Slavic culture and myth
Matthew Sweet looks at the origins of creatures like the witch Baba Yaga and her fearsome hut, Banniks that haunt bath-houses and Rusalkas that threaten a watery demise.
Tales of adventure and magic connect the Slavic lands: East Slavs (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), West Slavs (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland) and South Slavs (the countries of former Yugoslavia plus Bulgaria). Matthew Sweet has been reading a new collection of Slavic myths. The authors Noah Charney and Svetlana SlapΕ΅ak join academic Mirela Ivanova to talk about the way Slavic tales connect with stories from Greece, Rome, Egypt and Scandinavia and how they were used to bolster power in new Slavic nations.
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
The Slavic Myths by Noah Charney and Svetlana SlapΕ΅ak and illustrated by Joe McLaren is out now.
You might also be interested in a Free Thinking discussion of Albanian culture and history, and in a Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Essay from Mirela Ivanova called Contesting an Alphabet about the competing claims over the invention of Cyrillic.
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