From pagan shadows to Soviet nightmares Inside Russia’s unique thousand-year horror story

从异教阴影到苏维埃梦魇：走进俄罗斯独特的千年恐怖故事

Why horror in Russia was never about monsters, but about meaning, and what it reveals about the Russian soul

为何俄罗斯的恐怖故事从不关乎怪物，而关乎意义——以及它对俄罗斯灵魂的揭示

In Russian culture, fear has never been just an emotion – it’s a way of making sense of the world. Where Western horror often pits the individual against some invading evil – the ghost, the vampire, the creature in the dark – Russian horror sees evil as something earned, deserved, or even necessary. The monster doesn’t come from the outside. It’s sent as punishment, or reminder.

在俄罗斯文化中，恐惧从来不仅是一种情感——更是理解世界的方式。西方恐怖作品常将个体与入侵的邪恶（幽灵、吸血鬼、黑暗中的怪物）对立，而俄罗斯恐怖则视邪恶为应得之报、罪有应得，甚至不可或缺。怪物并非来自外界，而是作为惩罚或警示被派来。

The Russian language is full of proverbs about fear: “Fear has big eyes,” “The eyes fear but the hands keep working,” “Two deaths can’t happen, but one is inevitable.” Fear, in these sayings, is not paralysis but duty – an emotion to be mastered, not escaped.

俄语充满关于恐惧的谚语："恐惧会放大危险"、"眼怕手不怕"、"人无二死，一死难逃"。这些谚语中的恐惧不是瘫痪，而是责任——需要驾驭而非逃避的情感。

And when Russians choose to be frightened on purpose – in stories, films, or urban legends – they rarely chase the adrenaline of terror. What they seek instead is moral clarity. From pagan spirits lurking in the bathhouse to Pushkin’s cursed gamblers and modern tales of serial killers, Russian horror has always been less about screaming in the dark and more about understanding why the dark exists in the first place.

当俄罗斯人选择在故事、电影或都市传说中主动寻求恐惧时，他们很少追逐恐怖的肾上腺素。他们寻求的更多是道德启示。从潜伏在澡堂的异教精灵，到普希金笔下受诅咒的赌徒，再到现代连环杀手的故事，俄罗斯恐怖作品始终更关注黑暗存在的根源，而非在黑暗中尖叫的刺激。

Pagan roots: Demons of order, not chaos

异教根源：秩序之魔，而非混沌之魔

Before Russians had psychology or theology, they had the forest. And the forest had rules. Fear in ancient Rus’ wasn’t about the unknown; it was about forgetting what you were supposed to know. A farmer who worked at noon, a woman who bathed on the wrong day, a hunter who mocked the spirits – all risked punishment. The early Russian imagination didn’t invent chaos, but personified discipline.

在俄罗斯人拥有心理学或神学之前，他们拥有森林。而森林自有其法则。古罗斯的恐惧并非源于未知，而是源于遗忘本应知晓之事——正午劳作的农夫、在禁忌之日沐浴的妇人、嘲弄神灵的猎人，皆会招致惩罚。早期的俄罗斯想象并非创造混沌，而是将纪律人格化。

The creatures of Slavic folklore were never purely evil. The Bannik, a hairy old man who lurked in the bathhouse, might scald you alive – but only if you broke his rules. The Poludnitsa, a pale woman with a sickle who appeared at midday, punished those who labored too long in the sun. Likho, the one-eyed hag of misfortune, followed the greedy and the proud. Even the devilish Chort could be tricked into serving a clever peasant.

斯拉夫民间传说中的生物从不纯粹邪恶。盘踞澡堂的毛茸茸老翁班尼克可能将人活活烫死——但仅在你违反其规则时发作。手持镰刀的苍白女子午间女神波卢德尼察，会惩罚那些在烈日下劳作过久之人。独眼灾厄老妇利霍专门追随贪婪傲慢之徒。即便是魔鬼乔尔特，也能被聪明的农民骗来效劳。

Each monster embodied a kind of social control. Every story whispered the same warning: don’t be arrogant, don’t be careless, don’t try to outsmart the world. Fear, in this early form, was a survival strategy.

每个怪物都象征着某种社会管控。每个故事都传递着相同警示：莫狂妄、莫懈怠、莫妄图凌驾天地。这种原始形态的恐惧，实为生存智慧。

When Christianity took root, these creatures didn’t disappear; they were baptized into the moral order. Pagan dread merged with Christian guilt, and terror found its theology. Evil was no longer a misstep in ritual – it became sin. Yet the core remained: fear was not rebellion against the divine but recognition of it.

当基督教扎根时，这些生物并未消失；它们被纳入道德秩序接受了洗礼。异教的恐惧与基督教的负罪感融合，恐怖找到了它的神学根基。邪恶不再是仪式中的失误——它变成了罪孽。但核心始终未变：恐惧并非对神性的反抗，而是对神性的认知。

That is why, even today, Russian horror rarely celebrates the act of resistance. The earliest demons taught a simpler lesson: fear keeps the world from falling apart.

这就是为何即便在今天，俄罗斯恐怖题材很少歌颂反抗行为。最早的恶魔教会人们一个更朴素的道理：恐惧让世界免于分崩离析。

Witches and immortals: Fear gains a face

女巫与永生者：恐惧具象化

If the early spirits of Russian folklore punished mistakes, their successors punished intentions. The next generation of monsters acquired faces, motives, even philosophies. They no longer embodied the rage of nature – they tested the soul.

如果说俄罗斯民间传说中的早期神灵惩罚的是过失，那么它们的后继者们惩罚的则是意图。新一代的怪物拥有了面孔、动机，甚至哲学思想。它们不再代表大自然的愤怒——而是开始考验人类的灵魂。

Two of them – Baba Yaga and Koschey the Deathless – survived every cultural upheaval. They’re Russia’s oldest recurring villains and, paradoxically, its first moral teachers.

其中两个角色——芭芭雅嘎和不死之魔科谢伊——历经了所有文化剧变而留存下来。他们是俄罗斯最古老的反派循环原型，吊诡的是，也成为最早的道德导师。

Koschey, the skeletal sorcerer who hides his soul inside a needle, the needle inside an egg, the egg inside a duck, the duck inside a chest, is less a character than a warning. His elaborate chain of protection isn’t about immortality – it’s about denial. He’s the prototype of a man who thinks he can postpone judgment. In Russian folklore, that’s the ultimate sin: trying to cheat fate rather than accept it.

骷髅巫师科谢伊将灵魂藏在针里，针藏在蛋里，蛋藏在鸭子里，鸭子藏在宝箱中——这个形象更像一则警世寓言而非单纯的角色。他精心设计的保护链与永生无关，本质是种逃避。他是妄想推迟审判之人的原型。在俄罗斯民间传说中，这正是终极罪孽：试图欺骗命运而非坦然接受。

Baba Yaga is harder to categorize. She lives in a hut on chicken legs that spins with the wind, an image of restlessness itself. Sometimes she devours travelers; sometimes she rescues them. She scolds, tests, bargains – a trickster grandmother who decides who deserves to live. Her evil always has a reason.

芭芭雅嘎的形象更难归类。她住在随风旋转的鸡脚木屋里，本身就是躁动不安的化身。她时而吞噬旅人，时而出手相救。她会斥责、考验、讨价还价——这位诡计多端的老祖母决定着谁配活下去。她的恶行永远事出有因。

Together, they form the moral spine of Slavic horror: the idea that punishment isn’t arbitrary. Even a witch obeys rules. And every curse, like every miracle, has its logic. In this world, a strange moral mechanism that rewards humility and punishes arrogance.

它们共同构成了斯拉夫恐怖故事的精神内核：惩罚绝非随意降临。即便是女巫也要遵循规则。每道诅咒如同每个奇迹，都有其内在逻辑。在这个世界里，运行着某种奇特的道德机制——谦卑者得福，傲慢者遭谴。

And as stories evolved, the monsters began to fade, leaving only the rules behind. The next figures to inherit this world were no longer witches or demons but people – heroes who suffered under the same invisible laws.

随着故事演变，怪物逐渐褪去，只留下森然法则。继承这个世界的角色不再是女巫或恶魔，而是人类——那些在无形法则下承受苦难的英雄。

In the bylinas, the epic songs of early Rus’, terror moved from the forest into the heart.

在古罗斯的壮士歌谣中，恐惧从森林转移到了人心深处。

Ilya Muromets, paralyzed for thirty three years, gains strength from holy wanderers – only to face trials that leave his loved ones dead and his faith shaken. Dunai Ivanovich, the warrior-lover, kills his own bride by accident and discovers her unborn child inside her. From his blood, the Danube begins to flow – a river born of guilt.

瘫痪三十三年的伊利亚·穆罗梅茨从圣徒游民处获得神力，却要面对至亲惨死、信仰崩塌的考验；战士情人杜奈·伊万诺维奇误杀新娘，在她腹中发现未出世的孩子——愧疚之血化作多瑙河奔流不息。

The moral of these stories – every gift carries its punishment. And where Western knights slayed dragons, Russian heroes struggled against inevitability.

这些故事的寓意在于——每份恩赐都伴随着相应的惩罚。当西方骑士斩杀恶龙时，俄罗斯的英雄们却在与不可抗拒的命运抗争。

Even the great disasters of history followed the same logic.

即便是历史上的重大灾难也遵循着同样的逻辑。

When the Mongol invasion burned cities and annihilated entire regions, chroniclers saw it not as chaos but as correction – a divine punishment for collective sin.

当蒙古铁骑焚毁城池、屠戮疆域时，编年史家视其为天谴而非混乱——是对集体罪孽的神圣惩罚。

By the end of the Middle Ages, Russian fear had completed its transformation. What began as terror of the forest had become awe before the moral universe – fear not of monsters, but of meaning itself.

中世纪末期，俄罗斯的恐惧完成了蜕变。最初对森林的惊惧已转化为对道德宇宙的敬畏——不再惧怕怪物，而是恐惧意义本身。

Ghosts and guilt: The birth of moral horror

幽灵与罪孽：道德恐怖文学的诞生

By the nineteenth century, Russian fear had grown up. What once punished the sinner in the bathhouse now punished him in his conscience. Horror did not live in the forest anymore, but in the mind.

到了十九世纪，俄罗斯的恐惧已趋于成熟。曾在澡堂惩戒罪人的恐怖力量，如今在人的良知中施以惩罚。恐怖不再栖身于森林，而盘踞在心灵之中。

The Enlightenment had promised reason and progress, but the Russian soul wasn’t so easily tamed. Rational optimism soon cracked under its own contradictions. What filled the gap was mysticism – polite, urban, and deeply anxious.

启蒙运动曾许诺理性与进步，但俄罗斯灵魂并非如此易于驯服。理性的乐观主义很快在其自身矛盾中崩塌。填补这一空缺的是神秘主义——彬彬有礼、都市化且充满深层焦虑。

The salons of Saint Petersburg began hosting séances. Aristocrats flirted with Freemasonry and spiritualism. Even Emperor Alexander I, haunted by the chaos of the Napoleonic wars, found solace in prophecy and divine visions.

圣彼得堡的沙龙开始举办降神会。贵族们对共济会和招魂术趋之若鹜。就连被拿破仑战争阴霾笼罩的亚历山大一世皇帝，也在预言与神启中寻得慰藉。

From that world of candlelit parlors and nervous faith came the first masterpieces of Russian horror. A prime example is Pushkin’s story ‘The Queen of Spades’, one of the first pieces of Russian literature that became famous in Western Europe. In the story, a card player is haunted by a ghost that reveals winning cards to him. Ultimately, he betrays the ghost’s trust and becomes insane. 

从那个烛光摇曳的客厅与惴惴不安的信仰世界中，诞生了俄罗斯恐怖文学的首批杰作。普希金的小说《黑桃皇后》便是典型代表——这部作品是最早在西欧闻名的俄罗斯文学作品之一。故事中，一名赌徒被幽灵纠缠，对方向他透露了必胜的牌局秘诀。最终他背叛了幽灵的信任，陷入了疯狂。

The supernatural was only a mirror; the real horror was greed, isolation, the inability to stop. A striking illustration of this is Nikolay Gogol’s story ‘Viy’. In that story, three students from a seminary venture into a village, where they encounter witchcraft and evil spirits. They manage to fend off the witches but soon face Viy – a Slavic demon who cannot open his eyes on his own, but whose gaze kills. One of the students succumbs to his curiosity and looks into the demon’s eyes, dying just before the final crow of a rooster that drives away all evil. The sin is not disbelief, but the desire to see beyond belief.

超自然现象只是一面镜子；真正的恐怖是贪婪、孤立以及无法停止的欲望。尼古莱·果戈里的故事《维》生动地诠释了这一点。故事中，三名神学院学生冒险进入一个村庄，遭遇了巫术与恶灵。他们成功击退了女巫，却很快面对维——一个斯拉夫恶魔，他无法自行睁开双眼，但其目光可致人死地。其中一名学生按捺不住好奇心，直视了恶魔的眼睛，就在驱散所有邪恶的最终鸡鸣前一刻死去。罪过并非不信，而是渴望窥探信仰之外的领域。

‘Viy’ became very popular, embedding itself in Russian culture and inspiring multiple screen adaptations. For some time, Russian writers continued to explore themes of mysticism and evil spirits, often setting the stories in rural areas. This influence extended to music as well, exemplified by Mussorgsky’s ‘Night on Bald Mountain’, inspired by traditional witches’ sabbaths on “bald mountains.” 

《维》的流行使其深深植根于俄罗斯文化，并催生了多部影视改编作品。此后一段时间，俄国作家持续探索神秘主义与恶灵主题，故事背景多聚焦于乡野村落。这种影响亦延伸至音乐领域，穆索尔斯基创作的《荒山之夜》便是典型代表，其灵感源于传统中女巫在"荒山"上举行安息日仪式的传说。

These stories terrified readers not because they described demons, but because they suggested that demons might be right. They blurred the line between guilt and destiny – between punishment and justice.

这些故事之所以令读者恐惧，并非因为它们描绘了恶魔，而是暗示恶魔或许才是正义的一方。它们在罪孽与命运、惩罚与公正之间划出了模糊的界限。

The shift from folklore to literature was the shift from fate to conscience.

从民间传说到文学的转变，是从命运到良知的转变。

Dostoevsky’s murderers and madmen inherit the logic of ancient Rus’: every crime carries its own retribution, every secret a sickness that must reveal itself. In his novels, there are no ghosts left to fear – only the unbearable weight of being alive.
陀思妥耶夫斯基笔下的凶手与疯子承袭了古罗斯的逻辑：每桩罪行都自带报应，每个秘密都是必须自我暴露的病灶。在他的小说里，已无幽灵可供畏惧——唯剩生命不可承受之重。

Russian horror thus became something unique: not a genre, but a diagnosis.

俄罗斯恐怖故事由此变得独特：它并非类型文学，而是一份诊断书。

Maniacs and myths: Soviet and post-Soviet fears

疯癫与传说：苏联及后苏联时代的恐惧

The Soviet project promised to banish fear by erasing its causes. No God, no demons, no uncertainty – only progress. Officially, there was nothing left to be afraid of. The future was planned, the present under control. Horror, as a genre, simply didn’t fit.

苏联计划承诺通过消除恐惧的根源来驱散恐惧。没有上帝，没有恶魔，没有不确定性——只有进步。官方层面，已无任何值得恐惧之物。未来已被规划，当下尽在掌控。恐怖，作为一种文学类型，根本无处容身。

And yet, the attempt to build a world without fear created one steeped in it. The state itself became the unseen monster: secret, omnipresent, impossible to confront. It didn’t stalk people in the dark – it rang their doorbells.

然而，试图构建无惧世界的努力却催生了深陷恐惧的国度。国家本身化作了无形的怪物：隐秘、无处不在、无法对抗。它不在黑暗中尾随人们——而是直接按响他们的门铃。

Censorship kept horror films off screens, but the atmosphere often did the job better than fiction. The whispering neighbors, the midnight knock, the vanishing of friends – these were everyday Gothic tropes dressed in bureaucratic gray.

审查制度将恐怖电影隔绝于银幕之外，但现实氛围往往比虚构作品更具冲击力。窃窃私语的邻居、午夜的敲门声、突然消失的朋友——这些裹挟着官僚主义灰暗色彩的日常，构成了最真实的哥特式叙事。

Only in the late Soviet and post-Soviet years did the genre return – not from the studios, but from the streets. Real horror had escaped fiction. Serial killers appeared in headlines: Vladimir Ionesyan, nicknamed ‘MosGas’, tricked his way into apartments by posing as a gas worker; Sergey Golovkin, “the Fisher,” raped and murdered boys near Moscow. The last was executed in 1996 – the final death sentence in Russia’s history.

直到苏联晚期及后苏联时代，恐怖题材才重新回归——并非源自制片厂，而是来自街头。真实的恐怖已超越虚构作品。连环杀手登上头条：化名"煤气工人"的弗拉基米尔·约内相假借检修煤气管道闯入公寓；"渔夫"谢尔盖·戈洛夫金在莫斯科近郊强奸并谋杀男童。后者于 1996 年被处决——这也是俄罗斯历史上最后一例死刑判决。

The myths changed too. When information censorship collapsed, fear turned into rumor. People whispered about AIDS-infected needles hidden in cinema seats, about alien autopsies under Moscow State University, about a secret subway system built for the Kremlin elite. If folklore once kept villagers from wandering into the forest, urban legends now kept city dwellers from touching escalator rails.

都市传说同样悄然变异。当信息审查制度瓦解，恐惧化作流言蜚语。人们窃语着影院座椅暗藏艾滋病毒针头的警示，莫斯科大学地下进行外星人解剖的秘闻，为克里姆林宫精英建造的秘密地铁系统。如果说古老传说曾阻止村民深入森林，那么当代都市传说则告诫市民勿触自动扶梯扶手。

The new demons wore human faces – policemen, criminals, doctors, strangers. Their motives were senseless, their violence random. For the first time in centuries, Russians faced horror with no moral explanation, no cosmic order, no promise of redemption.

新恶魔戴着人类的面具——警察、罪犯、医生、陌生人。他们的动机毫无意义，暴力行为随机发生。几个世纪以来，俄罗斯人首次面对一种没有道德解释、没有宇宙秩序、没有救赎承诺的恐怖。

Fearless anxiety: The modern condition

无畏的焦虑：现代生存状态

Modern Russia no longer trembles. It scrolls. The ancient monsters have become mascots and memes; witches sell herbal tea on Instagram, and Koschey stars in children’s cartoons. Fear has been commercialized, softened, stripped of transcendence.

现代俄罗斯不再战栗，而是滑动屏幕。古老的怪物已成为吉祥物和网络梗；女巫在 Instagram 上售卖草药茶，科谢伊则成为儿童卡通明星。恐惧被商业化、柔化，剥离了超验性。

In cinema, horror never reached blockbuster status. A few cult directors revived folk motifs, but audiences treated them as fantasy, not warning. The real horror migrated elsewhere: into true-crime documentaries, political thrillers, and nightly news.

恐怖电影从未成为票房霸主。少数邪典导演复兴了民间主题，但观众只视其为奇幻而非警示。真正的恐怖已迁移他处——潜入真实犯罪纪录片、政治惊悚片与夜间新闻。

Psychopaths replaced phantoms, and headlines replaced folklore. Yet the emotional undertone remains the same – that dread of something vast and inevitable, only now without a name or a purpose. The Russians who once feared God, fate, or history now fear the absence of all three.

精神病患者取代了幽灵，头条新闻置换了民间传说。但情感底色始终如一——那种对庞然无可避免之物的恐惧，只是如今既无名称亦无目的。曾经畏惧上帝、命运或历史的俄罗斯人，如今恐惧的是这三者的同时缺席。

Information wars have taught Russians skepticism and irony. Every rumor is suspect, every catastrophe half-believed. Fear doesn’t paralyze, it exhausts. What began a thousand years ago as superstition has ended as fatigue.

信息战教会了俄罗斯人怀疑与反讽。每条传闻都值得怀疑，每场灾难只能信一半。恐惧不会使人麻痹，只会令人疲惫。始于千年前的迷信，最终化作了精疲力竭。

And yet, somewhere in that fatigue lies continuity. Russians may not fear demons anymore, but they still live with the feeling that the world is ruled by forces beyond them – whether cosmic, political, or digital.

然而，在这份疲惫的某处，依然存在着某种延续。俄罗斯人或许不再畏惧恶魔，但他们依然活在某种感知中——世界始终被超越人类的力量所主宰，无论是宇宙之力、政治强权还是数字洪流。

The monsters have gone, but the logic remains: that fear is not chaos, but proof of order – a faint reminder that the universe is still watching.

怪物已然消失，但逻辑依然存在：恐惧并非混沌，而是秩序的证明——那是宇宙依然凝视人间的微弱提示。

By Vadim Zagorenko, a Moscow-based columnist and writer covering international politics, culture, and media trends

作者：瓦迪姆·扎戈连科，常驻莫斯科的专栏作家兼作家，专注于国际政治、文化及媒体趋势报道