ΘΔ varka 22 he/she ✷ sapphic artist from ukraine, folklore studies major. my interests include: anthropology of religion, folklore & ethnography, apocryphal literature, folk christianity, horror and fairytales. DNI if you're pro-russian or pro-israel. support ukraine: standforukraine.com
hi!! i'm varja, queer artist and folklorist from ukraine. lover of all things archaic, divine and monstrous, the abject, the cringe, and the grotesque.
the real question is can the backrooms (2026) be technically categorized as a folk horror film if it's an adaptation of concepts from internet folklore
looked through backrooms tag and noticed that many people think that clark's conclusion that backrooms still life doesn't feel pain, is wrong, because his symbolic wife ran and cornered herself in terror when his symbolic self was returning to the apartment. but i interpreted it like this: the still life doesn't feel pain done to them by real, tangible people, that are alien to backrooms, but still feel emotions inside of the memory they are reenacting, or inside of the allegory they represent. real clark and his symbolic wife exist on, um, different layers of reality essentially. so when his symbolic self returns, she runs away in terror — because it is real to her now, it's part of the memory she's reenacting. his symbolic self reacts to him, and kills him, because it is reacting to a psychological process, and it is a psychological allegory: when you defy change, when you decide to stay in one place instead of confronting yourself, the things that you need to confront will eventually consume you
man i didn't expect the backrooms movie to go THIS hard. of course i didn't think it would be necessarily bad simply because it is based on an internet folk tradition, but i still expected it, since the backrooms fandom consists of mostly children, to go somewhat easy on the horror and to be more entertaining and more direct, so that children may enjoy it more. but it was actually very artistic and disturbing and psychological—i felt that the backrooms itself was a metaphor for the unconscious, and it seems to me that it's intentional. also the moment where i already thought it's good they had a fucked up dinner scene, and one thing about me is that i LOVE fucked up dinner scenes (something about a thing that is supposed to be a community-building moment that feels familial and comforting, being perverted and turned against you)
@will-ruadh sharing my favorite works on ukrainian folklore, all of which can be found online for free. overall, i can recommend any works of foundational ukrainian folklorists & ethnographists: pavlo chubynskyi, mykhailo maksymovych, mykola sumtsov, khvedir vovk, mykhailo dragomanov, mykola kostomarov, volodymyr hnatiuk, philaret kolessa, oleksa voropai, oleksandr potebnya. just google their works and you can read, as they are all in free access. but below are things where you may start
mythology & demonology
• "Первісна міфологія українського фольклору", Віктор Давидюк.
• "Нарис української міфології" та "Знадоби до української демонології", Володимир Гнатюк
• "Українська міфологія", Володимир Галайчук
• "Звичаї нашого народу. Етнографічний нарис", Олекса Воропай. comes in two tomes. it's both mythology and calendar rituals, so it's kind of in-between topics
calendar rituals & liminal rites
• "Дни и месяцы украинского селянина", Михайло Максимович. ukrainian academic, but worked during russian empire, so the work is in pre-revolutionary russian.
• "Обряды: родины, крестины, свадьба, похороны", Павло Чубинський. again, russian empire ukrainian academic, written in pre-revolutionary russian.
• "Переправа через воду, как представление брака", Олександр Потебня. same as above
• "Хлеб в обрядах и песнях", Микола Сумцов. same as above
ethnomusicology
• "Ритміка українських народних пісень", Філарет Колесса.
• "Студії над українськими народними піснями", Іван Франко
• "Український музичний фольклор: навчальний посібник", Анатолій Іваницький
customary law
• "Звичаєве право в Україні", Олена Івановська
cultural anthropology
• "Студії з української етнографії та антропології", Федір Вовк.
in songs prescribed for the rusalka week a common motif is of rusalka asking people to give her clothes. "girls, sisters, give me namitka — if not a thin one, then at least white" (дівки-сестрички, дайте намітки — хоч не тоненької, аби біленької); "girls, sisters, give me a skirt, oh early-early" (дєвочкі-сестрички, дайте мнє споднички, ой рано-рано), "boys, brothers, give me a shirt" (хлопчики-браточки, дайте мнє сорочки)
clothes are considered, among other things, a marker of humanity; dead, as well as beasts, don't need clothes. traditionally, ukrainians buried their dead in linen shirts, which was basically their underwear — and in a traditonal society, being in your underwear is almost the same as being naked. since the point of the rusalka week is to invite them into your space so they can gift you and your household prosperity, to give them clothes is one of the ways by which they can enter the human world. on the other hand, the girls that participate in rusalian rituals may themselves undress and uncover their hair, therefore coming closer to the dead and the bestial. both rusalky and the living therefore can meet halfway through.
in folklore depictions of rusalky, their fatness is sometimes a trait that is emphasized. fatness is, of course, associated with richness and abundance of the earth, something which rusalky are welcomed to share with mortal folk during the green week
a rusalky post for rusalky week. i want to share some ukrainian folk stories about relationships between the rusalky and their living relatives. and if you don't know, rusalka is an undead natural spirit, usually (but not always) of a girl who died a violent death, or died prior or during the rusalka week. recordings of folk texts are taken from the work "ukrainian mythology" by volodymyr halaichuk, translated by me.
• a girl died before rusalka week. and her sister remained. the dead girl was buried in her clothes, but they forgot to give her her favorite skirt, that she wanted. she came back as a rusalka. she came to her sister, and asked: "oksana, can you get me my skirt?". oksana asked: "what do you need it for?" "i will go party". and so for the whole rusalka week, she visited her sister. every evening oksana left her the skirt on the hedge, and her sister took it and partied. but then the mother noticed it, as the skirt was constantly dripping wet. the rusalka sister told oksana to not utter a single word to her mother about what is happening. but once her mother pressured her, and the girl told her so and so. after that, the rusalka stopped coming.
• there was a good girl, and she died. she wanted to be buried in her silk skirt, but the mother didn't fulfill her wish. the girl died before rusalka week. then the neighbors started dreaming that the girl was asking "why didn't mother give me my skirt?". then, when the rusalka week came, the mother placed the skirt in the corner of the house. then, when the next day came, she looked at it, and the skirt was dripping wet. and so they knew that the rusalka girl came
• a girl died on rusalka week. and so a year came by, but the parents still mourned. but during rusalka week, they saw her khustka move, and so the father pounced on it, and hugged it tightly, and didn't let it go. turned out it was their girl. he placed her on the corner of the house. and so she stayed in one place for a whole year. only when the dziady (ancestors' holiday) came, she ate the steam from the food offering, and then again returned to her corner. but then when the rusalka week came, she looked through the window, and clapped her hands, and exclaimed "my people are coming!" — and she was gone.
• there was a dead girl of 15 or 16 years, who's parents catched her, and locked her in the house. she sat at the clay stove in the corner, her face to the wall, as she refused to turn her face to them. then they noticed that when they cook food, she disappears, and so they knew she was eating the steam from the food. from now on, they left the house before eating, so that she could eat the steam in peace. and so she lived here for a whole year. but then pentecost came, and then three days more, and then she jumped from the stove, and exclaimed "oh! oh! my people are here! my people are here!" — and nobody saw her afterwards.
• once a group of musicians returned from the party late at night, and their way was through the fields. and towards them another group of musicians walked on the same road. when they finally crossed paths, the living recognized that the other group was dead. the dead musician spoke "so what are we gonna do now? now we are doing a playing competition. the one who wins gets the girl from the others' group". and so they played, and the living won. the musician who won chose a girl and said "you're going with us". in that village was a mother, who's daughter drowned herself on the pentecost. when the rusalka got to the village, she recognized the girl as her daughter. she stood in the corner of the house for the whole rusalka week, never talking, facing the corner. and when the week passed, they never noticed when and how, but she disappeared.
okay i am absolutely disappointed in tumblr's appalachian folklore hashtag. why is it exclusively people posting some kind of dark academia content. where is the folklore
okay i am absolutely disappointed in tumblr's appalachian folklore hashtag. why is it exclusively people posting some kind of dark academia content. where is the folklore
enamoured by how american old time fiddlers also place the fiddle low on the chest as opposed to their shoulder. ukrainian traditional fiddlers do this as well! often gets you strange looks from classical-trained violinists (i even once had a person tell me that "the violin won't make a sound in this position"???) but the thing is, it really is more convenient to place the fiddle like this when playing traditional music, as it gives the bow more momentum; and in folk music, the fiddle plays more of a rhythm-establishing role, so it really helps. also allows you to sing!
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