by Audrey Jeane Wey
There they stand in a row – the biggest, matronly looking one on the left and the tiniest baby at the far right. Attired in painted garments of colors gay, each wears a cheerful yet somewhat bizarre smile. Dog roses, golden scrolls, stories and folklore in visual splendor on their aprons. As you take them out, one by one, the excitement intensifies as you start to wonder how many dolls there are, all stacked together. Yet if you feel like putting them all inside one another again, that’s fine, too – for part of the wonder is to see all the little ones go inside the biggest, fitting perfectly into that hollow space. That’s what the Matryoshka is: an all-embracing image of Mother Russia. A jolly peasant mother – or grandmother – with future generations tucked away inside her. Bearing a Latin root, the Matryoshka signifies motherhood and fertility. Some say it is given to daughters as part of their dowries; others say newborns receive them along with blessings for a long and prosperous life. But when, and how exactly, the first matryoshka dolls came into being has remained more or less a mystery. Legend has it that in old Russia these wooden dolls were passed on from generation to generation, and each new generation made a doll bigger than the last so it could hold all the others inside it. But in fact, it is widely agreed that the idea of items nestling inside one another came from somewhere else. The commonest belief is that the direct predecessor of the matryoshka was introduced into Russia from the Island of Honshu, Japan, in the 1890s. Yet quite unlike the brightly colored, feminine matryoshkas we see nowadays, the Japanese figure was of a Buddhist sage known as Fukuruma – a laughing old man with a bald head. In the late nineteenth century, Russia underwent a period of great economic and cultural development. With the country’s awakening to its national identity, artists strived to create a new “Russian Style” that could incorporate the past and the future as well as the present into a harmonious whole, and the result was the matryoshka, emerging as a sort of national toy. Originally their styles were quite diverse; not only did they come in various sizes and shapes, but male characters were portrayed as well as smiling peasant girls. Later on, however, the female image became mainstream, and a proportion of 1:2 (the ratio between its width and height) was worked out. A whole set of matryoshkas often take years to complete. Though alder, aspen, and birch are also used, lime is the most commonly used material. Trees are usually felled in spring and then aired for several years before they can be used; then the skilled hands of craftsmen turn and laquer and cover the wood with starchy glue before it can be painted on. The smallest one, which does not come apart, is usually made first. What follows is the bottom part of the next one, and then the top part which sits securely on it. Throughout the whole process no measurements are taken; everything depends on the master’s intuition and well-trained eye. The “folk element [in Russia] is full of seriousness, full of sense. The people have lived through and are still living through the deepest calamities of the soul; they are very observant; they think hard” (Russian philosopher Razanov). The matryoshka in painted festive costume nesting inside one another well explains the Russian toymakers’ perception of the world. With the peasants’ aprons as a canvas, this specific form of folk art is the best embodiment of both real-world events and eternal issues of common life, which rise to meet us through decorative motifs of shawls, flowers, hens or loafs of bread. In the matryoshkas we catch a glimpse of the Russian spirit: the joy and sadness, and the hope that seems a little absurd. Future generations will come and human struggles will inevitably triumph. This is the deepest message conveyed by the matryoshka – the symbol, and soul, of Russia. a
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May 2024
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