Russian Children's Literature Research Articles

The Pushkin Myth in modern literature for children (based on the works of K. Strelnikova, M. Bershadskaya, Ai eN (Irina Krestyeva))

The article presents an understanding of the functioning and role of the Pushkin myth in modern Russian children's literature. In the book of short stories by Kristina Strelnikova "The Magnificent Wreath of Wreaths", Maria Bershadskaya "Pushkin and Company" (the tenth story from the cycle "Big Little Girl"), the novella "P.Ushkin and Pixels" by AI eN (Irina Krestyeva), the story of Ksenia Dragunskaya "Pushkin is urgently needed!" Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin appears not only in the image of a great poet. His presence in modern texts for children, on the one hand, is due to the presence of the Pushkin myth in culture as a whole, on the other – the early acquaintance of children with the work and facts of the poet's biography. The specificity of the image of the personality and creativity of A.S. Pushkin is due to the peculiarities of children's perception: the biography and creativity of the writer are transferred to the everyday sphere. During the research, historical, cultural, comparative and biographical methods of literary criticism were used. A.S. Pushkin in modern literature for children and adolescents is transformed from the image of a brilliant writer into the image of a friend whose everyday life is no less interesting and fascinating than his works. The texts of K. Strelnikova, M. Bershadskaya, and Ai eN reflect the facts of Pushkin's biography (studying at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, marriage, duel), as well as his works (poems, fairy tales are quoted). The Pushkin myth is undoubtedly the most significant literary myth, the myth of genius in Russian culture, which does not lose its relevance over time, but on the contrary, is becoming increasingly widespread in the mass consciousness. Modern children's literature actively uses trends characteristic of "adult" literature, including mythologization, the inclusion of myths about the "new cultural hero", which, of course, is A.S. Pushkin.

Growing Out of Communism: Russian Literature for Children and Teens, 1991–2017. By Andrea Lanoux, Kelly Herold, and Olga Bukhina. Russian History and Culture, vol. 23. Paderborn, Germany: Brill Schöningh, an imprint of Brill, 2022. xxiv, 256 pp. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. $130.00, hard bound.

Growing Out of Communism: Russian Literature for Children and Teens, 1991–2017. By Andrea Lanoux, Kelly Herold, and Olga Bukhina. Russian History and Culture, vol. 23. Paderborn, Germany: Brill Schöningh, an imprint of Brill, 2022. xxiv, 256 pp. Appendix. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. $130.00, hard bound.

The Pedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children ed. by Marina Balina and Serguei Oushakine

Reviewed by: The Pedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children ed. by Marina Balina and Serguei Oushakine Megan Swift (bio) The Pedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children. Edited by Marina Balina and Serguei Oushakine. University of Toronto Press, 2021. The Pedagogy of Images: Depicting Communism for Children is a major new contribution to the field of children's literature. The volume is edited by two leading figures in Russian and Soviet children's literature, Marina Balina and Serguei Oushakine, and includes sixteen chapters by contributors from Russia, Europe, and North America. It is lavishly illustrated with over 250 beautifully-reproduced color illustrations from Princeton University's collection of Soviet illustrated children's literature at the Cotsen Children's Library. Thomas Keenan, one of the Slavic librarians at the Cotsen, is a contributor to the volume. Keenan and another contributor, Katherine Reischl, co-created an accompanying digital humanities project based on the same rare books, "Playing Soviet: The Visual Language of Early Soviet Children's Books" (https://commons.princeton.edu/soviet/books/). While this website features the full texts of over 50 Soviet illustrated children's books from the 1920s and 1930s, researchers will want to turn to The Pedagogy of Images for comprehensive analyses of these and other works. The first innovation of the volume is its thematic approach, with divisions into three sections dedicated to Mediation, Technology, and Power. As the editors explain in their introduction, they wanted to focus beyond the "institutions of power" towards "various practices of expression and narration" (5). The first part, Mediation, looks at how the Soviet picture book helped mediate between traditional print practices and new visual practices coming from film, photography, and "how to" books. Chapters examine the negotiation between the figuration of the past and the avantgarde geometry of the future (Helena Goscilo); the so-called "cine-book," a picture book influenced by contemporary film techniques (Yuri Leving); the use of children as active co-creators in their role as photo-correspondents and worker-correspondents for early Soviet journals (Erika Wolf); the concept and inspiration behind the unrealized "book-toy" (Aleksandar Bošković); and the material implications of the Soviets' "paper regime" on children's books (Birgitte Beck Pristed). This section will beckon readers interested in hybrid book forms, in the influence of avant-garde techniques on book-making, and in the material and sociological circumstances that led to the early Soviet focus on do-ityourself and make-it-yourself books. The second part of the book, which focuses on Technology, is the longest section. This part is dedicated to the "representational capacity" of the [End Page 348] new Soviet book to capture categories crucial to the Soviet state such as industrialization, technology, and modernity (207). Larissa Rudova's chapter explores how, in order to represent the Soviet theme of struggle with nature, children's books "used anthropomorphism and animation to blur the distinction between nature and culture" (208). Sara Pankenier Weld investigates depictions of hybrid human-machines as harbingers of the biomechanical future. Kirill Chunikhin's chapter looks at how to represent the largely-invisible technological advancement of electricity and its treatment as a hybrid of materialism and magic; Maria Litovskaya examines "Do It All Yourself!" (Delai vse sam), a do-it-yourself magazine that encouraged technological literacy among children; Michael Kunichika explores how modernity was envisioned in a Stalin-era picture book about the construction of the Turkestan-Siberia railroad; and Katherine M. H. Reischl looks at the category of Soviet transportation and the theme of hyper-mobility. Part three is dedicated to the theme of Power. Kevin M. F. Platt explores the "representations of temporality in spatial forms" during Stalin's infamous 5-Year plans for rapid industrialization. Daniil Leiderman and Marina Sokolovskaia's chapter looks at images of Lenin's death and its representation in children's books as the end of time and the passage to immortality. Stephen M. Norris examines how images of Red Army soldiers taught child readers how to "see in Soviet"; and Alexei Golubev's chapter explores images of the laboring body and its association with economic class. In the final chapter of the volume, Thomas Keenan discusses how—counterintuitively—the...

Russian Children's Literature and Childhood Research in the Post‐Soviet Age: Past‐Present‐Future

Russian Children's Literature and Childhood Research in the Post‐Soviet Age: Past‐Present‐Future

Linguopoetic and communicative features of humor in Uzbek children's poetry

Uzbek children's literature and poetry in their historical development are in harmony with the principles of universal literary development and the traditions of world and Russian children's literature are unique. In particular, humorous poems have been absorbed into children's literature under the influence of Uzbek folk poetry, parables and comics of classical literature, and are developing according to similarities and differences with some principles of world and Russian children's poetry. Of course, intercultural diversity also requires differences in the linguistic features of children's works. Especially in humorous poems, the Uzbek people's peculiar humor, satire, parody and parody, as well as humorous details are characteristic of the national mentality, while humorous works of world children's literature have unique details. Even their methods of expression differ in terms of children's attitudes to reality in language features.

Русская литература для детей и юношества в словацких переводах

The paper discusses the Slovak translations of Russian literature for children and juveniles in the 20th century. It focuses on the translations which represent the classics of children’s reading for Slovak children and juveniles. It also compares the situation of translating Russian literature for children and juveniles into Slovak before 1989 and after that as well as and the quailty of translations in those two different periods of history of Slovakia.

Humanistic tendencies of soviet and modern Russian children's literature (linguistic and cultural analysis)

The paper considers the influence of the cultural code contained in the literary text on the psyche and behavior of the individual. The linguistic and cultural analysis of the Russian national cultural code is carried out. Using the terminology of Marxism, the cultural code of the socialist paradigm of the Soviet state is compared with the cultural code of the capitalist paradigm of modern Russia.

Первое учебное пособие по истории русской детской литературы

Первое учебное пособие по истории русской детской литературы

Irina Tokmakova (March 3, 1929–April 5, 2018)

Irina Tokmakova (March 3, 1929–April 5, 2018) Angela Lebedeva Click for larger view View full resolution It was with great sorrow that we learned of the passing of Irina Petrovna Tokmakova at the age of ninety. An incredible woman, she was a talented Soviet and Russian writer of children's books; an author of educational stories, poems, and plays for children; a translator of British and Swedish folk poetry; a bright public figure; and an active member of the Executive Board of IBBY Russia. Since the very foundation of the Russian Section of IBBY, formerly the USSR Section, Irina Tokmakova had taken part in all its meetings, projects, and contests. She was always highly professional when representing the rich heritage of Russian children's books at numerous international congresses, meetings, and seminars. Her connection to international IBBY has been strong over the years. In 1982, she was awarded an IBBY Honour List Diploma for her translation of the Armenian book Nstish ev agangd ara (Sit down and listen) by Silva Kapustikjan (Detskaya Literatura, 1980). She was a member of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury for the 1980, 1982, and 1990 awards and served on the IBBY Executive Committee from 1990 to 1992. IBBY Russia especially enjoyed the opportunity to work and to be friends with such an acclaimed author of classic Russian children's literature. Irina Petrovna Tokmakova's devotion to her readers will stay with us always. [End Page 78] Copyright © 2018 Bookbird, Inc.

Быль сказки: история русской детской литературы в историко-социальном контексте

The paper reviews the monograph by the Finnish philologist Ben Hellman, Fairy Tales and True Stories: the History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People , released by the publishing house “New literary review” (Moscow) in 2016 in translation from English by O. Bukhina. The book is a systematic study of the history of Russian children’s literature from its beginnings to the first decade of the 21st century. The development of each genre of children’s literature is presented in the book chronologically. Special attention is paid to periodicals and children’s magazines and, accordingly, to the texts of writers of the “se­cond row”, which is of a particular scientific value. The monograph also studies the problem of foreign influences on the work of Russian children’s writers. The specificity of the approach in the monograph by the Finnish scholar is that children’s literature of Russia is considered in historical, social, and aesthetic contexts. The periodization of children’s literature is connected with the main literary movements (sentimentalism, romanticism, realism, modernism). Chapters on the Soviet period in Russian children’s literature contain analysis of the socio-political discourse of the era. The monograph analyzes the impact of ideology on such levels of the artistic text as the style, image of the author, and plot. The last chapter of the book is a study of Russian children’s literature of recent years (1991–2000). In this period, Ben Hellman sees the willingness of the writers to experiment in genres and their hybridization. On the whole, the monograph under review is focused on the problems of interaction between literature and socio-cultural environment, political and social discourses, offering a new look at the development of Russian children’s literature.

“Horror” Genres in Modern Russian Children's Literature

The author investigates the genre of “children's horror”—thrillers and horror written for a young adult readership. The author briefly outlines the evolution of the genre and considers factors that affect the emergence of children's horror fiction in post-Soviet popular fiction for teenagers. She analyzes the main genre categories and the specific nature of the artistic devices that are used. The study focuses on works by Russian authors that were published from the 1990s to the 2010s. To the author's knowledge, this is the first article to study these texts.

Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (1574–2010). Ben Hellman. Boston: Brill, 2013. 575 pages.

Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (1574–2010). Ben Hellman. Boston: Brill, 2013. 575 pages.

Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (15742010). By Ben Hellman. Russian History and Culture, vol. 13. Leiden: Brill, 2013. xi, 588 pp. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. $199.00, hard bound.

Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (15742010). By Ben Hellman. Russian History and Culture, vol. 13. Leiden: Brill, 2013. xi, 588 pp. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. $199.00, hard bound.

Fairy tales and true stories: the history of Russian literature for children and young people (1574-2010)

Russian children's literature has a history that goes back over 400 years. This book offers a comprehensive study of its development, setting Russian authors and their books in the context of translated literature, critical debates and official cultural policy.

Russian children's literature and culture (review)

Reviewed by: Russian children's literature and culture Katja Wiebe Marina Balina and Larissa Rudova (EDS), Russian children's literature and culture (Series: Children's literature and culture; 48) New York [et al]: Routledge 2008 XVIIpp + 390pp ISBN 9780415978644 €79.00 Russia Overview studies tend to suffer from the fact that they can only give a superficial introduction to the field. Not so this volume edited by the Russian-American scholars Marina Balina and Larissa Rudova featuring contributions by specialists from the United States, Great Britain, Austria, Finland, and Russia. Their incisive sketch of Russian children's culture, with children's literature at its core, makes no claim to comprehensiveness. There are no essays on the substantive body of Russian children's poetry, for example, or on the art of illustration. Rather, the contributions seek to highlight more general structural aspects of Russian children's culture and the interplay of its actors in order to make them more accessible to Western scholars. Following two historical surveys- one examining state-sponsored and state-controlled children's literature during the Soviet regime (Balina), the other focusing on the Post-Soviet book market (Rudova)- the subsequent contributions center on the interdependence of children's culture and ideology in the Soviet school system, the choice of literary themes (Sputnik, military), and on post-Soviet youth organizations. It becomes apparent that children's culture was able to create and sustain spaces of creative freedom within the ideological-propagandistic system. The articles of the second section offer introductions to well-organized popular culture experiences for children including theater, cinema, animated films, and comic strips. The final section presents some of the foremost Russian-Soviet authors and their work, including Samuil Marshak, Lev Kassil, Pavel Bazho, Sergei Mikhalkov, Evgenii Shvarts, and Grigorii Oster. Katja Wiebe Copyright © 2011 Bookbird, Inc.

Russian Children's Literature and Culture (review)

Russian Children's Literature and Culture (review)

Jewish heritage in Russian children's literature

This paper explores the Jewish heritage in Russian children's literature. Whilst many Russian children's writers are Jews, there appears to be little known about children's literature in Russia. The author researched the subject by making contact with librarians, children's writers and literary critics who were brought up on this literature. Set against the political history of the Jews in Russia in the twentieth century, the paper explores the contribution of Yiddish to the Jewish heritage in Russia's children's literature. This very personal paper was first delivered at the Section for Libraries for Children and Young Adults at the 66th IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) Council and General Conference in Jerusalem in August 2000.

Reflections of change: children's literature since 1945

Introduction: Reflections of Change Theory and Children's Literature Fear of Children's Literature: What's Left (or Right) After Theory? by Perry Nodelman Is This the Promised End...?: Fin de Siecle Mentality and Children's Literature by John Stephens Ramona the Underestimated: The Everyday-Life Story in Children's Literature by Deborah Stevenson Shifting Boundaries Between Children's and Adult Literature The Disappearance of Children's Literature (or Children's Literature as Nostalgia) in the United States in the Late Twentieth Century by Jerry Griswold Literature for All Ages? Literary Emancipation and the Borders of Children's Literature by Anne de Vries The Changing Status of Children and Children's Literature by Eva-Maria Metcalf Experimental Writing and Postmodern Trends From Grand Narrative to Small Stories: New Narrative Structures in Recent Scandinavian Children's Literature by Asfrid Svensen The Status of Sequels in Children's Literature: The Long Secret and Beyond the Chocolate War by Bettina Kummerling-Meibauer Gillian Cross' Wolf: An Exploration of Patterns and Polarities by Susan Clancy Paradigm Shifts Reflections of Change in Children's Book Titles by Maria Nikolajeva High and Wild Magic, the Moral Universe, and the Electronic Superhighway: Reflections of Change in Susan Cooper's Fantasy Literature by Carole Scott Terror is Her Constant Companion: The Cult of Fear in Recent Books for Teenagers by Roderick McGillis Suburban Scenarios in Simon French's All We Know: The Emergence of the Suburbs as the Spatial Framework for Australian Children's Fiction by Beverley Pennell Reading Children's Literature Multiculturally by Daniel D. Hade National Literatures The Journey Inward: Adolescent Literature in America, 1945-1995 by Anne Scott MacLeod The Novel for Adolescents in Quebec: Stereotypes and New Conventions by Danielle Thaler Realistic Stories for Children in the Federal Republic of Germany 1970-1994: Features and Tendencies by Dagmar Grenz Text and Context: Factors in the Development of Children's Literature in Taiwan 1945-1995, and the Emergence of Young Adult Literature by Shu-Jy Duan Reconceptualizing the Past An Awfully Big Adventure? Representations of the Second World War in British Children's Books of the 1960s and 1970s by Dieter Petzold Topsy-Turvy World: New Trends in Modern Russian Children's Literature by Olga MAeots Children's Literature in Totalitarian and Post-totalitarian Society by Vincas Auryla Selected Bibliography Index

Russian Children's Literature Before and After Perestroika

Russian Children's Literature Before and After Perestroika Maria Nikolajeva (bio) Several years ago Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia, declared flatly that Russian cultural issues are not a high priority compared to the more urgent question of the Russian economy. Such a statement would be a catastrophe for any civilized nation; but it is especially disturbing that at a time of great changes in post-Soviet Russia, an enormously important field is being totally ignored, namely children's culture. This circumstance is all the more remarkable given that during the seventy years of the Soviet regime, one of the official slogans was "All the best for our children." Children were declared the only privileged class in the classless socialist society.1 During the last ten years, since Mikhail Gorbachov's proclamation of reconstruction ("perestroika") and openness ("glasnost"), one has been able to learn from the Russian media, among many other hideous disclosures, about hundreds of thousands of children in orphanages and at least as many homeless runaways, about children who contract HIV in hospitals, about children damaged in the wake of Chernobyl, about physically and mentally disabled children living under abominable conditions, and most recently about children affected by the war in Chechnya. It is altogether too easy to forget that even children who lead a relatively protected life with both parents, enjoying a fairly decent living standard and regular schooling, are beginning to suffer from rapidly deteriorating cultural facilities. It is impossible to understand the political situation in Russia today without looking back into Soviet as well as earlier Russian history, sometimes as far back as the eighteenth century. It is equally impossible to understand the cultural situation and the drastic changes that perestroika brought to children's culture unless we set them in a broader context. The history of Soviet children's literature is as artificial and misshapen as the Soviet state itself.2 Russian children's literature has always been privileged to number great authors among its practitioners. Indeed, Russia's most famous writers, such as Alexander Pushkin or Leo Tolstoy, have contributed to children's literature, often finding inspiration in folklore.3 In the years immediately preceding 1917, however, children's literature in Russia was dominated by sentimental and moralistic stories and verses, often written by authors of little talent. The views on children and education during that time dictated the norms of writing for children: the world of children's literature was restricted to the nursery, and the characters were sugar-sweet, well-behaved children in starched clothes. Turn-of-the-century writers were far from folk poetry and thus also from the classical heritage. Thus it was not until the 1920s that children's literature in Russia stood on the threshold of renewal. The reason was the general change in artistic norms brought about by the process of building up the new "socialist" culture in the new Soviet state. The primary principle for this transformed society was to repudiate every old, "bourgeois" form in art. The Russian working class was to create its own "socially pure" culture. This is probably one of the most obvious cases in the history of human culture of how artistic norms may be directly guided by social and political circumstances.4 As there were no available models for the new forms in art, the 1920s in Russia became a period of ardent experiments in every creative field. Education and propaganda were the two most important missions. Many Russians were illiterate or semiliterate; it was essential that art should be comprehensible by the masses and therefore primarily visual. As a direct result of this new concept of art, it was during the 1920s that the first Russian picture books were produced. Early Soviet picture books, such as The Ice Cream Man (1925), written by Samuil Marshak and illustrated by Vladimir Lebedev, were strikingly similar to contemporary political posters. Such stylistic resemblances do not occur merely because many poster artists, Lebedev among them, also produced picture books for children. More important still is the general orientation of postrevolutionary art toward the concrete. Because the aim was to increase art's accessibility by making both text and illustration concise and loud...

A Harvest of Russian Children's Literature

A Harvest of Russian Children's Literature