Un-Russian Dolls: Inventing Culture

The plump, rosy-cheeked matrioshka is among one of the most iconic Russian crafts. Its folksy appeal seems to hearken to old traditions of centuries gone by.

Centuries gone by? Possibly. Russian centuries? Not really.

The matrioshka (also known as stacking dolls, Russian dolls, or, somewhat erroneously, "babushka" dolls) only has a little over a hundred years' worth of history in Russia.

The Mamontovs, populist sympathizers and patrons of the arts, established the Artists' Colony of Abramstevo (a short distance from Moscow) in the 1870s. This colony became a focal point for a wider arts and crafts movement. Its goal: to revive the peasant handicrafts that were quickly disappearing due to the railroads, which brought an influx of cheaper manufactured goods to the area.

This was part of a general movement to conserve folk art; interestingly, the artists who toured the country to copy the designs of peasant craftspeople quickly assimilated the work into a kind of art nouveau style. Certain woodworking designs, the color of garments and textiles (drabber than what peasants preferred), and other such elements were subject to alteration. What the buyer received as a final product was not representative of Russian peasant art as much as it was a synthesis between it and the other styles contemporary to it.

This style, rather than that of the authentic ethnographic art, appealed to the tastes of those who could afford what were, in essence, luxury goods

The phenomenon of the matrioshka is more mysterious than one would think, but this much is certain: a craftsman from a workshop in Talashkino, Sergei Maliutin, is said to have designed the first (Russian-style) matrioshka in 1891. During that time, he was working at Sergiev Posad, whose workshops focused on Russian toys.

According to the most reliable source I can find, the matrioshka was conceived as a response to a commission from the Mamantovs (mentioned above) to make a Russified version of the Japanese nesting doll. Some sources say that a prototype for the matrioshka was brought to Russia from the Japanese island of Honshu; it depicted a Buddhist sage, Fukurama. A popular belief associated with this idea is that the prototype itself had been carved by a Russian monk. Other sources trace the idea of nesting vessels in general back to China.

In any case, the Russian nesting doll was quite distinct from its predecessors. The top doll took the form of a barrel-shaped peasant girl holding a chicken under one arm. The subsequent dolls were each supposed to portray a different aspect of peasant life. The smallest doll was a baby swaddled in the Russian style.

The term matrioshka derives from Matryona, a Russian name that was popular in the older days. The name, in turn, has a Latin derivation from mater, or "mother." This would make sense, because much of their appeal lies in their evocation of the domesticity and tradition of the bygone years of Russia.

How a toy from the 1890s became an icon of Old Russia is not clear; however, its debut in the World Fair exhibition in Paris in 1900 probably helped solidify its popularity.

Nowadays, the matrioshka is as popular as ever. Doll collectors and tourists to Russia and post-Soviet countries often bring them home as souvenirs; one can find an array of them, from the traditional to the modern, almost everywhere one looks (except in the households of certain Russians I know, who think of them as "hideous abominations").

The phenomenon of the 1870s peasant art movement, illustrated in the form of the Russian doll, owes itself to a somewhat imaginary, idealized past. The doll's prominence and strong association with its new country of origin makes a fascinating comment on how culture is always in a state of constructing itself and (re)presenting itself to the world.