‘Russian Alphabet’: How an artist from Moscow Region came up with magical stories for each letter of the alphabet

"In 2002, I had twins and, a few years later, I wanted to create a book for them. The Russian theme was not very popular at that time and, somehow, the idea to make an alphabet book in the style of Ivan Bilibin arose by itself. I remembered books with his illustrations from my childhood and I wanted there to be more of them," says the artist.  

Bilibin's illustrations of Russian fairy tales became a real phenomenon in the early 20th century.

He created a magical world in which Ivan-Tsarevich rushed on the Gray Wolf, a gloomy Baba-Yaga flew on a stupa, while Vasilisa the Beautiful made her way through the forest, lighting her way with a torch made of a human skull. 

"Remember Bilibin’s ‘Baba-Yaga’? Children are afraid of her, such a convincing image. I realized that my alphabet should have such characters that children would not be afraid to go into the forest later. For example, I drew the ‘leshy’ (wood goblin) several times. The third version turned out to be the best – it is clear that he himself is afraid of us, that’s why he runs, dissolving into the forest landscape.”

Marina Khankova spent two years creating pencil sketches and another six years on the color project.

The format was born immediately: the alphabet would be in spreads. The left part is dedicated to a particular letter surrounded by animals, birds, herbs and other attributes associated with it.

And the characters of fairy tales were allocated on the right. "First of all, I wanted to create the alphabet through Russian life and, as they say nowadays, the Russian code. I felt very comfortable in this theme, I felt it very well," the artist recalls.

For example, the characters of the letter ‘B’ (‘Ve’) are Vasilisa the Wise and ‘Vodyanoy’ (Water spirit) and the letter itself is surrounded by images of a family of wolves with wolf cubs, a crow, a sparrow and an open gate.

A sleeping Tsar Dadon and his houseboy are, of course, on the spread about the letter ‘Д’ (‘De’). And next to them are a grandfather and grandmother, a pastoral view of the village, woodpeckers and flowering oregano. 

Each letter has its own color: ‘З’ (‘Ze’) is green, ‘П’ (‘Pe’) is purple.

Even ‘Щ’ (‘Shch’) has a special shade, suggested to Khankova by a boy from the sports club where her children practiced. "He was very worried that I did not know what color to make the letter. And then he came up with it: cheek color! So we have pink ‘Щ’, like a blush on our cheeks!"