Russia has a long tradition of epics aimed at children that centers on noble quests ordered by the Czar where the young hero is challenged by evil spirits. A while back we did a 1914 stamp featuring questor Ilya Muromets, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/01/31/russia-1914-it-is-again-time-for-young-would-be-ilyas-to-defeat-the-german-idolishche/ . Here is a stamp from a much later era that features one of the evil or at least challenging spirits that test the questor in many Russian children’s stories, Baba Yaga. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This more modern stamp offers bright colors and well done drawing. However Baba Yaga has been modernized and loses a little of the idea of her challenge. The 1914 stamp was different. A real Czar was featuring an old epic to inspire his countryman on the near hopeless on all sides quest of fighting World War I. This stamp is just saying Russia had some neat characters for kids, didn’t we?
Todays stamp is issue A2924, a 10 Ruble stamp issued by Russia on February 25th, 1993. This came out as a strip of five stamps featuring modernized versions of children’s book characters. According to the Scott catalog, the strip of five stamps is worth 75 cents cancelled to order. That the catalog only bothers to list the five stamp strip together shows how little the issue was used for mailing letters. If we extrapolate the value of this single stamp at 15 cents, that makes it the least valueable stamp I have written about here and I have written over 700 articles, many on bulk postage stamps.
Baba Yaga appears in Russian epics as early as 1755. Some think she goes back even farther in Finnish legend. Early Russian depictions often have her dressed in a Finnish style. She is an old woman with bony chicken legs and carries as weapons kitchen implements. Her desire is weed out the heroes unworthy of the quest they are on whom she then eats. If the questor passes her tests, she will give tools that will help him later.
These stories usually have some young male hero visit the Czar. He finds the Czar unhappy because he lacks something he needs. Perhaps the Czar is beset by lame horses or wives that lack for beauty, or the ever present shortage of gold. The Czar is inspired by his young visitor and gives him a challenge of traveling far to bring the Czar back what he needs. If the young hero succeeds, the Czar will make all his dreams come true.
Baba Yaga has been around a while and occasionally shows up in strange places. She is a recurring character in the “Hellboy” series of comic books. In the first John Wick movie, when the title character faces off against Russian bad guys, they refer to him as their Baba Yaga, There is also a version of her that appears in Japanese epics where she is known as Yama uba.
Well my drink is empty and this story has got me thinking the the creators of the questing game “Dungeons and Dragons” got more than a little inspiration from old Russia. Come again on Monday when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.