Soviet Childhood Research Articles

L'enfance soviétique : souvenir ou mythologie ?

The Soviet childhood : memory or mythology ? A generation of children not cognizant with the realia of the soviet way of life has been born in the twenty year interval separating us from the time when the USSR collapsed. this is the reason why, for example, such a book as Djerik’s Adventures comes with a “ Glossary of difficult and soviet words” explaining to children, in a facetious tone, what a “ Bolshevik” and a “ pioneer” are, what the holidays of May, 1st or November, 7th mean, and what the October Revolution is. Talking with the readers however shows that children are able to perceive the stories of this lost world beyond the barrier of unknown words and realia in the same way as adults can read foreign literature and it is no surprise, in this respect, that Djerik’s Adventures has been translated into French, Italian, and Spanish. This distinction in levels of perception is what allows children of today to read and understand books by contemporary authors writing on “ Soviet childhood,” such as Boris Minaiev’s Liova’s Childhood and The Genius of Judo or Pavel Sanaiev’s Bury Me under the Tiles, as they would read the adventures of children of their age living in a foreign country, but facing the same problems. the ideological content of these books disappears and undergoes transformation while their human content remains. This article will examine and describe this process.

Soviet baby boomers: an oral history of Russia's Cold War generation

Introduction Chapter 1: The Real Nuclear Threat: Soviet Families in Transition Chapter 2: Overtaking America in School: Educating the Builders of Communism Chapter 3: Unconscious Agents of Change: Soviet Childhood Creates the Cynical Generation Chapter 4: The Baby Boomers Come of Age Chapter 5: Living Soviet during the Brezhnev-Era Stagnation Chapter 6: But then everything fell apart: Gorbachev Remakes the Soviet Dream Chapter 7: Surviving Russia's Great Depression Conclusion: It's they who have always held Russia together Notes Appendix Bibliography

Whatever happened to Soviet childhood?

The state of Russia's children provides a metaphor for the collapse of the Communist dream

Childhood Sketches

These revealing glimpses of Soviet childhood appeared in the literary journal, Znamia, 1960, No. 10.