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A Companion to Soviet Children's Literature and Film
Series: - Brill's Companions to the Slavic World, Volume: 2
Editor:
A Companion to Soviet Children’s Literature and Film offers a comprehensive and innovative analysis of Soviet literary and cinematic production for children. Its contributors contextualize and reevaluate Soviet children’s books, films, and animation and explore their contemporary re-appropriation by the Russian government, cultural practitioners, and educators.
Celebrating the centennial of Soviet children’s literature and film, the Companion reviews the rich and dramatic history of the canon. It also provides an insight into the close ties between Soviet children’s culture and Avant-Garde aesthetics, investigates early pedagogical experiments of the Soviet state, documents the importance of translation in children’s literature of the 1920-80s, and traces the evolution of heroic, fantastic, historical, and absurdist Soviet narratives for children.
Celebrating the centennial of Soviet children’s literature and film, the Companion reviews the rich and dramatic history of the canon. It also provides an insight into the close ties between Soviet children’s culture and Avant-Garde aesthetics, investigates early pedagogical experiments of the Soviet state, documents the importance of translation in children’s literature of the 1920-80s, and traces the evolution of heroic, fantastic, historical, and absurdist Soviet narratives for children.
Olga Voronina is Associate Professor of Russian at Bard College. She co-edited and co-translated, with Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov’s Letters to Véra (Knopf 2015/ Penguin, 2014), and published on Soviet children's literature, media discourse of the Cold War, Post-Soviet transformation of the Russian literary canon, and Nabokov’s art and metaphysics.
"A Companion to Soviet Children’s Literature and Film is essential reading for anyone interested in Soviet children’s culture. I would also recommend it to readers wanting to widen their perspectives on Russian culture in general. The images of famous avant-garde authors gain new dimensions through their works for children, and making acquaintance with hero narratives and historical fiction for children offers new approaches to the same themes in both literature and cultural studies. The illustrations chosen for the book give the reader a glimpse of the visual abundance of Soviet children’s literature and film."
Jenniliisa Salminen, University of Turku, Finland, in Russian Review 79
"A particularly attractive feature of the Companion is the inclusion of rare colour and black and white images of book covers, book excerpts, feature film and animation stills. The volume has detailed footnotes, an extensive bibliography and a good index. This Companion makes for engaging and inspiring reading; it would benefit Russian scholars and students, as well as a general audience seeking to expand their knowledge of the complex impact that Soviet children’s literature and film had on the nation and its citizens."
Natallia Kabiak, University of Melbourne, in Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, volume 34.
“The reader should prepare himself for a fascinating collection of brilliant, thought-provoking essays. This book shows how far scholarly work on children´s culture and childhood in Slavic studies has come in the last few decades and provides insights into an impressive and flourishing field of research [...] This book is a major accomplishment that offers valuable insights into the complex ways in which childhood and children’s culture were dealt with in the Soviet Union. It deserves many readers and will certainly spark further discussions and inspire new ideas.“
Martina Winkler, Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität) in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, volume 10.
Jenniliisa Salminen, University of Turku, Finland, in Russian Review 79
"A particularly attractive feature of the Companion is the inclusion of rare colour and black and white images of book covers, book excerpts, feature film and animation stills. The volume has detailed footnotes, an extensive bibliography and a good index. This Companion makes for engaging and inspiring reading; it would benefit Russian scholars and students, as well as a general audience seeking to expand their knowledge of the complex impact that Soviet children’s literature and film had on the nation and its citizens."
Natallia Kabiak, University of Melbourne, in Australian Slavonic and East European Studies, volume 34.
“The reader should prepare himself for a fascinating collection of brilliant, thought-provoking essays. This book shows how far scholarly work on children´s culture and childhood in Slavic studies has come in the last few decades and provides insights into an impressive and flourishing field of research [...] This book is a major accomplishment that offers valuable insights into the complex ways in which childhood and children’s culture were dealt with in the Soviet Union. It deserves many readers and will certainly spark further discussions and inspire new ideas.“
Martina Winkler, Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität) in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, volume 10.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Figures
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: ''The Only Universal National Text'': On the Centennial of Soviet Children's Literature and Film Olga Voronina
2 The Junctures of Child Psychology and Soviet Avant-Garde Film: Representations, Influences, Applications Ana Hedberg Olenina
3 The Dictionary as a Toy Collection: Interactions between Avant-Garde Aesthetics and Soviet Children's Literature Ainsley Morse
4 The Literary Avant-Garde and Soviet Literature for Children: OBERIU in the Leningrad Periodicals Еж and Чиж Oleg Minin
6 Education of the Soul, Bolshevik Style: Pedagogy in Soviet Children's Literature from the 1920s to the early 1930s Olga Voronina
7 ''Be Always Ready!'': Hero Narratives in Soviet Children's Literature Svetlana Maslinskaya
8 Unspeakable Truths: Children of the Siege in Soviet Literature Tatiana Voronina and Polina Barskova
10 Under the Hypnosis of Disney: Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Soviet Animation for Children Lora Wheeler Mjolsness
11 Embracing Eccentricity: Золушка and the Avant-Garde Imagination Larissa Rudova
12 The Queer Legacies of Late Socialism, or What Cheburashka and Gary Shteyngart Have in Common Anna Fishzon
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
Figures
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: ''The Only Universal National Text'': On the Centennial of Soviet Children's Literature and Film Olga Voronina
Forging a New Children's Culture: (R)evolution, Poetics, Aesthetics
1 Unnatural Selection: A Natural History of Early Soviet Picturebooks Sara Pankenier Weld2 The Junctures of Child Psychology and Soviet Avant-Garde Film: Representations, Influences, Applications Ana Hedberg Olenina
3 The Dictionary as a Toy Collection: Interactions between Avant-Garde Aesthetics and Soviet Children's Literature Ainsley Morse
4 The Literary Avant-Garde and Soviet Literature for Children: OBERIU in the Leningrad Periodicals Еж and Чиж Oleg Minin
Constructing Socialism, Building the Self: History, Ideology, Narrative
5 Re-Imagining the Past for Future Generations: History as Fiction in Soviet Children's Literature Marina Balina6 Education of the Soul, Bolshevik Style: Pedagogy in Soviet Children's Literature from the 1920s to the early 1930s Olga Voronina
7 ''Be Always Ready!'': Hero Narratives in Soviet Children's Literature Svetlana Maslinskaya
8 Unspeakable Truths: Children of the Siege in Soviet Literature Tatiana Voronina and Polina Barskova
New Approaches to the Avant-Garde: Reconstructing the Canon
9 Children's Poetry and Translation in the Soviet Era: Strategies of Rewriting, Transformation and Adaptation Maria Khotimsky10 Under the Hypnosis of Disney: Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Soviet Animation for Children Lora Wheeler Mjolsness
11 Embracing Eccentricity: Золушка and the Avant-Garde Imagination Larissa Rudova
12 The Queer Legacies of Late Socialism, or What Cheburashka and Gary Shteyngart Have in Common Anna Fishzon
Bibliography
Index
All interested in Soviet children's literature and film, and anyone concerned with the evolution of Russian children's culture from 1917 to the present. Keywords: children's literature, Soviet children's culture, Soviet animation, Russian Avant-Garde, 1920s pedagogical experiments, OBERIU, pioneer organization, translation, psychoanalysis, Soviet school, picturebooks, evolutionary theory of literature, Post-Soviet cultural politics.