Attributes of Soviet Childhood: History of Transformation (On the Example of Illustrative Material Children’s Magazines 1920–1990s)

Abstract

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.