my dinner napkin, and I sat back

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Speaker 3: at the table very quietly, and I put my napkin

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Speaker 3: on top of it, and I just recorded this conversation

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Speaker 3: of all of my grandparents' friends discussing witches and folklore

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Speaker 3: and beliefs. And I was just hooked from that moment.

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Speaker 3: And the studies haven't really stopped.

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Speaker 2: Would your family actually give you bedtime stories of this

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Speaker 2: evil thing?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, So I grew up in a household where

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Speaker 3: I think so many horrors had happened during World War two,

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Speaker 3: tales of survival, because the Ukrainian World War II story, again,

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Speaker 3: it's a story that's not often told, where you had

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Speaker 3: forces from Russia coming from one direction, claiming trying to

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Speaker 3: wipe away Ukrainian identity. You had Nazi Germany who was

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Speaker 3: coming in on the other side, and you have Ukraine

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Speaker 3: in the middle, who desperately just wants to be its

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Speaker 3: own country, to have its own identity, to claim its

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Speaker 3: own culture, and just say let us exist. Not getting

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Speaker 3: into contemporary events on this conversation, but it's a familiar

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Speaker 3: story and the horrors of freedom fighters and just survive

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Speaker 3: will amid horrific things. These were stories that we heard

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Speaker 3: around the dinner table, stories of survival and how to

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Speaker 3: find food and witnessing terrible events. And maybe it was

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Speaker 3: an old belief that it was one of those things

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Speaker 3: that you told your family stories better understand not only

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Speaker 3: each other and your blood and your strength of what

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Speaker 3: you can get through, but also just to be prepared

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Speaker 3: for absolutely anything. So Yes, there was no shortage or

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Speaker 3: limitations of darkness or scary tales when I was a child.

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Speaker 2: Wow, not that digress too much, but I have to

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Speaker 2: ask you this. They say one of Putin's reasons for

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Speaker 2: going into Ukraine was to try to rid it of

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Speaker 2: Nazis that were still infiltrating Is there any truth to that.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to stay away from contemporary events in this conversation,

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Speaker 3: but I can just say that I have known a

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Speaker 3: sense of Ukrainian pride, Ukrainian identity, and the beauty of

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Speaker 3: arts and music and storytelling as a part of what

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Speaker 3: it means to be Ukrainian for as long as I

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Speaker 3: can remember. And there's such a strength of people and

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Speaker 3: bravery of people that I think it's a very complex

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Speaker 3: story that people should take some time to actually learn

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Speaker 3: some history. And then when you start digging into the history,

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Speaker 3: the answers to questions like what you just asked will

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Speaker 3: become a little bit more clear.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty complicated, isn't it. Definitely back to Bob Yaga.

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Speaker 2: Has it hurt anybody that you know of?

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Speaker 3: Has Bobby Aga?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: No, I cannot say definitely not. Bobbioga is definitely a

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Speaker 3: force that you could say her stories are out to terrify.

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Speaker 3: Her stories are out to put a different lens on

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Speaker 3: the world that you think you know right where you

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Speaker 3: think that you might be comfortable, or again the terrors

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Speaker 3: that you see around you. And when you look at

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Speaker 3: old fairy tales, when you look at old folk tales,

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Speaker 3: when you look at the origin of Bobby Yaga herself,

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Speaker 3: her first written record was in seventeen fifty five, and

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Speaker 3: that's her first known written record, and that was in

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Speaker 3: a Russian and in that book there was a list

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Speaker 3: of deities across the world, and so you had Jupiter

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Speaker 3: was next to the relevant Slavic god, who is next

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Speaker 3: to the relevant Norse god, and you had all of

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Speaker 3: these different people who exist together. And then in this

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Speaker 3: chart of gods and goddesses around the world, you had

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Speaker 3: Bobby Yaga. And so in this first written record of her,

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Speaker 3: she was not a storybook, which she was understood as

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Speaker 3: a deity in that time. And so that's the first

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Speaker 3: part of her intrigue is, Okay, we know her through storybooks,

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Speaker 3: but she has this legacy of a deity. But then

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Speaker 3: the more intriguing fact of it is there was this

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Speaker 3: table of who were comparables the world over, and yet

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Speaker 3: Baba Yaga stood alone. There was nobody across the world

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Speaker 3: in this book that was the same as she was.

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Speaker 3: This force of strength for women, this force of strength

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Speaker 3: of preservation of the earth, this force of nature, understanding

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Speaker 3: the cycles of life and death and transformation. And I

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Speaker 3: think it is this idea of transformation for her that

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Speaker 3: people really lean into today.

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Speaker 2: Is she strictly folklore Chris? Or is she possibly real?

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Speaker 3: Hm? So I like the idea of where do you

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Speaker 3: stories come from? They come from somewhere deep within the

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Speaker 3: emotions of humanity, the fears of humanity. When we look

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Speaker 3: at Baba Yaga as a character again, we see this

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Speaker 3: trail of deities, of who she may have once been,

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Speaker 3: who she may still be. And you're finding all of

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Speaker 3: these breadcrumbs of deities across about a thousand years of Europe,

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Speaker 3: where we have deities of the earth, where there are

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Speaker 3: traditions where it was forbidden to spit on the earth,

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Speaker 3: because the spit on the earth was to spit on

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Speaker 3: your mother. There was an idea of digging a hole

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Speaker 3: in the earth and whispering into it. So this goddess

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Speaker 3: of the worst Earth could hear your deepest secrets or

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Speaker 3: greatest confessions and listen and respond to you. The idea

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Speaker 3: of an old, terrifying woman on the edges of society.

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Speaker 3: This is not a new idea. This is an idea

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Speaker 3: that has been twisted and molded and shaped so much

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Speaker 3: dependent on the teller of the tale. But when it

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Speaker 3: comes to Baba Yaga and who who she is and

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Speaker 3: who she has been, and the women who may have

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Speaker 3: inspired her just as much as any traditions of deities,

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Speaker 3: that's what is also intriguing in this conversation because who

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Speaker 3: is it who tells the stories to our youth. It's

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Speaker 3: not always the most active society who are sitting down

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Speaker 3: with the children and telling their stories. So often, especially historically,

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Speaker 3: it's the grandmothers who are telling the stories to the children.

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Speaker 3: Because the grandmothers sometimes are having more time than the

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Speaker 3: parents who are running this direction and that direction. And

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Speaker 3: that is not a modern phenomenon. Parents are always doing

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Speaker 3: their best to take care of the one hundred things

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Speaker 3: that are necessary in life. But if you have the

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Speaker 3: grandmothers who are the ones between generations telling the tales

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Speaker 3: of this fearsome which Baba Yaga, there's some ownership in

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Speaker 3: age and wisdom and strength and experience, and telling of

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Speaker 3: small children and also adults alike, that you know what.

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Speaker 3: The world can sometimes be scary. Sometimes it may feel

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Speaker 3: as if you might be eaten for supper. Sometimes it

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Speaker 3: feels that if you walk into the woods, someone might

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Speaker 3: get you. If you are not being your best self,

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Speaker 3: if you're not being respectful, if you're not being good hearted,

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Speaker 3: if you're not being brave, if you're not being hardworking.

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Speaker 3: It's a lesson from the grandmothers to the children that

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Speaker 3: has passed down in countless ways. And thus we have

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Speaker 3: Bobby Yaga today, and she's popping up in pop culture

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Speaker 3: all over the place. In movies, she's in Goodness, She's

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Speaker 3: in the John Wick series John Wick Keanu Reeves character,

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Speaker 3: her name is Bobby Yaga, and she's popping up there.

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Speaker 3: She's popping up in music, she's popping up in fiction.

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Speaker 3: In the past decade, Bobby Yaga has emerged from the

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Speaker 3: woods and popped up in the Western world, and so

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Speaker 3: often she's this force of horror. But every once in

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Speaker 3: a while there's a slightly deeper exploration where audiences sit

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Speaker 3: back and go, who is this woman who is this witch,

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Speaker 3: and there is where my explorations begin and I've so

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Speaker 3: much deeper.

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Speaker 2: Is she like the old hag syndrome in our culture?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, but she fights tooth and nail against every little

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Speaker 3: bit of it. Sometimes in modern culture, an old woman

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Speaker 3: is either terrifying or invisible, and Bobby Aga can lean

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Speaker 3: into both stereotypes. Where you want to see terrifying, I

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Speaker 3: can give you terrifying. This is actually something I played

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Speaker 3: with in my novel, my last book, The Bobby Aga Mask.

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Speaker 3: In that story I have, one of my characters is

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Speaker 3: a ninety something grandmother who survived World War two Ukraine,

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Speaker 3: and she said, before I die, I want to go

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Speaker 3: see the old country. So she hops a fly to

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Speaker 3: you Europe. She steps up the plane and she disappears.

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Speaker 3: And thus we have the story of a wild goose

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Speaker 3: chase across contemporary Eastern Europe. Of these two sisters, won

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Speaker 3: a new mother and one a free spirit, shall we

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Speaker 3: call her, on this wild goose chase finding their grandmother.

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Speaker 3: But in the midst of it, they're uncovering their grandmother's history,

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Speaker 3: their families, history, Ukrainian history and traditions. The part of

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Speaker 3: that grandmother's disappearance and this is not giving away any plot.

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Speaker 3: Is this concept of this woman who grew up knowing

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Speaker 3: and believing in Bobby Yaga, not just as a storybook character,

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Speaker 3: but as a force in the wood who was there

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Speaker 3: to empower the world. This grandmother ends the Baba Yaga

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Speaker 3: mask decides, you know what, the world is scary. The

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Speaker 3: world is horrific. Haven't we all had that moment where

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Speaker 3: we look around and say, the world is falling apart?

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Speaker 3: So this grandmother and that novel says, you know what

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Speaker 3: I'm going to do. I am going to scare the

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Speaker 3: world to being a better place. I am going to

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Speaker 3: take up the inspiration of Bobbiyaga and see what I

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Speaker 3: can do here. And so I love that inspiration for

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Speaker 3: a character in fiction. Of the world is horrific, maybe

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Speaker 3: we need to scare it into being a better place.

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Speaker 3: This is not the life strategy I'm discussing, but it's

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Speaker 3: an interesting way to look at how folk tales and

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Speaker 3: different belief systems have exist in human civilization for a

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Speaker 3: very long time.

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Speaker 2: What did the tales do for you as a child

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Speaker 2: and then as you became an adult.

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Speaker 3: Tales are very much a system of the world. They

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Speaker 3: were written in so some of the Babbyaga tales, for example,

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Speaker 3: the most famous one that audiences probably have ever heard

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Speaker 3: of is called Vasilisa the Beautiful. So you have a story,

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Speaker 3: and this one is such a echo of Cinderella, but

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Speaker 3: you could argue it came earlier than Cinderella. But then

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Speaker 3: you could also argue that there are Cinderella stories the

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Speaker 3: world over, and it is Ragstrish's tales that exists in

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Speaker 3: the hearts of humans for forever. But there is a

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Speaker 3: story of a girl who she lived with her stepmother

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Speaker 3: and stepsisters, except for the last fire goes out in

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Speaker 3: their household. So this girl of Vasalisa is sent out

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Speaker 3: into the woods to get fire back for their household

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Speaker 3: because the only one who can access fire is the

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Speaker 3: witch of the woods, Babba Yaga. So she goes to

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Speaker 3: Bobby Yaga, and Bobby Yaga forces her to not just

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Speaker 3: have the fire, but she forces her to prove herself

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Speaker 3: worthy of eight guests. And again this is where there's

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Speaker 3: such a similar formula and all of the in all

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Speaker 3: of the tales that when especially when young women come

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Speaker 3: to seek her, if they are respectful to her, if

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Speaker 3: they prove themselves good hearted, if they prove themselves hard working,

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Speaker 3: and if they prove themselves brave, Those four traits will

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Speaker 3: enable an individual to conquer anything.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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