Age range
Grandfather and grandmother stand out as the most enduring figures in Russian folklore. They are the ones who baked the kolobok, pulled the stubborn turnips, owned the famed Ryaba chicken, and looked after Masha before her trek to the Bear, as well as caring for Alyonushka and Ivanushka. Modern readers often ask: where are the parents? People who recall a time when realism dominated art wonder why tales rarely begin with a husband and wife, even when a family unit is assumed. Folklorists and ethnographers explain that folk art centers on symbols and archetypes, not on named individuals with birth records.
“In Russian fairy tales, the old man and the old woman, the grandfather and the grandmother, aren’t grandparents in the ordinary sense. From the fairy tale perspective, they are symbols of age and life experience, not parental figures tasked with raising grandchildren,” notes Ekaterina Asonova, an expert in children’s literature and head of the laboratory of sociocultural educational practices at Moscow City Pedagogical University, in an interview with socialbites.ca. She adds that the tale’s purpose is not to recount a realistic family tree but to convey age and wisdom through symbolic figures.
Moreover, grandparent figures in these stories are almost always solitary, with little to no information about their adult children. This places them in a precarious and atypical situation for rural life, where two-parent households were uncommon and elder care often relied on the younger generation.
Some tales do include relatives, yet they still present the elderly as solitary anchors, with young children sometimes in the mix, which compounds the challenges they face.
“The family in a fairy tale functions as an archetype, a symbol, not a precise mirror of reality. Whatever happens—the children may be dead or never conceived—this paradox becomes the engine that drives the plot,” Asonova explains.
Fairy tales stay rooted in daily routines, and every plot carries a conflict or a starting problem. When a family comprises many capable adults, conflict seems scarce. This tension is essential for narrative propulsion.
How did you view the elderly?
It’s important to note that in Russian fairy tales, grandfather and grandmother are not peers who binge on TV and coast through life. In historical village settings, individuals past forty were regarded as old, and a fifty-year-old woman would commonly be seen as a grandmother. Limited medicines and shorter life expectancy meant aging occurred earlier, shaping the tales’ rougher view of later life.
From the plots, it’s clear that the grandfather and grandmother don’t wield wisdom or act as formal mentors. Old age is depicted more as hardship than a position of authority.
“The lines from the hen Ryaba reflect this reality—old age was tied to poverty and vulnerability, not necessarily to wisdom,” Asonova notes.
Many tales portray the elderly as flawed or prone to folly, with missteps that trigger consequences. In The Proving Wife, the grandfather stumbles onto a treasure and the family’s fortunes rise, only for the grandmother to argue with him and reveal the gold to the master who seeks to seize it. In The Greedy Old Woman, the elder couple discovers a magic tree that grants wishes. They first demand wealth, then pressure the grandfather to claim power over wealth, and finally seek to become master, colonel, and king. When the old man attempts godlike control, the tree refuses and turns him to a bear. These episodes underscore a recurring theme: old age is a test of character rather than a reward of status.
Scholars note that the modern image of grandparents did not crystallize until the 20th century. Asonova points out that their role in guiding grandchildren grew notably during the 1990s, a shift reflected in contemporary children’s literature as well.
So how about Baba Yaga?
Young protagonists in folklore frequently meet extraordinary elder figures like Baba Yaga. Sometimes they face her as an adversary; other times she offers aid, sharing guidance and shaping the hero’s journey. Baba Yaga is not a conventional grandmother; she functions as a guardian at the border between worlds.
“She is not a grandmother in the usual sense. She acts as a protector at the boundary of two realms,” says Asonova.
Baba Yaga embodies multiple personas, yet in the most iconic moments she guards the threshold to the Otherworld, the Kingdom Far Far Away. Her hut perched on chicken legs sits within a dark, dense forest, symbolizing the edge between ordinary life and mystery. The bone leg underscores a link with the dead.
The same goes for other unmistakably mythical figures, such as the old forest keeper, who embodies deep Slavic beliefs about the forest’s spirit and its keeper.