Prince Igor

The Polovtsian Dances is one of the best known selections from the Prince Igor, an opera composed by Alexander Borodin at the end of the nineteenth century.
This is a sound of true Russia, which includes the silences echoing from Siberia (that 'ocean of snow') and the poetry of Pushkin. Pushkin, who was of African (Abyssinian) descent on his mother's side.

Babi Yar

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself.
The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.
I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"
My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The "Union of the Russian People!"

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed - very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-"They come!"

-"No, fear not - those are sounds
Of spring itself. She's coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!"

-"They break the door!"

-"No, river ice is breaking..."

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I'm every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.
May "Internationale" thunder and ring
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that's corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!

This is Babi Yar (in original Russian: Бабин Яр), a poem by Yevgeni Yevtushenko, a monument made of words to the victims of Babi Yar.

Return from Siberia

This arresting painting, titled 'They did not expect him', was painted in the period between 1884 and 1888 by the Russian painter Ilya Repin.

Russia and ME

Russia has granted freedom to thousands and thousands.
It was really a terrific thing to do,
people will never forget it.
But what I did was take off my shirt
and all those shiny skyscrapers the strands of my hair,
every pore
in the city of my body,
broke out their banners and flags.
All the citizens, all the men and women
of the government of ME,
rushed to the windows of my thousand-windowed hair,
all those Igors and Olgas
and nobody told them to do it,
they were ecstatic at the sunshine
and peeked through my skin.
The Bastille of my shirt has fallen!
And all I did was take it off.
I have granted sunshine to the people of ME!
I stood on the beach with no clothes on,
that's how I gave freedom to my people
and suntans to the masses.

This poem, 'Russia and ME', is by the Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov. The photograph, 'To the construction of the capital', was taken by the Russian photographer Arkadi Shaikhet (1927).

Dumka, Op. 59

Dumka, Op. 59 (for piano) is a 9-minute - small, yet epic - masterpiece by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1886).
"I love our Russian countryside more than any other, and for me the Russian landscape in winter has an incomparable charm," wrote Tchaikovsky in a letter while composing. "It's a marvelous day, sunny, the snow is glistening like myriads of diamonds and is thawing slightly, my window gives me a wide view right into the distance. It's wonderful and spacious, you can breathe properly in these immense horizons."
Dumka is less known by its subtitle, Rustic Russian Scene.
The paintings featured in the video are by the Russian painter Marc Chagall.
On piano: the superb Vladimir Horowitz.

Scarapola: Rags to Riches Tales

'Architect's Brother' photo series, by Robert and Shana Parkeharrison

The tales sleuth

It is only fitting that the tales themselves, as a concept, date back to once upon a time age. Or, as Armenian storytellers would open a telling:
There was a time and no time when fairy tales...
There is a persistent claim that fairy tales are 'pure lore', folk tales rather than literary (authored) tales. As such, they must be appropriated carefully in order to remain 'uncontaminated', a 'genuine' and 'pure' soul of a nation.
Indeed, the Grimms laboured with their collection for 'German national unity'. They were after the truly German folk tales. Ironically, they for the most part collected tales that originated elsewhere. The Jew in the Brambles, and a few other anti-Semitic tales in the Grimms' collection, may be the few tales originating from Germany.
France is also not that distant land, hidden behind the thrice nine mountains, from which the archetypical European fairy tales originated.
Instead, the European fairy tale as a genre seem to have originated from medieval Italy of the 16th century. It all began with one Zoan Francesco Scarapola, who collected seventy-three tales in 'Le Piacevoli Notti' ('Peaceful Nights', often translated as 'Facetious Nights'). This collection of two volumes was published in 1551 and 1553 and with it Scarapola introduced his fairy tales through a Boccaccian frame story. Narratives were written as storytellings taking place during an intellectual thirteen days long party. Many of Scarapola's plots came from earlier Italian collections, but some stories were invented by Scarapola (among them, arguably, 'Constantino Fortunato' - the first 'Puss in Boots').
Fairy tales as a genre are not to be confused with 'folk tales'. Folk tales are indeed as old as language. They don’t involve magic: instead they indulge in humour and wit. Rather than focusing on the joys of getting married, they crudely expose the reality of being married. Folk tales also don’t often let their heroes get off with a happy end.
The mysterious and intriguing 'Little Red Riding Hood' – a primal folk tale – must be as old as our imagination, and finding its origin seems senseless.
Fairy tales – a rather small group within the tales of magic – are much younger. Each is someone's literary masterpiece.
In medieval Europe, before Scarapola's time, this was the tale of its day: a fallen nobleman regains his rightful position through magic. Scarapola invented a new formula with the 'tales of social rise' (in the words of Ruth B. Bottigheimer). From rags – to magic – to marriage – to riches. There are two general variations of this formula.
In the first variation, a poor male protagonist rescues a princess from danger (or undergoes dangerous tasks) in order to wed into the royal house.
In the second variation, a poor female protagonist is through magic able to marry the prince, while undergoing trials laid down before her by jealous mothers, stepmothers, sisters, stepsisters, mothers-in-law and (other) witches.
Scarapola's tales are far more magical than its imitations, and well worth your effort.

To end this at the ending... From the sky fell three apples. One to me, one to the author of the tale and one to the person who entertained you.

Il Pentamerone

On the second day, the blear-eyed Paola told this eighth tale:


The Young Slave

In days of yore, and in times long gone before, there lived a baron of Serva-scura and his unwedded sister of uncommon beauty. The sister came to be with child and she gave birth secretly to a lovely baby with a face like a moon in its fourteenth night. She named the baby Lisa and sent her to be brought up in secrecy by the fairies.
Each of the fairies gave a charm to the child upon her birth, but one of them twisted her foot on the way and cursed Lisa to die in her seventh year, as a result of a deathy comb left in her hair by her mother. This came to be as foretold. The despairing mother of the dead child ordered seven crystal chests one within the other, and Lisa was placed into the seventh innermost chest. The chests were then placed in the most distant chamber of the palace. Heartbroken, the mother became ill after that. On her deathbed she pleaded with her brother to swear that he would never ever open the forbidden chamber. The brother swore to that and never broke his promise.
Life went on, and as four seasons went by, the baron of Serva-scurva took a wife. When he left her alone in the palace for the first time, the baron begged the baroness not to open the forbidden chamber. But the baroness, once alone, grew more curious by the minute. Then she grew suspicious and finally she grew jealous. And so there was really only one thing for her to do: she opened the chamber. As she stood before the seven crystal chests, her eyes fell upon Lisa. Lisa was then no longer a child of seven. In the intervening years she had grown into a beautiful and shapely girl. The baroness was faint with rage. But just as she pulled Lisa’s hair with all her might, the murderous comb slipped off.
“O mother mine, O mother mine,” cried Lisa as she came to life.
“I'll give thee mama and papa,” thundered the baroness. She cut off Lisa’s hair at once, trashed her for good measure and dressed her in rags. The baroness then made Lisa her slave. The baron was told that the slave girl came as a gift, albeit with the instruction of the donors to treat her harshly for her wickedness and perversion. The mistreatment continued and Lisa grew paler and paler and weaker and weaker by the day.
It so happened one day that a fair came to a nearby town. As the baron was getting ready to go and attend it, he asked every scrub girl in the palace what they would like him to bring them from the fair. When it came to Lisa's turn, she replied that she should like to have a doll, a knife and some pumice-stone. The kind baron heeded her wish and brought her such objects upon return.
As soon as Lisa was all by herself in the kitchen, she put the doll before her and began to weep and wail. For the first time, she relayed her sad story, and then to a static and silent doll. In her despair, Lisa sharpened the knife on the pumice-stone and cried: “If thou wilt not answer me, I shall kill myself, and thus will end the feast.” And so each day the doll came to life anew to listen.
A few days went by in this manner. On the seventh day since the fair the baron stood near the kitchen, admiring his particularly agreeable portrait. It was then that he heard the weeping and the wailing. He bravely put his eye to the key-hole and on the seventh day since the fair Lisa relayed her story to the hidden barron. Just as Lisa threatened the doll, the baron kicked down the door and embraced his tormented niece.
The baron then arranged for Lisa to be nurtured back to a healthy body and a cheerful mind. At her healthiest and cheerfulest, Lisa was wedded Lisa to a handsome and worthy husband.
As for the baroness... The baroness and her shame were sent back to her family. For the baron, a kind and progressive man, took a severe disliking to death penalty.

---

This story, as here retold by gem, is taken from The Tale of Tales (orig. Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille), a collection of fifty Neapolitan fairy tales assembled and rewritten by one Giambattista Basile. The collection was published in two parts in 1634 and in 1636.
It is indeed extremely unfair that we today associate the most notorious fairy tales of Western lore with the Grimms or Perrault. The plots of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel and Snow White all come from The Tale of Tales.
Giambattista Basile's collection even had a much more innovative structure than later collections. It is due to its structure that it came to be known as Il Pentamerone: this was a storytelling collection. This is a tale about how these tales came to be, about how the ten selected storytellers performed in total fifty fairy tales, in five days, before Taddeo and the slave-princess. The trickery of the slave-princess is revealed in the ultimate story. Taddeo and the bushy-haired princess, far less progressive than the kind baron and Lisa, condemn the slave-princess to be buried alive up to her neck.

The photograph, titled Snow White, is from a fairy tale photography series by Miwa Yanagi (2004).