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The Баба-яга

Sirkickyass said:
Other slavic countries have variations. My secretary, who's from Serbia, knows her as the "Babaroga" and the stories are slightly different and less ambiguous.

Alright, Boris since I'm asking you the hard questions about Russia:

In Gogol's "Dead Souls" he refers vaguely to a disgusting color of yellow that all the buildings in Russia turn over time. He literally just asserts "we all know the color." What is this color?
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I do not know context. Yellow House in Russia means insane asylum so maybe he is saying we all turn into that.
 
In the couple of stories I read (not in Russian), she is counting out the spoons and naming the occupants of the house. So she's either extremely OCD, which doesn't make a good witch story, or she is a communist who wants to ensure all things are equally shared.

Or whoever came up with this idea originally was in the kitchen when he/she had an idea of counting an item, and went with the one sitting in the sink.

I'm convinced it means the Russians hate us and want to eat us. They want all of our spoons.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using JazzFanz mobile app
 
JazzGal said:
she is counting out the spoons and naming the occupants of the house. So she's either extremely OCD, which doesn't make a good witch story, or she is a communist who wants to ensure all things are equally shared.
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I checked with a friend of mine who lived in the former Soviet Union when she was a little girl. This was pretty much her answer as well.
 
Sirkickyass said:
I'm teaching myself to speak Russian and immersing myself in the culture in a real effort to figure out who these people are that attacked us and what they want.
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Dude, what on earth? You're taking the actions of Russians in power/Russians linked to those in power, and you're extrapolating this sentiment across the rest of the hundreds of millions of Russians? Now think about if people from other countries extrapolated the actions of the US government towards everyone on this forum and concluded that Americans are "a certain way".

Are you a piece of **** because your country is selling arms to Saudi Arabia, who are then using said munitions to massacre Yemeni civilians?


I think we've been very naive because the Russians appear nominally white so we assume that they are about as much like us as the French or the Italians. They are still kind of foreign but in a way we recognize.
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Oh God.

No. The Russians are just as foreign to us as the Japanese or Chinese. They are driven by totally different cultural histories and psychological forces than we are. The last few months have been an experience.
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Driven by different psychological forces? What?

Part of my process has been to get very familiar with the cultural myths that all Russian children are taught.

As always, bringing you the most important content of the day: Sirkickyass
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I think any Russian would laugh hysterically with what you've come up with.

- Brothers Grimm of Germany came up with significantly more grim, macabre, bizarre stories than the one you mentioned.
- If your later argument stems from the impact of communism on Russian culture, well, my family is Albanian. By all accounts, the Communist regime of Albania was significantly more repressive. Why don't Albanians hate the US then?
 
dalamon said:
Dude, what on earth? You're taking the actions of Russians in power/Russians linked to those in power, and you're extrapolating this sentiment across the rest of the hundreds of millions of Russians? Now think about if people from other countries extrapolated the actions of the US government towards everyone on this forum and concluded that Americans are "a certain way".

Are you a piece of **** because your country is selling arms to Saudi Arabia, who are then using said munitions to massacre Yemeni civilians?
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What kind of anti-collective fervor goes so far as attacking history and the outcomes of that history on collective group thought? This knee jerk response is the extreme of the individualism side of the coin.
 
franklin said:
What kind of anti-collective fervor goes so far as attacking history and the outcomes of that history on collective group thought? This knee jerk response is the extreme of the individualism side of the coin.
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A bizarre strawman laden with buzzwords that don't address my point
 
OP reminds me of these trash journalists learning a word like "kompromat" and suddenly acting like they are the *expert* on Russian politics
 
Boris said:
I do not know context. Yellow House in Russia means insane asylum so maybe he is saying we all turn into that.
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That actually kind of makes sense in the context as well. I knew Gogol was good. I didn't know he had layers like lasagna.

JazzGal said:
In the couple of stories I read (not in Russian), she is counting out the spoons and naming the occupants of the house. So she's either extremely OCD, which doesn't make a good witch story, or she is a communist who wants to ensure all things are equally shared.
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I actually lean a little bit towards the OCD explanation. Remember that the Baba Yaga stories are largely written prior to the Bolshevik revolution so it's hard to pin too much contemporary political meaning to them.

Notably the story where she names the occupants of the house usually names occupants by species and characteristic (the fox, the chicken, the nimble youth, etc). Which I think is actually better evidence that she's not particularly human. She can only separate the occupants of their home by their species.

dalamon said:
OP reminds me of these trash journalists learning a word like "kompromat" and suddenly acting like they are the *expert* on Russian politics
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A) If you could be even slightly less reactionary you'd see that you and I are agreeing with one another. My point was with respect to baseline assumptions about people that look like you are actually more like you. I'm saying that the West has made a mistake with respect to the relative alien-ness of Russian culture because of racism. You're trying to make that something else and turning a nominal ally against you.

B) This thread is a little silly on purpose, but the project is very real and serious and has real value. It's inspired by a course that my alma mater teaches (and yes, the Professor is a real Soviet) that examines the nature of morality through a Russian lens by looking at their literature. That's combined with readings on the history of the place; which is complicated in this instance because the meaning of what it is to be Russian has changed so radically in a relatively short period of time. And one of my goals is to learn the language because words are mere boxes that hide true meanings and that's doubly true when it's a word chosen to approximate the original.

C) I used to be filled with piss and vinegar once. I was convinced I was smarter than everyone else on this board, and most of the time I was. But I've long since learned that the real value is in disagreeing with people in a way that makes them want to keep talking to you. I hope you get there eventually. Because your posts here show you're not there yet.

TL;DR: You're the reason Trump won.
 
franklin said:
What kind of anti-collective fervor goes so far as attacking history and the outcomes of that history on collective group thought? This knee jerk response is the extreme of the individualism side of the coin.
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He's made one argument so many times that he's over-applying it to argue that exposing yourself to another person's culture has no value.
 
Where is that gif of Kicky and the Madam hopping up and down on the sideline of a Warriors game after Fes dunked?

Or even the pic of Kicky looking up at Fes, his eyelashes fluttering even though they weren't because it was just a pic, as they posed for the shot?
 
Wes Mantooth said:
Where is that gif of Kicky and the Madam hopping up and down on the sideline of a Warriors game after Fes dunked?

Or even the pic of Kicky looking up at Fes, his eyelashes fluttering even though they weren't because it was just a pic, as they posed for the shot?
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True story: Now I send Big Fes messages in Russian. He was pretty surprised when that started happening.
 
Sirkickyass said:
TL;DR: You're the reason Trump won.
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LOL'd

I love it when people go all in on a new pursuit. Curiosity makes life more interesting (thank you, internet, for your assistance).

Now that I know that Baba Yaga fictionally exists, I doubt it will be too long before I hear or see another reference. Life seems to work that way.
 
This thread needs some music and witch dance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjUV-byB8ls
 
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