Maslenitsa Effigy: The “Man in Women’s Clothes” of Russia’s Pre-Lent Carnival

Maslenitsa in the Russian tradition is a week of public festivities that takes place before the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox calendar. The date changes every year because it depends on the date of Easter. Maslenitsa week comes immediately before the fast and is considered the last “hearty” week: meat has already been removed from the diet, but dairy products, butter, and eggs are still permitted. The main food is blini (thin pancakes), made from ingredients that are still allowed. Over time, blini became a symbol of treats, merrymaking, and bidding farewell to winter.

Maslenitsa has two historical layers. One is connected with the Church tradition of preparing for the fast. The other goes back to pre-Christian rites. These include sleigh rides, noisy processions, games, and masquerading—dressing up and temporarily breaking everyday norms for laughter and shared fun.

One of the best-known symbols of Maslenitsa is a straw effigy, which is often burned at the end of the week. The idea that it is an essential part of the holiday formed relatively late. Ethnographic materials show that in many regions of the Russian Empire a straw figure was not made at all.

In places where an effigy did exist, it became the focal point of the celebrations. It was usually made large. The base was either a cross-shaped frame of two sticks wrapped in straw or a straw sheaf. The top was shaped as a head, and the lower part as a body. To make it taller, the sheaf was mounted on a long pole.

The effigy was dressed in different ways. In some regions it was put in a kaftan and a cap, belted with a sash, and “shod” in bast shoes (lapti). In others, women’s clothing was used: a blouse, a sarafan, or a skirt, and the head was tied with a kerchief. The figure was then stood up or seated in a sleigh and, with songs, taken up to a hill. There, the “meeting of Maslenitsa” took place—on Monday or on Thursday, depending on local tradition.

The “Muzhik-Maslenitsa” (Maslenitsa Man)

Sources from the early 20th century record an image known as the “Muzhik-Maslenitsa.”

In theatrical and folk practice, travesty is a technique in which a performer plays a character of the other sex and dresses accordingly. A crucial element is the deliberately emphasized mismatch between the performer’s appearance and the costume, which is perceived as a comic effect.

The journalist and collector of folklore materials Apollon Apollonovich Korinfsky described such a custom in his 1901 book Narodnaya Rus’ (Folk Russia). According to him, in some places during Maslenitsa they would ride around with a “Maslenitsa” figure that “for some reason… had turned into a man dressed up as a woman.” This was the “Muzhik-Maslenitsa”—a character with male features wearing a woman’s dress, that is, a travesty figure.

He carried a balalaika; sometimes he also held a shtof of “the sovereign’s wine.” A shtof is an old measuring bottle or decanter; the expression “sovereign’s wine” meant vodka. A small keg of beer and a “blini box”—a container for transporting pancakes—are also mentioned. The figure combined music, food, drink, and a comic costume.

Korinfsky also describes the ride itself: “A whole train was outfitted.” Painted sleighs went in front, and in some places a boat set on runners. The team could include from 10 to 20 horses, with a “rider holding a broom” seated on each. In carnival rounds, the broom served as a sign of noise and mischief and also symbolized sweeping out the old.

The “Muzhik-Maslenitsa” was “hung all over with birch bath brooms.” In Russian tradition, the birch broom is associated with the bathhouse and cleansing, and it was used as a vivid element of festive decoration.

Other sleighs followed the first, filled with dressed-up young men, girls, and children. Jingle bells rattled, balalaikas and songs sounded, and residents came out of their houses and joined the procession. The front sleigh was called the “ship.” It could be decorated with brooms with towels tied to them, depicting masts with sails. The “meeting” took place on Monday—the first day of Maslenitsa week, traditionally called the “meeting.”

The “Muzhik-Maslenitsa” image reflects a practice typical of folk laughter culture: the “upside-down” reversal in which familiar roles and norms are temporarily changed. Within the street ritual, Maslenitsa could appear as a man dressed “as a woman,” with a balalaika, birch brooms, and a decanter of vodka.

Such a character is a travesty mask in the folk sense—an intentional mismatch understood as a sign of festive reimagining of the world.

References and Sources

• Коринфский, А. А. Народная Русь: Круглый год сказаний, поверий, обычаев и пословиц русского народа. 1901. [* Korinfsky, A. A. - Folk Russia: A Year-Round Cycle of Legends, Beliefs, Customs, and Proverbs of the Russian People.]

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