This is the story of ‘The Malchite Casket’ and the fate of its author Pavel Bazov.
In my last video I talked about the story The Mistress of the Copper Mountain, which is the prequel to The Malachite Casket, so I’m going to quickly summarise it here.
The story follows a young miner, Stepan, who encounters the Mistress of the Copper Mountain - the protector of the mountain’s natural riches. After passing her tests he is rewarded with wealth, freedom from serfdom, and is able to marry his betrothed. The story ends tragically, as the descent to the Mistress’ realm leads to his untimely death.
The sequel follows Stepan’s daughter, Tanyushka. She was beautiful, clever, and felt like an outsider - not only because she didn’t look like either of her parents, being black haired and green-eyed, but she never got on with anyone in her family or her village. Her mother had a malachite casket full of jewels, a gift from the Mistress. When Tanyushka was little she tried them on and not only did they fit perfectly, like they were made for her, but she felt her father’s presence while they were on. When Tanyushka was approaching adulthood the Mistress appeared disguised as a traveling seamstress; a role similar to that taken by the goddess Demeter, during her long search for her daughter, Persephone (Show a note for ‘The Iron Bridge and Digging deep’ a thesis by Rebecca Hurst.) The Mistress befriended Tanyushka, taught her to make fine embroidery, gave her a vision of her future, and before leaving gave her a magical glass button through which they could communicate.
One day her craft and her beauty caught the eye of the Master of the mine, who asked her for her hand. Tanyushka, guided by the Mistress, agreed to marry him but only if he showed her the Tsarina in the chamber decorated in the malachite her father found. When she arrived in the palace, she realused he’d lied to her, so she found this chamber herself, knowing where to go from her vision, and with everyone gathered, including the Master of the mine and the Tsarina, she leaned onto the malachite column and melted into it. As she was wearing the jewels from the malachite casked, they stuck to the column and when the Master of the mine tried to take them off they turned to tears, blood and piss. All that was left was the button, in which he saw the green-eyed maid laughing and mocking him. After that he lost his wits, started drinking, and got into debts that bankrupted his mines.
Conclusion
In the 1st tale the Mistress of the Copper Mountain empowers a worker to stand up to his manager, and to stop him from taking advantage of the mountain’s resources. This didn’t work, so in the 2nd tale she goes into the human world as a double of herself - a daughter changeling placed in the family of the same worker. As her own daughter, she takes revenge on the Master of the mine, bankrupting him and his business, and sends a warning to the Russian royalty by infiltrating the castle that holds the riches of her mountain - Your power will not save you. Your wealth does not belong to you. You are nothing compared to the might of the mountain and the strength of the people. Beware.
The author’s fate
In the height of Stalin's Great Purge he was evaded arrest, and spent a year in hiding, during which he wrote his most famous stories. Bazhov’s own life story was as dramatic as any of his tales; after confinement within the magic kingdom of his own home, he awoke to sudden fame. Several years later he won the Stalin Prize for literature, an ironic turn of events not lost on Bazhov who ‘told a friend: “Hailed today, jailed tomorrow”’. The disgraced journalist and editor had enacted a sort of death through his disappearance ‘underground’, to be resurrected as an archetypal storyteller: an elderly man with a long white beard and a pocket full of skazy.
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