Childhood and the Myth of Harmony1

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The chapter analyzes the philosophical foundations of the concept of childhood in nineteenth-century Russian literature (Tolstoy, Aksakov, Dostoevsky). It traces the transformation of these concepts and examines the formation of a special poetic attitude toward the past as a key device in literature about childhood. By guarding the past, individuals defend the continuity of their development and the wholeness of their spiritual existence. Narratives of childhood thus become a new sort of “individual epic” about human existence in harmony with the world. The chapter examines the main points in the development of childhood narratives and their specificity in the Russian context from the nineteenth century until the 1960s and 1970s.