Academic literature on the topic 'Children's literature, Soviet'

This article investigates the perceived image of English-language children's literature in Soviet Russia. Framed by Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Bourdieu's philosophy of action, the discussion takes into account the ideological constraints of the practice of translation and the manipulation of texts. Several factors involved in creating the perceived character of a body of literature are identified, such as the requirements of socialist realism, publishing practices in the Soviet Union, the tradition of free translation and accessibility in the translation of children's literature. This study explores these factors and, with reference to selected examples, illustrates how the political and sociological climate of translation in the Soviet Union influenced the translation practices and the field of translated children's literature, creating a particular image of English-language children's literature in (Soviet) Russia.

The article is devoted to the changes that took place in the Buryat children's literature at the turn of the Soviet and post-Soviet eras in the context of sociocultural transformations caused by the collapse of the USSR and the formation of new identities in the post-Soviet space. The discourses of identity found in the children's literature of this period, their interaction and dynamics are investigated. The purpose of the study is to determine the specifics of the transformation of the identity of the Buryat children's literature in this transitional period. The material of the study is Buryat children's magazines and plays published in the period from 1985 to 1995. The study is based on a diachronic approach. The main research methods are cultural-historical and discourse analysis methods. As a result, it was established that as a result of the crisis of Soviet culture and the formation of the discourse of national revival in Buryat children's literature, there was a gradual replacement of Soviet identity with a new national identity. Prior to this transformation, Buryat children's literature was aimed at the formation of a Soviet identity associated with the communist ideology, the party and the pioneer movement, the idea of the unity of the Soviet nations, the events of the general Soviet history, such as the October Revolution and the Great Patriotic War. After the changes that took place, Buryat children's literature began to focus primarily on the formation of a national identity based on familiarization with the traditions of Buddhism, the culture of the Mongolian peoples, and the history of the Buryats, out of touch with the Soviet statehood.

This article analyses ideological influence on the translations of children's literature in the Soviet Union where translation was seen as an ideological tool and was expected to promote ideological values. Changing and adapting the source texts according to the newly established ideological demands was a common practice. Soviet children's literature was also used as a means of propaganda and a strong pedagogical instrument of education of new Soviet citizens. To explore how the Soviet ideological message was promoted within children's literature, I will analyse Alexei Tolstoy's adaptation of Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883), entitled Zolotoi kliuchek ili prikliucheniia Buratino [The golden key or the adventures of Buratino]; henceforth The Golden Key), published in the Soviet Union in 1935. In Tolstoy's version the original underwent direct ideological changes. As one of the most successful children's stories introduced into the Soviet environment, The Golden Key depicts the values of the system under which it was written, including abolition of private property, the importance of collective labour, and the idea of equality and socialisation.

The article is analyzes the images of the children's characteristics on illustrations for children’s magazines of the Soviet Union in the context of three periods: the period of experiments (1920–1930), military-sports period (1930–1950) and familytime (1950–1980). The characteristics of kids, in this case, are considered not only as certain features that are inherent for them on the images but also wider – as a child’s symbol that indicates the attitude towards childhood in certain social, cultural and political conditions. Since the visual children’s culture, and especially children’s media, are a matter of high interest now, this study and its main achievements, including contribution to the establishing correlation of the visual representation of children's characteristics and the cultural content of childhood of a certain era, have wide applicability. The article presents a cultural-semantic and socio-psychological explanation of the visual component of children’s illustrated periodicals in the conclusion section.

Since its inception in 1918, Soviet children’s literature was acclaimed as innovative and exciting, often in contrast to other official Soviet literary production. Indeed, avant-garde artists worked in this genre for the entire Soviet period, although they had fallen out of official favor by the 1930s. This dissertation explores the relationship between the childlike aesthetic as expressed in Soviet children’s literature, the early Russian avant-garde and later post-war unofficial poetry. Even as ‘childlike’ devices were exploited in different ways in different contexts, in the post-war period the characteristic features of this aesthetic had come to be a marker for unofficial art. The introduction presents the notion of the childlike aesthetic, tracing its recent history from Russian modernism and the avant-garde. Chapter One, “Detki v kletke: The Underground Goes into Children’s Literature,” traces the early development of Soviet children’s literature and introduces the work of the OBERIU poets, the “first underground” to be driven by circumstance to write for children. Chapter Two, “‘Playing with Words’: Experimental Unofficial Poetry and Children’s Literature in the Post-war Period,” fast-forwards to the late 1950s-70s, describing the emergence of a more substantial unofficial literary scene alongside still-rigid boundaries within official literature, including children’s. The final two chapters present detailed comparative studies of the work of two post-war unofficial poets from each of the Soviet ‘capitals,’ Moscow and Leningrad: Igor Kholin and Vsevolod Nekrasov, and Leonid Aronzon and Oleg Grigoriev. All of these poets worked in children’s literature and experimented with the childlike aesthetic in their unofficial work. With its roots in folklore, nonsense poetry and nursery rhymes, the childlike aesthetic challenges established notions of logic, propriety and order. Through childlike form and content, unofficial poetry could distinguish itself starkly from its official counterpart. Furthermore, unofficial writers who worked in children’s literature could demonstratively ignore the strict generic boundaries of official literature by blurring them through their own, openly childlike poetry. This dissertation attests to the expressive power, resilience and ongoing relevance of the childlike aesthetic in art, while showing the curious intermingling of literary experiment and children’s literature in Soviet literary history.
Slavic Languages and Literatures

This thesis explores Englishness and its representation in translated children’s literature in Russia during the Soviet period (from 1917 until 1991) and the post-Soviet period (from 1992 until 2015). It focuses on Russian translations of English children’s classics published between the late-Victorian period and the Second World War. It studies how Russian translations of English children’s literature construct literary portrayals of Englishness in varied socio-cultural and historical contexts. It investigates the complex processes involved in re-creating national specificities of English literary texts in Russian culture. The Anglo-centric essence of Englishness – or ‘dobraia staraia Angliia’ [good old England] – is expressed to a greater degree in the classics of English children’s literature. It is this particular idealised Englishness that is represented in the Russian translations. This thesis demonstrates that various manifestations of Englishness are modified in Russian translations and that the degree of modification varies according to changes in the political climate in Russia. A significant role is played by ideology – of a prevailing political nature during in the Soviet Union and a commercial ideology in post-Soviet Russia. The first chapter lays the theoretical foundation for the whole thesis and outlines the methodology adopted. Chapters 2 and 3 set out the contextual background for understanding Englishness by focusing on the question of Englishness perceived from English and Russian perspectives, and discussing the main tendencies of representing Englishness in both cultures. Chapter 4 presents the historical background by highlighting the political and cultural circumstances in which Russian translations were made. The second half of the thesis (chapters five, six and seven) focuses on the analysis of the representation of Englishness in Russian translations. Chapter 5 discusses which English children’s books, published between the late-Victorian period and the Second World War, were selected for translation and at what point between 1918 and 2015. Chapters 6 and 7 present the case studies in this thesis. These provide an analysis of how different manifestations of Englishness were translated and, taking into account the Soviet and post-Soviet historical contexts, examine why they were translated in certain ways.

Esta dissertação busca analisar os aspectos da tradição e da modernidade literária presentes na prosa infantil do escritor soviético Daniil Kharms (1905 1942), tendo em vista o diálogo que estabelecem com os contos maravilhosos e a observância dos processos de atualização do gênero, decorrente das políticas educacionais, na URSS. Os trabalhos do escritor dedicados à criança foram os únicos publicados em vida, num contexto de forte censura. Desse modo, tal obra ganha importância tanto para a compreensão dos pressupostos estéticos de Kharms, quanto para a percepção das transformações ocorridas na literatura infantil soviética a partir da imposição do realismo como método de representação. Para tanto, selecionamos um corpus de trinta e um contos, traduzidos diretamente do russo.
This dissertation aims to analyze aspects of tradition and modern literature presented in the childrens prose of the Soviet writer Daniil Kharms (1905 1942), in view of the dialogue that it establishes with fairy tales and the observance of gender upgrade, resulting from education policies in USSR. The writers work dedicated to children were the ones he could publishes in life, due to a background of strong censorship. Thus, this work becomes important both for understanding Khamss aesthetic assumptions and for the perception of the transformations occurred in Soviet childrens literature, after the imposition of realism as the only possible representation method. To compose our corpus, we selected thirty-one stories directly translated from Russian.

Dzieciństwo uważane jest za bardzo istotny okres rozwojowy w życiu człowieka, determinujący jego następne lata i wybory życiowe. Poprzez obserwację zachowań dorosłych dziecko nabywa umiejętności oraz adaptuje podstawowe wartości, obowiązujące normy i przekonania, przyswaja systemy symboli kulturowych regulujących życie społeczne. Proces ten prowadzi do ukształtowania osobowości, charakteru i światopoglądu dziecka oraz wpływa na jego przystosowanie do życia w kulturze. Kolejne systemy polityczne w dwudziestowiecznej Rosji odwoływały się do odmiennych porządków aksjologicznych. Zróżnicowane były również koncepcje estetyczne koncentrujące się na kategorii dzieciństwa. W okresie przedrewolucyjnym dzieciństwo było przedmiotem mitologizacji, co wynikało ze zwrotu kultury początku XX wieku w kierunku tego, co pierwotne, niezdeformowane przez mieszczańską moralność. Przełom wieków przyniósł powszechne zainteresowanie mitem. Zwrot ku mitologii ludów pierwotnych łączył się z zainteresowaniem kręgiem wartości kultury dziecięcej. Efektem owych inspiracji były prace poświęcone językowi i psychologii dziecka (teoria rozwoju poznawczego, animistycznego myślenia dziecka autorstwa Jeana Piageta). Sztukę dziecięcą zaczęto postrzegać jako wartość kulturową. W rzeczywistości radzieckiej dzieci traktowane były jako plastyczny „materiał”, służący do uformowania „nowego człowieka radzieckiego”. Ideolodzy partyjni przywiązywali szczególną uwagę do kształtowania charakteru dziecka poprzez zideologizowaną twórczość, przeznaczoną dla najmłodszych odbiorców. Kreacja mitów na użytek propagandy była powszechnym zjawiskiem w przestrzeni radzieckiej subkultury dziecięcej. Upadek Związku Radzieckiego przyniósł westernizację kultury rosyjskiej. Kultura masowa zawładnęła podatnymi na jej wpływ młodymi odbiorcami. Rezultatem przemian polityczno-społecznych był problem marginalizacji części najmłodszego pokolenia. Powyższe zjawiska wskazują na istotny związek między obowiązującymi w danym systemie polityczno-społecznym wartościami i normami kulturowymi a stosunkiem do subkultury dziecięcej. Przedmiotem badań w rozprawie była kategoria dzieciństwa w rosyjskiej kulturze XX wieku (w analizie uwzględniano również informacje dotyczące postrzegania kluczowego zagadnienia w kulturze emigracji rosyjskiej). Problematyka badawcza pracy obejmowała kulturowe, społeczne i polityczne aspekty problemu dzieciństwa traktowanego jako temat kulturowy w rozumieniu Morrisa E. Oplera. W pracy Tematy jako dynamiczne siły w kulturze (Themes as Dynamic Forces in Culture) uczony twierdził, iż w każdej kulturze występuje określona liczba tzw. tematów, dynamicznych stwierdzeń, które zdefiniował jako postulaty względnie stanowiska, głoszone otwarcie lub milcząco sugerowane, zwykle kontrolujące zachowanie lub pobudzające do działania. Celem badań było udowodnienie hipotezy, iż uzasadnione jest mówienie o dzieciństwie jako o rosyjskim temacie kulturowym w XX wieku oraz potraktowanie owego tematu jako jednego z możliwych kluczy do zrozumienia swoistości kultury rosyjskiej. W pracy przyjęto założenie, że istnieją różne rodzaje dzieciństwa, które stanowi produkt kultury. Pierwszym krokiem postępowania badawczego było zarysowanie wizji dzieciństwa w rosyjskich teoriach pedagogicznych. Rozpatrywane były różne konfiguracje norm wychowania i socjalizacji dziecka, a także kreowane wzory zachowań, wpływające na osobowość dziecka. We wspomnieniach dzieci wyodrębniono elementy dziecięcej percepcji świata oraz wyeksplikowano dziecięce postrzeganie sytuacji krańcowych, których dzieci stały się uczestnikami. We wspomnieniach dorosłych poszukiwana była odpowiedź na pytanie, w jaki sposób przeżycia związane z dzieciństwem oraz proces integrowania doświadczeń wpłynęły na światopogląd i osobowość autorów. Kolejnym analizowanym zagadnieniem było radzieckie dzieciństwo zideologizowane rozumiane jako poddawany mitologizacji fenomen socjokulturowy. Ukazane zostały mechanizmy formowania „nowego człowieka radzieckiego”. Zebrany materiał przekonuje, że reorganizacja zewnętrznego i wewnętrznego życia dzieci, psychiczne okaleczanie najmłodszych, ambiwalencja moralna i kulturowa były wpisane w paradygmat straconego dzieciństwa, obejmujący takie ograniczenia tematu kulturowego, jak dzieciństwo na wojnie, dzieciństwo w łagrze i osierocone dzieciństwo. Badane były również problemy i zagrożenia dzieci w dwudziestowiecznej Rosji, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem zjawiska bezprizornosti oraz marginalizacji, traktowanych jako skutki przemian społeczno-politycznych. Analizie poddany został także wpływ kultury masowej na świadomość dziecięcą. Twórczość dla dzieci potraktowana została jako podstawowy, sformalizowany, materialny przejaw tematu kulturowego. Analizie poddano promowane wartości, ideały wychowawcze, funkcje ideologiczne i propagandowe w literaturze dziecięcej oraz bajkach animowanych dla dzieci. Poruszone zagadnienia stanowiły podstawę do ukazania wpływu tematu dzieciństwa na rosyjską konfigurację kultury. Przeprowadzone badania pozwalają lepiej zrozumieć zarówno specyfikę dzieciństwa w rosyjskiej przestrzeni kulturowej w XX wieku w perspektywie kulturoznawczej oraz analizowaną w zobiektywizowanych kategoriach specyfikę rosyjskiej kultury XX wieku. Rozprawa eksponuje wpływ tematu dzieciństwa na rosyjską konfigurację kultury oraz jego relacje z innymi rosyjskimi tematami kulturowymi, m.in. tematem pracy, tematem kolektywizmu, tematem obrony ojczyzny, tematem wolności, tematem relacji między jednostką a zbiorowością. Przeprowadzone badania dowiodły, że temat dzieciństwa przejawiał się w licznych aspektach kultury rosyjskiej, m.in. w literaturze faktu, literaturze pięknej, filmie, plastyce, pedagogice, filozofii, publicystyce, polityce, wojskowości, systemie penitencjarnym. Podjęte rozważania prowadzą do wniosku, że temat dzieciństwa może być potraktowany jako swoisty klucz interpretacyjny, stanowiący jedną z możliwych prób poznania i zrozumienia kultury rosyjskiej.
Childhood is regarded as a very important period of development in human life: it determines the following years and life choices. Through observation of adult’s behaviour the child gains skills and adapts basic values, norms and believes, learns the systems of cultural symbols regulating social life. This process shapes personality, character and world outlook and influences the child’s adaptation to life in culture. Consecutive political systems in the 20th century Russia referred to different axiological systems. Likewise esthetic concepts concentrated on childhood had undergone differentiation. During the prerevolutionary period childhood was a matter of mythologization, based at the beginning of the 20th century on a desire to establish a culture free from deformations caused by bourgeois morality. The turn of the century brought a wide interest in myths. The rise of interest in mythology of primordial people draw attention to the values of children’s culture. These inspirations resulted in the works devoted to the language and child’s psychology (theory of cognitive development, animistic thinking by Jean Piaget). Child’s art started being perceived as a culture value. In Soviet everyday life a child was regarded as a flexible material able to become a “new Soviet man”. The official party ideologists paid special attention to shaping children’s characters through ideologized arts targeting the youngest consumers. Creating myths intended for propaganda was a general occurrence in the space of Soviet children’s subculture. The fall of the USSR caused westernization of Russian culture. Mass culture possessed complaisant consumers. As a result of political and social changes some part of the youngest generation was marginalized. The above stated remarks denote the crucial dependence between the common values and cultural norms in the given socio-political system and the attitudes to children’s subculture. The subject of the research presented in the dissertation, is the category of childhood in Russian culture of the 20th century. (The analyzes takes into account key phenomena emerging in Russia, as well as these characteristic for the culture of Russian emigration). The research comprised cultural, social and political aspects of childhood as a cultural theme as seen by Morris E. Opler. According to Opler, in every culture we can come across a limited number of dynamic affirmations (themes). As stated by the author of Themes as Dynamic Forces in Culture “the term "theme" is used here in a technical sense to denote a postulate or position, declared or implied, and usually controlling behavior or stimulating activity, which is tacitly approved or openly promoted in a society”. The main goal of the research was to check the hypothesis that we can regard childhood as Russian cultural theme of the 20th century and use that theme as one of possible key concepts to understand specific character of that culture. An assumption has been made that there are different kinds of childhood regarded as a product of culture. The first step in the research was an outline of the vision of childhood in Russian pedagogical theories. Several configurations of upbringing and socialization were presented. In the analyzes of children’s memories the understanding of revolution changes and critical situations in which children participated were explicated. The memories of adults revealed the way of adoption of childhood experiences in the world view and personalities of the authors. The next problem taken into account was the Soviet ideologized childhood perceived as a socio-cultural phenomena. The mechanisms of shaping the “new Soviet man” from early childhood were pointed out. Gathered material proves that reorganization of internal and external life of children, mental injuries of the youngest, moral and cultural ambivalence were integrated in the paradigm of “the lost childhood” including such limiting factors of the cultural theme as childhood at the war, childhood in the concentration camp and orphans’ childhood. Problems and threats for children in the 20th century Russia with a specific emphasis on the homelessness (besprizornost’) and marginalization were regarded as the consequences of social changes. The impact of the mass culture on children’s consciousness was the subject of consideration. The art works for children were treated as a primary, formalized, material expression of the cultural theme. Popularized values, educational ideals, ideological and propagandistic functions of the art targeting the youngest in children’s literature and animated fairy tales for children were taken into consideration. Presented issues revealed the impact of childhood theme on Russian configuration of culture. The undertaken research reveals specific character of childhood in Russian cultural space of the 20th century as seen from the perspective of cultural studies and points out to specific features of Russian culture of the 20th century in general either. The influence of childhood theme on Russian configuration of culture and its relations with other Russian cultural themes was indicated (such as, for instance: the work theme, the theme of collectivism, the theme of homeland defense, the freedom theme, the theme of relations between the individual and the community). The research proved that the childhood theme manifested itself in many aspects of Russian culture, including literature of fact, belles-lettres, film, visual arts, pedagogy, philosophy, journalism, politics, military science, the prison system. The above mentioned arguments lead to the conclusion that the theme of childhood can serve as one of possible key concepts helping in attempts to learn and understand Russian culture.

This chapter posits a kind of Soviet Surrealism, or “su(pe)rrealism”, in photo-illustrated Soviet children’s literature of the interwar period. The techniques of manipulating photo-images that carried out the montage in a single frame were widely employed in photo-illustrated children’s books published in the late 1930s. Unlike earlier Soviet children’s books, which mostly employed photography toward “capturing real life” and promoting mass education, these late-1930s photobooks conjured a fairy-tale wonderland in which reality is somewhat bracketed and objects are given visible agency. Instead of the “baring of the device” typical of the 1920s, later graphic artists sought to hide the device in order to increase the naturalistic effect of photo-montaged representations. These photographic “deformations,” effected by retouching and manipulations of scale, rendered the world of objects – the so-called “real” world surrounding children – subtly uncanny, subject to distortion and, thus, distinctively surrealist. This turn toward the surreal seems curiously at odds yet consonant with the totalizing culture of Stalinism – hence our suggestion of “super-real” as an alternative designation.

The present study aims to trace the guidelines of an ongoing phenomenon, the transition, reflected in post-Soviet Romanian literature, especially the transition seen and experienced by children. Two novels are analyzed: „Kinderland” by Liliana Corobca and „Children’s Crusade” by Florina Ilis. Regardless of the aesthetic stakes, the texts have at the center of the action the experiences of the infantile self, its formative and deforming events that denounce the political and social context of the current period. They are barometers both of the era and of the literature that was published in these years.

Based on an extensive review of scholarly works on WWII Children Born of War (CBOW) in Western Europe, in contrast to a content analysis of the interviews of 38 Latvian CBOW subjects, this proceeding argues that the primary stimulus driving the hiding and augmenting of CBOW memories in post-war Soviet-occupied Latvia differed from that in the West. It argues that, while there existed a fear of social reprisals in the West, a fear primarily focused on social discrimination and its impact on the well-being of CBOW and their families. In contrast, in Soviet-occupied Latvia there existed a mortal fear of institutional repressions, a fear primarily focused on individual and family survival. Moreover, utilizing examples and statements from said Latvian WWII CBOW subjects, as well as from academic literature on the Soviet Union and Soviet-occupied Latvia, this proceeding illustrates how a societal fear, and the resulting ‘silence,’ permeated all of society. Thus, this proceeding identifies that the practice of hiding and augmenting memoires for fear of the Soviet regime was widespread in post-war Latvia, that Third Reich (TR) CBOW were just one cohort group trying to hide their past from the Soviet regime and that the resulting atmosphere of societal ‘silence’ may have been conducive to these ends. Finally, after having illustrated the fear which existed in society and among such CBOW, this proceeding shows how that fear in many cases came to dictate the life course of TR CBOW in Latvia.

Modern literature for children and adolescents, being an ideal laboratory for working with identity, turns to the representation of the theme of the village, traditionally perceived as the «guardian of national spiritual values and traditions». In the article, based on the material of E. Basova's novels «Sashka is the scientist and Dimka is the Bully» and «The Traces», O. Kolpakova «Superpowers by inheritance. My Soviet grandfathers» examines the features of reception and transformation of the tradition of "village prose", in which the history of the country «emerges» through family history. The representation of the world of a village living according to its own, long established - original - orders, allows the authors to actualize the constants of the Russian national picture of the world, such as «genus», «family», «house», «peasant labor», «neighborhood» and the idea of the connection of times, which allows the authors to focus on the realized progenitors (grandmothers, grandfathers) of teenage heroes in narrative strategies of memory translation. The attitude towards the grandson as an heir, and the narrative being built as an "intermediary" between private memories and collective memory (family, village, people), the choice of a mythopoetic and parable strategy for the embodiment of an artistic whole, allow us to talk about the installation implemented in modern teenage prose about the village to verbalize the mechanisms of inheritance and transformation of traditional values.