Barabas

Facts

Name origin

The name is spelled Barabas in the official part of Oni, but "hidden" resources (scripts, binaries), call him Barabbas, Barabus, or, affectionately, Baba :)

Barabbas

Jesus was crucified on the holy Jewish day that is now known as Easter. Traditionally, one of the prisoners about to be executed on that day was released by the Roman authorities, and it was up to the crowd to decide who should be released. Pontius Pilate let the crowd choose between Jesus (not guilty of anything in particular) and Barabbas (a rioter and a murderer). The high priests who "framed" Jesus manipulated the crowd, which then unanimously demanded Barabas's release and Jesus's crucifixion.

Barabbas (from BibleGateway.com)

A prisoner released by Pilate (Matthew 27:16-26; Mark 15:7-15; Luke 23:18-25; John 18:40;)

A further reference to that episode is found in Acts 3:14 :

You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.

And that's about it for the biblical reference. There was a Barabbas movie starring Anthony Quinn.

Karabas-Barabas
(photo (C) M. Shamanov)

The Jew of Malta

It's a theater play by Christopher Marlowe. Sorta like a pseudo-historical drama. The name of the protagonist, Barabas, is clearly chosen intentionally, with the biblical reference in mind, so that he is "automatically" antipathic to the audience.

Karabas-Barabas

He's the main bad guy in Zolotoi Klyuchik a.k.a. the adventures of Buratino, the russian remake of Collodi's Pinocchio.

Karabas-Barabas is a puppet master. The puppets of his theater are alive, so he doesn't actually animate them with strings : it's more like he's a tyrant and they are his slaves. The protagonist, Buratino the puppet, finds a golden key that unlocks the door to a hidden, "parallel", much better world, helps the other puppets to run away from Karabas Barabas's theater, and eventually leads them to that other world (narrowly escaping Karabas's pursuit) where they live happily ever after.

Karabas-Barabas's appearance is close to that of an ogre : he's a giant with a very long black beard. His disrespect of puppet life (he wants to throw Buratino into the fire as fuel) enhances this aspect. In that he's close to the Buddhist Oni which are somewhere in between ogres and imps.

The book itself (and the movies) are morally lighter than Collodi's original, being aimed at young children. Since the book and movies were produced during the Soviet era, they could have ended up ideologically heavy. Of course the tyrannic Karabas-Barabas can be seen as the embodiment of capitalism, and his puppets can represent the working class, but on the whole it's just a regular (quite entertaining) book for children. Big bad guy, little good guys, domination of evil, escape, happily ever after. There were many unforgettable moments (both in the movies and in the book), quotes and references that made it into the Russian culture, a popular soundtrack, etc.