Old Russian children's literature 15th to 18th centuries. Old Russian literature

In the middle of the 9th century, as a result of long historical development and struggle, an ancient Russian state emerged in Eastern Europe, which finally took shape after the merger of Kyiv and Novgorod. In 988 Christianity was adopted as the official religion, which served as an impetus for the wider dissemination of writing and Russian culture. To create, spread and develop culture and strengthen power, literate people were needed. And perhaps the first condition and initial step in the development of this culture was teaching children to read and write. Information about the beginning of children's education in Kyiv came to us from the Tale of Bygone Years. In 1143 A literacy school was opened in Polotsk, headed by the daughter of Prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, Efrosinia of Polotsk. She organized a book-writing workshop at the school. The princes and their associates showed concern for the spread of literacy and book writing in different ways. In the XIII-XIV centuries, Moscow became the center of book writing.

Our distant ancestors treated books, reading, and literacy with special respect. There was a special cult of the book. The book was carefully kept, cherished, treated as a shrine. A literate person was the most authoritative and respected among others. During fires, Russian people first of all took books from burning houses and hid them in safe places. Books were passed down as treasures from generation to generation, mentioned in wills, given as gifts on the day of coming of age, or at a wedding. The cult of the book grew more and more and acquired a diversified character. The book was not only praised, but taught to read it, and a culture of reading was fostered. A children's book was compared to mother's milk, with a key that opens doors to treasuries of wisdom and wealth, with a staircase leading to the heights of education, honor and glory.

The first information that has reached us about children's reading dates back to the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th century. One of the first original works of Russian literature, “The Tale of Boris and Gleb,” tells about the interest with which the young sons of Prince Vladimir, Boris and Gleb, read the books. We find a lot of information about books, reading, and the spread of literacy in Novgorod birch bark letters. The largest number of birch bark letters remained and came to us from the boy Onfim, who, according to scientists, was no more than five years old. From them one can judge how children were taught to read and write, what books they were given to read.

Almost all hagiographic stories tell how heroes read books with enthusiasm in early childhood. However, for a long time there were no special books either for Boris and Gleb, or for Onfim and other children. Children read the same books as adults. As a result of prolonged selection, children's reading began to include works that to some extent satisfied them and corresponded to their age characteristics and interests. These were the Teachings, Lives, chronicles and legends.

Teachings were one of the most ancient and popular genres that served educational purposes. They were usually written by highly experienced people at the end of their lives, addressed to the younger generation and served as a kind of testament of a spiritual and moral nature. In them, the author talked about what he saw and heard, shared his personal experience, gave advice, and set out the moral code of his time. The teachings were written by people who actually existed and lived on earth. They were distinguished by lyrical warmth, accessible, lively language and a natural form of presentation. From the end of the 11th century until 1125. the oldest original Russian work of this genre was created, written by Vladimir Monomakh. The outstanding statesman of Kievan Rus set out in it a unique moral code of his time, distinguished by broad state views, nobility, courage, and respectful attitude towards people. The most important place in this code is occupied by the ideas of patriotism. Even before the appearance of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign,” Vladimir Monomakh passionately called on the Russian princes to stop civil strife and tried to unite their forces. These ideas were reflected in his “Teachings”. . The brightness and figurativeness of the language, the richness of the content, the cordial, friendly attitude towards people, the clarity of thoughts, the brevity and accessibility of the presentation could not help but attract the attention of young people to this work. However, the teachings were not a work of children's literature. Children were interested, accessible and useful in other works of this genre, which were part of their reading range throughout the 11th - 17th centuries.

Lives were closely related to folk art. They used plot, compositional techniques and the style of folk tales, as well as elements of live speech. All this gives reason to talk about the positive educational impact of the lives on readers - children not only of Ancient Rus', but also of subsequent eras. Children found in them information about the world around them, became acquainted with the nature and geography of Russian principalities, with some events and significant facts from history, with wonderful people - Alexander Nevsky, Dovmont, Andrei Bogolyubsky. The lives instilled in readers positive character traits: modesty, hard work, focus, the ability to overcome obstacles, perseverance in achieving goals. They played a big role in nurturing a love of education and admiration for books.

Children in Ancient Rus' were brought up not only on Teachings and Lives. Their interests included historical legends about extraordinary events of the past, which were most often passed down orally from generation to generation. Already in the first printed book for children - in the alphabet of Ivan Fedorov, there is a work of historical content, the so-called “The Legend of Chernoritsa the Brave,” which tells about the origin of Slavic writing, about its creators Cyril and Methodius. Similar articles were also found in handwritten children's books.

“The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” stands out clearly among the outstanding achievements of ancient Russian culture for its ideological significance and artistic perfection, which has won national fame in our country and abroad. An outstanding scientist, researcher of ancient Russian culture, Academician D.S. Likhachev called it the golden word of Russian literature. “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” soon after its opening became part of the reading circles of teenagers and children. From the second half of the 19th century to the present day, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” has occupied a strong place in children’s reading, is included in textbooks and anthologies, and is published in separate books with good comments and explanatory articles.

D.S. Likhachev emphasized the relevance of the ideological content of “The Lay” at all times and its unsurpassed artistic perfection as a great work of art. The most important idea of “The Lay” is the idea of patriotism, which links together all the components of the work. One of the effective ways of expressing it is in the images of the Russian land with its forests, steppe expanse, deep rivers, and a variety of flora and fauna. It is hardly possible to find in all world literature another work in which in every small passage the images of the Motherland, the signs of its nature would merge with the heroic aspirations, emotions and thoughts of its faithful sons and defenders. In terms of clarity of thought, beauty and conciseness of descriptions, fervor of feelings, harmony and completeness of form, “The Lay” has no equal in world literature and is still considered unsurpassed. The author of “The Lay” is undoubtedly a brilliant poet, a great patriot, a political sage, an educated person with a great sense of the oral poetic creativity of his native people.

Thus, from the advent of writing until the first half of the 15th century inclusive, there were no special works for children in Rus'. Children of that era read the same works as adults. But educators were forced to select from the available books those that were closest and most accessible to children, both in their content and in the form of presentation. These works were not for children, although they were part of children's reading. Therefore, the era from the end of the 10th to the first half of the 15th century is considered the prehistory of children's literature. Its real history begins with the advent of special works for children. This happened in the second half of the 15th century.

The first works for children appeared in Rus' in the second half of the 15th century. The very first steps of Russian children's literature give reason to draw some conclusions:

The first works for children appeared in Rus' at a turning point, grew on national soil, rose on a wave of patriotism and met the needs of education; they had not only educational, but also educational significance. 2. The very first works created in Rus' for children were educational in nature. 3. The most ancient method of popularizing knowledge among children was dialogue between a child and an adult.

The first handwritten book for children was created in 1491. Russian diplomat and translator Dmitry Gerasimov. He decided to make the dry food of science easy for children to understand. Its grammar is written in the form of questions and answers. The title emphasizes that this book is addressed to children, that it is given to those who have already mastered the alphabet, know how to read, write and want to learn further. From Gerasimov the very first recordings of Russian folk tales, interesting for children, have come to us. This gives reason to consider him the first figure of Russian culture who took part in the creation of children's literature, and his thoughts are the very first statements about the essence of children's literature.

With the advent of printing, books for children began to be published. In the second half of the 16th century, 12 children’s books were published (or rather, that’s how many have reached us). Although all of them were intended for educational purposes, they went far beyond the scope of the textbook, as they often served as books for reading. They were called alphabets or grammars, but not primers, since until the middle of the 17th century this word was used to describe a teacher, a literate, well-read person. The first printed children's book is the ABC, compiled by the Russian pioneer printer, Muscovite Ivan Fedorov, published by him in Lvov in 1574. In the history of East Slavic printing, this was the first book for secular purposes. The textbook part of the alphabet contained works that can be considered as the beginnings of poetry, prose, journalism and educational literature for children. These include a poetic (virshe) work - the so-called acrostic alphabet. Each line begins with a different letter of the alphabet, and all the first letters together make up the alphabet. The author asks you to remember the words of wisdom, spread them among people, not to commit violence against the poor, not to offend the poor, widows and orphans, to be honest, obedient, hardworking, to honor your father and mother. Fedorov's ABC is the first printed book for children, which was used not only in Slavic countries, but also abroad: in Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark, England.

Thus, educational, secular motives and many other phenomena in the history of our culture and social thought arose for the first time in children's literature. This is precisely the general cultural significance of the first printed books for children.

Since the 17th century, schools of different types have appeared (private, public, state). Homeschooling of children is becoming much more widespread. At the end of the century, the first higher educational institution opened - the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. Throughout the 17th century, children's literature became more diverse in thematic and genre terms, enriched with artistic techniques, increasingly separated from educational literature and transformed into an independent field of verbal creativity. During the century, about 50 children's books were published, most of which continued to be educational in nature. The presentation of educational material becomes more and more vivid and imaginative, as a result the process of rapprochement between pedagogy and art accelerates, their organic fusion occurs, which is one of the most important features of children's literature. The children's book acquires a holistic character, it is better and richer in design. A variety of decorations appear in the book: elegant endings, headpieces, initial letters, ornaments, engravings.

The first Russian poet for children should be considered the director of the Moscow Printing House, Savvaty. On the recommendation of Patriarch Filaret, father of Tsar Mikhail Romanov, in September 1634. Savvaty was hired at the printing house as a clerk (the most educated and reliable people were appointed to this position). In his messages, Savvaty appears as a patriot who sincerely loves Russia and wishes it well, but at the same time is critical of the higher nobility and sympathizers of ordinary people. It is no coincidence that these works were included in a children's book: they fostered patriotic feelings.

Beginning of the form

In a short preface to the first section of “ABC Teaching,” Savvaty compares the book to sunlight. The ideas he expressed reached their peak in the work of Karion Istomin.

One of the first poets for children was Simeon of Polotsk. He is an outstanding Russian poet of the 17th century and an active figure in the field of education. His enormous literary heritage is permeated with pedagogical ideas. And this is no coincidence, for all his life he was engaged in teaching work. Therefore, it is quite natural for him to participate in the creation of children's literature. Princess Sophia and the future Tsar Peter I were brought up under his leadership. Simeon wrote, published or prepared for printing 14 books, half of which are educational or children's books. His largest works are the poetic books “Rhymelogion” and “Vertograd multicolored”. The poetry of Simeon of Polotsk is full of hymns to books, literacy, and reading. The book, according to him, brings enormous benefits: it develops the mind and expands education. It makes a person wise. But he considered the real sages to be those who, having knowledge, generously share it with others and apply it with great benefit in everyday life. Simeon took part in the preparation for the publication of the primer in 1664, for which he wrote ten greetings addressed to children, their parents and benefactors. Ten years later, in 1679, Simeon compiled and published a new primer. For the history of children's literature, two poems included in it are of greatest interest. These are “Preface to young men who want to learn” and “Admonition”.

In the “Preface,” S. Polotsky encourages children to work constantly, for those who work from youth will live in peace in old age. Literacy, according to him, is a great gift, the center of wisdom. The “Admonition” is placed at the end of the book and is not intended for everyone, but only for the lazy and violent. The poet convinces the little reader: if he wants to be educated and smart, he must constantly work and fulfill certain requirements.

All this gives us the right to consider Simeon of Polotsk an outstanding Russian teacher, educator and children's poet of the 17th century. He, as it were, summed up the achievements of Russian children's literature and pedagogy over all the previous centuries of their development and prepared the way for figures of subsequent eras. In the last two decades of the 17th century, his work was continued by his colleagues and students, of whom Karion Istomin did the most for children’s literature.

The work of Karion Istomin, the most important Russian poet of the late 17th century, is entirely dedicated to children. All of Karion Istomin’s works touch on his main theme—enlightenment and science. He wanted to teach everyone: children and adults, men and women, slaves and servants, Orthodox and non-Orthodox. He considered school to be the main vehicle of education. Therefore, he ardently urged everyone to open schools to teach children from a very early age. Along with school, he considered books to be a powerful means of disseminating education.

The central place in Karion’s philosophical views is occupied by moral education, the formation of positive spiritual qualities, the instillation of kindness, spiritual purity, and philanthropy. In this way he is close to the figures of humanism and the Enlightenment. At the same time, Karion did not ignore the issues of labor education, since he considered hard work to be an integral part of the moral code. An important place in Istomin’s work is occupied by the ideas of humanism and patriotism. He admires a person's abilities, his intelligence and strength. By promoting education, science, the ideas of humanism and patriotism, and the struggle for moral ideals in the spirit of the progressive views of the era, Karion Istomin stands out from among his contemporaries. This puts him in the ranks of the leading figures of the era who made a significant contribution to Russian culture. The practical implementation of educational, humanistic and patriotic ideas of Karion Istomin are the educational and children's books he created, his poems addressed to young readers.

During his lifetime, Karion published three books, all of them for children: “Facebook” (1694), “A Primer of the Slovenian Language” (1696) and “The Tale of Ivan the Warrior” (1696). Karion is responsible for the creation of a chronicler for children (a textbook on history). The first arithmetic textbook is attributed to him. Thus, Istomin compiled a complete set of textbooks, thereby completing the entire previous period of development of educational literature, starting with Ivan Fedorov. He approached the creation of textbooks not only as a teacher, but also as a poet and thinker. In addition, Karion wrote a large number of poetry books and individual poems for children, imbued with advanced ideas.

“Facebook” is an illustrated encyclopedia for children, the only richly designed book from the Moscow printing house of the 17th century; it has no equal among later editions. The subject matter of the primer is very diverse - it talks about work, science, teaching, books, games and fun for children, and poses moral problems of good and evil. In the “Bolshoi Bukvar” (A Primer of the Slovenian Language), the author tries to talk about the seasons, about people, to fill the poems with lyrical feelings and specific everyday details. The “Big Primer” continues the traditions of Russian educational literature. Karion Istomin sought an organic synthesis of pedagogy and art, which 170 years later was brought to perfection by K.D. Ushinsky and L.N. Tolstoy.

Karion Istomin’s literary talent was most clearly manifested in his poetic books: “Polis”, “Domostroy”, “Book of admonition with poetic words”, “Clever Paradise”, in the poems “A Gift to Learning Children in Youth”, “For the Acquisition of Morals”, in the prose stories about Ivan the Warrior. The rules of decency, according to the author, must be combined with a person’s internal culture, his education, and supported by high moral qualities. Istomin speaks with respect about children, provides them with relative freedom and independence, recognizes their right to games and fun, which should be allowed to them “for the sake of joy.”

One of the significant works of Karion Istomin is the “Book of admonition with poetic words”, dedicated to Tsarevich Peter and presented on the day of his 11th birthday. In its content and ideological direction, this is a kind of program for the future tsar, a program that has an educational and humanistic character. Either God, or the Mother of God, or the prince’s mother, Natalya Kirillovna, addresses the prince with long monologues. The prince listens carefully to each of them and answers each one with dignity. The result is a poetic dialogue between Peter and his three imaginary mentors and well-wishers. Propaganda of education, glorification of sciences, calls to learn and teach everyone as the only path leading to the happiness and power of Russia—this is the main ideological meaning of this work. It must be assumed that the work played an important role in the education of the future reformer king and aroused in him a thirst for knowledge.

With his multifaceted creativity, Karion Istomin completed more than two centuries of history of ancient Russian literature for children. Istomin made his works a means of promoting science, education, and book veneration. Knowledge and enlightenment in his work and worldview are inseparable from moral problems, from the progressive views of the era. He understood the nature of children, took into account their age characteristics, enriched children's literature with new genres, and raised its ideological and artistic level. With his educational and humanistic views, technique and rhythm of verse, Istomin paved the way for the development of children's literature in the 18th century.

So, works of Russian children's literature created in the 15th-17th centuries give grounds to recognize the existence of Old Russian children's literature, which was the foundation for the development of Russian children's literature of subsequent eras. By its nature, pace of development, connections with education and the entire Russian culture, Old Russian literature for children was heterogeneous. Long before the appearance of the first texts created for children, there was a natural process of selecting works for children's reading. By the 15th century, a large period of prehistory of children's literature had ended, which lasted about four and a half centuries (from the 10th to the first half of the 15th century). From the second half of the 15th century, its history began, children's literature itself appeared on the wave of patriotism, along with the growing self-awareness of the people, and it arose from pedagogical needs, as an organic and most important part of the entire Russian national culture. The end of this period (second half of the 16th century) is characterized by the appearance of printed books.

Everything that has been said about prose and journalism, which was part of children's reading in the 17th century, indicates that our ancestors paid serious attention to raising children. For this they used the best works of original literature and artistic treasures of the entire civilized world. Ancient Rus' did not isolate itself within a narrow framework, but conducted an active exchange of cultural values, and children's literature was also involved in this exchange, playing an important role in the general cultural life of that time, in the ideological and aesthetic struggle of the era. Old Russian literature for children played a significant role in the development of nationwide Russian culture. All this convinces us that ancient Russian children's literature has great historical, cultural and pedagogical significance.

"Children's literature in Russia as a channel for the reproduction of the spiritual values of the people"

Introduction

1.1. Children's literature in antiquity (until the 17th century)

1.2. Children's literature in the 18th century

1.3. Children's literature in the 19th century

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Being an integral part of fiction, children's literature serves as the most important channel for the reproduction of the spirituality of humanity. Each culture is characterized by specific systems of vision and perception of the world, channels for the transmission of values. Cultural science views values as general ideas shared by the majority of society about what is desirable, right and useful. Values help society and people to separate good and bad, ideal and illusory, truth and error, beauty and ugliness, permissible and forbidden, fair and unfair.

The process of awareness and acceptance of values begins from early childhood. Children's literature has always been the most important means of shaping the value system of the younger generation. As you know, children's literature is works written specifically for children with the aim of shaping their worldview, aesthetic needs and broadening their horizons. Strictly speaking, children's literature is something created specifically for children. But young readers take a lot for themselves from general literature. This is how another layer arose - children's reading, i.e. range of works read by children.

The educational value of children's literature is very great. Its features are determined by educational objectives and the age of the readers. Its main distinguishing feature is the organic fusion of art with the requirements of pedagogy.

Being closely connected with the specific historical, socio-economic conditions of the era, children's literature, being an independent field of art, develops in close connection, in interaction and under the influence of other types of art and spiritual culture, which are the oral and poetic creativity of the people, written (handwritten and printed) literature, education, pedagogy, science and art, including theater, painting and music.

Based on the current challenges facing society, each era makes its own demands on children's literature, which dictate its choice of topic, focus, compositional, stylistic features, heroes of the era with their language, way of thinking and norms of behavior. Thus, in Ancient Rus', the dominant position in ideology was occupied by religion, with the help of which the executors of the grand ducal will were trained. Enlightenment served the same purpose from its first steps. In the second half of the 15th century, the need for a large number of literate people necessary to govern the Moscow state forced the search for more accelerated methods of education, and therefore the beginnings of children's literature arose from the needs of education and met the practical needs of the era. At the beginning of the 18th century, under the influence of Peter's reforms, the content and target orientation of children's books changed: books on mechanics, geodesy, mathematics and other applied sciences came to the fore. This is the connection between children's literature and the era, enlightenment and knowledge.

Children's literature is closely related to the development of science. The topics of educational books for children depend on which branch of science occupies a dominant position in a given era, and specialists in which areas of knowledge society is waiting for. Since the 18th century, the era of the Russian Enlightenment, books of an encyclopedic nature have occupied a dominant position in children's literature: all the knowledge of that time was often collected and presented in an accessible way under one cover. Thus, in each historical era, the connections between children's literature and folklore, literature, science, education and other areas of culture are manifested in their own way.

In publishing practice, it is customary to divide readers into four age groups: preschool, primary school, middle school and senior school (or youth) ages. Having much in common, modern works for readers of each age group have their own characteristics.

There is also a scientifically based periodization of the history of Russian children's literature. The history of children's literature is divided into four eras:

I. Old Russian literature for children of the 9th-17th centuries.

II. Children's literature of the 18th century.

III. Children's literature of the 19th century.

IV. Children's literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries.

V. Soviet children's literature of the 20th century.

VI. Post-Soviet children's literature of the late 20th – early 21st centuries.

The relevance of research. Currently, every year more and more serious demands are placed on children's literature as the most important source of formation of a child's personality, aesthetic and moral education of young citizens, as a channel for the reproduction of spiritual values. In modern conditions, it is difficult to overestimate the educational value of traditional highly artistic children's books. Children's perception is now experiencing unprecedented pressure from video, audio and printing products of a commercial and entertainment nature, mostly devoid of any educational value, affecting the superficial, primitive level of emotions and requiring almost no mental effort for perception. It is clear that such a low level does not in any way contribute to the formation of the values of the younger generation. Therefore, an urgent need in cultural, educational and pedagogical practice today is to rely on the best examples of Russian literature, which conveys all the richness and diversity of the world.

Children's literature, according to many literary critics and philologists, is currently experiencing a crisis. Numerous sociological surveys show that modern children receive the main information from communication with peers, through TV and computers. Books take up less and less space in children's lives, although it is obvious that without books there is no full-fledged emotional and moral development of the child.

In order to return a child to the book, to interest him, to raise a thoughtful reader, it is necessary to trace the history of the creation and emergence of children's literature in general and children's books, in particular, in Russia throughout its history. Such an analysis will make it possible to “highlight” all the most valuable things accumulated by children’s publishers, children’s writers and poets, and to project centuries-old experience onto the realities of the modern stage in the development of children’s literature

The theoretical and methodological basis for our study of the development of children's literature in Russia as a channel for the reproduction of spiritual values is the works of historians of children's literature. These are the works of F.I. Setina, E.E. Zubareva, V.K. Sigova, V.A. Skripkina, L.E. Fetisova, E.I. Kikoina, T.B. Marutich. In addition, we relied on the works of critics of children's literature - V.G. Belinsky, N.A. Dobrolyubova, A.M. Gorky. A large amount of factual material was also provided by the works of poets and writers who were included in the circle of children's reading - A.S. Pushkina, I.A. Krylova, V.A. Zhukovsky, P.P. Ershova, etc. In our study, we also analyzed the works of children's poets and writers - S.Ya. Marshak, K.I. Chukovsky, A.L. Barto, S.V. Mikhalkova, I.P. Tokmakova, A.P. Gaidar, L.A. Kassilya, S.A. Baruzdina, E.I. Charushina, V.V. Bianchi, G. Ostera, D. Emetsa and others.

A review of theoretical literature allows us to draw conclusions that the focus of children's writers and poets is on ideological, spiritual themes, revealing the relationship between the political, religious and ideological attitudes of society, on the one hand, and their influence on the fate of children's literature in Russia, on the other hand. the other side. However, it seems to us premature to talk about the study of this problem, because The modern, post-Soviet stage in the development of children's literature in Russia causes ambiguous reactions and assessments. This determines the novelty of our research.

Purpose of the work: to consider the main stages in the development of children's literature in Russia as a channel for the reproduction of spirituality.

The set goal involves solving the following tasks:

1. analyze the development of children's literature in Russia in various historical eras, reveal the dependence of children's literature on the political, religious, ideological attitudes of society;

2. identify the main trends in the development of Russian children's literature at the present stage.

The object of the study is children's literature as a cultural phenomenon, a channel for the reproduction of the spiritual values of the people.

The subject of the study is the development of children's literature in the historical context of Russia.

Compositionally, our work consists of an introduction, two chapters and a conclusion. The first chapter reflects the development of children's literature in the historical context of Russia. The second is aimed at studying the problems of children's literature in Russia during the period of the 20th – 21st centuries using specific works of children's literature.

Chapter I. Children's literature in the historical context of Russia

1.1. Children's literature in antiquity (before the 17th century)

Information about the beginning of children's education in Kyiv came to us from the Tale of Bygone Years. Following Kiev, similar education for children was organized in Novgorod, Pereslavl, Suzdal, Chernigov, Murom, Smolensk, Galician land, Rostov, Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod and other places. In 1143 A literacy school was opened in Polotsk, headed by the daughter of Prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich, Efrosinia of Polotsk. She organized a book-writing workshop at the school. The princes and their associates showed concern for the spread of literacy and book writing in different ways. For his passion for books, Vladimir's son Yaroslav received his second name - Wise, and Prince Galitsky - Yaroslav-Osmomysl. Book writing became widespread in Kievan Rus. In the XIII-XIV centuries, Moscow became the center of book writing.

Children in Ancient Rus' were brought up not only on Teachings and Lives. Their interests included historical legends about extraordinary events of the past, which were most often passed down orally from generation to generation. Already in the first printed book for children - in the alphabet of Ivan Fedorov, there is a work of historical content, the so-called “The Legend of Chernoritz the Brave,” which tells about the origin of Slavic writing, about its creators Cyril and Methodius. Similar articles were also found in handwritten children's books.

The first works for children appeared in Rus' in the second half of the 15th century. The very first steps of Russian children's literature give reason to draw some conclusions:

1. The first works for children appeared in Rus' at a turning point, grew on national soil, rose on a wave of patriotism and met the needs of education; they had not only educational, but also educational significance. 2. The very first works created in Rus' for children were educational in nature. 3. The most ancient method of popularizing knowledge among children was dialogue between a child and an adult.

Since the 17th century, schools of different types have appeared (private, public, state). Homeschooling of children is becoming much more widespread. At the end of the century, the first higher education institution was opened - the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy. Throughout the 17th century, children's literature became more diverse in thematic and genre terms, enriched with artistic techniques, increasingly separated from educational literature and transformed into an independent field of verbal creativity. During the century, about 50 children's books were published, most of which continued to be educational in nature. The presentation of educational material becomes more and more vivid and imaginative, as a result the process of rapprochement between pedagogy and art accelerates, their organic fusion occurs, which is one of the most important features of children's literature. The children's book acquires a holistic character, it is better and richer in design. A variety of decorations appear in the book: elegant endings, headpieces, initial letters, ornaments, engravings.

In a short preface to the first section of “ABC Teaching,” Savvaty compares the book to sunlight. The ideas he expressed reached their peak in the work of Karion Istomin.

The work of Karion Istomin, the most important Russian poet of the late 17th century, is entirely dedicated to children. All of Karion Istomin’s works touch on his main theme - education and science. He wanted to teach everyone: children and adults, men and women, slaves and servants, Orthodox and non-Orthodox. He considered school to be the main vehicle of education. Therefore, he ardently urged everyone to open schools to teach children from a very early age. Along with school, he considered books to be a powerful means of disseminating education.

Karion Istomin’s literary talent was most clearly manifested in his poetic books: “Polis”, “Domostroy”, “Book of admonition with poetic words”, “Clever Paradise”, in the poems “A Gift for Children Learning in Their Youth”, “For the Acquisition of Morals”, in the prose stories about Ivan the Warrior. The rules of decency, according to the author, must be combined with a person’s internal culture, his education, and supported by high moral qualities. Istomin speaks with respect about children, provides them with relative freedom and independence, recognizes their right to games and fun, which should be allowed to them “for the sake of joy.”

One of the significant works of Karion Istomin is the “Book of admonition with poetic words”, dedicated to Tsarevich Peter and presented on the day of his 11th birthday. In its content and ideological direction, this is a kind of program for the future tsar, a program that has an educational and humanistic character. Either God, or the Mother of God, or the prince’s mother, Natalya Kirillovna, addresses the prince with long monologues. The prince listens carefully to each of them and answers each one with dignity. The result is a poetic dialogue between Peter and his three imaginary mentors and well-wishers. Propaganda of education, glorification of sciences, calls to learn and teach everyone as the only path leading to the happiness and power of Russia - this is the main ideological meaning of this work. It must be assumed that the work played an important role in the education of the future reformer king and aroused in him a thirst for knowledge.

1.2. Children's literature in the 18th century

Old Russian literature for children provided the basis for children's literature of subsequent eras. Its achievements were developed primarily in the 18th century, in the history of which three periods are clearly distinguished: 1) the first quarter of the century; 2) mid-century (from 1726 to 1768); 3) last third of the century.

The first period coincides with the reign of Peter the Great, an era of profound reforms in all areas of economic, political and cultural life. For grandiose transformations, educated and creatively thinking people were needed, capable of adopting best practices, setting in motion the internal forces of the country: establishing production, building cities, ships, arming the army, and developing empty lands. The solution to these problems was accompanied by the development of education, science and culture, including children's literature.

New challenges facing education led to the search for more accelerated methods of teaching literacy. At the beginning of the 18th century, general education and special public schools were opened. New teachers and teaching aids were needed to meet the needs of students. One of these teachers was Leonty Magnitsky, who wrote an excellent textbook for that time.

A significant event in the history of children's literature was published in 1717. “An Honest Mirror of Youth,” which is a set of rules at court introduced by the reformer tsar. The book was compiled at the direction of Peter I by a team of people close to him, headed by Gavrila Buzhinsky. In its structure, this is a typical children's book. It housed materials taken from cursive alphabets characteristic of the 17th century, which included the alphabet, syllables and teaching copybooks. Actually, “The Honest Mirror of Youth” is divided into two parts: information about court etiquette and rules for youth, and the laws of “maiden honor and virtues.” The purpose of the book is to prepare dexterous, agile, intelligent and well-mannered courtiers, capable of pleasing the king and his entourage. The main idea of the book: the fate of a young man depends not on his origin, but on his personal merits. The book was of a class and religious nature. It emphasized the privileged position of the nobility, although its vices were also quite sharply criticized.

In “The Honest Mirror of Youth,” the court morals of that time were depicted frankly, without embellishment. Thus, a young boy taken into court service was given advice without hesitation to persistently achieve his selfish goals, not to be frank with anyone, not to reveal his intentions and goals. The code of maiden honor consisted of 20 virtues, among which religiosity, patience, meekness, helpfulness, frugality, silence, and hard work were especially prominent. The book is not distinguished by a strict plan or stylistic unity. This is the first printed book for children and youth, written in the living Russian language, decorated with proverbs, sayings, and apt expressions.

A bright children's writer of this period in the development of children's literature was Feofan Prokopovich. He was also a publicist, public figure, and an active supporter of Peter's reforms. Caring about the development of education, Feofan opened a school for orphans in his home. He sent the most capable to continue their education to the Academy of Sciences and abroad. At the personal request of Peter I, F. Prokopovich wrote two children's books: “A Brief Russian History” and “The First Teaching to the Youths” (first edition - 1721). In a long preface to the book “First Teaching to the Youths,” he outlined his pedagogical views. He argued that everything in a person is laid down from childhood. Children, according to Feofan, should love books. In this regard, books written for children should be accessible to them.

Feofan managed to give a humanistic sound to purely religious commandments in his books. Thus, explaining the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” he says that people kill not only with weapons, but also with words, deeds, and looks, when “the boss burdens his subordinate with immeasurable service,” and the landowners take exorbitant taxes from the peasants, etc. Continuing the traditions of the 17th century, Feofan Prokopovich filled his works with relevant content and gave them a bright humanistic and educational flavor. All this gives reason to consider Feofan a leading man of his time, the most significant children's writer of the 18th century.

Catherine II went down in the history of our country not only as an empress, but also as one of the most prolific writers, who created a countless number of works. Her literary heritage can amount to about five thousand volumes. Possessing no literary talent, but only minor abilities, she made full use of her opportunities to present her knowledge about Russia and make public her views on all aspects of life. Among the works of Catherine II there were also pedagogical ones. She believed that children need special pedagogical and psychological approaches when raising them. Based on this, they also need special literature that meets their capabilities. These ideas were implemented in eight books she created, published from 1781 to 1783.

Formally, she wrote for the education of her grandchildren Alexander Pavlovich and Konstantin Pavlovich, but in fact these books were intended for the education of all Russian children. These books include: “Russian ABC with Civil Teaching”, “Chinese Thoughts on Conscience”, “The Tale of Prince Chlorus”, “Conversations and Stories”, “Notes”, “Selected Russian Proverbs”, “Continuation of the Primary Teaching”, "The Tale of Prince Thebes." The works of Catherine II herself are far from children's fiction. There are no specific heroes or characters in them, but only vices and virtues are indicated. These are the “talks and stories” that were offered to the children. The stories have themes, schematic plots with edification. Catherine II's participation in the creation of works for children played a certain role in the history of Russian children's literature. Almost all the writers of that time followed her example, sometimes objecting to her. A hidden polemic with the empress can be found on the pages of Novikov’s children’s magazine, which to some extent appeared in response to her speeches.

Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov played the most significant role in the history of Russian children's literature of the 18th century. The crowning achievement of Novikov’s pedagogical activity, one of the brightest pages of his literary activity and the highest merit to Russian children’s literature was the publication of the first magazine for children - “Children’s Reading for the Heart and Mind.” Novikov viewed his magazine as a stimulus for the development of children's literature. Each issue contained works of various genres: stories, jokes, plays, fairy tales, etc. A large place was occupied by popular science works for children, introducing them to the world around them, to nature, to countries and peoples. Educational conversations were written brightly, figuratively, in the tone of a calm and affectionate conversation, without flirting or cooing. In the first place in Novikov’s articles were the ideals of goodness and humanism, respect for man and his dignity, regardless of class.

“Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind,” published by Novikov, fostered independence in readers and defended their right to have their own opinion. The language of the magazine was easy, free from Slavicisms, vernaculars and foreign words; it is accessible even to the children of our time. The magazine was a huge success among readers. Not a single figure of Russian culture, whose childhood coincided with the end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th century, passed by the magazine. “Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind” had a huge impact on the further development of children's journalism, on raising the scientific and artistic level of children's literature, and on strengthening the progressive direction in it.

N.M. Karamzin (1766-1826) also made a great contribution to the development of Russian children's literature. Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin was a wonderful children's writer who played a significant role in the history of children's literature. He wrote and translated about 30 works for young readers. In addition, the reading circle of middle-aged and older children included almost all of his works. This was explained by the fact that he was the head of a new direction in the history of literature - sentimentalism, the poetics of which are so close to the nature of children. The original works of N. M. Karamzin began to appear on the pages of “Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind” in 1789. Among them, “Anacreontic Poems”, “Walk”, and also the story “Eugene and Julia” stand out.

N.M. Karamzin continued to write for children even after the children's magazine was closed. In 1792 he published the fairy tale “The Beautiful Princess”, and in 1795. - “Ilya Muromets” and “Dense Forest”. The most interesting is the prose fairy tale “Dense Forest”. Through fairy-tale images and events, the author convinces children not to be afraid of the forest, to love nature, to enjoy its beauty and gifts. The fairy tale “Dense Forest” is purely literary. There are no traces of folk art in it. As in his other works, Karamzin adheres to the poetics of sentimentalism.

The work “Ilya Muromets” is called by the author a heroic tale and is written on the basis of epics. This was Karamzin's last and unfinished work in verse, after which he took up history. The fairy tale paints poetic pictures of nature in the style of sentimentalism, creating the image of Ilya Muromets, who does not look like the epic hero. Using delicate colors, the poet paints multicolored pictures of nature, notes the shades and sounds of the surrounding world. The image of the hero created by Karamzin only partially resembles the epic. He is shown not in battles with the enemies of his homeland, but in communication with a charming beauty. As in other works of the writer, there is little action here, but a lot of tender feelings and bright pictures. With his creativity, N.M. Karamzin served the development of Russian culture, aroused interest in children's literature among wide circles of society, and contributed to the education of patriotic and aesthetic feelings in children. Karamzin's work is the most important, turning point in the history of children's literature, which played a huge role in its further fate.

So, children's literature developed actively in the 18th century. Encyclopedias and travel come first in children's reading circles. Nevertheless, in the reading of children of the late 18th century, books for adults occupy a large place, which includes works by Derzhavin, Sumarokov, Karamzin, etc., as well as foreign translations. At the same time, ways for the development of children's literature have emerged: a close connection with modernity, with advanced ideas, with literature for adults, a combination of science and art. These problems continued to be solved by children's literature of the 19th century.

1.3 Children's literature in the 19th century

Under these conditions, N.A. Dobrolyubov’s thought becomes relevant in children’s literature: whoever is involved in education takes the future into his hands. Of all the poetic genres at the beginning of the 19th century, the fable enjoyed the greatest success among children, because This genre is close to children in many ways. The characters in fables are animals and beasts. Events unfold quickly, the content of the fables can be easily retold, dramatized, or role-played. After reading, it is not difficult to have conversations of a moral nature. Therefore, teachers and educators have long used the fable “for the instruction and amusement of children.” The most popular among Russian children of the first half of the 19th century were the fables of I.A. Krylov.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov went down in the history of Russian literature as an unsurpassed fabulist who brought this genre to the highest artistic perfection and filled it with relevant ideological content. With their first appearance in print, Krylov’s fables began to become part of children’s reading. In the 20s of the 19th century, a careful selection of fables for children's reading took place and a list was formed, which became permanent for many years. Compilers of children's collections continued to include them in published books.

A new step in the assimilation of Krylov’s work by a wider readership, children of primary school age, was made by K.D. Ushinsky, who included more than forty of his fables in his educational books for grades 1-4 of primary school. In his pedagogical works, Ushinsky showed the closeness of Krylov's fables to young readers and revealed their enormous significance in moral, mental and aesthetic education.

The educational significance of I.A. Krylov’s fables lies in their nationality. Young readers, when reading them, learn the features of the Russian national character, its spirit and views on the world, and adopt intelligence and wisdom. Fables not only cultivate high human qualities characteristic of the people, but also strengthen respect for the working people and for their native land, thereby contributing to patriotic education. Fables also help mental development, as they teach you to see the hidden meaning behind the events and phenomena of everyday life, to understand human characters, evaluate people’s actions, and grasp their funny sides, thereby developing observation, a sense of humor and wit.

Krylov cultivates in children a high linguistic culture, the ability to appreciate an apt and succinct word, to express their thoughts economically and accurately, witty and figuratively. Particularly popular among children are the fables “The Frog and the Ox”, “The Monkey and the Glasses”, “The Wolf in the Kennel”, “The Dragonfly and the Ant”, “The Rooster and the Pearl Grain”, “Leaves and Roots”, “The Crow and the Fox”, “ Chest", "Wolf and Lamb", "Monkey and Glasses", etc. The best fables of I.A. Krylov are an organic part of modern children's literature.

The most devoted to children's literature was the first professional children's writer Alexandra Osipovna Ishimova. She wrote 15 original works for children and translated more than ten books, and also published two magazines for girls - “Zvezdochka” (1842-1863) and “Rays” (1850-1860). The most popular was her book “The History of Russia in Stories for Children,” published in 1837-1840. This book is distinguished by its mastery of presentation, vivid and figurative language, the ability to penetrate a child’s soul, find interesting facts and tell about them in a fascinating way. For the youngest readers, Ishimova published the book “Grandma’s Lessons, or Russian History in Conversations for Children.” All her books were a great success among children.

Of all the Russian writers of the first quarter of the 19th century, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky made the greatest contribution to children's literature. All his life, the outstanding poet was involved in raising and teaching children, so he loved, understood and knew them. In 1817 he was invited to the royal family, where he raised the heir to the throne, the future Tsar Alexander II, and later his children. Being engaged in teaching activities for 24 years, the poet carefully studied pedagogical theories and periodically submitted reports on the principles of education. Education, in his opinion, should shape a person and a citizen. By the formation of a person he understood concern for health and physical development, and by the formation of a citizen - education, the development of civic feelings and independence, as well as moral and aesthetic education. Moreover, education is necessary for both aristocrats and common people.

Being closely connected with children and involved in their upbringing, V.A. Zhukovsky could not help but think about the issues of children's literature. Zhukovsky paid great attention to the content of books for children's reading and believed that they should make the child think. The language of children's books, in his opinion, should be simple, clear and understandable, but laconic.

A children's book, according to Zhukovsky, should influence moral education and develop imagination, for which he recommended fairy tales. Literature for children, according to Zhukovsky, should be “a purely enjoyable and educational activity.” In other words, only a truly artistic work can educate. V.A. Zhukovsky wrote more than 20 works especially for children. The main place among them is occupied by poetic tales created on folk plots.

The poet gave the title of his first fairy tale in the spirit of ancient Russian titles: “The Tale of Tsar Berendey, of his son Ivan Tsarevich, of the cunning of Koshchei the Immortal and of the wisdom of Princess Marya, Koshchey’s daughter.” The Tale of Tsar Berendey is based on a Russian folk story. Zhukovsky preserved the folk plot, widely used the folk language, his characteristic words and phrases, typical fairy-tale expressions (“grew by leaps and bounds,” “can’t be described in a fairy tale or described with a pen,” “I was there, honey and drank beer”, etc.).

The tales of V.A. Zhukovsky have not yet lost their aesthetic meaning and still captivate young readers. The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf is based on the Russian folk tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf. However, the poet adhered little to the source. As a result, the tale became somewhat drawn out, as the poet added new episodes and threw out the most important pieces from the original. Zhukovsky's fairy tale is still published, as it enchants children with its fantasy, delights in the exploits of noble and brave people, poetic paintings, and brilliant literary language. Zhukovsky tries to bring the fairy tale closer to young readers, to make the characters pleasant and attractive.

The magical story “The Black Hen” by Antony Pogorelsky, created more than 150 years ago, continues to excite young readers. The secret of its charm lies in the importance of the topic, and in the artistic skill of the writer, and in a deep understanding of the characteristics of childhood, in the subtle pedagogical flair of the author.

In the history of Russian and all world children's literature, there are few works that can be found in all their aspects: theme, composition, educational orientation, understanding of the psychology of children, style, language and other features - would be to the same extent childish, would so comprehensively embody features of this literature, like the magic story of A. Pogorelsky. It brings into focus those features of art for children, which more than one generation of children's writers in many countries have been struggling to implement. Contempt for selfishness, fame, arrogance and false values, a person’s responsibility for his actions to himself, to others, the ability to look critically at himself, constantly work on himself, fight his shortcomings and vices, which “usually enter the door and go out into a crack,” - in a word, the entire complex of moral qualities, without which a true human personality is unthinkable, constitutes the ideological essence of the story. And all these complex, very abstract concepts for a child are deeply hidden in the living fabric of the work, and are quite accessible to the little reader, since they enter his head through the heart, along with feelings and empathy.

To further reveal Lesha’s inner world, the writer first leaves him alone in the boarding house during the holidays. We see the range of his ideas and desires, his character. The space and time in which the hero is located is filled with specific details characteristic of St. Petersburg life at the end of the 18th century. The author looks at all events through the eyes of a child, but at the same time talks about them as an adult, often resorting to the technique of inappropriate direct speech. The plot of the story and the composition are built with the young reader in mind. In the narration one can feel the intonations of living speech, traces of direct communication with the child. The development of Alyosha's character is shown very convincingly. His degeneration from a modest, smart and nice, well-educated boy, as we see him at the beginning of the story, into a arrogant lazy and proud man and his return to his previous state is quite natural and convincing. The writer touches the child's soul with great delicacy, fearing to hurt it with a careless touch. There are no rough, frightening scenes in the story that could frighten a child.

Pogorelsky's main merit to Russian children's literature is that, like no one before him, he understood the nature of children and was able to unobtrusively and tactfully influence young readers without didactics or moralizing. Pogorelsky does not give ready-made pedagogical recipes to his reader. It makes you think about laziness, vanity, the inability to keep someone else's secret, about involuntary betrayal, which turns into irreparable disaster for many people. With his entire system of images and artistic techniques, the writer managed to create a surprisingly complete, in the full sense of the word, children's work, which is still included in the golden fund of the children's library. The book continues to excite young readers, successfully helps their moral and aesthetic education, and for children's writers it is a standard of excellence and an example of how to understand the features of children's literature and implement them in works for young readers.

For more than one hundred and fifty years, the spiritual life of the Russian people cannot be imagined without A.S. Pushkin. Although the name of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin becomes known to all modern children even in preschool age, to what extent is he accessible to them? Even “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish,” which we are accustomed to consider the most childish work of the poet’s entire work, is not so simple. Therefore, is it legitimate to pose the problem “Pushkin as a poet for children” or “Pushkin and children’s literature”, since he did not create anything specifically for young readers?

Although Pushkin did not write for children, the history of Russian children's literature is unthinkable without his works, and Russian society without their educational influence. Pushkin also included children among his readers and never objected if his poems were published on the pages of children's magazines, collections or almanacs. Pushkin's fairy tales are widely known: “The Tale of the Priest and his Worker Balda”, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights”, “The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish”. Above “The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of his glorious and mighty hero Prince Gvidon and the beautiful Swan Princess”, “The Tale of the Golden Cockerel”.

Pushkin's interest in folk art arose from early childhood. The tales he heard in the cradle sank into his soul for the rest of his life. In the 20s, while living in Mikhailovskoye, he collected and studied folklore. A work closely related to the fairy-tale genre is the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”. The plot of “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” was also based on a Russian folk tale, written down from the words of Arina Rodionovna. This plot has been significantly revised. A.S. Pushkin left only the main links, endowing the fairy tale with more attractive characters and details close to life. The result is a new work, full of fairy-tale charm and wonder, with magnificent heroes capable of overcoming obstacles.

Folk tales, which have become part of children's everyday life, have been honed over centuries and are best adapted for children's perception. They most fully reflected the originality of children's literature. Pushkin's fairy tales are close to children, influence their morality and aesthetic feelings, cause admiration, tune the soul into a harmonious mood, create a mood of satisfaction and spiritual bliss, encourage them to dream and fantasize without breaking away from real life. They help solve the problems of aesthetic and moral education of children.

Enchanted by fairy tales, children in adolescence will encounter the great poet’s lyrics, replete with feelings and thoughts. Not only in the lyrics, but in the entire work of Pushkin there are almost no works, the reading of which would be premature in adolescence and youth. Almost all of his lyrics are a wise conversation with youth. Pushkin's lyrics are in tune with the moral and aesthetic needs of the younger generation.

In terms of its ideological significance, freedom-loving lyrics should be given first place for teenagers (“To Chaadaev”, “In the depths of Siberian ores”). Closely related to political and freedom-loving lyrics are poems about Russia, its glory and valor, directed against its enemies; about Peter I, Russian commanders, greatest battles and victories. He glorified the beloved hero of Russian history, Peter I, who attracted hearts with truth, who tamed wild morals with science and enlightenment (“Stanzas”), and saw in him an eternal worker: sometimes a hero, sometimes a navigator, sometimes a carpenter. Poems about Russia, its glory, victories and great heroes are filled with cheerful feelings, a sense of strength, are major in structure, rhythm and sound, instill confidence in young readers, instill pride in the past, and fill them with patriotic feelings.

Landscape lyrics serve the same purposes. Children, as a rule, skip descriptions of nature found in prose. The best way to overcome children's inattention to such paintings is the landscape lyrics of the great poet. Russian nature is shown in it in various manifestations, in all its multi-colored, ever-shining beauty. Immensely loving autumn as the time of the highest creative upsurge and inspiration, devoting the most heartfelt lines to it in a number of works, he still wrote the most poems about the Russian winter (“Winter Morning”, “Winter Road”). Nature in them is spiritualized and personified: the storm behaves now like an animal, now like a child, now like a belated traveler. Nature in Pushkin’s lyrics is dynamic, in constant motion, changing its colors, smells, and depicted in the harmonious interaction of all its components.

With the same love, understanding and precision, Pushkin showed pictures of not only his native Russian, but also Caucasian nature (“Caucasus”, “Collapse”, “Terek rushes between the mountain walls...”, “Scary and boring...”). . Pushkin's landscape poetry not only fosters a love of nature, but also develops in the young reader subtle aesthetic feelings, the ability to observe and express these observations in precise words. It multiplies a person’s moral and spiritual energy, makes him think about the world and life. The most important place in Pushkin's lyrics is given to the theme of friendship and love. For Pushkin, the ability to love is the highest gift, a measure of spiritual wealth and moral purity. The work of the great poet undoubtedly influenced the further development of children's literature.

When analyzing Russian children's literature of the 18th century, one cannot ignore the work of Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky, who was seriously interested in the issues of raising children. The pedagogical views of V. Odoevsky did not coincide with the official pedagogy of his time. He believed that it is necessary to see a person in a child and support good principles and philanthropy in children. He also called for awakening children's interest in knowledge. V. Odoevsky’s works for children reflected his pedagogical beliefs. Odoevsky attached great importance to children's literature, which can awaken the mind and heart of a child. He himself began writing for children in the 30s of the 19th century, working under the pseudonym “Grandfather Irenaeus.”

In 1834 V.F. Odoevsky’s fairy tale “Town in a Snuffbox” was published in a separate edition. In the 40s, his collections for children appeared: “Children's Tales of Grandfather Irenaeus” (1840) and “Children's Songs of Grandfather Irenaeus” (1847). He sought to “set in motion the weapon of thinking,” relying on children’s love of fiction and science fiction. In his children's books, Odoevsky skillfully combines real and fantastic events. He created works of different genres for children: science fiction tales, fairy tales, short stories.

Odoevsky's works, addressed to children, are characterized by natural and scientific content, fascinating and dramatic storytelling, and conviction in the power of the human mind. A classic work that has gone through many editions and has not lost its significance to this day is his “Town in a Snuff Box.” The beginning of a fairy tale is natural and realistic. An inquisitive boy Misha discovers the inner mechanism of a music box at the moment of transition from the real world to the fairy-tale world (through a dream). The work of a complex mechanism, the functions of each detail turn into character traits of animated, humanized fairy tale characters.

In this work, Odoevsky finds comparisons that a child can understand: the bell looks like a boy with a golden head and a steel skirt; the hammers resemble sad gentlemen with thin legs and long noses; the roller transforms into a warden. With the help of fairy-tale images, the writer strives to popularly tell children about the laws of mechanics. Each character in a fairy tale is endowed with individual traits that are manifested in appearance, behavior, and speech. The speech of fairy-tale characters reflects their characters (the hammer men, the warden Valik). The image of Misha is the least individualized - it is needed to help the author in his communication with the reader. Misha’s speech does not differ in any features characteristic of his age, it is neutral (“I am very grateful to you for your invitation”), he is affectionate with bells, polite with hammers, and obeys his father.

“Town in a Snuffbox” is the first scientific and educational fairy tale in children's literature. Odoevsky also created the fairy tales “The Worm”, “Moroz Ivanovich”, the stories “The Joiner”, “Silver Ruble”, “Poor Gnedko”, etc. The unique talent of Odoevsky, a children's writer, brought him well-deserved recognition from readers and critics. In the work of V. F. Odoevsky an organic combination of art and pedagogy was found.

P.P. Ershov deserved no less fame for his works. The fairy tale “The Little Humpbacked Horse” brought literary fame to P.P. Ershov. Its success was, of course, facilitated by the author’s considerable and extremely original talent. “The Little Humpbacked Horse” had an extremely happy fate. During the life of P.P. Ershov, the fairy tale was published five times. Its main advantage is its pronounced nationality. It’s as if not one person, but the whole people collectively composed it and passed it on orally from generation to generation: it is inseparable from folk art. Meanwhile, this is a completely original work of a talented poet who emerged from the depths of the people, who not only learned the secrets of their oral poetic creativity, but also managed to convey their spirit.

Ershov did not just combine pieces from individual fairy tales, but created a completely new, integral and complete work. It captivates readers with bright events, wonderful adventures of the main character, his optimism and resourcefulness. Everything here is bright, lively and entertaining. At the same time, the fairy tale is distinguished by its rigor, logical sequence in the development of events, and the cohesion of individual parts into one whole. Everything that the heroes do is fully justified by the laws of the fairy tale. The fairy tale ends with an ending characteristic of folklore: the victory of the main character and a feast for the whole world, at which the narrator was also present.

All three poets - Pushkin, Zhukovsky and Ershov - used the same sources: folk tales. If Zhukovsky tried to refine their plots, smooth out the rough edges and social contradictions in them, then Pushkin elevated them to the level of the highest poetry, concentrating all the best and characteristic of folk art. Ershov was caught up in the popular spirit. By creating a fairy tale, Ershov found his calling and set out on his own poetic path. Of all his works, only the fairy tale “The Little Humpbacked Horse” is still preserved in Russian literature.

Ershov wrote his fairy tale for all reading Russia. But it organically entered children's literature. It is childish not only because several generations of children have been engrossed in it. It is childlike with its unbridled fantasy, amazing adventures, dynamic plot, colorfulness, playful rhythms, song style, the image of the main character - a brave representative of the people, the victory of good over evil, respect for man, for the Russian language.

Chapter II. The fate of children's literature in Russia in the 20th century

2.1 Soviet period of development of children's literature

The beginning of the twentieth century provided enough material to talk about the patterns of development of children's literature in Russia, about its genesis and purpose, about its specifics. At the same time, there is no doubt about the high moral, aesthetic and cultural value of children's literature. Children's writers sought to form connections that would ensure the unity of the spiritual life of the growing personality. This is one of the important aspects of the specificity of children's literature of the Soviet period of its development. A long-standing and strong tradition was the general humanistic, universal principle in children's literature of the first decades of the 20th century in Russia, manifested in the works of V. Korolenko, L. Charskaya, A. Altaev, A. Razin, K. Lukashevich, N. Lukhmanova and others. Since 1917 ., universal human values began to be replaced by class and ideological ones. The political situation demanded from children's literature the formation of the so-called “new man”, imbued not with universal, but with class interests.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a need arose for literature telling children about the five-year plan, socialist construction, shock work, and collectivization of agriculture. Therefore, many children's writers tried to resist, as best they could, the destruction of universal humanistic traditions. However, the pressure on them was increasing. At the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. in M. Gorky’s report it was said: “The growth of a new person is especially noticeable in children, and they are completely outside the circle of attention of literature; our writers seem to consider it beneath their dignity to write about children and for children.”

In children's poetry of the early 20th century. a courageous and life-affirming view of the world, realism in the description of natural phenomena and human spiritual life are clearly reflected. This probably determined the entry of poems by poets of the “Silver Age” into children’s reading.

In general, during the “Silver Age” one can notice several levels in the development of previous traditions and in the continuity of specific creative positions. The highest is among those poets who usually wrote for adults, like A. Blok, V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, I. Bunin, S. Gorodetsky, M. Tsvetaeva, whose names crown the beginning of the 20th century. A different, but quite significant cultural contribution to children's literature was made by such authors as P. Solovyova, R. Kudasheva, L. Charskaya (“Water lilies.” “Ride, my horse.” “Winter”) and others. Children's poetry of the early 20th century . was heterogeneous and controversial in some respects. There was a growing need for a new look at her role in the child’s life and the author’s position, at the traditions of oral folk art.

By the beginning of the 20th century. The moral and aesthetic position of a children's writer represents the problem of the writer's attitude to reality, to trends in social development. In children's literature, the writer's position should be clear, active, and internally energetic. Although any literature has a moral impact on the reader, in children it is an essential component of the creative process.

The work of emigrant writers (D. Andreev, I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, V. Nabokov, M. Tsvetaeva, S. Cherny, I. Shmelev) had a significant role in the fate of children's literature of the 20th century.

In Soviet Russia of the post-revolutionary period, the formation of politically and class-biased children's literature almost immediately began, which called for freeing children from the pernicious yoke of the old book. However, books by Russian classics were published in children's and youth series from 1918 to 1920: A.S. Pushkina, M.Yu. Lermontova, I.A. Krylova, N.A. Nekrasov, A. Tolstoy and others. Among the published works, stories, short stories and poems depicting disadvantaged childhood predominated: N.A. Nekrasov, V.G. Korolenko, A.M. Gorky and others.

In 1921 The Institute of Children's Reading was created under the People's Commissariat for Education, which began studying the problems of children's literature and childhood psychology. It was headed by famous specialists N.V. Chekhov and A.K. Pokrovskaya. In the first post-revolutionary decade, new cadres of writers working in children's literature appeared. A.M. is involved in creating works for children. Gorky, A.S. Neverov, M.M. Prishvin, A.P. Gaidar, B.S. Zhitkov, V.V. Bianchi, L.A. Kassil and many poets. New children's magazines and newspapers are becoming a school for writers. The country's leadership takes a tough position on creating class- and politically oriented children's literature, which is reflected in the decrees of the party and government. The party documents clearly state the task of forming a “new man”. At the XIII Congress of the RCP/b/ in 1924. The need for party leadership in the field of children's literature, the importance of strengthening class, international and labor education, and the publication of pioneer literature were emphasized. Functional orientation and propaganda specificity were inherent in children's literature even when Soviet children's literature was just emerging as a mass phenomenon.

In the 20-30s, heated and serious discussions took place related to the skill of a children's writer, the problems of genres, and the specifics of age in literature for children and youth. Some educators and critics considered it necessary to exclude fairy tales from children's reading. However, such writers as Gorky, Mayakovsky, Chukovsky, Marshak launched a struggle for fairy tales and science fiction. Thirties of the XX century. were marked by a long discussion about humor and heroism. The germs of humor did not easily make their way into children's literature of the 20s. Thus, V. Mayakovsky’s satirical fairy tale “About Petya, the fat child, and Sima, who is thin” met the most unfriendly response in the Commission on Children’s Books. It took great creative courage and love for children on the part of writers to withstand the struggle against those who, hiding behind a “new culture and ideology,” argued that “one must speak seriously with a child,” without humor. In the chapter “The Fight for a Fairy Tale” of the book “From Two to Five,” K. Chukovsky talks about his dispute with false teachers for the right to the existence of humor in children’s works.

In the late 20s and early 30s, debates about the fate of children's literature as a cultural phenomenon resulted in a serious discussion that lasted several years. A.M. Gorky claims that you need to talk to children in a funny way. Gorky's intervention in the discussion about children's books gave many talented writers, such as S. Marshak, B. Zhitkov, K. Chukovsky, the opportunity to work peacefully. Most children's writers and poets of the early 20th century agree that a children's book creates a collectivist, deepens understanding of life, in other words, develops a worldview.

Prose for children and youth, like all Soviet fiction, followed the path of mastering socialist realism. The image of the narrator gradually acquires volume, a complete study of human character. B. Zhitkov strives to introduce real life with its struggles, dangers, and difficulties into books for children. He does this in order to more clearly emphasize the importance of creativity in a person, to show the beauty of work that brings people together and unites. Zhitkov dreamed, having freed himself from adulthood, to look at life with a childish, clear and generalizing gaze. That is why he managed to introduce a new narrator into children's prose - Alyosha Pochemuchka from the book “What I Saw.” His experience was successful; The image of Alyosha Pochemuchka as a type of storyteller who combined material in a “production book for four-year-old citizens” became an example for many writers who came to children’s literature later. L. Panteleev finds a successful type of adult hero-storyteller in the story “Package”. This is Pyotr Trofimov, a participant in the civil war, who accomplished a feat and tells the pioneers about it.

Soviet children's and youth writers believe in the ability of a child to feel more acutely than an adult and are convinced that it is necessary to convey a complex inner world in a book intended for children. First of all, this applies to such a writer as A. Gaidar. His creative style in exploring the image of the narrator is characterized by switching the narrative from an epic or adventure plan to a lyrical one. To solve the problem of the narrator in Russian children's literature of the 20th century. characterized by creative diversity. One of the first writers in whose work, already in the 20s, a fusion of humorous vision and humanistic feeling was realized in solving this problem, was L. Kassil. The author of “Conduit and Schwambrania” realized the dream of a new, fair life by discovering the “great state of Schwambrania.” The narrator's humorous irony makes it possible to feel the author's kind attitude towards what is happening in the boys' lives, towards their dreams. In other words, the author himself is seen behind the narrator-hero. Cassil managed to create a completely new type of storyteller both in vocabulary and character. The author, when developing the image of the hero-storyteller, strives to take into account the concrete thinking and perception of the child, but does not forget about the prospects for his development. This task contains the origins of versatility in the use of visual and expressive means.

A. Rybakov, in the story “The Adventures of Krosh,” morally and philosophically explores the hero-narrator, his growing up and the formation of his civic position. This process of maturation is conveyed by the writer without unnecessary details, with touches of humor. However, the story is action-packed; the conflict between good and evil is given in the tension of open struggle.

In A. Aleksin’s creative search, a teenage hero was found, in whose appearance one can discern an eccentric, a dreamer, an ostensibly negative hero (“Thirty-one Days,” “The Squad Keeps Up,” “The Extraordinary Adventures of Seva Kotlov”). In these works one can see the author’s desire to reveal the psychology of the hero-storyteller, which led to increased psychological analysis and a peculiar balance of humor and psychologism in the stories “Sasha and Shura”, “My Brother Plays the Clarinet”, “Call and Come!”, “Late Child” "

Analysis of the psychology of hero-storytellers in children's literature is associated with the dialectic of the external, adult, world and the internal, childish one. The dreams of the hero-narrator, his life position and habitual beliefs are not idealized.

Scientific and fiction literature for children in Russia in the 20th century. was created, on the one hand, in the fight against the old popular book; and on the other hand - in the development of the best traditions of this genre. Works by M. Prishvin (“Stories of the huntsman Mikhail Mikhalych”), I. Sokolov-Mikitov (“Found Meadow”), V. Obruchev (“Plutonia”), A. Arsenyev (“Dersu Uzala”), V. Durov (“Plutonia”) appeared. Grandfather Durov's Animals"), etc. Soviet scientific and artistic literature was created with the direct participation of scientists and writers. Its formation as a genre is associated with the work of B. Zhitkov, V. Bianki and E.I. Charushina.

Serious ethical problems and dramatic conflicts are developed in the works of B.S. Zhitkov, who played a major role in the development of children's literature in Russia in the 20th century. The desire to pass on what he perceived during his life to other generations determined the special structure of Zhitkov’s works. He creates scientific and artistic works that help develop the creative imagination of children; the author appeals to the child’s feelings and his mind. B.S. Zhitkov’s stories are deeply emotional and plot-driven (“About this book,” “The Carpenter,” “The Steam Locomotive,” “Through Smoke and Flame”). The writer’s focus is on people and creative work.

B. Zhitkov’s work is characterized by a deep analysis of the inner world of people of different ages (collections “The Evil Sea”, “Sea Stories”; stories “Pudya”, “White House”, “How I Caught Little People”, “Courage”, “Red Commander” " and etc.). His works provide a wealth of material for educational work with children: for conversations, for the development of work skills. B. Zhitkov was one of the first to approach the solution of an important task facing new children's literature - combining a sharp plot and entertainment with a thorough study of the psychology of the characters.

He introduced harsh realism into children's literature, respectful conversation with a teenager about heroism and demands on oneself and on people, romantic spirituality, and an imaginative perception of the world. The writer's works are emotional, lyrical, and easily find their way to children's hearts. A special place in B.S. Zhitkov’s work is occupied by his stories about animals, such as “About an Elephant”, “About a Monkey”, “About a Wolf”, “Stray Cat”, “Mongoose”. These are entertaining works in which one can feel an excellent knowledge of the habits and behavior of animals, and the authenticity of the events underlying the plot.

Another no less talented children's writer was Vitaly Valentinovich Bianki, a biologist, researcher and tracker, who wrote fairy tales, short stories, stories about the life of animals, hunting, and nature. In 1923 V. Bianchi's first fairy tale, “The Journey of the Red-Headed Sparrow,” appeared. Over the next two years, his books “The First Hunt”, “Whose Legs Are These?”, “Who Sings with What?”, “Whose Nose is Better?” were published. In total, V. Bianchi owns more than 250 works. The writer created educational picture books, natural history tales, short stories, essays, hunting stories, and he invented the famous “Forest Newspaper” - a unique book in children's literature. Books by V. Bianchi are works of natural history; they take us into the world of living nature. Books are usually based on a specific biological fact, the geographical location of the action is precisely indicated, the calendar season of the year is determined, the biological specific accuracy of the animal, bird, insect, plant is preserved, i.e. everything that is obligatory in natural history books. V. Bianchi knows how to arouse in the reader interest in the surrounding nature, the desire to get acquainted with the life of animals and birds. To interest and captivate the little reader, he often gives the title of his books in the form of a question: “Whose nose is better?”, “Whose legs are these?” etc. He attracts the child to independently solve questions and riddles, teaches him to observe and look so that nature voluntarily reveals its secrets.

The writer creates his works on accurate scientific facts, on documented and substantiated cases. All his heroes - animals, birds, insects - have specific characteristics; the writer does not allow faceless generalizations of images and symbols of nature. Therefore, V. Bianchi’s books about nature are an encyclopedia of biological knowledge for children of preschool and primary school age. This is an encyclopedia created by a scientist and writer who clearly understands the needs of his little reader. To talk with children, V. Bianchi very often resorts to fairy tales, because they are psychologically closer to the child. He created the genre of scientific fairy tales on a folklore basis. His tales are emotional, optimistic, imbued with love for his native nature (“Forest Houses”, “The Adventures of Ant”, “Mouse Peak”, etc.).

For example, in V. Bianki’s “Forest Newspaper” one can feel a deep love for nature, for the animal world, for people who treat animals intelligently and kindly. The book consists of 12 sections (newspaper issues), each of which is dedicated to one month of the forest calendar. Each month has its own name, according to a characteristic feature of seasonal life, for example, “Month of Awakening from Hibernation,” “Month of Nests.” The Lesnaya Gazeta contains a wealth of educational material. This book, like all the works of V.V. Bianchi, helps to develop in the young reader a multifaceted perception and love for his native nature.

The work of Evgeny Ivanovich Charushin is largely consonant with the themes and writing style of Boris Zhitkov and Vitaly Bianchi. He began his career as an illustrator of children's books. His first own works appeared in 1929. At first these were picture books: “Free Birds”, “Different Animals”. His stories are not just a gallery of portraits; they are plot stories, short stories, fairy tales. They awaken in children a love for animals and a connection to nature. In the works of E. Charushin, not only animals act. He has many human characters too. For example, the girl Anya, who loves to take care of animals. Chicks and little animals are brought to her (the story “If you want to eat, you will learn to speak”). Little Nikitka is the hero of the collection “Nikitka and His Friends,” an inquisitive dreamer who eagerly absorbs everything new that he sees around him. The characteristic features of E. Charushin’s creative style were embodied in the collection “Big and Small” (1973). It consists of short stories. Plot-wise, the stories are conversations between birds and animals with their young. The chapters of this book are called: “Woodpeckers with Chicks”, “Duck with Ducklings”, “Deer with a Fawn”. The last chapter of the book is the writer’s direct address to the child reader: “Did you look at the pictures? Have you read this book? Have you learned how animals and birds teach their children how to get food and save themselves? You are a man - the master of all nature. You need to know everything." Nurturing humanistic feelings and stewardship for all living things on earth forms the basis of E. Charushin’s creative practice.

In modern children's literature, books about nature occupy one of the first places, especially for preschoolers and primary schoolchildren. Children need big conversations about nature. This topic contains a lot of opportunities for developing morality and good emotions, for practical activities and for reflection. With all the diversity of genres, plot situations, characters in books about nature, and the creative manner of each of the writers, what they have in common is the solution to the most important problem of modern literature: the problem of further humanization of man.

At the end of the 20s and especially in the 30s, the themes of socialist construction, the conquest of nature, and the formation of a new morality took a leading place in Russian children's poetry. By the end of the decade, when many felt pre-war tensions, children's poetry in Russia began to actively develop international themes. In children's poetry of the 30s, works by such poets as S. Kirsanov (“Poem about the Robot”), A. Tvardovsky (“Lenin and the Stove Man”), B. Kornilov (“How a Bear’s Teeth Started to Hurt from Honey”) appeared. , E. Bagritsky ("Death of a Pioneer"), 3. Alexandrova ("Death of Chapaev"), O. Berggolts ("Pioneer Camp", "Daughter's Song"), S. Mikhalkov ("Uncle Styopa"), A. Barto ( "Over the sea of stars").

Children's poetry of the 20-30s became an integral and organic part of Russian fiction, which was especially clearly manifested in the works of K. Chukovsky, V. Mayakovsky, S. Marshak.

Poetic works of K.I. Chukovsky (1882-1969) for children constantly attract the attention of researchers. The so-called “Commandments for Children's Poets,” written by Chukovsky as a generalization of both his own experience of working for children and the work of other children's writers, are widely known. In the light of these commandments, Chukovsky’s poetic work for children should also be considered, then the extraordinary success of everything that he created will become clear, starting with the first poetic fairy tale “Crocodile”, then “Aibolit”, “Fedorino Mountain”, “Moidodyr”, “Stolen the sun”, “Shifters”, etc. Chukovsky relies on the oral poetic creativity of the people, but does not follow it literally, but transforms individual details and techniques. K.I. Chukovsky did not perform the difficult task of moral and aesthetic education of a person alone. In the 20s, V. Mayakovsky, S. Marshak, A. Barto came to children's poetry, bringing a lot of interesting things, but also falling into extremes conditioned by the era (excessive politicization, sloganism, glorification of the “new man,” etc.).

For example, in the work of V.V. Mayakovsky (1893-1930), books addressed to children occupied a significant place, along with works for adults. Thus, the poet emphasized the equal position of that part of the poetic work that he carried out in children's literature. The main time in his poems for children is the future adult. Hence the constant correlation of today's action, today's character trait with what will be useful to the child as a person of the future. This feature makes Mayakovsky’s works relevant for children today. These characters belong to history in socio-political terms, and to today - culturally, morally and aesthetically.

The poetry of Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky is not afraid of open, purposeful morality and a clear distinction between good and evil, positive and negative. This poetic and pedagogical task is fulfilled by the poem “What is good and what is bad?” (1925). The poem belongs to the genre of didactic story in verse. Mayakovsky finds new techniques for creating a teaching conversation, for example, the initiative for the conversation comes not from an adult, but from a child. In the poem "Who to be?" (1928) a person’s creative attitude to his duty, the humanistic orientation of work, and the active approach of the future constitute a single link of problems. Mayakovsky strives to instill in preschool children an active attitude towards work and life. The child gets the opportunity to play various professions by reading Mayakovsky’s poem. By transforming into adults during play, children learn to look into the future. These dreams are akin to forecasting the future of Human capabilities. Mayakovsky's creative legacy for children embodies the moral and aesthetic ideals of the lives of working people. All this ensured a long life for Mayakovsky’s poems written for children. The development of children's poetry is unthinkable without mastering Mayakovsky's legacy.

The poetic works of S.Ya. Marshak (1887-1964) reflect the principles of such genres of oral folk art as jokes, teasers, counting rhymes, nursery rhymes, and tongue twisters. “Children in a Cage”, “The Tale of a Stupid Mouse”, “Luggage” and “Jolly Siskins” (co-authored with D. Kharms), “Ice Cream”, “Circus”, “Yesterday and Today”, “Fire”, “Home” , which Jack built”, “Parsley the Foreigner” - this is just a little of what was written in the 20s. The poems of the series “Children in a Cage” are laconic, humorous, and playful. They are small in volume: two, four, rarely eight lines. They give specific, clear features of the appearance or habits of animals. In his poems addressed to children, Marshak develops their feelings and intelligence. The theme of a happy childhood in Marshak’s work is central because it unites the main problems: problems of a child in a team, relationships between children and adults, nature and morality, etc. This theme runs through all of S. Marshak’s works in children’s literature. Marshak's young children are inquisitive and active, friendly and relaxed. They play enthusiastically (“Ball”, “Mustachioed-Striped”), willingly participate in the affairs of their elders (“Colorful Book”, “Forest Festival”, “All Year Round”), prepare for a big life, mastering the world (“Good Day”, “Carousel”, “About the Hippopotamus”, “Giant”, “Children of our yard”). The image of movement and growth is a characteristic image for Marshak in poems on the theme of a happy childhood.

The ability to see the perspective of the life of a very young child, to trace the connection between childhood, adolescence, youth and maturity is a distinctive feature of Marshak’s poems dedicated to the theme of a happy childhood. The name of S. Marshak in children's literature is associated with the assertion of the active position of the lyrical hero - the child. S.Ya. Marshak fought for the creation of “great literature for little ones.” In his report at the First Congress of Soviet Writers, Marshak noted that few books had yet been created for children, and emphasized that it was necessary to actively develop heroic themes. The writer’s creative heritage is very significant and has not yet lost its relevance in the formation of cultural and moral values of the younger generation.

S.V. Mikhalkov responded to important events in the life of the country. He is known as a writer who knows how to talk with children (“What do you have?”, “Mimosa”, “About Thomas”). The work of children's writers and poets is subject to such requirements as relevance of the topic, accessibility of presentation, entertainment, and the ability to vividly convey the signs of the times. Sergei Mikhalkov's works for children meet these criteria. They are witty and imbued with love for children. In accordance with the best traditions of poetry for children, Mikhalkov and in funny poems are alien to empty entertainment. Usually, a poet's humorous poem is based on a healthy moral idea. So, the poem “What do you have?” at first glance, it is an unpretentious recording from nature of the casual chatter of randomly gathered children (“It was in the evening, there was nothing to do”). The conversation at first flows slowly and aimlessly, a child’s unstable thought jumps from subject to subject. But then a leading topic appears in the conversation - a dispute flares up whose mother is more important, better, and the poet leads the reader to the main idea that the various things that mothers are busy with are worthy of respect and love.

The name of the cheerful, kind and wise hero of the tetralogy “Uncle Styopa”, “Uncle Styopa - Policeman”, “Uncle Styopa and Yegor”, “Uncle Styopa - Veteran” has already become a household name. Mikhalkov managed to create a charming image of an adult - a noble, humane, sympathetic older friend of “all the guys from all the yards.” Uncle Styopa's attitude towards people is determined by a childish natural belief in the triumph of goodness and the establishment of justice. The poems about Uncle Styopa revealed the strongest aspects of Mikhalkov's talent as a children's writer: an optimistic view of the world, a bright faith in man, a cheerful, sometimes mischievous invention, and gentle humor. Poetic hyperbole has a special character in this work. Uncle Styopa - “the most important giant” - is the living embodiment of a calm, benevolent force that so captivates a child in the heroes of a folk tale. But Mikhalkov is an ordinary person who works, thinks, and has fun. The hero gradually grows from work to work, along with the expansion of his horizons, an increase in the intellectual and moral capabilities of the young reader.

Many decades have passed since the appearance of the hero S. Mikhalkov. And yet, the story of Uncle Styopa, even in modern conditions, retains significant moral and educational potential for preschoolers and primary schoolchildren. The writer managed to arouse sympathy for the character, emphasizing and enlarging his positive human qualities in a form accessible to children. And in the future they become the basis for his worthy and high behavior as a citizen of his city, the Fatherland. Patriotism and citizenship will always be values required by a healthy social organism. Unobtrusive education of these qualities must begin from a very young age. It is in this area that the talent of the creator of the image of the kind, generous, brave, wise giant Stepan Stepanov manifests itself.

The best works of S.V. Mikhalkov are characterized by breadth of generalizations, acuteness of problems, depth of content and accessibility of form. His work has entered the domestic children's literature with pages of subtle, cheerful humor, sincere fun, witty practical jokes, followed by serious reflection, unposterous civic intonation, and sincere pathos of patriotism.

In the work of A. Barto (1906-1982) there is also a desire to master all the best that has already been achieved in the field of children's literature. In 1928 A. Barto’s famous book for little ones, “Brothers,” appears, dedicated to the children of different nations, whose fathers died in the struggle for the freedom and happiness of people. Written in the genre of a lullaby, this book is humanistic in content, contained in a concrete, figurative form accessible to children. In the cycle of songs that four mothers sing at the cradles of their children, portraits are created of either the “little black brother”, or the “yellow brother, the cross-eyed boy”, or the “third brother”, “the light chocolate one”; then the “white boy”. This book by the poetess became a significant event in children's literature. It was published many times both in our country and abroad.

The strengths of A. Barto's work include the humorous and satirical motifs of many of her poems. A. Barto widely used the means of humor when she told young children about the toy bunny, bear, bull, and horse (the “Toys” series). Each toy in the image of the poetess acquires individuality. Barto's toys are full participants in children's lives, friends of children. A. Barto’s work reveals the poetry of a child’s personality, starting from a very early age, when the child barely begins to walk (“Mashenka”). During this period, the baby is a discoverer of the world; he only receives the very first impressions. The rhythmic and intonation structure of Barto's poems, addressed to preschool children, is designed for the perception of the young reader. Poems for preschoolers are natural, dynamic, close to conversational. In artistic images, the poetess seeks to draw the attention of the little reader to what is happening in his hometown and country. This is how poems appear with specific indications of the location of action and with accurate sketches of events: “At the Sokolniki station...” (“We are going by metro”), “In the lights of Okhotny Ryad...”, “Today Pushkin Square in silver rain..." (“What Happened During the Vacations”); "On the Red Square".

The poetry of A. Barto contributes to the formation in a child of a joyful, life-affirming worldview, a feeling of a close connection between his own life and the life of the entire people. Today we can say that some sociological motives of Barto’s poetry, due to the time in which her work occurred, are outdated. But she also managed to address universal human issues, touching on issues whose significance is no less relevant today. The ability to find new opportunities for poetic self-expression and pass on the baton of traditions is one of the most important features of A. Barto’s work for many decades. A. Barto’s talent did not stop in its development; she sought to say a new poetic word to each new young generation of readers.

Children's prose of the 20th century is most clearly represented by the names of A.M. Gorky, A.N. Tolstoy, S. Baruzdin, A.P. Gaidara, N.N. Nosova, V.K.. Zheleznikova.

Gorky viewed children's literature as an inseparable part of all Soviet literature. The main principle that Gorky introduced into the theory of children's literature was the principle of socialist realism. The writer argued that the same high demands should be placed on books for children as on every work of art. At the same time, a children's writer must take into account all the characteristics of the reading age. Otherwise, he will end up with a book without an address, which is of no use to either a child or an adult. The writer’s stories, essays, and articles talk a lot about the educational influence of fiction. Gorky draws their attention to those moral qualities that are brought up by new living conditions: love for the socialist Motherland, independence, a sense of collectivism.

Gorky's influence on children's literature is associated not only with the theoretical, but also with the artistic innovation of his works, which revealed the world of childhood. Drawing images of children, the writer did not show them in isolation from the lives of adults - he emphasized the uniform laws of the formation of human characters in society. In the writer’s portrayal, crippled childhood becomes an irrefutable document of accusation against an inhumane society. A progressive writer, Gorky breathed new, revolutionary content into the depiction of childhood. “Tales of Italy,” written for adults, almost immediately during the period of revolutionary upsurge of the beginning of the 20th century. began to be published for children, because they sang the joy of work, the equality of people, and affirmed the idea of the unity of workers.

"Childhood". Gorky's story "Childhood" has common features with classic works about childhood. She realistically and psychologically deeply depicts the fate of the little hero. The plot of the story is determined by the hero's childhood story. The innovation of his autobiographical story was already evident in the depiction of the character of the hero - Alyosha Peshkov. A child’s life is influenced not only by the family, but also by the entire harsh reality with its deep social contradictions. The writer shows that Alyosha is a witness to many of life’s troubles and sorrows, from which he himself and the people around him suffer. The events in the story are not simply conveyed on behalf of the child, but are refracted in the mind of an adult - a writer who comments and explains childhood experiences. The writer shows how Alyosha’s worldview is formed. There appears faith in oneself, in a person, a desire to stand up for the offended, to save everyone who is bullied from pain. Despite his hard life, the boy is drawn to everything sunny and joyful. He is active, optimistic, and able to fight for happiness.

M. Gorky's autobiographical stories turned out to be works that were unique in their artistic embodiment of characters. The story “Childhood” is a protest not only against the education system, but also against reality itself, against the “leaden abominations of life.” Gorky's autobiographical story had a particularly active and fruitful influence on children's literature. She became a classic model for Soviet children's literature.

The theme of childhood became central in the works of A.N. Tolstoy. “Nikita’s Childhood” is one of the writer’s most poetic works. The story was written in 1920. in France. The writer's bright memories of childhood are permeated with a lyrical image of his beloved Motherland, which appears in everything: in descriptions of the nature and life of the Sosnovka farm, in stories about village children, in the pure, beautiful Russian language of the story. “Nikita’s Childhood” is a story about the first years of human formation. A chronicle of the main events in the boy’s life unfolds before the reader. The life of a child and the life of nature, the fusion and interweaving of these two themes create a unique lyrical flavor of the story. Nikita is close to nature, he seems to dissolve in the world around him. Unity with nature, the feeling of being an integral part of it, creates in the boy’s soul a constant expectation of happiness, something wonderful, fantastic. The cultural value of the story “Nikita’s Childhood” is determined by A.N. Tolstoy’s ability to address a person whom it is impossible to understand without understanding nature.

Gorky embodied his creative principles regarding literature for preschool children in fairy tales specially intended for children. The writer laid the foundations of a new children's fairy tale. In total, he created six fairy tales: “Morning” (1910), “Sparrow” (1912), “The Case of Yevseyka” (1912), “Samovar” (1913), “About Ivanushka the Fool” (1918), “Yashka” ( 1919). “Memory of Childhood” often helped A.N. Tolstoy in developing fantastic, fairy-tale plots: “Polkan”, “Axe”, “Sparrow”, “Snow House”, etc. Some of them are close to social fairy tales, others - to the "animal epic". The poetic language of A.N. Tolstoy’s fairy tales is distinguished by its imagery and plasticity; they inspiredly glorify the native nature. The writer creates a whole round dance of fairy-tale characters: the brave Sparrow, the faithful Polkan, the Hedgehog-hero, the cunning Fox. Human virtues and weaknesses are revealed more clearly when they are transferred by the writer from reality to a conventional fairy-tale world, the heroes of which are birds and animals. In fairy tales, elements of folk tales and accurate observations of nature are felt.

Creative talent of A.N. Tolstoy was also reflected in the literary fairy tale “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio.” A.N. Tolstoy does not follow the source literally, but creates a new work based on it. The author is not writing an edifying work, but an entertaining and cheerful memoir of what he read in childhood. The fairy tale “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio” turned out to be A.N. Tolstoy’s great success and a completely original work. The plot is based on the struggle of Pinocchio and his friends with Karabas-Barabas, Duremar, the fox Alice, and the cat Basilio. The conflict between the “light and dark world” of the fairy tale is inevitable and irreconcilable; The author's sympathies are clearly expressed. A.N. Tolstoy’s characters are depicted clearly and definitely, as in folk tales. Pinocchio enjoys the love of the guys because he has truly human weaknesses and shortcomings.

Books by the writer Nosov N.N. occupy a special place in children's literature. The best works of the writer are addressed to children - “Cheerful Stories”, “Cheerful Family”, “The Diary of Kolya Sinitsyn”, “Vitya Maleev at School and at Home”, etc. The heroes of N. Nosov’s stories are children - dreamers, restless and irrepressible inventors who often gets for their undertakings. In many stories (“Mishkina’s porridge”, “Knock-knock-knock”, “Telephone”, “Gardeners”, etc.), one character turns out to be through and through - Mishka Kozlov. The stories are full of lyricism and humor; The narration is told from the perspective of Mishka’s friend. The bear is surprisingly active, he is constantly in action. Mishka is a dreamer and seeker; he not only extricates himself from difficult circumstances, but enthusiastically and energetically fights against them. Humorous situations help Nosov show the logic of the hero’s thinking and behavior. The writer's insight into the psychology of a child is artistically authentic. Laconic, expressive dialogue, a comic situation help the author to outline the characters of the guys (“Gardeners”).

N. Nosov's stories always include an educational element. There is it in the story about cucumbers stolen from the collective farm garden (“Cucumbers”), and about how Fedya Rybkin “forgot how to laugh in class” (“The Blob”). But even the most “moralistic stories” of the writer are interesting and close to children, because they help them understand the relationships between people. The writer talks about the need for mutual assistance, about the trust and respect the guys have for each other, about their desire for the new, the unknown. The educational element of his stories is organically combined with a humorous vision of events. This unity makes many problems more intelligible and attractive for young readers.

The writer's fairy tales are always loved by children: “Bobik visiting Barbos”, “The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends”, “Dunno in the Sunny City”, “Dunno on the Moon”. The last three tales are united by common characters and form a novel-trilogy. Dunno, the main character, is a braggart and an ignoramus; he constantly finds himself in comical situations due to his carelessness and self-confidence. In a cheerful, emotional form, preschoolers are presented with extensive educational material from various fields of science, technology and art, and moral and ethical issues are resolved. Behind all the fun adventures there is an unobtrusive thought about the incompatibility of bragging and arrogance with genuine human relationships between people, even if these are the smallest children. The book teaches respect for knowledge, work, partnership, modesty.

The work of N. Nosov is of great importance in children's literature. Very important features of his humorous talent were the ability to respond to current problems of education and the ability to solve important moral and ethical problems in an emotional, entertaining form.

Poet, prose writer, publicist Sergei Baruzdin is one of the original children's writers. Many of the writer’s works are two-faceted: they are often perceived on the border between child and adult perception. Such conversations between seniors and juniors help the writer combine moral, ethical and journalistic aspects in his works. A unique thematic cycle consists of small stories and fairy tales by S. Baruzdin about animals: “The Cold Hedgehog”, “The Cunning Handsome One”, “Ravi and Shashi”, “How Snowball Got to India”. These works are published for both primary schoolchildren and preschoolers. The writer constructs his works about animals as short stories, in which there is room for both action-packed episodes and lyrical reflections on the attitude towards “little brothers.” In S. Baruzdin's stories about animals there is no anthropomorphization in the usual sense, but there is a special relationship to the animal world, to nature.

S. Baruzdin also creates poetic works for children. In them, he often addresses the children with a conversation, calling for comprehension and reflection. The poet speaks seriously, striving for the most complete contact with the reader. The poetry of S. Baruzdin is as diverse as his prose. Fables, poetic stories, poetic fairy tales are just some of the poetic genres of the poet and prose writer. But there is a common thing that unites them: the theme of human labor, the favorite theme of Baruzdin the poet.

The maturity of mastery is felt in such poetic works as “Poems about a man and his words”, “Poems about a man and his deeds”, “Hero”, “What is the sky above us?”, “To a man who dreams of becoming an adult”. They are characterized by rhetorical questions, journalistic addresses, and thoughts about the future of man. Baruzdin addresses the children in a friendly manner, sharing their dreams, supporting their desire to become adults, and offering kind words to the younger generation.

The creative searches of modern writers who create books for children and youth often take place in an in-depth psychological sense, because masters of words are interested in the person of the new generation, his appearance, his needs, his future. In their works, the characters of boys and girls are revealed. In line with this search is the work of Vladimir Karlovich Zheleznikov. He belongs to those who entered children's literature in the 60s. The main quality of V. Zheleznikov as a writer is his ability to find truly kind people for his books. Each new work of his is different from the previous one. But they are all connected by a common theme: the writer, as it were, explores the very nature of “formal” and genuine kindness, affirming the latter as the most important creative force of the new world.

The culminating work of V. Zheleznikov is “Scarecrow”. The first version of it was a script, and was called “Boycott”. In the course of working on the work, not only the structure was polished, but the concept was also refined. This story addresses the problem of character, the problem of relationships between children and adults, the problem of humanism. The world of children is determined by the world of adults - this is a common truth. The world of children in the story exists in parallel with the world of adults, trying not to intersect with it. The story makes adults think about how it is necessary to create mutual understanding with teenagers, how important it is to tactfully guide them in life, supporting and protecting the period of moral formation. Zheleznikov's merit in children's literature lies in the fact that he was able to identify a serious moral conflict and explored it with artistic authenticity and humanistic frankness.

Thus, after 1917, children's literature began to be purposeful. Children's writers were tasked with creating a new type of children's book. Recommendation lists of pre-revolutionary literary works for republication were compiled with the participation of N.K. Krupskaya and A.V. Lunacharsky and were strictly regulated in accordance with the ideological guidelines of the Soviet government. The children's book became one of the main tools with which the authorities solved the problem of creating a “new man.” During this period, the publication and content of children's books were shaped by those who led the country and determined its future.

2.2 Post-Soviet period in the development of children's literature

Over the past fifteen years, a completely new children's literature has emerged in Russia, which can be attributed to a special historical period - from the beginning of perestroika to the end of the 20th century, called "Post-Soviet children's literature." Post-Soviet children's literature is characterized by great genre diversity, expansion of spheres of influence due to the author's release of television, video and Internet versions of the text simultaneously with the next children's book, and unbridled imitation of foreign models, which include not only individual writers or works, but also entire genres - such as “children’s detective story”, “fantasy”, “novel for girls”, “horror stories”. From a cultural point of view, post-Soviet children's literature is inferior to its predecessors, not always possessing such advantages as ethical clarity, stylistic consistency, thoroughness and detail of the narrative, taking into account the age and psychological characteristics of the child. But this does not mean that new children's books in Russia lack appeal for both readers and critics. These books contain irony, grotesque, parody, and excitement. First of all, they are intended for young readers, but are often created with an adult audience in mind.

In our research, we set the task of considering post-Soviet children's literature as a cultural phenomenon. For this purpose, we have made an attempt to analyze modern children's books published after 1987. One of the main properties of post-Soviet children's literature is its focus on the publishing process. In the post-Soviet period, the market became the customer, as a result of which children's books lost touch with the child: children read books, and their parents buy them. Many children's publications are now targeted at parents as the main buyers. This is indicated by the format of modern children's books, their illustrations, and the involvement of “adult” authors in children's literature; the abundance of all kinds of “series” and “libraries” on the bookshelves (from the “Golden Book of Fairy Tales” to the “Golden Library of Adventures”); the release of all kinds of encyclopedias and “children’s dictionaries” that create in parents the feeling that they “give the child the best” and “take care of the development of his intellect.” Thus, thanks to modern marketing strategies, a children's book has become an object onto which the interests, tastes and needs of parents are projected.

In the post-Soviet period, mainly time-tested children's books that were included in the school curriculum were published in Russia. Store shelves are filled with publications of famous children's poets and prose writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. The lack of new texts was due to the confusion of the “old” children's writers before the new time, its freedom and its demands, their inability to quickly switch to new topics. In addition, translated literature occupied the niche of novelties for some time. Only in the mid-90s. XX century Publishing houses began to order and churn out mass-produced children's literature: children's detective stories, romance novels for girls, horror stories and horror stories. These texts are written according to the same model, often based on plots stolen from foreign books, and their authors can be several writers hiding under a pseudonym.

However, it is immediately necessary to make a reservation: bright, innovative works were published even in the most troubled times. Collections by A. Usachev, G. Kruzhkov, M. Yasnov, and M. Boroditskaya appeared. It was more difficult for talented prose writers to break into the market. Recently, Russian publishers have begun to pay attention to little-known authors who create interesting, deep, but so far “unpromoted” children’s books. Very young authors came to children's literature - T. Semilyakina and L. Kulieva, graduates of the Literary Institute; D. Yemets wrote his first book at the age of 20, and now, in addition to the Tanya Grotter series, he has already published more than 20 books at the Eksmo publishing house.

The youth of the authors provides post-Soviet children's literature with parody, audacity, stylistic freedom, as well as closeness to the reader. This is also due to their fluency in modern communication skills. Many creators have their own websites and email or chat with fans. Thus, the modern publishing process and the removal of ideological barriers have led to the fact that children's writers are now expanding the boundaries of tradition, discovering new genres and following non-classical models.

If Soviet children's literature emphasized the “education of humanism”, consistent with the spirit of that era, then in the post-Soviet period, the reaction to the excess of moralizing, sweetness and falsehood in children’s literature was the appearance of all kinds of “harmful advice”, or moral teachings “by contradiction”. Now at school they “pass” G. Oster, the author of poems, recipes for counting rhymes and mathematical problems, in which children are recommended to commit hooligan, absurd acts - fight with mom and dad, bite doctors, betray their best friend, feed themselves to the wolves. In the comments to his poems, G. Oster states the desire of children to do the opposite, thereby testing the limits of the patience of adults.

Each work by G. Oster offers the child a game of “flip-flop”, which he happily accepts. Antimorality contains information about “what is good and what is bad.” The attractiveness of G. Oster's works lies in the brevity and semantic richness of his funny texts. The popularity of G. Oster's books proves that carnival humor is not only accessible to children, but is also extremely necessary for them.

Oster’s “shifters” actualize the play potential of the Russian language, focusing on the “children’s” language with its rude words, teasers, counting rhymes, and codes. The language game and paradoxical nature of Oster's humor only seems simple, but behind it lies keen observation, knowledge of child psychology, and excellent command of words.

The main context for the functioning of children's folklore was and remains a game, and therefore “horror stories”, “laughers” are a game genre in which only those authors who have preserved the memory of childhood, its secrets, rituals, language, and ways of understanding the world can express themselves. Among the genres of children's folklore, “horror stories” stand out in that they belong to a special “demonological tradition.” The mysterious events taking place in them are the result of supernatural forces. The purpose of “horror stories” is to evoke an experience of fear, which provides a kind of pleasure and leads to emotional catharsis. Therefore, “horror stories” are usually told in some treasured place, in a secret corner, away from adults, who with one remark can ruin the pleasure of the story.

Until recently, “horror stories” were an oral genre. Since the mid-1990s. this genre has firmly established itself in post-Soviet children's literature. Now dozens of titles of “horror stories” and “horror films” are published - both domestically “produced” and translated. The main difference between these texts is their eventual redundancy, absurdity, removal of causal connections, complete lack of evaluativeness and didacticism, and black humor. And although the setting for “horror stories” is almost always a modern city, school or home, with familiar features and familiar problems to the reader, time and space in them are unstable and can change beyond recognition.

In fairy tales for older readers, the author's position is uniquely combined with a child's view of the world. Similar tales directly related to the image of childhood include the works of V. Krapivin. The fairy-tale-romantic understanding of childhood also corresponds to the symbolic images in various works: sails, wings, captains, musketeers, buglers, knights, etc. Krapivin’s fairy tale is a way of penetrating the world of a child’s soul. The author introduces into his works the philosophical concepts of the Road and the Ring of the Universe. The heroes talk about the mysteries of existence, sin, conscience, holiness, God and define the categories of the created world, in which there is no death, but there is a transition to a different energy state, and each little hero is needed and important for others.

Through the unity of childhood and fairy tales, Krapivin raises serious problems of human existence, such as “man and time”, “children and war”, “children and the System”. And although a happy ending is not at all a prerequisite, in the author’s fairy-tale and philosophical worlds there is no death or parting: dead or missing children return to their parents, warrior boys from the past who have become breezes come to life again, lonely children find their parents (“Children of the Blue flamingo”, “Dovecote on the Yellow Glade”, stories about Crystal). The author convinces us that everything good and kind is eternal, like childhood memory and love.

Each story by Krapivin is a complete work of art, a romantic fairy tale. But due to cyclization (the story about the Great Crystal and the Deserted Spaces) and through the use of a single image of childhood in each part, a single world is created, the best part of which is the childhood fairy tale. For example, the cycle about the Great Crystal is based on a fictional image of the universe, which has a complex structure with parallel worlds and times.

The image of childhood and the image of a child, being central in Krapivin’s works, connect concrete historical time and eternity. A child is a guardian, a savior of goodness and justice, and at the same time an “element of the world” who cognizes it. The “fairy-tale” idea that it is the small and physically weak who save the city, country, planet, universe is consistently carried out in the author’s artistic world (“The Knight of the Transparent Cat”, “Dovecote on the Yellow Meadow”, “Children of the Blue Flamingo”, "Shot from the monitor"). This shows a deep philosophical and psychological understanding of childhood and the author’s concern for the fate of children in our world. The complexity of Krapivin's fairy tales in terms of the depth of problems, philosophical reflections and stylistics allows us to talk about the development of the genre of philosophical adventure fairy tales. All the author’s works contain a serious ideological subtext, depicting individual moments of human destiny when you need to make a choice, realize your strengths and weaknesses.

The most interesting cultural phenomenon in post-Soviet children's literature is “fantasy”. This genre includes works in which an adventure plot unfolds in a time and space alien to us. In “fantasy,” at least one of the properties of reality is distorted due to the fact that the author creates several fantastic worlds that coexist with the everyday world and are opposed to it. The heroes (or just one, the main hero) are able to move between parallel worlds.

In Russian literature, which developed within the Christian tradition, the attitude towards the magical world and magic was not as favorable as in Anglo-Saxon and Celtic literature. The appearance of witches, devils and other evil spirits in children's books was acceptable mainly only in folklore. Therefore, with rare exceptions in Russian children's literature of the 19th-20th centuries. There are no mystical fairy tales in which the mythological rather than the Christian principle would be stronger. After the revolution, this situation also did not change much. Even the works of V. Krapivin and K. Bulychev could not create in Russia anything even similar to the “fantasy” boom in the West in the 60-80s. XX century Only after the lifting of the “Iron Curtain” did the translated “fantasy” pour into Russia like an avalanche; We are currently observing the second stage of development of the genre.

The most important and difficult element in the development of “fantasy” in Russia is the substitution of its own philosophical and aesthetic foundation under the already built foundation of the genre. In post-Soviet children's literature, not a single children's author has yet completely taken this path, although some attempts in the fantasy genre have already been made. In Russia, modern children's novels about magical worlds are distinguished by such features as eclecticism (their symbolism is based on the folklore of different nations), the desire to give a “reasonable” interpretation of the manifestations of the magical, and the lack of a clear structure, history and geography in the magical world.

It’s another thing to imitate books by new wave authors who do not strive to create their own mythology. These include the novels about Harry Potter by the English writer J.K. Rowling. Rowling's main achievement was the creation of a work in which the satisfaction of the psychological needs of modern children coincided with the reincarnation of ancient fairy-tale archetypes. In the stories about Harry Potter, the plot of growing up and the struggle for one's own place in the social hierarchy of a closed educational institution with its taboos, rituals and competition was superimposed on the structure of a fairy tale. Rowling's books have a number of advantages: the presence of a positive hero; wonderful literary language; originality of the atmosphere of the work. But still, J. Rowling’s main achievement is that for the first time the main character of a children’s book, even one written in the fantasy genre, was not just a wizard, but a child wizard. And although he studies the science of magic at school, his status as the main character is emphasized by the fact that he masters the wisdom of spells or the fight against dark forces not at his desk, but in a real encounter with evil.

In Russia, Rowling's books were loved so much that they created several “parodies” of them. Thanks to Harry Potter, in recent years, many works have appeared in which the main character or heroine is a small sorcerer or witch - “The Glassblower” by A. Birger, “Magical Holidays” by A. Ivanov and A. Ustinova, “Denis Kotik and the Queen of the Winged Horses” A Boyarina and, finally, “Porri Gatter and the Stone Philosopher” by A. Zhvalevsky and I. Mytko. Of these, only the books by Zhvalevsky and Mytko, as well as D. Yemets, can be considered a real parody. The plot, characters, and entire scenes in them imitate those of Rohling. An analysis of Porry Gutter and the Stone Philosopher, as well as the proliferation of imitations of Harry Potter, shows that modern literary parody in children's literature has become a genre that exists at the intersection of the literary and publishing processes. Books that have achieved commercial success are parodied with the expectation that adults will also be able to appreciate them. A work is considered successful if, thanks to the popularity of the original and due to its inherent irony, it expands the readership and ceases to be exclusively a children's book.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that works in the “fantasy” style carry powerful educational potential. Fantasy gradually leads the reader to become acquainted with the multifaceted, colorful world culture. Fantasy can awaken the need to improve the body and spirit; it can be a stepping stone to an in-depth study of history, science, religion, mythology and literature. Fantasy today is not an escape from reality, but an alternative road to the acceptance of universal human values of good and evil, love and loyalty, nobility, glorification of primordial values.

Post-Soviet children's literature renounces many traditions of Russian and Soviet literature, which is reflected in the emergence of new forms and genres due to the commercialization of the publishing process, as a result of which works of mass culture and ephemera appear. Many works of post-Soviet children's literature are characterized by the absurdity of their plots, the use of forbidden topics, cynicism and the dubious “positivity” of the characters, and the use of jargon in the language. All this not only does not correspond to the specifics of children's literature, but also does not contribute to its main goal - to educate a child in a system of values with stable concepts of good and evil, beauty, ethics, moral and ethical standards, and also does not meet the needs of the development of artistic taste in the younger generation .

Conclusion

Our analysis of the development of children's literature in Russia in various historical eras allows us to draw the following conclusions. Children's literature was a kind of “mirror”, an indicator of the political, ideological, and religious attitudes of society. Children's literature reflected all the vicissitudes of Russian history. It would be legitimate to say that the history of children's literature itself is the essence of the history of Russian society.

From the advent of writing until the first half of the 15th century inclusive, there were no special works for children in Rus'. Children of that era read the same works as adults. Therefore, the era from the end of the 10th to the first half of the 15th century is considered the prehistory of children's literature. Its real history begins with the advent of special works for children. This happened in the second half of the 15th century. Works of Russian children's literature created in the 15th - 17th centuries give grounds to recognize the existence of Old Russian children's literature, which was the foundation for the development of Russian children's literature of subsequent eras. By its nature, pace of development, connections with education and the entire Russian culture, Old Russian literature for children was heterogeneous. Long before the appearance of the first texts created for children, there was a natural process of selecting works for children's reading. By the 15th century, a large period of prehistory of children's literature had ended.

From the second half of the 15th century, its history began, children's literature itself appeared on the wave of patriotism, along with the growing self-awareness of the people, and it arose from pedagogical needs, as an organic and most important part of the entire Russian national culture. The end of this period is characterized by the appearance of printed books, when about 15 printed children's books of an educational nature were published.

In the 17th century, the formation of Russian children's literature took place. The period of its formation was heterogeneous. Cursive books (alphabet books) appeared in the form of scrolls. Printed alphabets are published in Moscow, and regular poetry writing begins. A prominent representative of these years is the poet Savvaty, who can rightfully be considered the first Russian poet for children.

Our ancestors paid serious attention to raising children. For this they used the best works of original literature and artistic treasures of the entire civilized world. Ancient Rus' did not isolate itself within a narrow framework, but conducted an active exchange of cultural values, and children's literature was also involved in this exchange, playing an important role in the general cultural life of that time, in the ideological and aesthetic struggle of the era. In general, ancient Russian literature for children played a significant role in the development of nationwide Russian culture.

Children's literature of the first quarter of the 18th century was enriched with new books, varied in form, content and ideological orientation. It was more closely connected with life, responded to current issues, and reflected some modern events. As a consequence of Peter's reforms, it played a significant role in the approval and development of these reforms and therefore became a matter of national importance. It is no coincidence that the best children's books of that time were created at the command and initiative of Peter I himself.

The most important thing during this period was the departure from the Church Slavonic language, the publication of books in civil script in a language close to the living and more accessible to children. Encyclopedias and travel come first in children's reading circles. In the reading of children of the late 18th century, books for adults occupy a large place, which includes works by Derzhavin, Sumarokov, Karamzin and others. At the same time, ways of developing children's literature have emerged: a close connection with modernity, with advanced ideas, with literature for adults, a combination of science and art. These problems continued to be solved by children's literature of the 19th century.

Having absorbed the best achievements of previous eras, continuing and developing them in new conditions, children's literature of the 19th century becomes high art and, in its best examples, is not inferior to the achievements of “great” literature, and still has a beneficial educational effect. The development of children's literature of the 19th century occurs in close connection with education, with literature for adults and all culture, with the revolutionary liberation movement. Under these conditions, N.A. Dobrolyubov’s thought becomes relevant in children’s literature: whoever is involved in education takes the future into his hands. Of all the poetic genres at the beginning of the 19th century, fables and fairy tales, presented in the works of I.A. Krylov, A.S. Pushkin, P.P. Ershov, V.A. Zhukovosky and others, enjoyed the greatest success among children.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, children's writers sought to form bonds that would provide unity in the spiritual life of the growing individual. This is one of the important aspects of the specificity of children's literature of the Soviet period of its development. Children's literature is called upon to participate in the creation of the moral world of a young person. A long-standing and strong tradition was the general humanistic, universal principle in children's literature of the first decades of the 20th century in Russia, manifested in the works of V. Korolenko, L. Charskaya, A. Altaev, A. Razin, K. Lukashevich, N. Lukhmanova and others.

Since 1917, universal human values began to be replaced by class and ideological values. The political situation demanded from children's literature the formation of the so-called “new man”, imbued not with universal human interests, but with class interests. At the beginning of the 20th century, a need arose for literature telling children about the five-year plan, socialist construction, shock work, and collectivization of agriculture. Therefore, many children's writers tried to resist, as best they could, the destruction of universal humanistic traditions.

In Soviet Russia of the post-revolutionary period, the formation of politically and class-biased children's literature almost immediately began, which was supposed to open for children “the path to a clear understanding of the great things that are happening on earth,” which called for freeing children from the pernicious yoke of the old book. The country's leadership takes a tough position on creating class- and politically oriented children's literature, which is reflected in the decrees of the party and government. So, in fact, the party documents clearly state the task of forming a “new man”.

In the first post-revolutionary decade, writers working in children's literature appeared. A.M. Gorky, A.S. Neverov, M.M. Prishvin, A.P. Gaidar, B.S. Zhitkov, V.V. Bianki, L.A. Kassil and many others are involved in creating works for children. Functional orientation, propaganda certainty, the requirement to attract party, trade union and Soviet organizations to create children's literature to help the Komsomol were still there when Soviet children's literature was just emerging as a mass phenomenon.

Thus, after 1917, children's literature began to have a purposefully ideological character. Children's writers were tasked with creating a new type of children's book. The children's book became one of the main tools with which the Soviet government solved the problem of creating a “new man.” During this period, the publication and content of children's books were shaped by those who led the country and determined its future.

At the same time, it was precisely at this time, under the conditions of a totalitarian system that suppresses creative freedom and subordinates creative tasks to political ones, that outstanding works of children's literature are often created, which continue to be carefully passed on from generation to generation. The attractiveness of children's literature of the Soviet period lies precisely in the fact that, despite the often present ideological background, it retained strong traditions of enlightenment and education. “A book is a teacher’s best assistant,” is the main formula for a writer and publisher.

In literature, especially in children's literature, there should be instructive, educational motives. Kindness, honor, loyalty to the word and the ideals of friendship, patriotism, hard work, love of nature - qualities that are cultivated in the works of S. Marshak, K. Chukovsky, A. Barto, Y. Olesha, L. Kassil, S. Mikhalkov, A. Gaidar , V. Dragunsky, B. Zhidkov, N. Nosov, K. Paustovsky and others. The books of these authors have ethical clarity and take into account the age and psychological characteristics of the child.

Over the past fifteen years, a completely new children's literature has emerged in Russia, which can be attributed to a special historical period - from the beginning of perestroika to the end of the 20th century, called "Post-Soviet children's literature." The main direction in which it is developing is overthrowing the foundations of children's literature. Post-Soviet children's literature is characterized by great genre diversity, expansion of spheres of influence due to the author's release of television, video and Internet versions of the text simultaneously with the children's book, and unbridled imitation of foreign models, which include not only individual writers or works, but also entire genres - such as “children’s detective story”, “fantasy”, “novel for girls”, “horror stories”. From a cultural point of view, post-Soviet children's literature is inferior to its predecessors, not always possessing such advantages as ethical clarity, stylistic consistency, thoroughness and detail of the narrative, taking into account the age and psychological characteristics of the child.

The most interesting cultural phenomenon in post-Soviet children's literature is “fantasy”. This genre includes works in which an adventure plot unfolds in a time and space alien to us. Despite criticism, works in the fantasy style can carry powerful educational potential. Fantasy gradually leads the reader to become acquainted with a multifaceted, colorful world culture; it can become a stepping stone to a deep study of history, natural science, religion, mythology and literature. Fantasy today is not an escape from reality, but an alternative road to the acceptance of universal human values of good and evil, love and loyalty, nobility, glorification of primordial values.

Thus, an analysis of trends in post-Soviet children's literature showed that domestic children's literature has changed dramatically in the process of its development. The works of children's authors of the Soviet period, although they were extremely ideological, were nevertheless distinguished by their educational orientation, taking into account the age and psychological characteristics of the child, reflected in the style of language, themes and genres. Post-Soviet children's literature renounces many traditions of Russian and Soviet literature. This is expressed in the commercialization of the publishing process, as a result of which works of mass culture and ephemeral works appear. Many works of post-Soviet children's literature are distinguished by the use of forbidden topics, cynicism and the dubious “positivity” of the characters, and the use of jargon in the language. All this not only does not correspond to the specifics of children's literature, but also does not contribute to its main goal - to educate a child in a system of values with stable concepts of good and evil, beauty, ethics, moral and ethical standards, and also does not meet the needs of the development of artistic taste in the younger generation . Thus, modern children's literature does not fulfill or weakly fulfills its main, priority function as a channel for the reproduction and transmission of the spiritual values of the people.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this situation in modern children’s literature causes concern and anxiety among public figures, children’s writers, librarians, and teachers. So, in 2001 on their initiative, the “Congress in Support of Reading” was organized, at which an attempt was made to attract the attention of society and the authorities to the crisis state of children’s reading in the country, which threatens the intellectual potential of Russia, its culture, spiritual foundations and moral foundations. At the present stage, a clear vision of the common goal of educating and developing a growing person through art is necessary, an understanding that children's literature is the core of the formation of a person with a “hearty mind” and an “intelligent heart.”

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The literature of Ancient Rus' has one interesting feature: there are no children in it. At all. At all. Like class.

Publishers of the 90s somehow published the collection “Old Russian Children’s Literature”, which began - no more, no less - with Vladimir Monomakh’s “Teachings to Children”. Only now, it seems to me that the compiler of this little book of “Teachings” did not read and did not bother to look into the history of its creation. Because numerous passages of the prince like: “Truly, my children, understand that God, the lover of mankind, is merciful and merciful”; “And this, my children, is not a difficult commandment of God, how by these three deeds you can get rid of your sins and not lose the kingdom of heaven,” - they were clearly not addressed to babies. And because the information that has reached us about the prince himself clearly proves: no matter what specific year he wrote his teaching, his sons were by that time adults and reigned in their own fiefs.

So, ancient Russian literature is “childless”. And the point is not that the ancient Russians for some reason were born immediately as adults. There were children in Rus', and they were quite ordinary. For example, drawings from birch bark letters of the Novgorod boy Onfim, who lived in the 13th century, have survived to this day. If it were not for the peculiar writing material, it is quite possible to mistake them for the “art” of a modern schoolchild. It's all about how ancient Russian authors imagined childhood.

Around the 17th century - the time when the outstanding Czech teacher Jan Amos Comenius lived - European culture did not consider childhood to be anything special at all. In the first few years of life, the child was considered a “baby” and there was no demand from him. The basis of children's education at this time was made up of the same genres that served in ancient times to entertain a fully grown adult - folk tales, nursery rhymes, sayings.

With the onset of adolescence, the child was already perceived as a “premature adult” who needed to be quickly introduced into the circle of responsibilities, prohibitions and norms of his class.

The unique episodes of The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk, which tell about the conflict between the young saint and his mother, are devoted to such “prohibitive” measures. Theodosius, we recall, early began to show a penchant for asceticism - he baked prosphora, dressed in shabby clothes, wore chains under his clothes - with all this causing the vigorously expressed displeasure of his parent, who twice forcibly returned home the rebellious child who was trying to escape to the monastery.

And yet, here we have a conflict that is not “child-adult”, but rather class-based. The saint's mother, the widow of a wealthy merchant, sincerely does not understand where her son is so drawn, who stubbornly strives, as she believes, to violate the honor of the family. As the same “Life of Theodosius” testifies, monks in Kievan Rus were sometimes not greatly favored, being considered parasites and slackers. But this is a separate conversation. We will return to the children.

In general, the Old Russian word “youth” is quite curious, since it can mean both a growing boy and a prince’s servant. The compiler of Domostroi, it seems, perceived the “youths” in the same set of roles, for whom it did not make much difference “to send a servant or a son.”

Such are they - the “sons” of Ancient Rus', to a certain extent, subordinate to their fathers until their death; after that, fathers were replaced by older brothers, and only by finally finding themselves at the head of a large family could a person finally feel like an adult.

After this, is it any wonder that ancient Russian authors, in principle, remembered “children” in connection with two subjects - the teachings and parables of the prodigal son. Episodes of the “Life of Sergius of Radonezh” and prefaces in printed primers of the 17th century are devoted to the first. For the second - several everyday stories.

It was no coincidence that the 17th century, with its many social ups and downs, was the time when “prodigal sons” went for a walk through the pages of ancient Russian stories. However, by and large, both the nameless fellow from “The Tale of Misfortune”, and Savva Grudtsyn, and the nameless merchant from “The Tale of the Merchant Who Bought a Dead Body” again solve problems that are not at all childish.

The historical vicissitudes of the “rebellious century” greatly undermined the ancient Russian ideas about a once and for all given way of life, the impenetrability of classes - about everything that made up the usual circle of life of the ancient Russians. At the beginning of the century, Russia experienced the Time of Troubles and accomplished something hitherto unprecedented by choosing a new king. Further life with its wars, riots, crop failures and church schism did not become calmer. Observing all this, thousands of people left their homes and began to look for income and better occupations.

However, as often happens, what had already happened in society was interpreted after the fact - so the “wrong heroes” went for a walk through ancient Russian stories, actively embarrassed by their strange doubles.

It is interesting that their attempts to build their own lives, contrary to the established way of life, became more and more successful from decade to decade.

In the 1650s, parents teach the unlucky young man to preserve the property and honor acquired by the family: “Don’t be fooled by the heads of the taverns, so that they don’t take away the port from you, so that there is no reproach and diarrhea for the idle.” Then, after the first ruin, good people again teach him how to gain public respect: “submit to friend and foe, bow to old and young.” The fine fellow himself, submitting to an incomprehensible Grief, returns again and again to the tavern, where, in the end, he seems to have fully grasped the strange thesis that the most stable thing is precisely poverty: “They do not torture the naked, barefoot, and from heaven the naked they won’t kick you out barefoot, and they won’t let you out of the world.”

In the 1660s, Savva Grudtsyn, who left home, without knowing it, entered into an agreement with the demon. However, before he repents, he will wander around Rus' to his heart's content and manage to become a military hero. Both heroes will end their lives quite “in the old Russian way” - in a monastery.

But in the 1690s, an unknown merchant who went on a trip ends up marrying the Tsar’s daughter quite fabulously. Thus, gradually, in the popular consciousness, those ideas about the importance of service, travel and career, which at the beginning of the 18th century formed the basis of Peter’s reforms, took shape.

Yes, and one real children's book with pictures finally appeared in Ancient Rus'. In 1693, Karion Istomin presented the sisters of Peter I with an illustrated primer.

They said with respect about a literate, well-read person: “He is able (or cunning) to speak in books.” This was perhaps the highest praise. A literate person was the most “honest” among others (that is, authoritative, respected).

Books were passed down as treasures from generation to generation, mentioned in wills, and given as gifts on the day of coming of age.

Concern for education was dictated by the attentive and affectionate attitude towards children that was required from teachers when communicating with them during training.

Books were considered especially useful for children, when the “kindly and highly child-like mind” is able to quickly perceive and firmly remember everything new. Therefore, a children's book was compared to mother's milk, a necessary and highly digestible child, a key that opens doors to the treasuries of wisdom and wealth, with a ladder leading to the heights of education, to honor and glory.

Learn from your youth so as not to cry in old age” - similar sayings are found in almost every children's book. Therefore, it is clear that in Ancient Rus', parents and teachers tried to ensure that children taught to read and write were as well-read as possible.

Children's interests in Rus' included historical legends about extraordinary events of the past, which were most often passed down orally from generation to generation. Among such historical works can be called “The Tale of Bygone Years,” which paints vivid images of Russian princes, depicts important historical events with a special sense of patriotism and pride in the Russian land. Under the title “Russian Chronicle for Initial Reading,” “The Tale of Bygone Years” was published in 1847 in the children’s magazine “New Library for Education” in an excellent retelling by the famous Russian historian S.M. Solovyova.

Among other books of that time, the teachings deserved great confidence from the young reader. Compared to other books, they were distinguished by lyrical warmth, more accessible, lively language and a natural form of presentation. Often they included direct appeals to children.

In the first quarter of the 12th century, the oldest original Russian work of this genre was created, written by Vladimir Monomakh and addressed to everyone who would read or listen, as the author wrote, “this literacy.”

The outstanding statesman of Kievan Rus set out in it a unique moral code of his time, distinguished by broad state views, nobility, courage, and respectful attitude towards people.

Russian chroniclers called Vladimir Monomakh II a sufferer for his native land, a great patriot who, “like letting out the rays of the sun,” courageously protected and affectionately illuminated it. Addressing the younger generation, he calls for the fight for the Motherland, “without sparing your belly, without sparing your head,” to strive “for all good deeds” in its name, “fearing death... not being afraid, neither of the army, nor of the beast, but it’s a man’s job to create.

Another feature of the “Teaching” is the author’s interest in nature, an enthusiastic attitude towards it, the ability to observe, think about life, about man and about everything in the world.

Vladimir Monomakh encourages his readers to work forever, both at home and on campaigns and in war. “May the sun not find you in bed!” - he bequeaths to the youth. Asks readers to help the poor, needy, orphans and widows, and to be friendly with everyone. “Don’t let the strong destroy a person!” - the author calls.

The brightness and figurativeness of the language, the richness of the content, the cordial, friendly attitude towards people, the clarity of thoughts, the brevity and accessibility of the presentation could not help but attract the attention of young people to this work.

The most popular in Ancient Rus' were hagiographies, which were diligently reproduced, read, and became part of the interests of children. They were widespread not only in the 10th - 18th centuries, but also much later.

The main goal of hagiographic literature was to create an image endowed with all the virtues. Humility, meekness, piety, submission to fate, abstinence in everything and other Christian virtues are fully emphasized and glorified in it. The most famous and widely read lives in Rus' are “The Tale of Boris and Gleb”, “The Life of Theodosius of Pechersk”, “The Life of Alexander Nevsky”, “The Life of Sergius of Radonezh”, “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom”

Russian literature has the same ancient history as Russia itself. Over the centuries, so many interesting books have been created! And many stories, poems, and fairy tales are written specifically for children.

Reading the works of my favorite authors, I thought about how they lived, who they were as children, what they were interested in, what they read, in what families they grew up, when they discovered their talent and what moments in their lives influenced them to become so great. I decided to find information about the biography of authors who wrote very interesting poems, stories and fairy tales for us. I also wanted to look into the past and find out what children read in ancient Rus' and who composed works for them.

We read and memorize works that were written for us by writers of different times with great pleasure even now. They become our faithful friends from childhood and we keep our love for them in our hearts for the rest of our lives. And without delay, I began a journey through the pages of my favorite children's literature. I began my work by compiling a timeline on which I reflected the centuries (Appendix 1) in which I would make my stops.

My encyclopedias and educational books that I borrowed from the library helped me in studying this topic. The most difficult thing was to choose writers whose biography I would study, because I really like to read different works: poetry, funny stories, fairy tales, fables and much more. It is impossible to put so much information into one work, but I was very interested in the topic of the history of Russian literature, so in the future I am going to continue studying it. The world of Russian literature is very diverse and great. It is not without reason that the books of Russian writers and poets are known and read not only in Russia, but also in different countries of the world.

1. First stop: How did Slavic book culture begin?

Starting my journey, I would like to dwell a little on its origins. The beginning of Slavic book culture was laid by the brothers Cyril and Methodius.

In the 9th century, Greek monks created the Slavic alphabet, which later received the name >, after one of the brothers. They translated the Gospel from Greek into Slavic - a book that tells about the life of Jesus Christ. The alphabet that Cyril and Methodius invented was convenient for people because it was close to spoken language. The first Slavic alphabet had 43 letters, and then their number was reduced.

The history of children's literature was still far away, but its most important tradition - the pursuit of a high teacher's goal - was laid down during the formation of pan-Slavic written culture. In memory of the great deed of Cyril and Methodius, there is a monument on Slavyanskaya Square in Moscow, and every year on March 24 the Day of Slavic Literature is celebrated.

2. Second stop: Children's writers and books in Ancient Rus'

The alphabet appeared, and then books. What were the first books, who wrote them and created them, what did children read in ancient Rus'? I want to answer all these questions by looking into the history of ancient Russian children's literature.

In Ancient Rus', the first books were written by hand on sheets of parchment - well-dressed calfskin. Then such sheets were sewn into a book and a beautiful binding was made for it. Handwritten books were very expensive. Not everyone could read them, because reading and writing had to be studied in special monastery schools. Ordinary people could not afford it. In the 16th century, Ivan Fedorov created the first printing press in Russia. First he printed a church book >. This book was printed for almost a year, it turned out very beautiful, with drawings and patterns. And then he published the first Slavic > and several more books. After this invention, the number of people who could read and write in Russia increased significantly.

The entire history of ancient Russian children's literature can be divided into four periods:

:: 15-16 centuries - the first educational works appeared

:: Late 16th and early 17th centuries - 15 printed books for children were published

:: Beginning of the 17th century - the beginning of poetry

:: The end of the 17th century - the formation of different genres and types of children's literature.

The works of Savvaty, Simeon of Polotsk and Karion Istomin made a particularly great contribution to the development of children's literature.

The very first children's poet in Rus' should be considered the director of the Moscow Printing House, Savvaty. The reference book was responsible for the content and literacy of the book. Therefore, the most educated people were appointed to this position. Currently, more than ten poems by Savvaty are known, written by him specifically for children. Among them is the first poem placed in the alphabet. It consists of 34 lines. In the poem, he simply, warmly and clearly told the children about the book, praised literacy, and gave various tips on how to learn to read.

He believed that there was nothing more valuable in the world than literacy and the best time for learning was childhood.

The most important poet of the 17th century. was Simeon of Polotsk. He was born in Polotsk, where he received his primary education. After receiving higher education, he became a teacher in his hometown. At the invitation of the Russian Tsar, he moved to Moscow, where he opened a school. Simeon of Polotsk was appointed teacher of the royal children. Over the 16 years of his life in Moscow, he wrote or prepared for publication 14 books, half of which were children's books. Under the auspices of the poet Simeon of Polotsk, two books were published for children's reading - >, containing various rules of life and wise advice, and also >, which was of an adventure nature.

He took part in the creation of the primer of 1664. He also compiled the entire primer of the 1679 edition.

Being a teacher by profession and an outstanding poet of his time, Simeon of Polotsk made a significant contribution to the creation of literature for children.

The first Russian writer and poet whose work was entirely dedicated to children was Karion Istomin. Information about his life is very scarce. He was born in Kursk, where he received his primary education. Not later he arrived in Moscow. In Moscow, Istomin graduated from the Typographic School and at one time studied with Simeon of Polotsk. Then he began working at the Printing Yard, first as a scribe, then as a clerk. Subsequently, he became the head of the Printing House. In all his works, Karion Istomin glorified science, enlightenment, and books. He believed that everyone should study: children of all classes, boys and girls, people of all nationalities. During Karion Istomin’s lifetime, three of his books for children and a complete set of textbooks were published. The greatest fame was brought to Istomin by the Face Primer, published in 1694.

Each letter was given a separate page. At the top, different spellings of the letters were given. A third of the page was occupied by drawings of objects whose names began with it. In terms of its design, the Face Primer was the most luxurious book published in the 17th century. And later such books were not published. In addition, he wrote more than ten books of poetry. His book for children was also published. However, the writer believed that science is useful only to those who are distinguished by morality and nobility, while for others it can only bring harm. He tried to instill in children humane, noble feelings and love for Russia.

Traveling through the pages of ancient Russian children's literature turned out to be a very exciting experience. I learned a lot from the history of the book. It was especially interesting to learn about the first primers created for children.

3. Third stop: In the footsteps of my favorite writers.

Many writers and poets have contributed to children's literature. As I continue my fascinating journey, I would like to dwell on the childhood biography of the authors of my favorite works. After all, studying biography is no less exciting than reading their works.

3. 1. Little genius A. S. Pushkin

I began my journey in the footsteps of my favorite writers with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (1799 - 1837) - the great Russian poet, creator of works of unsurpassed beauty. His works can and should be read throughout your life! Read when you're sad. Read when you feel good. Read in childhood and old age. He is considered the founder of Russian literature. But every > also begins somewhere? When Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was little and guests came to his father, he always liked to hide behind a chair. And the guests of Pushkin’s father were famous writers. They read their own and other people's poems aloud and discussed new books. And Pushkin, hiding behind a large chair, listened to their every word - these conversations were very interesting to him. The parents were sure that in the evenings after his father’s guests left, the son immediately fell asleep. But in fact, for a long time, Pushkin, lying in bed, remembered adult conversations, jokes, as well as poems that the guests read and composed his own lines. These lines stirred his soul, he repeated them over and over again, and he so wanted to immediately write them down on paper! He just didn’t know how to write yet. Finally, his parents took him a French tutor. He was the first to discover little Pushkin’s notebook with poems and plays. But, most likely, this was not the first notebook. Therefore, no one knows exactly when Pushkin began to compose poetry. Literary scholars even argue in what language these poems were spoken - Russian or French. Some lines could be read until the end of the 19th century on the birch trees that grew on my grandmother’s estate, because little Pushkin covered many birch trees with his poems in my grandmother’s park.

Pushkin had a nanny whose name was Arina Rodionovna. In the evenings, she sang lullabies to him and his older sister Olga, played pats with them during the day, and also knew many funny stories, counting rhymes and fairy tales. And soon little Pushkin also repeated them by heart. And decades later I remembered and wrote fairy tales myself, which every Russian child has known since then. Alexander Sergeevich’s main friends in childhood were books. Luckily his father had a lot of them. Over the course of several years, he read the entire library.

When Alexander Sergeevich turned 12 years old, the Lyceum was opened for children from respected noble families. He was placed near St. Petersburg, in Tsarskoe Selo. Pushkin's uncle helped enroll his nephew in a new educational institution. The entrance exam was administered by the Minister of Public Education himself. After successfully passing the exams, a new life opened up for Pushkin; he was solemnly ordained a lyceum student. Six years have passed since then, and Pushkin has turned into a young man whose poems he read with pleasure and passed on to the whole of St. Petersburg. On June 9, 1816, the lyceum students were gathered in the assembly hall for the last time. The king gave a solemn speech to them. The final exams were passed, things were packed, and they left for their families. A few days later they were appointed to the civil service. Pushkin dreamed of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and his dream came true.

In 1837, Russia lost its great poet. Alexander Sergeevich died defending the honor of his wife, who was one of the most beautiful women in St. Petersburg. But the memory of the great Russian writer and poet has been preserved in the hearts of the Russian people to this day. He wrote many poems and magical children's fairy tales, in which > an old man and an old woman live, the smart Balda defeats all evil spirits, and Prince Elisha gallops through the mountains and valleys in search of his beloved. I realized that these wonderful stories are similar to those folk tales that his nanny told little Pushkin.

I believe that Pushkin became a poet of genius simply because he was born that way. And there was no other such poet in Rus' before! Never. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin showed the world how rich the Russian language is. Great Russian literature began with him. That's why contemporaries call it >.

3. 2. Master of fables I. A. Krylov

Not long ago I started reading fables. I read one first, and then I wanted to read a few more. They became interesting to me because they seemed to talk about animals, but in fact they were about people. And I decided to find out about the childhood moments of the great fabulist. When Ivan Andreevich Krylov (1769-1844) was little, no one, of course, had any idea that a monument would be erected to him in the very center of the northern capital, in the city of St. Petersburg, in the middle of the summer garden. And around the bronze fabulist the sculptor will place the same bronze monkey, donkey, lamb, crow, fox and other heroes of famous fables.

Ivan Krylov's father, a simple soldier, managed to become an officer. From morning to evening on the parade ground, on a trampled earthen platform, he taught young soldiers military techniques. Once an uprising began, Father Andrei Prokhorovich Krylov was given the rank of captain and sent to war. He put his wife and son in a covered cart and went to war. Ivan Krylov was a brave boy and was not afraid of anything. One day he went out into the yard and they started shooting at him from cannons; a huge cast-iron cannonball fell from the sky at his feet. He was not at all afraid of this bombing. Many years later, the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin asked old Krylov for a long time about how he lived in a besieged city as a child. And Krylov gladly told him about himself and about the exploits of his father.

Although Ivan Krylov’s father did not study various wisdom, he loved books very much and carried them from place to place in a huge chest. In his free time, he took out a large copper key, opened the chest and took out heavy books bound in worn leather. Andrei Prokhorovich showed little Krylov just a few times how to put letters into words, and his son immediately learned to read. From this chest, little Krylov most liked to read one book, which was called Aesop's fables. He even learned many fables by heart and gladly told them either to his mother or to his grandmother Matryona, because both of them barely knew how to read. His mother, although not very literate, but wise, after listening to her son’s fables, realized that it was time to think about his education. And his father decided to send him to the house of a wealthy landowner Lvov, who had two boys, and they had recently been assigned a tutor from France. The teacher taught him good manners, French, as well as mathematics, geography, history and other wisdom. Krylov made progress in every science, and especially in mathematics!

One day, when little Krylov was walking home from class, he saw an old man in shabby clothes standing at the market gates, playing sad melodies on the violin. Ivan really liked his music, and he began to listen to it every day. On one of these days they met; the old man’s name was Signor Luigi. Since then, Ivan Krylov began to come to the violinist every day with a treat, and he taught the boy to play the violin. His father gave him an old violin and his son often played at home for his mother, grandmother and younger brother, who was recently born.

But his father suddenly fell ill and died. Little Krylov and his mother wrote a petition to St. Petersburg so that their family could be given a pension. But the answer did not come, and there was nothing to live on. Ivan Krylov was only eleven years old, and he already had to join the chancellery. Since then, his younger brother began to call young Ivan Andreevich “daddy”.

One day, Moscow artists came to visit them in Tver. Ivan Andreevich had never been to the theater before. The whole city gathered for the performance. Krylov got a place in the back rows. After the performance, he was in no hurry to go home, but wandered for a long time through the dark streets, again experiencing what the artists had shown. His heart beat like a bell and at that moment he saw his whole future life. And then he said to himself > At that time, he had been writing poetry for a long time, but there was no one to read them except his mother and grandmother. At the age of twelve he composed his first comedy.

Soon he moved to St. Petersburg and his dreams began to come true little by little. He managed to get a job in the government chamber. Ivan Krylov went to theaters, met with artists, writers of plays and poems, and continued to compose new plays.

He began writing fables as an adult. All of Russia knew them by heart. His fables were read in the royal palace, at final exams and in a simple village house. Ivan Andreevich became the first writer in Rus' whom all the people recognized and loved. During his time, the first public library was created in Russia, which Krylov opened together with his friends.

He became one of the most educated people in Russia. Without knowledge, without understanding human nature, he would not have been able to write his brilliant fables: >, >, >, >, >, >, >, >, > and others. Many of them were known by heart by the entire Russian people; they teach us to live and lines, from which already during his lifetime they became proverbs and sayings. We all know well the famous catchphrases from I. A. Krylov’s fables, such as >, >, >, >, >, >, > and many others.

I was surprised that Ivan Andreevich Krylov wrote not only fables, but also various serious plays: comedies and tragedies. Despite his difficult life, this man did not lose his sense of humor and lived this life with a smile.

3. 3. The great Russian writer L. N. Tolstoy

Another one of the greatest writers of Russia, the works of whom I really loved, and about whom I decided to write in my work, is Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910). He is a great Russian writer, a symbol of Russian classical literature. Born in the Yasnaya Polyana estate, Tula province. The future writer was lucky to be born into a noble family; from birth, Leo had the title of count. In his memoirs, Tolstoy calls his childhood nothing other than >. Tolstoy was the fourth child in a large noble family. His mother was born Princess Volkonskaya. Unfortunately, she died when Tolstoy was not yet two years old, but according to the stories of family members, he remembered well >. Tolstoy knew many family stories about his mother. Her image was filled with the brightest feelings for him. Some of the mother's traits were reflected in Tolstoy's favorite heroines. Tolstoy's father, a participant in the Patriotic War, was remembered by the future writer for his good-natured and mocking character, his love of reading and hunting. For Tolstoy the child, his father was the embodiment of beauty and strength. From him he inherited a passion for hound hunting. Unfortunately, Tolstoy’s father also passed away early.

Tolstoy also had warm and touching memories of his childhood with his older brother Nikolenka. Nikolenka taught little Levushka unusual games, told him and his other brothers stories about universal human happiness.

A distant relative, who had a huge influence on Tolstoy, was involved in raising the children. Childhood memories forever remained the most joyful for Tolstoy. His childhood was emotionally rich, full of lively communication with different people: parents, teachers, servants, peasants. His sensitive heart absorbed everything - family legends and first impressions of the life of a noble estate. All this is reflected in his works.

At the age of 16, Tolstoy moved to Kazan and entered the Faculty of Philosophy at Kazan University. Soon Lev transferred to the Faculty of Law, but never graduated. After this, he returned to his estate, Yasnaya Polyana, with the intention of continuing his studies there on his own, in order to later pass exams as an external student.

However, Tolstoy’s interests during that period often changed dramatically: at times he continued his studies and took exams at the institute, then abandoned his studies and began studying music, and sometimes even thought about joining the Horse Guards regiment. Around the same period, the first artistic sketches and the desire to write prose appeared.

Without completing his studies, Tolstoy went to Moscow, and soon, following the example of his older brother Nikolai, he left for the Caucasus to join the active army. He took part in the Crimean War and was awarded the Order of Anna and medals for his bravery. These periods of his life are reflected in famous stories.

Soon after returning to Yasnaya Polyana, Lev Nikolaevich opened several schools in the surrounding villages for peasant children.

He taught the children history and gave them topics for essays. Also there he wrote articles on education, published a pedagogical magazine, as a supplement to which children's books for reading were also published. Soon he created the prototype of a modern primer - ABC (named after the first letters of the Old Russian alphabet > and >) and several >, for which he specially wrote stories, fairy tales, and fables. It was Tolstoy who contributed to the development of literacy and education among the common people, who did not have access to gymnasiums and paid teachers. The writer himself spent almost all of this time in Yasnaya Polyana and continued to teach rural children to read and write.

Tolstoy's works are classics of children's reading. In his works he used humor, excellent, expressive Russian language, classical simplicity of style and clarity of thought. That is why each of us will forever remember the boy who secretly ate a plum (>), and the important funny kid who came to school to study (>), the fairy tale >, as well as the stories >, > and others.

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy forever remembered the story about >, which his older brother Nikolai told him in childhood: if you find this magic wand, people will become happy and unite into a special >. Without hiding the harsh truth of life from children, the great writer wanted the dream to continue to glimmer in their souls, and the search to continue >.

I was very touched by the fact that, having a count title and noble origin, L.N. Tolstoy did not forget about children from poor peasant families, whom he really wanted to help become educated people.

The world of classical literature writers is very interesting; children not only in our country know their names, and their works are interesting to read at any age.

Conclusion.

Concluding my journey through the fascinating world of Russian literature, I want to conclude that for me this work was very exciting and useful. I looked into the times when the alphabet was created and found out how it came to be. On the pages of ancient children's literature, I learned about what the first children's books were like, who wrote them, and what the first primers were like. Traveling through the pages of my favorite writers, I was very interested in learning about their childhood, how they lived, and what helped them become such great, educated people that we are now proud of. It became clear to me that childhood leaves its mark on a person’s life. Our future life greatly depends on what happens to us in childhood.

I realized that my favorite writers were united by one most important thing - they all loved to read as children, books were their best friends. They all loved to study and learn many new unknown sciences. A. S. Pushkin was read a lot and told fairy tales and interesting stories by his beloved nanny. And he, remembering these wonderful lines, as an adult, composed his own, now our favorite, poems and fairy tales. I. A. Krylov loved to look at his father’s books as a child, and later read them. His favorite book was Aesop's fables. Therefore, in his adult life, he often recalled the stories he had read and composed his own fables. L.N. Tolstoy had a difficult childhood; he transferred his bright memories of his parents and brothers to the pages of his works. I was very interested in learning a little about the history of Russian literature.

In the future, I want to continue my journey and look into the world of modern literature. I also have many favorite stories in it, the authors of which I also respect very much.