Russian Dark Fantasy and the Witcher saga
Russian Dark Fantasy and the Witcher saga.
August 1, 1918, almost a year after the first publication of The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien (writer of the Imperial Federation) premieres in the Russian Empire "Ведьмака / Ved'mak", the first book (with a title no very original) from 'Сага о ведьмаке / Saga or ved'make'.
Better known outside the Russian Empire as The Witcher saga.
The book today has enormous importance within Russian popular culture and fantasy literature (especially in Russia, but it has also influenced foreign works).
But perhaps it is better to start with the book itself first, before dissecting its historical and cultural significance:
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The book 1, The Witcher is a collection of 13 tales that follow Geralt of Rivia (Геральт из Ривии / Geral't iz Rivii), one of the last witches (who in The Witcher universe effectively function as wandering monster hunters and fulfill other missions along the way).
The first book works effectively as a series of short stories, which take place in the same world following Geralt and establishing some of the first bases and characters of the saga.
Later in the next publication in the series, it is effectively established as a novel that follows a single plot.
* Ved'mak: Geralt arrives in the capital of Temeria due to an announcement, three thousand in reward for whoever manages to free the royal princess from a curse that has turned her into a Shtriga (vampiric witch of Albanian origin).
* Lesser Evil ?: Geralt is in a mysterious forest in the northern kingdoms, where he finds himself in a mysterious preaching that is very reminiscent of Snow White.
A magic mirror sends an unwanted stepdaughter into the forest, where there are seven bogatyrs (gnomes and thieves actually), a magic crystal coffin, a prince (with mysterious purposes in the forest), and the stepdaughter herself (a little sadist or a innocent victim?).
* A Grain of Truth: Geralt, riding on his faithful mare (Sardinilla) arrives at a mansion looking for the assassin or assassin of a gunsmith and his daughter, where he meets a mysterious sapient beast.
The man-beast, Nivellen, was a local lord who looted a temple with his men during one of the many wars of the northern kingdoms, during this a priestess committed suicide, casting a spell on it before dying.
A few days later, Nivellen turned into a beast, becoming quite desperate to regain his human form, he was left alone while he waited to regain human form (with the love of a beautiful woman, as in fairy tales). Thereafter, merchants and knights brought their daughters to him for a year in exchange for treasures, but the spell continued to work (although Nivellen befriended the daughters).
At the time of the conversation with the witcher he was living with Vereena, who turned out to be a vampire being and not a normal human as Geraly and Nivellen believed.
The furious vampire creature attacks Geralt, but it is a terrified Nivellen who delivers the killing blow to his beloved with a pointed stick. Vereena confesses her love to Nivellen before she dies, causing him to regain his human form. Geralt explains to his astonished friend that there is "a grain of truth" in every fairy tale.
* A Matter of Surprise: Geralt finds himself summoned to a royal court without knowing precisely what the job is, but is soon intrigued by the story of The Hedgehog, a man who was bewitched by a sorcerer to his father (he has had a human face since midnight until dawn and the rest of the time the face of a hedgehog) and Pavetta, princess of the royal court.
The Hedhog, is in the future Emperor Emhyr var Emreis and father of Ciri, who plays an important role in the life of Geralt and the world due to her Elder Blood.
* Voice of Reason: A wounded Geralt is healed in a temple where priestesses often fulfill vows of silence for mysterious reasons.
Much introspection from the sorcerer speaking to the mute priestesses. Witchers' unwritten code forbids witches from interfering in people's affairs, while Geralt meddles in people's affairs quite frequently ... with various results.
* The end of the world: Geralt meets the bard Dmitry (OOC: ITL Buttercup, I like the name Dmitry), who becomes a partner (and friend) of Geralt despite huge differences in personality.
* The Last Wish: Geralt and Dmitry meet the witch Yennefer, in the middle the witcher-bard duo is accused of crimes they did not commit and they are faced with a genie.
* The Limit of Possibilities: Geralt, Dmitry, and Yenneger end up meddling in the hunt for a young prince and other mercenary-individuals. Which leads them to learn the truth about the Golden Dragon (a fantastic creature even by the standards of the world of The Witcher).
* A Shard of Ice: Geralt and Yennefer arrive at Aedd Gynvael, where they confront Ivo Mirce "Cicada", a hit man whose head has been awarded a grand prize.
It also delves a little deeper into Yennefer's past and his relationship with Geralt.
* Eternal Fire: Geralt and Dmitry are wandering the world looking for what to do, in the process they meet Dudu, a Doppler (a being that can take any form, as well as his abilities) tricky but nice got into trouble with the religion of the Eternal Fire.
Geralt and Dmitry have to help the Doppler and solve some problems in the city.
* A Little Dedication: Geralt and Dmitry wander the world looking for work, having a streak of bad luck they find the stairs to the legendary city of Ys and face strange sea creatures.
* The Sword of Destiny: Geralt helps his friend, the knight Freixenet, rescue the lost princess of Brugge from the dryad forest (from which no man has returned).
* Something Else: Geralt travels through a haunted war field accompanied by the merchant Yurga, who turns out to unexpectedly lead Geralt to his destination (meeting Ciri after quite some time).
*[Inspiration and worldbuilding]
The various stories function in part as a satire or reinterpretation of Eastern European folklore (from Russia to the Balkans) and its classic tales, unlike Tolkien who was inspired by German-Scandinavian mythology (the Nibelungs, Finland, etc).
The world of The Witcher is strongly inspired by this Slavic mythology and surroundings (Romania, Albania and Greece-Rome) around a world in danger, based on the High Middle Ages and accompanied by the existence of fantastic creatures or races (gnomes, elfs, dwarves, etc) with a generally dark twist (or just a twist).
The story generally occurs in the Northern Kingdoms, a sum of principalities, duchies or kingdoms strongly inspired by the Slavic nations (Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Bosnians, Croats, Serb-Montenegrins, Bulgarians-Macedonians) and the time of the Rus of Kiev, where peoples of the same 'family' are divided by ideological-religious and geo-political issues.
To the south of the Northern Kingdoms is Nilfgaard (Nilfgaardian Empire), strongly inspired by the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Persian-Greek Empire of Alexander the Great. Nilfgaard is the great power of the continent, posing a serious threat to the north due to his ambitions of conquest.
* The witcher schools (the School of the Wolf, the School of the Cat, the School of the Griffin, the School of the Bear, the School of the Viper, the School of the Manticore and the School of the Crane) are the institutions that emerged as a result of the separation from the original Order of Witchers.
Each of the schools that continue to exist in modern times in the universe of The Witcher are inspired by ideologies, battle groups, dynasties or particular cities, in addition to the Slavic influence.
An example is the Schoool of the Wolf (main school of the saga) made up of the last witchers of the order, who are inspired by Moscow, Cossacks and the Russian bogatyr.
The Witcher pays much less attention to its world development in geographical terms, and is this quite chaotic in nature precisely because of the contentious nature of the Northern Kingdoms (which usually do not merge or form alliances). For this reason there are no official maps, and the world (planet, continent) as such has no name.
This gives writing space for character-relationships and short stories, as well as exploration of other issues such as the creatures that inhabit said world.
*[Russian Fantasy]
The Witcher book marked an important moment in the literature of the Russian Empire in 1918, it was incredibly successful and soon more was requested (which would give results to the novels of the saga and future adaptations).
More importantly, it gave rise to the Russian fantasy.
It is true that there was already literature with fictional-fantasy elements, but The Witcher was an important introduction of the fantasy genre to Russian literature, and soon more interpretations or re-interpretations of the genre began to come.
In a sense, the saga set the tone and expectations for fantasy literature in Russia at the time, and it affected the following decades.
It is true that the Hobbit was a popular literature and for everyone, but The Witcher brought readers closer to something much more familiar and accessible in the Russian language.
Also the Slavic influence on writing helped a lot, being particularly popular in Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Czechoslovakia and the triune nation of the Russian Empire.
The book had certain Polish elements, but it was never extremely popular among the Poles of the Empire (the Czechs and Slovaks appreciated it much more).
Partly because the author was Russian and there was a predominance of East Slavic over West Slavic elements.
After decades of books, there was various adaptations to comics, television and video games within the Russian Empire.
*[World Fantasy]
At the international level, while The Witcher was slow to access the international market (the problem of translations and others) it had an important influence within the genre at the international level.
The genre was in its early years, but it soon proved that it could be a versatile genre.
* On the one hand there was the High Fantasy of the Imperial Federation (written by Tolkien) which was literature for the whole world or 'children's' literature (which is not really bad at all), with a strong emphasis on fantasy and good morality.
* On the other hand Russia had 'responded' by launching the Dark Fantasy or Low Fantasy, a fantasy much more suit for the mature public (young adults, and adults), with its own themes, tropes and elements. Generally a fantasy set with more 'realistic' elements (not really bad or good thing by default, it depends) and problematics (violence, sexuality, racism, slavery, etc).
A turn precisely to the 'whiter' fantasy.
Of course dark fantasy is not just violence or sex, but it has always had varying degrees of HOW such topics are dealt with, and that is important.
Two realities of the same currency that were soon traveling the world and had notable sales and impacts at the local level.
As was soon mentioned there was also the fantasy of the United States of America or the fantasy of socialist Europe, which took influences from these sub-genres and created their own.
The Witcher was the beginning of this Dark / Low Fantasy, and it did not leave anyone indifferent, there were negative and positive reviews of the book precisely because of its content (it came from Eastern Europe and had the reputation of being 'immoral', for the time) .
But still, censored or not, it became quite popular wherever it got.
The father of high fantasy, JRR Tolkien, had mixed reviews of the series and tried to talk to the writer, who was a rather reserved man.
The exchange of letters between the two was brief and unusual, but friendly.