In the first installment of "John Wick", released in 2014, the character played by Keanu Reeves is nicknamed Baba Yaga.
In the first “John Wick,” released theatrically in 2014, the character Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist) learns that his daughter Losef has gone after the one he once commanded. The head of the Russian mob in New York explains that he was nicknamed Baba Yaga. “The bogeyman?” he asks the son of him. “John wasn't exactly the bogeyman. He was the one we sent to kill the coconut, ”replies the father, before telling him about this time that he saw him kill three men with a pencil.
He had entrusted John Wick with a mission that he considered impossible to accomplish: that of getting rid of the other godfathers of the New York mob because he wanted to retire. But what exactly does this nickname Baba Yaga refer to?
A character from Slavic folklore
Baba Yaga is the name of a witch in Slavic tales, first mentioned in a Russian grammar book in 1755, but it was already present in the oral tradition of Slavic folk tales. The most widespread story is that of the witch who eats children who do not listen to her parents. In the story "Baba Yaga's Black Geese," she commands a herd of black geese that soars across the sky in search of children. When Olga and Sergei disobey their mother and run away from home while her mother is away, the boy is captured and taken to the witch's hut. His sister manages to rescue him, and they both learn the lesson of always listening to their mother.
Baba Yaga is considered by some experts as the representation of the goddess of death, or the equivalent of the Greek goddess Persephone, queen of the underworld and companion of the god Hades. Other researchers believe that she is the representation of nature, which can be both cruel and generous, or even that of the plow that allows the land to be plowed to allow the planting, fertilization, and growth of crops. In the modern era, Baba Yaga has also become a figure for the emancipation of women, who lives by their own rules, on the fringes of society. If she retains her menacing nature of her, she is also considered a source of wisdom and power.
