Ben Hellman. Fairy tale and true story: History of Russian children's literature

On February 17, 1918, an article entitled “Forgotten Weapons” appeared in the Pravda newspaper. Only three months have passed since the Bolsheviks took power, but they have already begun to rebuild society according to socialist models. The turn of children's literature has come. The tone was set by Lenin, who stated that “it is necessary that the whole matter of upbringing, education and teaching of modern youth should be the inculcation in them of communist morality.” In “The Forgotten Weapon,” L. Helmsman, a minor children's writer who decided to join the winners, proclaimed children's literature to be the most important ally in the creation of a new person. Literature is a weapon that should not fall into the hands of the class enemy, the bourgeoisie. The task of the state is to free the genre from “poison, dirt and garbage” and provide children with more suitable literature.

Eliminating unwanted literature was not that difficult. Immediately after the October Revolution, censorship was introduced, and already in 1918, most non-Bolshevik publishing houses, newspapers and magazines began to gradually close. many leading writers, fearing restrictions on freedom of thought and speech, chose to emigrate.

Creating a new type of literature proved more difficult. First of all, it was necessary to increase the ranks of readers - the time had come to combat illiteracy and compulsory schooling. Significant success was achieved in this area: in 1897, the proportion of the Russian population who could read and write did not exceed 28%, and by 1926 it reached 57%. In 1939, official statistics reported 87% of the population was literate. With the elimination of illiteracy and the development of a network of libraries, a large market for children's and youth literature emerged.

Maxim Gorky turned out to be an energetic and influential ally of the Bolshevik Party. He became interested in children's literature long before the revolution. During the First World War, he created a program for the children's section of the Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) Parus publishing house. The plan included creating a series of fictionalized biographies of remarkable people from various historical eras. For young minds, the cruelties of war had to be contrasted with the image of man as a creator and bearer of culture.

At the height of the war, only a small fraction of Gorky’s plans were realized, but by 1918 the situation had changed. Cultural life was centralized, and the new rulers wanted to distribute high-quality literature among the people. Gorky turned out to be a central figure in the project to create a state-controlled publishing house, World Literature. In December 1918, he compiled a memo for another publishing house, Russian Literature, concerning literature for young people. He proposed distributing the works of Russian classics in special editions for school libraries. As a result, in World Literature, it was the classics that predominated in publications for libraries, while many authors from the recent past of Russian children's literature, despite their wide popularity, were firmly excluded from publishing plans.

In 1921, Gorky actively participated in the publishing project of his friend Zinovy ​​Grzhebin, creating a list of publications planned in the children's department. The list was based on folk tales and epics; they were supposed to introduce children from 5 to 9 years old to ancient mythology, Icelandic sagas and Kalevala. Then came the tales of the 19th century - by Alexander Pushkin, Pyotr Ershov, Sergei Aksakov, Wilhelm Hauff and Hans Christian Andersen; classics of adult literature - James Fenimore Cooper, Mine Reed, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain, who have long been loved by Russian readers. It was necessary to provide the young reader with books full of high ideals, inspiring faith in the greatness of man and his unlimited possibilities. We needed stories about “knights of the spirit”, fighters for truth and those who died for the revolutionary cause. Optimism and heroism were considered the main human qualities. In fact, Gorky’s program back in 1921 contained the core of socialist realism - the dogma that he promoted in the 1930s.

Gorky became the editor of the first Soviet children's magazine, Northern Lights, which was published in Petrograd in 1919-1920. The initiative came from the People's Commissariat of Education, which sought to create an official communist replacement for the closed bourgeois magazines. The publication was intended for children from nine to twelve years old.

The first issue of Northern Lights published the article “A Word to the Adults,” Gorky’s policy statement. The purpose of the magazine is to awaken in the reader “a spirit of activity, interest and respect for the power of the mind, for the search for science, for the great task of art - to make a person strong and beautiful.” The ideological purpose of children's literature was also openly discussed. Later, in 1933, Gorky spoke even more frankly: “In our country, to educate means to revolutionize.”

“Northern Lights” was primarily aimed at the children of the proletariat. Their environment was the city, the cradle of the new, Soviet life. Under the heading “Club of the Curious,” notes about science, technology and new inventions were published. Children were told about the hard life of people before the revolution and about the victory of socialism. Among the articles there were headlines like “What can the masses do?” and “The value of work.”

The artistic level of “Northern Lights” was low, although many famous writers and artists took part in its creation. Gray social realism prevailed in prose, poetry resembled newspaper slogans. The heroes of the works were representatives of the working class and the Red Army. In one of the typical stories of that time, a little girl learns that her father, who died in the Civil War, gave his life for a comrade. Even Gorky could not improve the quality of the magazine. In the story “Yashka” (1919), the main character, who during his short life only suffered hardships, dies and goes to heaven. But he does not want a posthumous reward in heaven and returns to earth to fight for a better life. In the Soviet Union, this story was singled out as the first anti-religious essay for children.

“Northern Lights” was born in difficult conditions. The civil war was not over yet, famine reigned in Petrograd, and even the most basic things were lacking. Due to problems with distribution, the magazine was sold without a subscription, and editors were hesitant to publish continued materials. Eventually, a shortage of paper led to the magazine's closure in 1920, when circulation had already reached 1,200 copies.

In 1921, to get rid of the devastation caused by the Civil War, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy (NEP). This was a step back towards the partial restoration of capitalism in the form of small business, although, admittedly, in a limited form. Control over cultural life also weakened somewhat: private and cooperative publishing houses and magazines with an independent publishing policy were opened. As a result, a new generation of writers emerged, turning the 1920s into one of the most interesting decades in the history of Russian children's literature.

At first, the prospects for children's literature were not promising. 1921 was a year of deep crisis. Gorky, the driving force of the literary process, left the country for many years. The number of publications decreased sharply, with only thirty-three books and two magazines for children published that year. Discussions about children's literature have revealed sharp and serious contradictions. Also in 1921, a large congress was convened dedicated to the problems of children's reading, where the connection between children's literature and politics was discussed. One group of writers, teachers, and librarians believed that writers should avoid ideological issues and instead deal with universal human conflicts and feelings. Among the 162 delegates there was also a communist faction, which demanded that literature directly prepare children for the creation of a new world already under construction.

Another topic was the attitude towards literary heritage. As in adult literature, there were radical voices demanding to get rid of all pre-revolutionary literature. The moderate line was stronger, but in children's literature the process of renewal still turned out to be more consistent than in adult literature. By the 1920s, reformers managed to get rid of three-quarters of the names and titles from the list of pre-revolutionary writers and their works. From the old literature, only those works remained that were perceived as criticism of the tsarist regime.

New centers of literary life began to emerge in Petrograd - a group of young and talented writers gathered around the Raduga publishing house and the Children's Literature Studio. In just a few years, this group was able to bring the genre of children's literature to the international level.

It all started with the literary critic Korney Chukovsky’s attempt to find a publisher willing to publish the children’s poems he had written. Since there was no overt political content in these poems and state publishing houses were still struggling with high prices and paper shortages, Chukovsky did not succeed. The private sector extended a helping hand - journalist Lev Klyachko (1873-1934), who founded the Raduga publishing house, specializing in children's literature. The first to be published in 1922 were two small books by Chukovsky. although the circulation did not exceed 7,000 copies, for that time this was a lot.

"Rainbow" soon became a center of attraction for new writers. On the recommendation of Chukovsky, promising children's writer Samuil Marshak was appointed editor-in-chief. The publishing house mainly published small volumes of poetry by these two talented authors, Chukovsky and Marshak, as well as works by Vitaly Bianki, Agnia Barto, Boris Zhitkov and Vera Inber. Much attention was paid to design and illustrations - such wonderful artists as Vladimir Konashevich, Sergei Chekhonin, Yuri Annenkov, Boris Kustodiev, Konstantin Rudakov, Vladimir Lebedev and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin collaborated with the publishing house.

"Rainbow" became one of the largest private publishing houses in Soviet Russia in the twenties. Over a hundred books were published per year. One of the last publications was “Orchestra” by Yuri Vladimirov, published in 1929 with a circulation of 30,000 copies. By this time, the NEP had already ended, and private publishing houses had to close again, as had happened ten years earlier. Rainbow formally ceased to exist in 1930. It is clear that there were more than just economic reasons behind the closure of the publishing house. An article about him in one Soviet encyclopedia in 1982 sounds like an epitaph: “The publishing house did not have close enough contact with the People’s Commissariat for Education, some publications of Raduga were apolitical, far from the pressing issues of our time.” At that time, it was the People's Commissariat of Education that took responsibility for children's literature.

In 1920, the Commissariat of Education founded the Institute of Children's Reading in Moscow under the leadership of Anna Pokrovskaya (1879–1972) and Nikolai Chekhov, a leading expert on children's literature in pre-revolutionary Russia. The institute became a research center engaged in the theoretical study of children's literature, the psychology of the reader, the creation of bibliographic resources and cooperation with children's publishing houses. A library was formed at the institute, and the magazine “New Children's Books” (1923-1928) was published, later renamed and called “Book for Children” (1928-1930). The very first issue of New Children's Books shows the complete political naivety of the editorial board. In the spirit of pre-revolutionary literary criticism, the magazine reflected the perception of new children's books by the readership - the children themselves. For example, “Children's Island” by Sasha Cherny was read in 1921 by 178 children aged eight to fourteen years. Of these, ten read the book themselves, and their immediate comments and reflections on the book were carefully recorded. Most of all, however, the children liked “Moidodyr” and “Cockroach” by Chukovsky, published in 1923. Humor, play of imagination and illustrations - the children received considerable pleasure from all this.

In 1923, the Institute of Children's Reading became part of the Institute of Methods of Extracurricular Work. This administrative decision ultimately virtually destroyed his work. The institute existed in very difficult conditions, mainly due to the enthusiasm of its employees. There was almost no official assistance, since the institute dealt mostly with pre-revolutionary literature, which, it seemed, was not at all connected with today's life. N. Chekhov had a different opinion: in order to understand the modern situation, you need to know the roots of children's literature, authors and works of previous eras, traditional genres and theoretical discussions.

A congress was held in Petrograd in 1921, in which about 300 people participated. In his speech, Chekhov outlined a plan for methodological research into Russian children's literature. The result appeared by the end of the decade in the form of “Materials on the history of Russian children's literature 1750-1855” (1927-1929). This two-volume volume includes a historical overview, chapters on ten prominent authors, and a bibliography of Russian children's literature from the mid-18th to the mid-19th centuries.

Very soon the situation at the institute became so complicated that it practically ceased to exist. “It has become an almost illegal institution,” Korney Chukovsky wrote in his diary in 1927 after a conversation with Anna Pokrovskaya. The work of the institute continued on a more modest level at the Museum of Children's Literature in Moscow. The museum, which became an independent institution in 1934, was headed by teacher and poet Yakov Meksin (1886-1943). In the fall of 1937, he made a presentation at a conference proposing a plan for the future development of the museum. Almost immediately after this, he was arrested and the museum was closed. Meksin died in the Gulag, and the museum's collection, containing about 70,000 books, was lost forever.

The first Soviet children's library was opened in Petrograd at the Institute of Preschool Education. In 1922, this library became a meeting place for a literary circle - the Children's Literature Studio. Under the leadership of Marshak and folklore researcher Olga Kapitsa, the circle established close contacts with teachers and children's writers. We studied folklore from different countries and classical children's literature, and discussed new Russian books. Marshak invited such writers from Rainbow as Bianchi and Zhitkov to the studio; it was there that Evgeny Schwartz and the artist Evgeny Charushin took their first steps in the genre of children's literature. The studio is rightfully considered the cradle of Soviet children's literature.

Very soon the studio acquired its own magazine. At first it was called “Sparrow” (1923-1924), then, at the insistence of Marshak, it was renamed. The title "New Robinson" (1924-1925) was more suitable to the Soviet regime's demand for complete change. Even if the magazine is “only a small hammer among tens of thousands of huge working hammers forging a new life,” it is still important for the communist education of children.

The magazine was intended for children from eight to twelve years old. These were “children of war and revolution,” who, according to the editorial board, would not be interested in “a fairy tale, fairies, elves and kings.” It was believed that they wanted to become real Soviet citizens and members of the work collective. In the May 1924 issue, the editor-in-chief of The New Robinson, Zlata Lilina (1882-1929), an old Bolshevik who was also the wife of one of the Soviet leaders, Grigory Zinoviev, explained to the children the purpose of history: “With common efforts we will overthrow the power of capital. One more attack, one more blow, and slavery will fall throughout the entire globe.” Portraits and photographs of Lenin appeared regularly in the magazine.

When Marshak joined the editorial staff with his publishing policy, the quality of the magazine increased noticeably. In addition to him, the authors of “New Robinson” were Bianchi, Zhitkov, Schwartz and M. Ilyin. It is necessary to mention that Marshak convinced many adult writers and poets to join the work of the magazine. These were Nikolai Aseev, Nikolai Tikhonov, Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak. Viktor Shklovsky, a literary critic and representative of the formal school, spoke in “Journey to the Land of Cinema” (1925) about the production of American films and life in Hollywood. Bianchi wrote a special column, “Forest Newspaper,” where he described the change of seasons and the life of animals. Boris Zhitkov was in charge of the columns “Wandering Photographer”, “Artisan” and “How People Work”. Popular science materials were published in the column “Laboratory of the “New Robinson”” (it was written by Ilyin). Part of the content of the magazine consisted of humorous poems and jokes, often with ideological implications.

Readers were invited to become children's correspondents. Sometimes child readers were much more radical than the editors, for example, Detkor Zagrebin from the Friedrich Engels detachment proposed banning young pioneers from playing football, a new sports craze. Unsigned article “Down with football!” called for the same. Football players breathe incorrectly, their arm muscles weaken, and worse, the game often leads to injury and even death. The unknown author admired basketball, considering it a more useful sport.

___________________________________

1 Lenin V.I. Tasks of youth unions // Lenin V.I. Complete works: In 55 volumes. Ed. 5th. T. 41. M., 1963. P. 309.

2 Helmsman L. Forgotten weapons. About a children's book // Pravda. February 17, 1918 P. 3.

3 Golubeva O.D. Book publishing house "Parus" (1915-1918) // Book: Research and materials. T. 12. M., 1966. P. 175.

11 “Rainbow” // Book Science: Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1982. P. 434.

12 New children's books. 1923. No. 1. P. 18.

13 New children's books. 1923. No. 2. P. 20-26.

14 Chukovsky K. Diary (1901-1929). M., 1991. P. 426.

15 To our readers // New Robinson. 1924. No. 8. P. 2.

16 Sparrow. 1923. No. 1. P. 3.

17 Lilina Z. May Day - a holiday of labor - a holiday of children // Sparrow. 1924. No. 4. P. 9.

18 New Robinson. 1925. No. 7. P. 19.

19 Down with football! // New Robinson. 1925. No. 11. P. 29-30.

OBSERVER

reviews

Children, be careful!

Ben Hellman. Fairy tale and true story: History of Russian children's literature. Translation from English by Olga Bukhina. - M.: New Literary Review, 2016.

Professor at the University of Helsinki Ben Hellman took on the colossal task of studying Russian literature for children. His research covers almost the entire period of its existence from 1574 to 2010, starting with the first alphabet and ending with the poems of Gregory Oster. This in itself creates a feeling of great gratitude. His field of vision also includes criticism, the activities of children's literary magazines and writers' associations, and in general everything that constitutes literary and near-literary life.

Unfortunately, the work lacks a unified approach to the phenomena under consideration. Some works are subject to detailed philological analysis, others the author speaks about as a critic, others are simply retold or only mentioned. The overall idea is difficult to grasp. In addition, Ben Hellman is an extremely friendly researcher and puts unflattering assessments into the most delicate form. Therefore, let’s try, based on this monograph, to still call things by their proper names.

Firstly, as is clear from the book, despite the presence of certain bright and independent phenomena, our children's literature is predominantly secondary. The most obvious illustration of this is “The Golden Key”, “The Wizard of the Emerald City” and “Tanya Grotter”. This can only be ignored if there is complete isolation, which the Iron Curtain once provided. But even with his presence, the children’s favorite heroes were still Jim Hawkins, Tom Sawyer, Alice and Carlson, and not Pinocchio and Dunno, although they, too, were made up of borrowings. Today, children also prefer the heroes of Rowling, Tolkien and Roald Dahl, who are read at the rate of one book a day. Modern trends continue to be set by Western, rather than domestic, literature, animation and cinema.

But the main sin of Russian literature is, of course, something else: writers too often cared not about children, but about how to turn them into convenient and easily controlled puppets, into creatures with stable reflexes.

Almost the entire body of Soviet literature is hopelessly corrupted by ideology. If you now start reading “Old Man Hottabych” or “The Adventures of Captain Vrungel” to your children, you will be tired of commenting on propaganda cliches. And in the end, make sure that you can read this seriously with all the necessary explanations and historical digressions only at the age of fifteen, as a student in a specialized humanities class at some gymnasium. No one else will take on “Old Man Hottabych” as a teenager. This is a big problem, since Soviet literature, being historically close, should have served as the foundation for the development of modern literature. And ideological distortions either impede continuity or continue to have a negative impact.

It is generally accepted that in Soviet times, schoolchildren universally loved literature, since it was taught very well then. In fact, everything was exactly the opposite: in order to maintain interest in literature, a fair amount of stamina was required from the student, since the program seemed to deliberately highlight all that was most unsuccessful and emasculated. For example, fairy tales “about the struggle of the working masses against the exploiters” were actively cultivated - “Three Fat Men”, “The Adventures of Cipollino”, “The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors”, the same “Golden Key” and the like. Probably in the hope that the adventure basis will also draw out the false revolutionary pathos. As a result, the reader was left with the feeling that, under the guise of adventure, the “April Theses” were being imposed on him.

The school curriculum has always provided and still provides for the “education of love for native nature.” Ben Hellman, considering the harmless narratives of Bianchi and Sladkov against the backdrop of openly propaganda works, writes favorably about them. But for a child reader it is difficult to think of anything less suitable. Firstly, the very idea of ​​loving one’s native nature is absurd. That is, we love birch, but we no longer love palm trees. But the child, as luck would have it, prefers a palm tree. It comes with a childhood dream: sun, sea and holidays. Birch does not look so festive. Instead of “instilling an interest in nature,” starting from the natural craving for the exotic, which for children is almost the same as a fairy tale, our schools have always preferred to torment students with the mournful song “Now a birch tree, now a rowan tree” and monotonous stories about nature, devoid not only of a plot, but also of anything at all that could catch a child’s attention.

Love for nature, not just selective, but all-encompassing, is greatly promoted by good children's science fiction, high-quality illustrated encyclopedias and atlases, exciting documentaries, natural science museums, lectures by Ilya Kolmanovsky, hikes and travel. But the creativity of Bianchi and Prishvin, alas, does not help in resolving the issue.

Another misfortune that Ben Hellman recalled and which literally haunted the students of the Soviet school was the endless Leninian, which was part of the compulsory reading and poisoned the serene summer months with the expectation of a bad grade: reading “Stories about Ilyich” was unbearable, and few people thought of it .

Today, Leninianism as such, thank God, has disappeared. But the place of an idol is never vacant for a long time. There will always be an object for worship, you don’t have to go far, and even more so for those who want to realize themselves in the hagiographic genre. And we have a tradition - God bless everyone! Ben Hellman discovered a remarkable example of “hagiography”, indicating that Leniniana appeared long before the birth of Lenin himself. We are talking about the biographical works of Peter Furman, one of which, “The Carpenter of Saardam,” is dedicated to Peter the Great: “In the center is an episode of the Tsar’s stay in Holland... The greatness of the role of Peter the Great is emphasized by parallels with Christ himself... The Tsar supports the oppressed, he is the best friend of children.” . At the same time, distant Russia “seems like a heavenly paradise to his new friends (the Dutch).”

The desire for edification, as Ben Hellman shows, inevitably turns into an anecdote. The pre-revolutionary emphasis on “Christian virtues” led to exclamations: “Ah! How fun it is to help the poor and do good to people!” Efforts aimed at communist education culminated in the appearance of a children's book entitled “At the Twenty-Fourth Congress.”

I will add that didactic works are especially depressing due to the obsessive presence of the theme of punishment and fear of it. Many of these works are written from the perspective of adults who are grateful for the “strict upbringing” they received in childhood. For example, Ben Hellman speaks positively about M. Zoshchenko’s stories “Lelya and Minka,” but one cannot help but notice that the main function of adults here is punitive. The sword of Damocles constantly hangs over the children: “Now I can’t guarantee that your mother won’t pull you out.” Even in Nosov’s works, which are relatively easy in this sense, children are afraid of getting a bad grade, breaking a sugar bowl, or eating jam or candy without asking. Because this will definitely cost you money. At the same time, very often the punishments are completely disproportionate to the “offences.” In Zoshchenko's story, the child bit into an apple intended for guests. For this, his Christmas gift was given to someone else's boy. The children exchanged galoshes from a junk dealer for a few coins to buy ice cream. The principled parents gave all their toys to a junk dealer and forbade them from touching ice cream for two years. The father, for no apparent reason, took away a plate of pancakes from his little son, and when he, not understanding what was happening, began to cry, he unleashed a stream of reproaches on him: “You see how greedy he is. He feels sorry for one pancake for his father.”

Characteristic quotes from the “fun” book by Alexander Raskin “How Dad Was Little”:

“Then grandfather said:

I'll punish him!

And the grandmother added:

And I will punish him separately!”

“Grandfather still punished little dad. Grandma punished him separately.” “He was immediately spanked by his grandmother. In the evening, grandpa came home from work and spanked him too.” “Grandfather came in, took away the book, turned off the light and spanked little daddy for a long time in the dark.” Reminds me of Kipling's "Little Elephant": "My father beat me, and my mother beat me, and all my aunts beat me, and all my uncles beat me." Moreover, adults openly tell the boy that he is stupid, boastful and greedy. And they also take pleasure in making fun of him at every opportunity. But the saddest thing is the words of gratitude from the matured heroes: they say, thank you for the harsh science, for flogging, calling names and making fun of them. Thus, a moral is postulated: humiliation, suppression and “fair retribution” may well be beneficial and serve as a “good lesson” for the child.

One of the few children's works that seriously talks about abuse of parental authority and unfair treatment of a child is “The Childhood of Theme” by Garin-Mikhailovsky. But its ponderous, cumbersome style does not allow us to hope that children will be interested in it, although it is included in the compulsory program.

The history of Russian children's literature ultimately appears as a parade of misconceptions with which adults, both “ideological fighters” and outright opportunists and literary careerists, filled children's heads. At first, the guiding idea was Christian virtue, understood primarily as humility. The translator of this study, Olga Bukhina, in her own monograph dedicated to literary orphans, notes that there is a fundamental difference between Russian orphans and Western ones: Western orphans, Jane Eyre, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Pollyanna, are proactive and active, while Russian orphans, “The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree”, “Children of the Dungeon”, “The Gutta-Percha Boy” invariably play the role of absolutely resigned victims.

Meekness and humility ended, as we know, in 1917. With the establishment of socialist realism as the main method of children's literature, writers began to instill in children an expanded set of “truths”: the Soviet country is the best in the world, pre-revolutionary Russia and the capitalist West are the kingdom of vice and injustice, foreigners envy us, every Soviet person is in debt to his Motherland and must be ready at any moment to give his life for it, the collective is everything, and the individual is nothing, the good reds are the bad whites, Stalin is a celestial being (until 1956), Lenin is the ideal of a person, Lenin’s mother is the ideal of a mother, Lenin’s wife is the ideal of a woman, and so on and so forth. When a normal human voice suddenly became audible against this background noise, it was perceived as something out of the ordinary. Ben Hellman notes almost every, even the most timid, attempt to go beyond the bounds of biased party literature and sometimes finds signs of life where, alas, there are none, in the story “Certificate of Maturation” by Leah Geraskina, for example.

To understand the price of the sincerity of party writers, it is enough, as Ben Hellman does, to compare two statements by Sergei Mikhalkov. In 1959, the renowned children's poet was extremely concerned that some Soviet children were still “floundering in the web of religious intoxication,” and Russian writers were not making enough efforts to protect them from this evil. But in 2000, the author of the priceless masterpiece “Stalin is Thinking of Us” admitted: “I am a believer. I've always been a believer." It is useful to know such things about the creators of educational literature, if not for children, then for teenagers, so that they do not succumb so easily to “education.”

Having described how children's literature became an instrument of ideological pressure during the Soviet era, Ben Hellman ends his monograph with an optimistic forecast promising "a bright future for literature with a four-hundred-year history."

What truly and unconditionally valuable can be found in the very large volume of children's literature, even if not for four hundred and fifty years, but for the last hundred?

Lived in an apartment
Forty four
Forty four
Happy siskin...

He jumped up and looked at the sky...
My heart sank!
And instantly something from the sky
It splashed into the water with a scream...

There's an old lady in the world
Lived calmly
I ate crackers
And I drank coffee...

In the woods, above the river,
A dacha has been built.
Lives at the dacha
A small dog...

Sail away from home
in the white morning light,
native ocean
Say hello.

“And I didn’t know what was wrong with me, I was silent for a long time and turned away from my mother so that she wouldn’t guess by her voice or lips what was wrong with me, and I lifted my head to the ceiling so that the tears would roll back, and then, when I held myself together a little, I said:

What are you talking about, mom? Nothing wrong with me... I just changed my mind. I'll just never be a boxer."

“- Hello, sea! - said the Hedgehog.

Hello, Hedgehog! - said the sea."

“There’s no way this log can be a Crocodile,” thought Masha and sat right on top of the Crocodile.”

There are a surprising number of pearls, large and small. Although the total volume of such works as “Certificate of Matriculation”, “In Lenin’s Homeland”, “The Story of How Lenin Outwitted the Gendarmes” is many times larger and heavier. But even through such dense and thick asphalt, living plants made their way. Ben Hellman is probably right: they will push through.

Olga Bugoslavskaya

Ben Hellman

Fairy tale and reality. History of Russian children's literature

© 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

© O. Bukhina, trans. from English, 2016

© New Literary Review LLC, 2016

Preface

History must be rewritten anew, always.

Gunnar Björling (1887 – 1960), Finnish-Swedish poet

It is impossible to write an exhaustively complete history of Russian literature for children and youth. The development of literature is a continuous process. In addition, the prerequisites for writing the history of Russian literature are not always optimal. In pre-revolutionary Russia, serious scientific interest in the genre was just emerging, and the rare attempts to describe its historical development and current state remained superficial. In Soviet times, attitudes towards children's literature were determined primarily by ideological attitudes and changed depending on the political situation. A significant part of pre-revolutionary literature was discarded with a few generalizing remarks about its monarchism and religiosity, but interest was focused on the struggle of the critic Vissarion Belinsky and his followers for “progressive,” realistic literature. A reliable canon of classics could not be formed, since the publication of book products was regulated by the state and was not determined by literary criteria or the interests of readers. At the same time, the merits of real Soviet children's literature were greatly exaggerated. In a political climate where literary names could literally disappear and become “non-persons” (according to Orwell), an objective description of the historical development of the genre was impossible. And in post-Soviet Russia, the legacy of seventy-four years of Soviet power has long been felt; All serious research in the history of literature has encountered difficulties. Even determining the principles for selecting names and works turned out to be a difficult task. What to do with party writers and Stalinist laureates? Another problem for the historian of children's literature was the diversity of new literature.

The goal of our book is to fill in the gaps as much as possible and describe as broadly as possible the history of Russian literature for children and youth from its very origins to the first decade of the 21st century. It is often assumed that the countdown should be carried out from the second half of the 18th century, from the allegorical tales of Catherine the Great or from Nikolai Novikov’s magazine “Children’s Reading for the Heart and Mind”, but here the emergence of children's literature is attributed to the 16th century - to the publication in 1574 of the first Russian alphabet with her appeal specifically to children. For a long time, children's books were used primarily in the educational process, and the role of the Orthodox Church was important in this. Our book therefore includes information on ABCs, textbooks, etiquette books and religious texts, especially when it comes to the early periods of the genre.

At first, fiction itself occupied a modest place among books for children, and only starting from the 1820s did it gradually become more and more prominent. At the same time, children's literature followed the example of adults - reading material was distributed mainly through magazines. The emergence of periodicals reflected an increase in the number of readers, which is quite remarkable in a country where illiteracy was common and the school system developed slowly. The history of Russian literature for children and youth is therefore also the history of children's magazines.

There were periods when children's reading was largely determined by translations. Moreover, in the nineteenth century, reading books in foreign languages ​​was part of the education of children from the privileged classes. The prominent role of foreign children's literature shows how closely Russian culture was, until 1917, connected with European and American culture. By contrast, the absence of such connections during the darkest periods of Stalinism reflects a short-sighted national policy that caused great harm to the development of Russian literature. The history of Russian children's literature is forced to also become the history of translations of foreign children's literature.

The development of the genre is presented chronologically in the book. Pre-revolutionary literature is divided into periods corresponding to generally accepted periods in literary history, such as romanticism, realism and modernism. The boundaries between periods can and should be the subject of discussion. One problem is that fairy tales and true stories, fantastic and realistic literature, could almost always exist simultaneously. The term "modernism" is particularly problematic; here it implies openness to new ideas, high artistic ambitions, an expansion of the very concept of children's literature, greater sensitivity to the wishes of the audience and the growth of mass literature. The chapters describing the Soviet period are naturally divided according to changes in the general political situation. The fate of children's literature was in the hands of the authorities. Without knowledge of the cultural politics of these years, it is difficult to understand the literature of that time.

The emergence of literary criticism, the appearance of reviews, and the compilation of bibliographic and recommendation lists date back to the second half of the 19th century. At the turn of the century, the first attempts to critically comprehend the Russian tradition in relation to children's books are visible. And after 1917, the study of children's literature and the description of its history became part of the Soviet project. A discussion of this aspect of children's literature also found its place in our book.

Defining the concept of “children's and young adult literature” can be problematic. We are primarily interested in works that were written and published specifically for a young audience, and works that were created for adults, but subsequently began to be read primarily by teenagers, are discussed only superficially. When a work is first mentioned in the text, the year of first publication is indicated. This is often a journal publication, but in cases where this date could not be determined, the date of first book publication is given.

Financial support for the writing of this book was provided by the Academy of Finland and the Association of Popular Science Literature Authors of Finland.

Chapter first. Beginning (1574 – 1770)

The first Russian books for children were primers. The oldest of them, “ABC”, was printed in Lvov in 1574. It was compiled by Ivan Fedorov (c. 1510 – 1583), who is commonly called the First Printer. In the afterword, Fedorov explains that the primer was printed “for the sake of rapid infant learning.” Reading materials include prayers and texts from the Bible. A child should listen to the words of wisdom, for “as honey is sweet to the tongue, knowledge and teaching are so beneficial to man.” A saying from the Book of Wisdom calls on the teacher to severely punish students so that their souls do not end up consigned to Hell.

Fifty years later, Vasily Burtsov-Protopopov (died after 1648) compiled, on the instructions of the tsar, his “Primer” (1634) “for you young children to learn.” A child had to learn to read in order to study the Scriptures himself and grow up to be a good Christian. Prayers and edifying texts are the main content of the book. A poem was added to the second edition, most likely written by Savvaty, a clerk at the Moscow Printing House, which served as the patriarch's printing house. The poem asks the reader to abandon “all childish wisdom” and work diligently and obediently. Learning is appropriate for childhood, because knowledge is deposited in a child’s soul, just as “a pure seal is imagined in soft wax.”

The monk and theologian Simeon of Polotsk (1629 – 1680) created his “Primer of the Slovenian language” (1679), which was published a century after Fedorov’s “ABC”. It was a thick volume of 160 pages, containing not only the alphabet and simple texts, but also the basics of versification. Like his predecessors, Simeon of Polotsk believed that corporal punishment was the most effective way to achieve the desired result. In the “Exhortation,” he points out that “the rod sharpens the mind, excites the memory / And transforms the evil will into good...” Polotsky also compiled several books for the children of the royal court, including “The Multi-Colored Vertograd” (1680), a collection of poems on various topics.

One of the successors of Simeon of Polotsk as the tsar's teacher and unofficial court poet was Karion Istomin (late 1640s - 1717), head of the Moscow printing house and teacher of ancient Greek. Istomin is considered one of the most enlightened figures of his time. As a gift to Tsarevich Peter on his eleventh birthday, he wrote The Book of Admonition (1683), the first Russian manual on etiquette. The teachings in the book are presented in the form of a conversation between the author and his student. This book instructed the future Peter the Great how to behave at home, at court and in church. Istomin calls on the student to become a fair and wise ruler, a patron of the sciences. Istomin's other book, an encyclopedic work entitled Polis (1694), consists of short rhyming texts on various topics, including grammar, poetics, music, astrology, geometry, geography and medicine.

Ben Hellman

Fairy tale and reality. History of Russian children's literature

© 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

© O. Bukhina, trans. from English, 2016

© New Literary Review LLC, 2016

Preface

History must be rewritten anew, always.

Gunnar Björling (1887 – 1960), Finnish-Swedish poet

It is impossible to write an exhaustively complete history of Russian literature for children and youth. The development of literature is a continuous process. In addition, the prerequisites for writing the history of Russian literature are not always optimal. In pre-revolutionary Russia, serious scientific interest in the genre was just emerging, and the rare attempts to describe its historical development and current state remained superficial. In Soviet times, attitudes towards children's literature were determined primarily by ideological attitudes and changed depending on the political situation. A significant part of pre-revolutionary literature was discarded with a few generalizing remarks about its monarchism and religiosity, but interest was focused on the struggle of the critic Vissarion Belinsky and his followers for “progressive,” realistic literature. A reliable canon of classics could not be formed, since the publication of book products was regulated by the state and was not determined by literary criteria or the interests of readers. At the same time, the merits of real Soviet children's literature were greatly exaggerated. In a political climate where literary names could literally disappear and become “non-persons” (according to Orwell), an objective description of the historical development of the genre was impossible. And in post-Soviet Russia, the legacy of seventy-four years of Soviet power has long been felt; All serious research in the history of literature has encountered difficulties. Even determining the principles for selecting names and works turned out to be a difficult task. What to do with party writers and Stalinist laureates? Another problem for the historian of children's literature was the diversity of new literature.

The goal of our book is to fill in the gaps as much as possible and describe as broadly as possible the history of Russian literature for children and youth from its very origins to the first decade of the 21st century. It is often assumed that the countdown should be carried out from the second half of the 18th century, from the allegorical tales of Catherine the Great or from Nikolai Novikov’s magazine “Children’s Reading for the Heart and Mind”, but here the emergence of children's literature is attributed to the 16th century - to the publication in 1574 of the first Russian alphabet with her appeal specifically to children. For a long time, children's books were used primarily in the educational process, and the role of the Orthodox Church was important in this. Our book therefore includes information on ABCs, textbooks, etiquette books and religious texts, especially when it comes to the early periods of the genre.

At first, fiction itself occupied a modest place among books for children, and only starting from the 1820s did it gradually become more and more prominent. At the same time, children's literature followed the example of adults - reading material was distributed mainly through magazines. The emergence of periodicals reflected an increase in the number of readers, which is quite remarkable in a country where illiteracy was common and the school system developed slowly. The history of Russian literature for children and youth is therefore also the history of children's magazines.

There were periods when children's reading was largely determined by translations. Moreover, in the nineteenth century, reading books in foreign languages ​​was part of the education of children from the privileged classes. The prominent role of foreign children's literature shows how closely Russian culture was, until 1917, connected with European and American culture. By contrast, the absence of such connections during the darkest periods of Stalinism reflects a short-sighted national policy that caused great harm to the development of Russian literature. The history of Russian children's literature is forced to also become the history of translations of foreign children's literature.

The development of the genre is presented chronologically in the book. Pre-revolutionary literature is divided into periods corresponding to generally accepted periods in literary history, such as romanticism, realism and modernism. The boundaries between periods can and should be the subject of discussion. One problem is that fairy tales and true stories, fantastic and realistic literature, could almost always exist simultaneously. The term "modernism" is particularly problematic; here it implies openness to new ideas, high artistic ambitions, an expansion of the very concept of children's literature, greater sensitivity to the wishes of the audience and the growth of mass literature. The chapters describing the Soviet period are naturally divided according to changes in the general political situation. The fate of children's literature was in the hands of the authorities. Without knowledge of the cultural politics of these years, it is difficult to understand the literature of that time.

Ben Hellman

"A great friend of children." The image of Stalin in Soviet children's literature

“In the whole world there was no dearer / And more heartfelt friend for the guys.” This is what Anatoly Moshkovsky wrote after Stalin’s death in his poem “The Immortal Name.” Moshkovsky was then a young, aspiring writer and could easily become infected with the feeling of universal grief. But recognized masters of Soviet children's literature also wrote this way, such as Agniya Barto, Zoya Alexandrova, Elena Blaginina, Sergei Mikhalkov, Elena Ilyina, Anatoly Musatov and Evgenia Trutneva.

And who wrote the following lines about the children of the world in his poem “Guardian of the World” in 1951?

They will block the road

War all over the Earth.

The guys' best friend is leading them,

And he lives in the Kremlin.

It was the venerable Samuil Marshak, the founder and master of Soviet children's literature.

If you believe the writers, then Stalin’s “friendly” feelings did not go unanswered. “The children responded to him with ardent, sincere love,” said Valentina Oseeva, author of the famous trilogy about Vaska Trubachev. In her obituary, “The Great Friend of Children,” she describes how early this mutual love arises: “The baby, sitting in his mother’s arms, reaches out to the portrait of the leader. “Stalin,” he clearly pronounces in his ringing voice. The mother raises him to the portrait, dear features are forever imprinted in the child’s heart.”

Subsequently, the image of Stalin follows the child everywhere. His portraits hang on the wall in kindergarten and school, and when a child is accepted into the pioneer organization, he takes a solemn oath in front of Stalin’s portrait. In his oath, he promises to always remain faithful to Stalin’s cause:

We swear by Lenin's path -

There is no straighter way! -

For our friend and leader -

Follow Stalin!

Reviews of the history of Soviet children's literature would not be complete without a separate chapter on the Lenin theme. After 1956, they actively forgot about the existence of children's Stalinism, literature that in its scope and educational significance was hardly inferior to Leninianism.

In this article we would like to point out the most important themes of childhood Stalinism. Our material is primarily children's books and magazines of the post-war years. The cult of Stalin, however, began earlier, already in the 30s. There is a special bibliography published in 1939. Judging by it, children's Staliniana, however, remained small in volume until the war. There are few titles - and there are almost no separate publications. The earliest works were published in 1937. This is Vera Smirnova’s story “The School Years of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin” - a book of memoirs of Transcaucasian workers about Stalin’s youth and Stakhanov’s story about his meeting with Stalin in 1935. The dubious honor of being the first children's poet to write a poem about Stalin belongs, according to the bibliography, to Sergei Mikhalkov.

After 1945, the number of works on this topic grew steadily and reached its peak in the early 50s. Important events included Stalin's 70th birthday in 1949, the exhibition of his gifts at the Pushkin Museum and the Soviet peace campaign. From this period it is difficult to find at least one issue of a children's magazine or almanac without a portrait of Stalin and poems in his honor. The list of writers who in one way or another participated in the creation and strengthening of the cult of Stalin is long.

When we talk about children's Stalinism, we must remember that the boundary between children's literature and literature for adults was very vague. Little concern was given to the specifics of children's literature. Without any changes, they could print, for example, songs by Dzhambul Dzhabayev for both adults and children. There was also creativity by children themselves on Stalinist themes, and it is interesting to note that, essentially, there was no difference between a poem written by a nine-year-old child, or, say, by the venerable Alexei Surkov. The thoughts, phrases, rhymes are the same.

Most works are primitive and do not require developed taste or extensive life experience. You can talk about the poetics of simplicity with ready-made stereotypes and phrases. In his work on Stalinism, Geoffrey Brooks notes that "strict observance of verbal formula was one of the characteristics of Stalinism."

Dzhambul Dzhabayev is a good example in another respect: the participation of writers of national literature of the USSR in the cult of Stalin was significant. Stalin was actively glorified in children's literature by Ukrainians Mikola Bazhan, Platon Voronko, Natalya Zabila, Maxim Rylsky and Pavlo Tychyna, Belarusians Yakub Kolas and Yanka Kupala, Jew Lev Kvitko, Kazakh Dzhambul Dzhabayev, Lezgin Suleiman Stalsky, Azerbaijani Rasul Rza, Uzbek Gafur Gulyam, Armenian Gurgen Boryan and so on. If we remember what a prominent place these writers occupied in their literature during the Stalin years, and often also after them, then we will understand what a fatal role the cult of Stalin played in Soviet literature in general and especially in children's literature. Here we also mean the development of the reader’s literary taste.

Leniniana consisted primarily of stories about Lenin's life from his earliest childhood until his death. As we have seen, the first works on the Stalinist theme were also biographical. The authors themselves often participated in events that they wanted to tell children about. A textbook of Soviet children's literature from 1953 gives one example of this type of Stalinism. This is the story of the famous pilot Marina Raskova “In the Kremlin”. After a non-stop flight from Moscow to the Far East in 1938, Stalin personally received Raskova and her friends in the Kremlin. In her book, Raskova describes her meeting with Stalin. How the reader should have perceived this episode, we learn from the textbook:

The reader is confronted with the image of the leader of the peoples of the world, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. “Dear and beloved,” as it is sung in one of the songs about Stalin, this is how he looks at the reader from the pages of this little story. The words of Comrade Stalin, addressed to the people who had gathered to congratulate the brave female pilots on the successful completion of a very difficult task, breathe joy for the success of the Soviet people, wit and deep seriousness, the ability to see the great in small things.

Stalin usurped the place of real heroes. The feats were performed in his honor, they, in fact, were his merits. The reader must admire his personality and behavior. The dominant image of Stalin in the 40s was not an active, active person, but a motionless, static object of admiration. It follows that the lyrics were most suitable for this topic.

In the mentioned textbook, Raskova's story is the only example of a biographical work about Stalin in Russian. Of course, there were more of them. But still, we can say with confidence that there are clearly fewer of them than similar stories about Lenin. As the old Bolsheviks and revolutionaries turned out to be enemies of the people, it became, of course, more difficult to write a biography of Stalin.

The most important work about the young Stalin is the epic of the Georgian Georgiy Leonidze - “Stalin, Childhood and Adolescence”, translated into Russian by Nikolai Tikhonov. Boris Ivanter also wrote about Stalin’s childhood. In his essay “In Stalin's Homeland,” he set an example for other writers on how to treat this complex topic. Stalin’s parents are exemplary: his father is an excellent craftsman, “whose boots were famous throughout Gori,” and his mother’s ability to manage her poor household “was marveled at by all the surrounding housewives.” Stalin himself, or Soso, as he was called then, was a good comrade, “the honor and pride of the whole class.” He is the first in both studies and games. In the choir, he is always given the opportunity to sing solo. It becomes clear to the young reader that Stalin was chosen by fate from his earliest years.

Ivanter pays great attention to one school episode. One day, a lazy student sat behind Soso during an exam and tried to force Soso to help him. For help, he offered a belt and a beautiful dagger. “But,” writes Ivanter, “Soso is deaf to everything. Finally he turns around: “I can’t give you any hints.” I’ll give you a hint - you’ll remain a knowledgeable, useless person.”

Getting children to study better through references to Stalin has become a topos in children's literature. But Ivanter’s comments go beyond pedagogy. He emphasizes that integrity has always been Stalin's hallmark. He writes: “Stalin is a Bolshevik, Stalin is the leader of the party, like the young man Soso Dzhugashvili, he never indulged the weaknesses of his comrades. Indulging their weaknesses, their shortcomings means harming them.” It may be too straightforward to interpret this as a justification for the ongoing purges, although the essay was written in 1937, but this Stalin, the incorruptible and strict Stalin, is very different from the affectionately smiling Stalin who dominated children's literature in the post-war years.

The responsible task of Soviet writers was to rewrite history in such a way that Stalin's role would become decisive at all important moments in Soviet history. And children's literature provides us with many examples of such falsification. Leonid Savelyev showed in The Storm of the Winter Palace (1938) that Stalin was one of the main organizers and leaders of the October uprising. Children's magazines published excerpts from the book “Stories about Great Days” (1952) by Manuel Bolshintsov and Mikhail Chiaureli. The chapter "Lenin's Letter" tells how a Bolshevik brings a letter to Lenin from Stalin in 1917. Lenin is hiding in Razliv, the situation is difficult, but a messenger from Petrograd consoles him:

Don't worry, Vladimir Ilyich, everything will be all right.

“Certainly,” Lenin said confidently. - Such a fiery helmsman like Stalin will lead you straight to the goal.

Lenin turns into a passive secondary character, and Stalin claims the main role in the events of 1917.

Children's writers also contributed to instilling in children the idea that Stalin was a consistent successor of Lenin's work. The names of Lenin and Stalin are repeated again and again. It became impossible to write about Lenin without mentioning Stalin. “When leaving, he handed the battle banner / to his beloved Stalin,” wrote A. Churkin in “The Song of Lenin.” Dzhambul Dzhabayev took a step forward. His favorite thought was that Stalin's connection with Lenin was not only external. In fact, Stalin was the complete embodiment of Lenin: “We recognized Lenin in him, our beloved. / The great Lenin lives in Stalin!”

Stalin not only assimilated, but also developed Lenin's legacy. There was a movement, there was a goal: “We look forward with courage: / We must build the building of communism. / The Great Stalin is leading us / According to Lenin’s plans.” Where the road led is shown in another poem: “Wise Stalin leads us to the heights / of Ilyich’s sacred dream!” What was only a dream under Lenin became a reality under the leadership of Stalin. Lenin bequeathed to the people the dream of happiness; under Stalin, happiness was achieved.

The ultimate goal on the Lenin-Stalin path is communism. Reading the literature of the Stalin years, it is difficult to imagine what the Soviet people could still dream of. Pictures of abundance and wealth are given, the word “happiness” is repeated again and again. The thought of the final goal, at least, did not inspire poets to great poetry. Their language, vocabulary, images, rhymes remained scarce and monotonous, as if the same person was behind all these poems. Compare, for example, these two stanzas:

We swore an oath to Lenin,

Our path lies forward.

Great and wise Stalin

Leads us to communism.

It's bright and joyful for us to go

On Lenin's road forward,

Along that great path

The largest subgenre of Stalinism is poems of gratitude and poems of praise. These two aspects could be combined. This is what the Ukrainian writer Platon Voronko did in the line “Thank you for your genius.” Poets tried to find metaphors that corresponded to Stalin's high status. The most recurring image was the sun. “Our sun warms us - Stalin”, “Oh the sun, about the truth of the peoples - We sing a song about Stalin.” For the greatness of Stalin, everything seemed too small - both the territory of the Soviet Union and the time in which he lived. This is how Voronko expressed his feelings in the poem “Glory to Stalin”:

To the sun of peoples -

From generation to generation

And from century to century!

Glory! Thank you

For winged happiness!

We will grow up

And an immortal story

Let's write about you

We are for all times.

Dear Stalin!

Our honor is you and conscience.

You are our happiness

And our spring.

To the genius of the world -

From generation to generation

And from century to century!

When Voronko in 1951 was concerned about strengthening the cult of Stalin forever, his colleague Olga Vysotskaya thought in spatial categories:

Wherever the stars shine

In places far and near,

Where people dream of happiness

There Stalin's name is on everyone's lips.

The deification of Stalin was often expressed in concepts and expressions taken from Christian teaching. Stalin is an omnipotent creator. At his command, a new world is born. One word is enough for this:

You say -

And the rain will pour down

And the soil will become fruitful,

Concrete will cross a hundred rivers,

A hundred new rivers will flow!

In the war, Stalin defeated death and thus gave humanity a new life. Ukrainian Vladimir Sosyura (“First Deputy”) wrote about this with religious intonation:

The best of people and the wisest,

He led us through the fire of war

To the joyfully shining morning

In the vastness of sunny spring.

He opened the doors to us for peaceful days,

He dispelled the darkness of the black night.

And your love, your trust

Millions are given to him.

In the battle with grief, with bitter need

The world has never known such a leader.

The name of Stalin sounds to us in the spring,

Buzzing with golden trumpets.

Stalin's love constantly protected the children. His first concern was the happiness of everyone. For him there was no one and nothing unnoticed and insignificant. “Stalin is thinking about us” is the title of one of Sergei Mikhalkov’s poems:

Stalin knows the unknown

Daughters and sons -

All people who are direct and honest,

Loyal to their homeland.

An excellent example of a “gratitude poem” is the poem “I composed the song myself” by Maria Poznanskaya:

I composed the song myself

I give Stalin a song.

“Thank you, beloved Stalin! -

I say in my song. -

For what is light and beautiful

In our own kindergarten,

Because I live happily,

That I will go to school soon.

Because the sun is shining for us,

That the maples are making noise above us,

For your concern for children

Everyone says thank you!”

The little girl, in whose name the poem was written, thanks Stalin even for the fact that “the sun is shining,” as if realizing that the dictator can, as in “The Stolen Sun” by Korney Chukovsky, steal and hide the sun if he wants. Or, more likely, Stalin plays the role of a bear who has won the sun from a treacherous crocodile to the delight of everyone.

Let's leave the lyrical Stalinism to look at epic poems and stories. What these works have in common is the hero’s desire to get as close as possible to Stalin. They can be differentiated precisely by the degree of closeness to the leader. At the lowest level are works about Stalin's portrait.

There are many poems and stories in which the portrait of Stalin plays an active role. The most distinctive feature of the portrait is the smile, and precisely the “affectionate” smile. “Warmed by Stalin’s smile, / Our children rejoice,” says one poem. The sight of a smiling Stalin inspires joy, confidence and courage. Through millions of portraits distributed throughout the Soviet Union, Stalin can also monitor what is happening in the country and express his attitude towards events in children's lives.

There is a holiday in kindergarten: tomorrow the children will go to school. Stalin is an active witness to the scene:

Festive dressed

The guys stood in a circle.

Affectionately from a portrait

The wise Stalin is watching.

We'll be at school tomorrow -

Stalin knows this.

He's happy with us

He congratulates us.

But a Stalinist portrait can also convey reproach and make children aware of their bad deeds. The boy Seryozha in E. Ryazanov’s story “An Important Event” is proud that he will become a pioneer today, but at the same time he treats his little brother poorly. The father reproaches the new pioneer, and a terrible thought suddenly dawns on Seryozha:

Dad, does Comrade Stalin know that today new guys are being accepted as pioneers? - asked Seryozha.

The father thought and replied:

He probably knows. - And he continued, as if answering not to Seryozha, but to some of his own thoughts:

He knows everything...

This makes Seryozha repent and make important decisions for the future. In the evening he lies in bed and looks at the portrait hanging above his sleeping brother:

<…>The eyes of the one whose name he remembered along with the words “mom” and “dad” and whom he remembered many times today looked tenderly directly at Seryozha. The fluffy mustache hid the smile of his lips, but his eyes smiled warmly and knowingly, as if asking: “What, Seryozha Orlov, can you handle it? Won't you let me down?"

“I won’t let you down, Comrade Stalin, I won’t let you down for anything!” - thought Seryozha.<…>

Then Seryozha suddenly saw Comrade Stalin approach his bed and, running his hand through his hair, said in his dad’s voice: “Nothing, brother Seryozha, you’re doing great!”

Seryozha was sleeping and smiling.

Stalin replaced parents as the highest moral authority.

The next level is a letter to Stalin. It is unknown what Stalin did with the countless letters that Soviet children tirelessly sent him to the Kremlin:

Already a Kremlin postman

I probably brought it to you

Not a thousand, but a million

Wonderful telegrams.

It is difficult to argue with Zinaida Alexandrova about the number of telegrams, but we cannot help but express our doubts about their “wonderfulness”. Soviet children learned early on the dead, standard language of Stalinist rituals, and reading these telegrams, letters and poems about letters is a tedious task. They congratulated Stalin, thanked him for his constant care, gave a report on school successes and promised in the future to become people of whom Stalin could be proud. According to Jeffrey Brooks, the children performed “the ritual of the gift.” Everyone was completely dependent on Stalin the benefactor, and high grades in school were only a modest part of the payment for the “gifts.”

Sometimes Stalin, however, answered. His answers were short and did not exceed the children's letters in expressiveness. But his answers were immediately made public, and the recipients, as a rule, decided to study even better.

Even higher we find dreams and fantasies about meeting Stalin. In 1939, the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” published an article about children's creativity about Stalin. It said, in particular:

In their dreams, the guys see Stalin visiting them. He is dear and close to them. They know his face too well, they are too accustomed to him. And it seems like the door is about to open, and he will come in, calm and friendly, in his gray military overcoat, in a military cap with a straight visor.

Kostya Orlov, nine years old, from Moscow, dreams about this: he saw in a dream how Stalin came to him:

Do you know, Vanya, that today

I saw it in a dream.

As if the great Stalin himself

He came to visit me!

And Kostya Orlov in a dream, as in reality, gives Stalin his “honest pioneer”: study, study and study:

I showed him fairy tales

The best books

Promised him to study

Just as Lenin taught us.

The boy Kostya Orlov wanted to show Stalin his favorite books; on collective farms they dreamed of the opportunity to personally thank Stalin for their good life:

Let him come to us

To the sons of labor,

For a fun circle

Our Great Friend.

We are with our native leader

Let's walk through the gardens:

Let's open the yards,

Let's bring gifts...

Stalin's visit was not only seen in dreams or in secret dreams. To make this expensive fantasy more tangible and real, the children even played meetings with Stalin:

The yard is filled with snowdrifts,

The garden blossomed on the windows...

We play like Stalin

He came to us for the holidays.

This is what Elena Blaginina writes in her poem “Intimate Conversation.” In the game, children talk with the guest about literature, about Chinese events, about the war and about their dream of peace. An idyllic picture emerges, full of intimacy and warmth:

The evening light pours through the windows,

There is silence all around...

Stalin remains to drink tea

Happy New Year's cake!

He sits in the best place -

Place a rug on the bench!

Drinks tea with everyone together,

Smoking his pipe...

One level higher - participation in the parade in front of Stalin on Red Square. Children participants can see Stalin with their own eyes. We are approaching the metaphysical side of the cult, and it is noticeable how writers struggle with the poverty of language in order to express as accurately as possible the feelings of this blissful moment.

The May Day and October parades on Red Square are the climax of many children's books. Usually the little hero takes part in the ritual for the first time. The first important moment of this sacred act is when Stalin enters Red Square and ascends the Mausoleum. Then “The earth becomes even more beautiful / And the sky seems even brighter.”

A huge crowd of people parades in front of the Mausoleum, but despite this, a special, intimate contact arises between Stalin and the children. Every child feels that Stalin’s gaze and smile are directed specifically at him. In this euphoric moment, everything is forgotten. Petya in Agnia Barto’s poem “At the May Parade”, out of excitement, does not know whether “he is silent or he is singing.” This same boy also witnesses the climax of the ritual:

And a pioneer in a white dress

Runs to give him the bouquet:

I was assigned by third graders

Say hello to you from us!

We don't have bad marks.

This is the highest level of Stalinism - a meeting with the real Stalin. The children who had the opportunity to meet and talk with Stalin were not only schoolchildren at the parade, but also participants in various delegations, meetings, congresses, and conventions. They were written about in newspapers, their photographs were published, they were given the opportunity to talk about their meeting with Stalin. In 1939, a whole book was published containing similar stories. They were first published in central newspapers in the mid-30s. It is quite possible that this is the beginning of Stalinism for children.

One purpose of such stories is to show Stalin's humanity. Conversations in themselves are devoid of interest. Stalin's remarks are scant: “What is your name?”, “How are you studying?”, “Well done!”, “Goodbye!” But the most important thing is that a miracle happened: “God” took on human form. “At first I was worried,” says pioneer Nina Zdrogova, “and then, when I was next to Comrade Stalin, I saw how simple and affectionate he was, then I completely calmed down and began to talk.”

Only the chosen ones could meet Stalin; they were envied and jealous. The poetess Natalia Zabila described the following scene in her book “About Everyone”: in the yard, children look at a book together and see a photograph in which a girl hugs a smiling Stalin. A heated argument ensues, with everyone wanting to be in the girl’s place. Children are looking for some common traits in themselves and her, proving their merits.

Zabila's goal is to explain to children the deep symbolic meaning of what they see in the photo. In the plot of the poem, the collective of Soviet children is indestructible. This is an act of supreme, complete union of Stalin with all Soviet children:

We don't need to argue at all

There is no one more friendly than us guys:

We always play together

We go to kindergarten together.

We all grow up together

Like flowers in dew.

Stalin loves us all dearly,

And we all love him.

If there is a girl with a bouquet

Stalin raised it once.

Then, of course, he

He remembered everyone about us.

And about those who are with us

And about those who are even “mother”

Can't babble.

And about those who pioneered

It will be soon, and then

Will be an adult - an engineer, a pilot

or a sailor.

And about the northern and southern

In our sunny country, -

About all the friendly guys:

and about me!

But here's the irony of fate. The girl Gela, with whom Natalia Zabila ordered all the children to identify themselves, during perestroika spoke in the Trud newspaper with a story about what happened after the meeting with Stalin in 1936. A year later, the happy childhood came to an end. Her communist father, with whom she was in the Kremlin, was arrested and shot. Gela's letter to Stalin, mentioning their meeting, led to the arrest of her mother. The girl lived in exile for the following years: after the war, her life was largely complicated by the fact that she was the daughter of an “enemy of the people.”

Thus, the symbolic meaning of the scene that the children are looking at is different from what Zabila imagined. The “great friend of children” turned out to be their worst enemy. The closer the children got to Stalin, the more dangerous their situation became. We are talking about a great deception in which Soviet children's writers played an active role.

STALIN MUSEUM IN GORI It's not the season, so the State House-Museum of J.V. Stalin in Gori opens at eleven in the morning. And during the season, ten to fifteen people come here a day, but for them the doors open an hour earlier. As, indeed, for us - but for