You know The Brothers Grimm, but do you know the weird and whimsical fairy tales of Russia? Nicholas Kotar brings you Russia’s most beloved fairy tales as you would have heard them from a grandparent sitting near the hearth on a cozy winter evening, the wind howling outside and the courage of these heroic stories lighting a flame in your heart. Enter the world of Baba Yaga, the mysterious hag who can be both friend and foe, and follow Ivan the Idiot as he faces off against a cunning dragon with six heads. These are not stuffy, academic translations, but vividly enacted retellings from Nicholas Kotar’s 3-volume fairy tale collection, accompanied by the original music of composer Natalie Wilson.
Don’t be fooled: these are not just tales for children. As Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin reminds us, the spiritual meaning of the fairy tale is “like refined and sweet-smelling honey. If you drip it on your tongue, you’ll taste all the ineffable essence of Russia’s nature–the smell of the earth, the heat of the sun, the fragrance of flowers, and something else that is subtle and rich, something eternally youthful and yet eternally ancient… Only he who worships at the altar of facts and has lost the ability to contemplate a state of being ignores fairy tales. Only the one who wants to see with his physical eyes alone, plucking out his spiritual eyes in the process, considers the fairy tale to be dead.”
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You know The Brothers Grimm, but do you know the weird and whimsical fairy tales of Russia? Nicholas Kotar brings you Russia’s most beloved fairy tales as you would have heard them from a grandparent sitting near the hearth on a cozy winter evening, the wind howling outside and the courage of these heroic stories lighting a flame in your heart. Enter the world of Baba Yaga, the mysterious hag who can be both friend and foe, and follow Ivan the Idiot as he faces off against a cunning dragon with six heads. These are not stuffy, academic translations, but vividly enacted retellings from Nicholas Kotar’s 3-volume fairy tale collection, accompanied by the original music of composer Natalie Wilson.
Don’t be fooled: these are not just tales for children. As Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin reminds us, the spiritual meaning of the fairy tale is “like refined and sweet-smelling honey. If you drip it on your tongue, you’ll taste all the ineffable essence of Russia’s nature–the smell of the earth, the heat of the sun, the fragrance of flowers, and something else that is subtle and rich, something eternally youthful and yet eternally ancient… Only he who worships at the altar of facts and has lost the ability to contemplate a state of being ignores fairy tales. Only the one who wants to see with his physical eyes alone, plucking out his spiritual eyes in the process, considers the fairy tale to be dead.”
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A merchant’s quest to bring home gifts for his daughters goes terribly wrong when he plucks a forbidden red flower from a dazzling, otherworldly garden. Confronted by a monstrous Beast who demands a life in exchange, the merchant’s youngest and bravest daughter offers herself in her father’s place.
Transported to a palace of shimmering halls, singing birds, and silent magic, she discovers a world shaped by loneliness and longing. As she wanders its golden rooms and moonlit gardens, the Beast becomes her unseen companion—fearsome in voice, mysterious in heart, but kind in words.
In this tale of courage, sacrifice, and the slow blossoming of trust and even perhaps love, the young girl must decide what it truly means to keep a promise… and to see with the eyes of the heart.
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