Russian literature for children and young people has a history that goes back over 400 years, starting in the late sixteenth century with the earliest alphabet primers and passing through many different phases over the centuries that followed. It has its own success stories and tragedies, talented writers and mediocrities, bestsellers and long-forgotten prize winners. After their seizure of power in 1917, the Bolsheviks set about creating a new culture for a new man and a starting point was children's literature. 70 years of Soviet control and censorship were succeeded in the 1990s by a re-birth of Russian children's literature. This book charts the whole of this story, setting Russian authors and their books in the context of translated literature, critical debates and official cultural policy.
Author(s): Ben Hellman
Series: Russian History and Culture 13
Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: xii+588
Fairy Tales and True Stories: The History of Russian Literature for Children and Young People (1574–2010)
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1 The Beginnings (1574–1770)
2 From Enlightenment to Sentimentalism (1770–1825)
Reading for the Heart and Mind
A New Century
3 Romanticism (1825–1860)
Fairy Tales and Fantasy
The Black Hen
The Town in the Snuffbox
Pushkin and Zhukovsky
The Little Humpbacked Horse
National History
The Moral Tale
Vladimir Odoevsky
Women Writers
The Great Men of Russia
Walking with Buryanov
Poetry for Children
Children’s Magazines
Belinsky the Critic
4 Realism (1860–1890)
The Critics
The New Primers
Women Writers
Tur, Annenskaya and Zhelikhovskaya
Male Realists
Fairy Tales and Fantasy
Informative Literature
Poetry for Children
Children’s Magazines
Criticism
Translations
5 Modernism (1890–1917)
Publishing for Children
Nat Pinkerton and Murzilka
The Phenomenal Lidiya Charskaya
In the Shadow of Charskaya
Pity for the Outcast
Nature Poems and Lullabies
Translations
Informative Literature
Heartfelt Words
Criticism
The Crocodile
6 All the Colours of the Rainbow (1918–1932)
The Forgotten Weapon
Hedgehogs and Siskins
Communist Reading
What Is Good and What Is Bad?
Korney Chukovsky
Samuil Marshak
The Oberiuts
Unfortunate Orphans and Happy Young Pioneers
Back to Nature
Reality and Fantasy
Boris Zhitkov
7 A New Society—A New Literature (1932–1940)
The Fairy Tale Controversy
Enter Gorky
The Union of Soviet Writers
Poetry and the Social Demands
Positive Heroes and Base Enemies
Arkady Gaydar
Lev Kassil
Buratino and the Golden Key
8 “Under the Wise Leadership of the Party and the Fatherly Care of Comrade Stalin” (1941–1953)
The War
In Praise of Stalin
In Praise of Labour
The School Novel
Names of Importance
Humour and Laughter
In the Field of Poetry
The Conference of 1952
9 Thaw in the World of Children (1954–1968)
Windows Opened Up
Writers’ Congresses
The New Poetry
Youth Prose
Girls’ Stories
The Theme of War
Non-Fiction
Neznayka and the Others
10 Years of Stagnation (1969–1985)
Cultural Policy
Troublesome Youth
The General Line
Cheburashka and the Others
Poetry
11 Perestroika Reaches Children’s Literature (1986–1991)
12 The New Russian Children’s Literature (1991–2010)
Bibliography
Index of Names
