The Russian folktale "Vasilissa Most Lovely" resembles the Cinderella story but it is darker and more brutal. In the story, the magical doll that Vasilissa has received from her mother saves her life, and the stepmother and stepsisters are destroyed by the power of the evil witch Baba Yaga. It is interesting to consider that Vasilissa’s goodness and strength are gifts from her loving parent, that this grotesque, bizarre fairy tale functions also as an allegory about how a parent’s love (“blessing”) can cultivate in a child the resilience and integrity needed to overcome the most daunting obstacles. Because Vasilissa’s most important character traits are her strength and resilience, I did not entitle the piece "Vasilissa Most Lovely" but rather "Vasilissa the Invincible." In the work, there are themes for all of the main characters of the story, including the eerie emergence and disappearance of the mysterious galloping horsemen the events tend to come in groups of three, as they often do in fairy tales.
