University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Children in transition: Popular children's magazines in late imperial and early Soviet Russia

(USC Thesis Other)

Children in transition: Popular children's magazines in late imperial and early Soviet Russia

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content INFORMATION TO USERS
This manuscript h a s b e en r e p ro d u c e d fro m the m icrofilm master. UMI films
the text directly fr o m the o r ig in a l or c o p y submitted. Thus, s o m e thesis and
dissertation c o p ie s are in ty pe w rite r face, while others m ay be fr o m any type of
computer printer.
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the
copy submitted. B ro k e n or in d is tin c t p rin t, colored or po o r quality illustrations
and ph oto grap hs , p rin t b le e d th ro u g h . substandard m ar gin s, a n d im prop er
alignment can adversely affect rep ro d u c ti o n .
In the unlikely event that the author d id not send UMI a com plete m an usc ript
and there are m is s in g p a g e s , these will be noted. Also, if unau thorized
copyright material h a d to b e rem o v e d , a note will indicate the deletion.
Oversize materials (e.g., m a p s , drawings, charts) are rep ro duc ed by
sectioning the original, b e g i n n i n g at the upper left-hand comer a n d co n tin u in g
fr o m left to righ t in equal s e c t io n s with sm a ll overlaps.
Photographs in c lu d e d i n th e original manuscript have be en rep ro duced
xerographically in this c o p y . Higher quality 6" x 9” b lack and white
photographic p rin ts are ava ila ble for any photographs or illustrations appearing
in this copy for an ad d itio n a l charge . Contac t UMI directly to orde r.
P ro Q u es t In fo rm a tio n and Learning
300 N o rth Zeeb R o a d . A n n A rb or. Ml 48106-1346 USA
800-521-0600
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
CHILDREN IN TRANSITION:
POPULAR CHILDREN'S MAGAZINES
IN LATE IMPERIAL AND EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA
by
Lora D'Anne Wheeler
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES)
August 2001
Copyright 2001 Lora D'Anne Wheeler
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 3054824
Copyright 2001 by
Wheeler, Lora D'Anne
All rights reserved.
__ ®
UMI
UMI Microform 3054824
Copyright 2002 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company
300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
The Graduate School
University Park
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 900891695
Thi s di ssertation, w ritten by
Lora D'Anne Wheeler
U nder the di rection o f h. . . 9S D issertation
Com m i ttee, and approved by a il its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School , in p a rtia l fu lfillm e n t o f
requi rem ents fo r the degree o f
DOCTOR O F PHI LOSOPHY
-----------
Dean o f Graduate Studies
D ate August 7, 2001_______
DI SSER TA T iO N C O M M ITTEE
Tvfct*
Chairperson
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Lora D'Anne Wheeler Sarah Pratt
ABSTRACT
CHILDREN IN TRANSITION: POPULAR CHILDREN'S MAGAZINES IN LATE
IMPERIAL AND EARLY SOVIET RUSSIA, 1900-1932
My dissertation reexamines the time period 1900-1932 as
an ideological continuum in terms of Russian children's
literature. The first segment, which addresses the period
from 1900-1917, has been largely overlooked by both Soviet and
non-Soviet scholars alike, while the second segment, focusing
on the years 1917-1932, has been viewed mainly in its relation
to the political and cultural changes that were sweeping the
country. By selecting two periods that traditionally have
been regarded as disparate, I identify the extent to which
pre-Revolutionary magazines are both similar to, and in
certain instances different from, the ideological and
philosophical orientations of those magazines that appeared
after the revolution. From among the hundreds of children's
magazines that were published during the years 1900-1932,
solely those fictional stories that catered to the older child
are considered.
The most important contribution of this dissertation, as
well as my approach to Russian children's magazines, is that I
focus on both continuity as well as change surrounding the
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1917 Revolution. 'Change' refers here to the political and
cultural shifts that were taking place in Russia at this time
My emphasis on the concept of change also refers explicitly to
the specific age group for whom these children's magazines
were created. These children or adolescents, age ten to
fourteen, are caught in the transition from childhood to
adulthood. 'Continuity' in my dissertation refers to the
invariant themes that are present in and even pervade both
pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary stories written for
children--despite the quite different ideological constructs
of the two periods. Continuity also refers to the fact that
although pre- and post-Revolutionary adolescents represent two
distinct groups, adolescence is a process or passage that
occurs in all times and places, no matter how different the
political landscape. My focus on both continuity and change
during this period in children's literature continues the
current trend of reunifying pre- and post-Revolutionary
culture, while exposing Russian children's literature to what
could be called a more critical approach.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Table of Contents
PAGE
Chapter Ona
Children in Transitiont An Introduction....................1
Ideology and Children's Literature ..................... 7
Literary Theory and Children's Literature..................9
Children's Magazines in Russian History...................11
The Concept of Adolescence.............................. 18
Russian Adolescence...................................... 22
Notes.................................................... 32
Chapter Two
The Adolescent Orphaned Hero.............................36
Orphans as Heroes........................................ 38
Adolescence and Orphans.................................. 42
Orphans in Russia........................................ 45
The Reunited Orphaned Hero............................... 52
A New Future and the Orphaned Hero.......................64
Conclusion.............................................. 81
Notes....................................................85
Chapter Three
Girl Power: Female Adolescence and the Active Female Hero. 88
Female Adolescence ..................................... 91
The Position of Girls in Imperial Russian Society........ 93
The Female Hero as Literary Tradition......................95
Russia's Female Heroes................................. 100
Lidia Charskaia and her Pre-Revolutionary Female Heroes. .102
The Adolescent Hero -- Princess Nina....................104
Why? My Tale About Myself: Lidia Charskaia as Adolescent .110
Criticism of Charskaia's Work............................116
The Position of Girls after the Revolution.............125
The Female Adolescent Hero After the Revolution......... 126
Conclusion ............................................. 140
Notes................................................... 142
Chaptsr Four
Tha World of Fantasy and tha Adolascant's World..........147
Adolescence and Imagination............................. 148
Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy........................150
Fairy Tales in Russian Children's Literature............153
The Reception of the Fairy Tale Before the Revolution. . .154
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
PAGE
The Reception of the Fairy Tale After the Revolution . . .159
Western View of Fairy Tales..............................168
When is a Fairy Tale a Fairy Tale?......................172
The Pre-Revolutionary Fairy Tale.........................175
The Post-Revolutionary Fairy Tale........................183
Conclusion.............................................193
Notes...................................................196
Chapter Five
Adolaacanca and tha Role of Education....................200
Education in Russia..................................... 204
The Orphan’s Plight..................................... 209
Adolescents in Changing Educational Institutions........213
Adolescents as Forces of Change..........................220
The "Other" After the Revolution.........................227
Girl's Education....................................... 232
Other Institutions..................................... 237
Conclusion.............................................242
Notes...................................................245
Chapter six
Conclusion:
Adolescence, Children's Magazines and Liainality.........248
Notes...................................................255
Annotated Bibliography of Children's Magazines..........256
Bibliography...........................................262
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 1
Children in Transition:
An Introduction
The proliferation on the adult market of mass produced
chapbooks, daily newspapers and penny--novels at the end of
the nineteenth century was paralleled by the first examples of
mass produced popular culture intended for the young— namely,
children's magazines. Such children's magazines enjoyed a long
tradition in Russia and also furnished a surprising breadth of
information to the young reader. At the beginning of the
twentieth century these magazines were part of a flourishing
business in Russia, and publishers rushed to meet the needs of
children of all ages and of all economic and social
backgrounds. Adolescents were just one of the groups targeted
by publishers. By the 1917 Russian revolution, the adolescent
was recognized as an entity separate from that of a child and
1
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
from that of an adult. Adolescents were targeted not only by
the creation and marketing of a product designed specifically
for this age group, but also a space, represented by the
creation of reading rooms in city libraries that catered
solely to the needs of adolescents.
The adolescent reading room, like the magazine, is
important in the understanding of adolescence in Russia. The
establishment of a space for the use of adolescents is a clear
recognition by Russian society that these readers are no
longer children but not yet adults. Along with the creation of
this transitional space, adolescents are also afforded the
understanding that they needed and deserved literature
especially created and selected for their particular demands
at this period in their lives.
Among the hundreds of children's magazines published
during this period, my focus is on fictional stories that
cater to the older child or adolescent, the child from
approximately age ten to fourteen. This age group, the
beginning of the 'adolescent' bridge between childhood and
adulthood, is the last group for which children's magazines
were produced before children were expected to read adult
literature. I argue that stories from these magazines offer
older children in transition a way to cope with the changes in
2
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
their lives. Regardless of the ideological, economic and
philosophical orientations of these magazines, invariant
motifs pervade magazines for the older child.1
How can mature adult scholars understand the way a
Russian adolescent read fictional stories in children’s
magazines written for this specific age? Based on current
literary theory, Peter Hunt in his book Criticism, Theory and
Children's Literature suggests that children's literature
should be read with 'childist' criticism in mind. "Childist"
criticism is based on the interaction between child and book.
Hunt notes that it is very difficult and hardly novel to ask
adults to read like children. Instead he would like adults to
challenge all of our assumptions, question every reaction, and
ask what reading like a child actually entails, given the
complexity of cultural interaction.2 Such an approach to
children's literature stems from modern literary theory; for
example, Jonathan Culler in his book On Deconstruction
mentions children and the experience of reading.
If the experience of literature depends upon
the qualities of a reading self, one can ask
what difference it would make to the
experience of literature if this self were,
for example, female rather than male or, one
might add, a child. At first sight, this may
seem to be stating the obvious: women readers
must read as women, hat else can they do?
Well, the answer is that they read as women
3
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
defined by men; for the value-systems and the
ways of perceiving prevalent in our culture
are determined by males, even to the point of
the way the language names things that are
neutral.3
By Culler’s reasoning, adolescents would also read as
adolescents defined by men— and yet one must ask if
adolescents have had the life experience that would force them
to read in such a way. Perhaps adolescents have not yet had
the opportunity to fully embrace the value-systems determined
by adult males and the way of perceiving prevalent in our, or
any, culture. On the other hand, there is no way that I can
claim to match the consciousness of an adolescent in Russia
during the early part of the twentieth century.
Walter Benjamin asserts in a short piece on children's
literature that adults have very little understanding of
exactly what interests a child in a given book.4 Benjamin
proposes Hunt's later view, when he writes, "we should bear in
mind that for children books, like everything else, can
contain very different things from what adults see in them."5
Benjamin encourages adults to travel into the past and
experience life as a child again. Yet Benjamin does not
believe that this journey is possible in every instance.
Benjamin, however, puts forth the idea that the experience of
a foreign reality can fulfill the task of momentarily turning
4
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
an adult into a child. The repetition of the "for-the-first-
time" that is experienced in a foreign setting allows the
adult to surrender to astonishment, to the curiosity that a
child experiences on a daily basis.6 Interestingly, one of
Benjamin's privileged examples for such a "foreign reality* is
Moscow in the late 1920s, as described in his Moscow Diary. In
the Diary, Benjamin interweaves his discussion of the
transitional political landscape of early Soviet Russia with
his personal experience of Moscow, an experience that
constantly throws him back to his own childhood and to the
experience of a delocalized space of transition and movement.
This, for Benjamin, is the makeup of the child's world, and he
explores the political space of Moscow through the lens of the
child. In a Benjaminian analysis it is shock, upheaval, and
trauma that forge the primary links between childhood and
politics. Quite the contrary, then, to Hunt’s form of childist
criticism, Benjamin insists on the inherent "adultness," or
political importance, of a child's experiences of transition
within the broader frame of a cultural landscape. It is in the
form of extreme political shocks, of feeling suddenly
estranged, that Benjamin recoups a sense of a child lost in
the city. In this way, the political adult experiences the
world that had previously belonged to the child. Benjamin
5
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
places the child at the center of the experience of shock and
estrangement, and in this way the political cannot but refer
to the child. If it is the function of ideology to fix a
reference point in "reality," in order to buffer the
individual from shock, it is the case for Benjamin that
ideology (the reference to a supposedly "real" world)7 is what
becomes fractured and uncertain in times of crisis and
movements. Adolescence can be understood as precisely one of
these times, as the adolescent is still caught within a
transition between childhood and the fixed world of adult
ideology.
My own theoretical approach to Russian children's
literature and in particular Russian children's magazines
attempts to mediate the approaches to children's literature
offered by both Hunt and Benjamin. It is important to remember
that the impressions of adults and critics of this literature
are very different from the impressions of the adolescents of
this same literature. My work will pose a reading that
historically has not been offered in scholarship in this field
as my focus steers away from the dominant ideological
constraints that dominated this period.
My dissertation focuses on a period that combines a pre-
Revolutionary segment, approximately 1900-1917, which has been
6
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
largely overlooked by both Soviet and non-Soviet scholars, and
a post-revolutionary period, 1917-32, when literature was
being redefined in terms of the political and cultural changes
sweeping the country. The purpose of my research is twofold.
Firstly, by selecting two continuous time periods that
traditionally have been regarded as separate, I identify the
extent to which pre-Revolutionary magazines are similar to
and/or different from the ideological and philosophical
orientations of magazines after the revolution. Secondly, my
dissertation will add Russian children's literature to the
continuing trend in Russian studies to reassess this volatile
period in Russian history.
Ideology and Children's Literature
Soviet and non-Soviet scholars have traditionally taken
either an extremely positive or extremely negative view of the
dominant culture disseminated in children's literature--
regardless of whether the literature was pre- or post-
Revolutionary. Soviet critics emphasized the negative aspects
of pre-Revolutionary children's literature, while stressing
the idea that the new Soviet children's literature facilitated
the creation of a new society by shaping the world outlook,
and moral and aesthetic values of children. "Before the
7
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
revolution children's books were unbelievably poor. They were
written by hacks, bigots and tacky writers" writes one
critic;8 another one writes "it is necessary to immediately
create Soviet children's books. And create them on a clean
slate."9 Western scholars also addressed the poor quality of
pre-Revolutionary literature. Elena Sokol notes that in
"examining assorted volumes, one is struck above all by the
tedious, colorless, unimaginative tone and physical layout of
these periodicals."1 0 In contrast, other western scholars,
such as Bettina Hurlimann, identified the negative ideological
aspect of Soviet children's literature. "Without doubt
children need some education in the structure of politics and
one or two books that propagate this (in the best Western
sense) are fine and well worth having. But to lump all
children's literature under this denomination is dangerous.■1 1
Ideology, of course, exists in every society and it is
important to remark that ideology always shapes children's
literature. Peter Hunt notes that "children's literature
cannot escape, even if some practitioners would wish it to,
from ideology, past or present. Because the text is intended
for supposedly 'innocent' readers, it can scarcely be expected
to be innocent itself."1 2 These issues are relevant not only
in the Soviet Union but in pre-Revolutionary Russia as well.
8
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Ideological issues as well as economic, class and gender
issues will be considered in the context of the fictional
stories in both pre- and post-Revolutionary children’s
magazines. However, identifying dominant ideology, as such, is
not the basis of this project.
Literary Theory and Children's Literature
Peter Hunt suggests that children's literature and
literary theory have much in common. He suggests that both
fields are relatively new to the literary world and both are
particularly important for the development of literary
studies. Critical theory, he claims, concerns itself with
everything in and surrounding the text, from personal response
and political background to language and social structure.
Children's literature, in a similar way, is a field that takes
in every genre of writing. Hunt adds that literary theory has
changed the boundaries of what was once considered to be
appropriate to literary/textual studies and hence literary
theory today includes philosophy, psychology, sociology,
politics and anthropology among the possible approaches to
literature. Similarly, children's literature is now studied by
a wide range of scholars including educators, psychologists,
folklorists, and by students of pop culture.
9
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Hunt also notes that children’s literature and literary
theory are regarded by both academics and laypersons with some
suspicion. Literary theory to some academics seems to
challenge conventional views too radically, and is too self-
serving. Conversely, the layperson finds it to be pretentious
and irrelevant. Taking into consideration children's
literature, academics often view children's literature as a
non-subject in terms of academic study. The layperson believes
that applying theory to children's literature destroys the
pleasure of it.1 3
Despite the recent developments in criticism of
children's literature, this lack of intersection of these
fields continues to shape the perception of children's
literature as a non-serious, non-academic field. Studies of
modern literary theory and philosophy, for example works by
Derrida, rarely, if ever, comment on children's literature.1 *
Having acknowledged the paucity of critical remarks that
directly concern children's literature, I will note where
linkages between modern critical theory and Russian children's
literature can be seen. These will appear throughout my
dissertation in the form of footnotes, where appropriate. Such
comments are meant to enhance my argument concerning what may
be called Russian "codes" of adolescence.
10
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Children's Magazines in Russian History
Children's magazines represent a unique object for
studying literary change because of the variety of children's
magazines corresponding to the various reading publics that
emerged in Russia. In addition, the period from 1900 to 1932
is the most prolific period in terms of Russian children's
periodicals. From the appearance of the first children's
magazine in 1785 until 1900, slightly over one hundred
magazines appeared.1 5 In late Imperial Russia between 1900 to
1917 over 150 children's magazines were published.1 6 In
addition, almost 150 new magazines for children were initiated
during the first 25 years of the Soviet period.1 7
Following a long journalistic tradition in Russian
history, magazines published serially the most current
children's literature, which later came out in book form.
Children's magazines in the eighteenth and ninetieth centuries
differed little from books in terms of format. Often early
children's magazines consisted of several stories bound
together. Children were offered little illustration or other
decoration. The demand for such magazines was small and most
of these magazines were published for only one to three years.
In addition, these first magazines catered only to the highest
11
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and the most literate level of society. During the second half
of the nineteenth century changes began to take place within
children's magazines. Magazines began to publish a variety of
offerings for their young readers including games, drawings,
articles on science and nature and illustrations that
corresponded to a given story. In addition magazines during
this period began to be published for certain age groups and
published in smaller cities throughout Russia.
Along with the increases of industrialization,
urbanization and modernization, the beginning of the twentieth
century brought a surge in publication, and with it, a great
number of new magazines for children. Like adult magazines in
pre-Revolutionary Russia, children's magazines existed in a
balance between the profits to the publishers and the pleasure
of the purchasers. Since mass-produced magazines have this
balance adjusted every week or every month by the market
mechanism, they make particularly sensitive monitors of taste.
Different types of children's magazines were published for the
various reading publics, but all magazines were subject to the
market. For example, the magazine The Little Path (Tropinka)
was associated with the Symbolists and printed poetry and
fantastical tales, while The Young Reader (Iunyi chitatel'),
Young Russia (Iunaia Rossiia), and Spring (Rodnik) carried
12
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
both Russian and Western classics as well as popular science
and other stories designed to expose the child to the "real
world." The magazine The Lighthouse (Maiak) was hailed as a
magazine for the children of working class parents, while
Heart-to-Heart (Zadushevnoe slovo) disseminated
sentimentalized middle class values. Instead of one dominate
ideology that transversed all children's magazines of this
period, ideology varied with the intended audience.
In the post-Revolutionary period the market was no
longer the deciding factor. The new Soviet literature required
a common goal: the education of the universal man, the molding
of a world outlook, a moral outlook and aesthetic values. But
the consolidation of Soviet children's literature under this
common purpose was not immediate. Until 1933 when the control
of children's literature was centralized under one publishing
house, many different organizations continued to publish works
for children. Hence post-Revolutionary children's magazines
reflected not the market but the evolution toward a unified
Soviet ideology. For example, the Young Pioneers began
publishing The Drum (Baraban) in 1922 with the inception of
their group and this was later merged with Pioneer (Pioner).
Special magazines, for example Peace-loving Kids (Druzhnye
rebiata), were published for peasant children. Magazines such
13
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
as The New Robinson (Novyi Robinson) , The Hedgehog (Ezh) often
published works by writers, such as Kharms, Vvedensky and
Zabolotsky, who could not publish for adults in Soviet Russia
due to ideological differences with the state.
The increase in the number of magazines published for
children at the beginning of the twentieth century brought on
a debate about the need for children's magazines. This debate
brought up two issues relevant to this approach of children's
magazines. The first issue is the value of magazines as
opposed to that of books for children. The second issue
concerns age appropriateness of children's magazines.
Children's magazines overall were well received at this time,
although not without reservations. Pre-Revolutionary critics
saw the benefits of children's magazines for busy parents.
Vladimir Rodnikov, a well-known pre-Revolutionary critic of
children's literature, believed that "the magazine
systematizes children's literary and scientific reading and if
a magazine is selected correctly for the child, it guarantees
appropriate material. Regardless, this choice is better than
when children's reading goes unsupervised or when a parent
goes down to the store and grabs any old trash off the
shelves."1 8 Allowing children to select books without
supervision was deemed harmful. Thirteen and fourteen year-
14
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
olds often selected books from the general catalogs of the
library and chose books that were inappropriate for their age
group according to certain educators.1 9 Another benefit of
magazines over books is discussed by Vasil'evskii in his
article "Do children need children’s magazines?" He suggests
that a good magazine will also direct children to subjects
that they might not have encountered previously, and in the
best cases, children will search out books on similar
subjects, after the initial acquaintance in the pages of a
magazine. The most frequently noted concern regarding
children's magazines is that children's magazines do not allow
the child the possibility of exploring his or her own personal
interests.
Appropriateness in terms of age is very important when
discussing the role of children's magazine in a child's
education. Vasil'evskii argues that when choosing a magazine
for children, parents must select one that corresponds with
their child's age. He adds that children's magazines are not
replicas of adult magazines that recount all the burning
topics of the day, but are also not random collections thrown
together at will. It is not enough for children's magazines to
print interesting literary material, articles by famous
authors, or commentary on contemporary daily events. He
15
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
suggests that the best possible children's magazine is one
that "responds to the important events of contemporary life,
inasmuch as they are understandable to young readers and can
interest them. "2 0
At the First Russian Conference on Family Education held
in St. Petersburg in 1912, children's magazines received a
less positive review.2 1 The participants agreed that parents
wishing to provide their children with magazines should wait
until children are between the ages of ten and twelve, since,
according to the participants, children at this age are better
able to understand the world around them, making the magazine
more enjoyable and less of a threat to their well-being.
However, the majority of the participants in this forum agreed
that children's magazines were useful and beneficial to
children since children have an inherent interest in the world
surrounding them.
Walter Benjamin, in the context of German literature,
argues that "if there is any one field in the whole world
where specialization is bound to fail, it must be in creating
things for children."2 2 Benjamin's belief that adults cannot
fully understand the imaginative needs of a child led him to
the conclusion that the majority of children's literature
created expressly for children does not make a lasting
16
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
impression on them. Instead, Benjamin believed that works of
world literature, such as David Copperfield and Gulliver’s
Travels, supplied children with the best reading. However,
Benjamin included along with world literature both fairy tales
and cheap novels. Benjamin writes:
But it must not be imagined that young people
growing up can obtain substantial, healthy
sustenance only from the masterpieces of
Cervantes, Dickens, Swift, or Defoe. It is
also available in certain, though by no means
all, works of cheap literature, of that
colportage which emerged simultaneously with
the rise of technological civilization and
the leveling of the culture that was
unconnected with it. The dismantling of the
old, hierarchical spheres of society had just
been completed. This meant that the noblest
and most refined spheres of society had often
sunk to the bottom, and so it happens that
the person who can see more deeply can find
the elements he really needs in the lower
depths of writing and graphic arts rather
than in the acknowledged documents of
culture. . . . And one could mention many
other books that one was almost ashamed to
ask for on borrowing day in the school
library, or even in the local paper shop
.... And if these books transcend the
horizon of their young readers, that only
made them more exciting and impressive. For
such concepts and turns of phrases seem to
contain the talisman that would guide young
people as they successfully crossed the
threshold from childhood into the Promised
Land of adulthood.2 3
While not explicitly endorsing children's magazines, Benjamin
suggests that certain types of lowbrow literature offer
17
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
children and more specifically adolescents a way to "cross the
threshold from childhood into the Promised Land of adulthood."
The role of children's magazines in this crossing from
childhood into adulthood is the main focus of my dissertation.
Magazines during the pre-and post-Revolutionary period
were published for three different age groups. The specific
age divisions varied by publisher and exact divisions cannot
be made for all the different magazines collectively. Each
individual magazine made its own recommendations about the age
group of the intended readership. I have selected magazines
intended for children, approximately aged ten to fourteen. Due
to the vast numbers of such magazines for children, over 100
distinct magazines appear in catalogs held in Russian
libraries and archives, I limited my research to magazines
that were published in the large Russian speaking capitals of
St. Petersburg and Moscow with regularity and for a period
more than two years.2 4
The Concept of Adolescence
Since children's magazines are age specific, it is not
surprising that the child in transition from childhood to
adulthood appears in various forms in the pages of magazines.
However, while puberty is a biological fact, its psychological
18
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
counterpart, adolescence, a bridge between childhood and
adulthood, is controversial and considered in certain
societies a construct of modernization. Literature is one way
a society expresses its relationship with adolescence, as is
indicated by writers from various cultures and times who have
explored this period of transition. Dostoevsky, for example,
is often cited for his "accurate" portrayal of nineteenth
century Russian adolescence in works like The Adolescent,
Crime and Punishment and Netochka Nezvanova.
The twentieth century has been characterized as the
century of adolescence. Phillipe Aries writes in Centuries of
Childhood that "it is as if, to every period of history, there
corresponded a privileged age and a particular division of
human life: 'youth' is the privileged age of the seventeenth
century, 'childhood' is the privileged age of the nineteenth,
'adolescence' of the twentieth."2 5 In the twentieth century, a
great number of novels appeared that dealt with the trials of
adolescence such as Hermann Hesse's Demian, Robert Musil's
Young Tdrless and Jean Cocteau's Enfants Terribles. And
although authors certainly wrote fictional accounts from a
psychological viewpoint, the beginning of the twentieth
century marks a time when psychologists were just beginning to
19
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
become involved in the psychological development of the
adolescent.2 6
Sally Mitchell points out in her book The New Girl that
readers in a post-Freudian world are tempted to interpret all
of the codes of adolescence, certain feelings and behaviors,
as suppressed or sublimated unrecognized desires. More
importantly she recognizes that at the end of the twentieth
century we see sex everywhere. Even twentieth century
developmental psychology assumes that the "main task of the
adolescent" is the "attainment of genital primacy and the
definitive completion of the process of non-incestuous object
finding. "2 7
It is important to remember that labels that are
available today were being shaped and defined at the beginning
of the century. With such considerations in mind I suggest
that codes of adolescence, concerning feelings and behavior,
appear in many of the stories in pre- and post-Revolutionary
children's magazines. These issues of adolescent transition
will be considered as invariant motifs in the stories written
especially for children age ten to fourteen.
In general, adolescence is a period of transition for
the child in which both external and internal changes appear.
Adolescents strive to put emotional distance between their
20
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
parents and themselves. As they push away from the parents,
children often experience feelings of both self-disparagement
and grandiosity. Withdrawal from the parents is often a
profound loss for the adolescent— a process which is
associated with mourning. Under ordinary circumstances the
presence of the parent allows the adolescent to accept the
loss in degrees. This situation is not always the case with an
untimely death of one or both parents. Since the adolescent
needs to slowly separate from the parent, there are continual
cycles of emotional withdrawal and rapprochement of parent and
adolescent. As recently as the eighteenth century, young
people were described as "apt to be conceited, and to magnify
themselves, to be delirious of vain glory and ambitious of
more honor and respect than they deserve."2 8 Such a statement
could also be applied to the youth of today in any Western
culture, as well to the youth of 1900-1932 in Russia.
Sometimes adolescents turn to fantasy and daydreams as a way
to deal with the changes that are taking place. As the
adolescent overcomes such feelings, he or she will form new
friendships outside the family. The intense relationships of
this phase assume an unprecedented importance that differs
altogether from friendship in pre-adolescence. The friend is
often idealized as the adolescent seeks to replace what has
21
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
been lost and the parents' role diminishes in his or her life.
Often the development of the individual brings the adolescent
into a wider segment of society. Adolescents at this time make
decisions that will help define adulthood. These types of
changes are usually associated with the beginning of
adolescence, before the adolescent starts to act on any sexual
urges.
Such a description of adolescence provides an
appropriate and familiar starting point on which I will build
in subsequent chapters. While several of the sources are
psychoanalytic in nature, I am not advocating a dogmatic
psychoanalytic reading of the fictional stories in Russian
children's magazines. 2 9
Russian Adolsscsnca
As Sally Mitchell points out in her book The New Girl,
cultural factors are especially important in determining the
boundaries between stages of life and transitions.3 0 The
definitions of child, adolescent and adult do not entirely
depend on physical, psychological or legal definitions. The
particularities of both Russian society and Russian literature
require certain consideration when applying Western models and
concepts such as adolescence. Such is the case when
22
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
interpreting the portrayal of adolescence in the fiction of
Russian children's magazines. Russia was ripe at the turn of
the century for a blossoming of adolescence. Russia, a nation
that is often called backward, was brimming with
industrialization, urbanization and modernization, which is
often marked as a prerequisite for the cultural recognition of
adolescence. The concept of adolescence as a period of
transition between child and adult was largely a product of
late nineteenth and early twentieth century initiatives. These
initiatives institutionalized a prolonged period of dependency
of young people on family, facilitated in part by the
extension of compulsory schooling and restrictions on child
labor.
Theories about adolescence in Russia, as in the rest of
the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, are few.
One well-known theorist who considers the adolescent in Russia
at the beginning of the twentieth century is Lev Vygotsky.3 1
Over several recent decades, Vygotsky's theories have gained
international interest with the publication for the first time
of many of his works in English and other foreign languages.
During his lifetime Vygotsky's influence in Russia was
concentrated in his area of expertise, socially transmitted
culture. But Vygotsky remained an outsider among other
23
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
psychologists in Russia, partly due to his unusual entrance
into psychology: he was self-taught. Some critics claim that
his attraction to psychology was just a means to explain art
and culture, his main area of interest.3 2 Vygotsky's theories
concerning adolescence deal primarily with thinking and
concept development. Vygotsky not only accepts the idea that
adolescence exists, but demonstrates that the mind of the
adolescent develops differently from the mind of a child. He
establishes adolescence as a separate psychological entity
from childhood and adulthood.
Vygotsky is not alone in his assessment of adolescence.
In the pages of the leading pedagogical journals in Russia
articles frequently appeared regarding this transitional age
group. In the article "Transitional age and its pedagogical
meaning" (Perekhodnyi vozrast i ego pedagogicheskoe znachenie)
A.K. Germonius raises the question of the existence of
adolescence.3 3 The author believes that far too often the term
"transitional age" (perekhodnyi vozrast) is used incorrectly
to denote sexual maturation and consequently girls from twelve
to fourteen and boys from fourteen to seventeen are considered
to be adults when only their bodies have matured. Germonius
stresses that the idea of maturity as a process is being
ignored. He suggests that there is a period of time during
24
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
which boys and girls prepare for maturity in which a number of
changes take place both internally and externally. Some of the
internal changes that take place before adulthood are striving
for personal individuality, increase in self-esteem,
strengthening of the imagination, and worsening of behavior.
While lacking the finesse of late twentieth century
descriptions of adolescence, Germonius's account of this
transitional period in Russian children, while it may sound
naive, complements many of the characteristics associated with
adolescence in the West. While the author does not explicitly
state that the adolescent wants to distance himself from his
parents, he recognizes the adolescent’s need to see himself or
herself as an individual and separate himself from others. In
addition, Germonius mentions the adolescent's propensity for
conceit and vanity, which the author associates with a
distorted view of the self.
Russians were also aware of Western theories on
adolescence. In 1902 an article compiling the findings of
Western psychological, psychiatric, and medical journals on
adolescence over ten years appeared in The Russian School
(Russkaia shkola.)3 4 According to the article's summary of
Western reports, sexual maturity commences at age fourteen for
females and at age sixteen for males. However changes in both
25
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
physical and mental capacities begin long before. There is a
critical period of development, which starts approximately at
age eleven to fourteen. Important changes begin to take place
in the character of the child with the onset of the maturation
process. For girls these characteristics include more
graceful, reserved and bashful behavior, abrupt changes in
mood and tendencies toward melancholy. Boys become distrustful
of authority and obstinate in nature, their love of adventure
grows, along with their hate of discipline and a greater
conviction of their own personal worth. While such
descriptions of adolescence seem simplistic and possibly
unfounded to the educated reader today, such theories,
regardless of their apparent flaws, helped define the concept
of adolescence in Russia.
Five years later in the same pedagogical magazine an
article The Fight against Sexual Debauchery in School (Bor’ba
s polovoi raspushchennost'iu v shkole) appeared with comments
on the transition from childhood to adulthood.3 5 According to
the anonymous author, the most important time in terms of
curbing urges in young boys is from the age of ten to
fourteen. The author abstains from telling the reader the
kind of urges boys may feel at this age, although from the
title of the article the reader assumes that these urges are
26
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
sexual. The author turns explicitly to other adolescent
traits, however. According to the author, boys begin to have a
new understanding of their importance and begin to dream about
glory, strength, riches and power. They exaggerate their own
place in the world and begin to want to be recognized for
their minds and characters. In addition, boys during this
period surround themselves with their fellow classmates in
order to flatter each other and feel close to others in the
same situation.
Both these articles published in The Russian School
(Russkaia shkola) help establish the existence of a particular
Russian understanding of adolescence at this time.3 6 While the
phrases and terminology are not the same as in late twentieth
century, many of the adolescent characteristics that are
mentioned in these articles correspond to familiar Western
ideas about this difficult transition to adulthood.
As mentioned earlier, I believe the concept of
adolescence was accepted in Russia at the beginning of the
twentieth century based not only on the creation of a product
(magazines) for adolescents, or a debate about adolescent
traits which was still in its infancy, but also the creation
of a space that catered to the needs of adolescents. The
adolescents' need for a space of their own is discussed in an
27
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
article appearing in the 1916 pedagogical magazines News of
Children's Literature (Novosti detskoi literatury) ,3 7 Reading
rooms designed specifically for adolescents were being created
in city libraries and discussed. In 1913 in Moscow the
Griboedov Library opened a reading room for the sole use of
adolescents. The library recognized the need for such a room,
as adolescents no longer found the children's reading room of
interest and hence were bothering the younger visitors. In a
period from September to April 1913, approximately 300
adolescents, boys and girls from the age twelve to sixteen,
visited the library repeatedly, yielding more than 3,500
visits. These children came from a variety of backgrounds
including students from three-year city schools, factory and
merchant workers, graduates from various institutions and
adolescents who had not yet attended any school. It is
reported that adolescents were often turned away when there
was no room available. In the reading room adolescents had
access to literary classics that had been requested previously
through the children's reading room and several illustrated
magazines for adolescents. In addition, literary circles were
formed among the adolescent visitors. These groups discussed
books for their age group and published their own magazines
containing poems, stories and happenings at the reading room.
28
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
I would claim that even more relevant than Russian
educators who recognize the stage of adolescence in rather
simple terms, or the creation of a space for adolescents, is
the abundance of stories in pre- and post-Revolutionary
children's magazines that illustrate this bridge between
childhood and adulthood. In the subsequent four chapters I
explore and identify the invariant code of Russian adolescence
at the beginning of the twentieth century that was
disseminated in the fictional stories in magazines for older
children.
Chapter two introduces the adolescent orphaned hero, who
is forced from the realm of childhood into adulthood by the
loss of his or her parents. While the average adolescent
strives to put distance between himself and his parents,
orphans do not have the luxury of orchestrating and of
accepting this loss in degrees. This chapter explores the ways
orphans from different backgrounds establish themselves in the
larger community without the crutch of a family.
Chapter three examines the role of the female
protagonist as hero and the position of the Russian girl in
relation to these heroes. The path that a girl chooses during
adolescence helps to define her future role in life.
Historically girls' choices have been even more limited than
29
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
boys' choices. This chapter examines the depiction of girls as
protagonists who follow either traditional female or male hero
paradigms, the choices available to these protagonists and the
influence these choices have on girls' lives.
Chapter four explores the use of fantasy and the fairy
tale in children's literature as a means of facing the
difficulties of adolescence, including the unique political
and economic difficulties faced by this generation of
children, as well as adjustment to the ideological scenarios,
scenarios that are themselves played out and mirrored in
children's stories.
Chapter five establishes the role of education in a
child's passage into adulthood as represented in these
stories. As the adolescent moves out of childhood, he or she
is forced to make decisions that help to define adulthood. The
choice of education, whether vocational or traditional, means
a commitment to a certain way of life and is influenced by
both economic and ideological forces.
In identifying adolescent orphaned heroes, schoolgirls
and tomboys, young working entrepreneurs and magical
creatures, this dissertation will uncover the first codes of
Russian adolescence and give a more 'childist' reading of
these magazines than has been offered in the past. Finally in
30
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
summary, the most important contribution of this dissertation
and my approach to Russian children's magazines is that I
focus on both continuity and change in the period surrounding
the 1917 Revolution. Change refers to the political and
cultural changes that were taking place in Russia at this
time. Change also refers to the older child, age ten to
fourteen, for whom these magazines were created. These
children or adolescents are caught in the transition, this
period of change, as they move from childhood to adulthood.
Continuity in my dissertation refers to the invariant themes
that pervade both pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary
stories for children despite the different ideological
constructs of the two periods. Continuity also refers to the
fact that although pre- and post-Revolutionary adolescents are
two distinct groups, adolescence is a process that reoccurs in
different times and different places. My focus on both
continuity and change as a continuum during the period of 1900
to 1932 in children's literature will both continue the trend
of reunifying pre- and post-Revolutionary culture, but also
expose Russian children's literature to a critical approach.
31
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 The term invariant or invariant motif is discussed at
length in Yuri Shcheglov and Alexander Zholkovsky, Poetics of
Expressiveness A Theory and Applications (Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1987). In
short, Poetics of Expressiveness asserts that the poetic world
of an author is a hierarchy of his invariant motifs of all the
text's components (levels, parts, images, etc.) which are the
expressive realizations of his central theme. This theory
asserts that thematic invariance underlies expressive
variation, not only in individual texts, but also in the
writer's oeuvre.
2 Peter Hunt, Criticism, Theory, and Children's
Literature (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 189-201.
3 Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction quoted in Peter
Hunt, 191.
4 Walter Benjamin, "Children's Literature," Selected
Writings, vol. 2 1927-1934, (Cambridge: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1999), 250-256.
5 Benjamin, "Children's Literature," 250.
6 See Peter Szondi, "Walter Benjamin's City Portraits" On
Textual Understanding and Other Essays, trans. Harvey
Mendelson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986),
133-143.
7 Louis Marin's definition: "An ideology is a system of
representation of the imaginary relationships which
individuals have with their real living conditions* by Louis
Marin,"Disneyland as Degenerate Utopia," Glyph 1 (1987): 65.
8 V. Kuznetsova, Tsekhanovskii (Leningrad, 1973), 8.
9 M. Alekseeva, "Nashi pervye zhurnaly dlia detei,"
Detskaia literatura 1 (1967): 14.
1 0 Elena Sokol, Russian Poetry for Children (Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 1984), 46.
1 1 Betinna Hurlimann, Three Centuries of Children's Books
in Europe (New York: The Wold Publishing Co, 1959), 189.
32
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 2 Hunt, Criticism, 14.
1 3 Hunt, Criticism, 5-6.
1 4 Walter Benjamin is the exception among modern
philosophers as he was very interested in childhood and the
perception of children. His interests included children's
primers, toys, theater and picture books.
1 5 See Bibliografia russkoi periodicheskoi pechati 1703-
1900 g., ed. N. Lisovskii (Moscow, 1915).
1 6 See Bibliografia periodicheskikh izdanii Rossii 1901-
1916, ed. L. Beliaeva, M. Zinov'eva, M. Nikiforov (Lenningrad,
1958-61) and see Kholmov, Stanovlenie sovetskoi zhumalistiki
dlia detei (Leningrad, 1973). He suggests that there are over
50 additional children's magazines that remain uncataloged.
1 7 Periodicheskaia pechat' SSSR, 1917-1949 (Moscow,
1958).
1 8 V. Rodnikov, Detskaia Literatura (Kiev, 1915), 137.
1 9 E. Vakhterova, "O chtenii detei i iunoshestva, "
Russkaia shkola 7/8 (1909): 145-165.
2 0 M. Vasil’evskii, Nuzhen li detiam detskii zhumal?
(St. Petersburg, 1911), 10-11.
2 1 See E. Solov'eva, "O detskom zhurnale," Trudy pervogo
vserossiiskogo s'ezda Peter'sburg 30.XII 1912-6.1-1913 (St.
Petersburg, 1914).
2 2 Benjamin,"Children's Literature" 252.
2 3 Benjamin,"Children's Literature" 250.
M See the annotated bibliography for a complete list of
consulted children's magazines.
2 5 Phillipe Aries, Centuries of Childhood: A Social
History of Family Life (New York: Vintage, 1962), 32.
2 6 John Neubauer, The Fin-de-Siecle Culture of
Adolescence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 1-12.
33
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
2 7 Sally Mitchell, The New Girl: Girls Culture in
England, 1880-1915 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1995), 164.
2 8 N. R. Hiner. "Adolescence in eighteenth century
America," in History of Childhood Quarterly 3 (1975) : 261.
2 9 See Anna Freud, "Adolescence, " Psychoanalytical Study
of the Child 13 (1958) : 255-78 and P. Bios, On Adolescence
(New York: Free Press, 1962) and Erik Erikson, Identity: Youth
and Crisis (New York: Norton, 1968).
3 0 Sally Mitchell, The New Girl, 7.
3 1 See Lev Vygotsky, "The development of thinking and
concept formation in adolescence," and "Imagination and
creativity of the adolescent," Vygotsky Reader, ed. Rene Van
Der Veer and Jaan Valsiner (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994): 185-288.
3 2 Vygotsky, The Vygotsky Reader, 6.
3 3 A. K. Germonius, "Perekhodnyi vozrast i ego
pedagogicheskoe znachenie" Russkaia shkola 9 (1910) : 160-175;
10 (1910): 115-130.
3 4 A. Virenius, "Period polovogo razvitiia," Russkaia
shkola 10/11 (1902): 113-126; 12 (1902): 120-130.
3 5 "Bor'ba s polovoi raspushchennost'iu v shkole,"
Russkaia shkola 7/8 (1907): 23-41; 9/10 (1907): 42-49.
3 6 I am not suggesting that children's literature and
fictional stories in children's magazines in the pre- and
post-Revolutionary period are explicitly sexual in nature.
However several themes occasionally appeared in children's
literature. An article was published in 1914 entitled "Erotica
in Children's Literature" by N. A. Sawin. This article deals
with the explicit erotic nature of the trilogy for children by
E.A. Aver'ianova in which a love triangle between Irina and
two suitors unfolds. Sawin is unforgiving of such themes in
children's literature as he feels that children are held in a
sexualized trance by the author and the work may give rise to
sexual impulses in children. Sawin recommends that "JJeTcxaji
jiHTepaTypa 3HaeT BceB03MO*Htie TeMbi, OHa 3HaxoMa c
pa3HOo6pa3HbiMH MOTHBaMH, ho b o6meM OHa CTapaeTCS H36eraTb
34
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
p a 3 p a 6 o T K H JH06OBHWX C IO *e T O B , O rp aH H M H B a S C b JU06OBHHM B JieM eH TO B ,
x a x cjiyM a H H U M 3 riH 3 0 fl0 M B T o p o c T s n e H H o r o x a p a T e p a p , " N. Sawin,
"Erotika v detskoi literature," Novosti detskoi literatury 8
(1913/14): 7.
3 7 A. Rodin, "Opyt* organizatsii chital'ni dlia
podrostkov," Novosti Detskoi Literatury 8 (1916): 1-4.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 2
The Adolescent Orphaned Hero
In Moscow Walter Benjamin describes the orphaned
children on the streets in the winter of 1927 in Russia.
Moscow, he notes, swarms with children, but occasionally one
comes across the "derelict, unspeakably melancholy
besprizornye, war orphans." He continues that "by day they are
usually seen alone, each on his own warpath. But in the
evening they join up before the lurid facades of movie houses
to form gangs, and foreigners are warned against meeting such
bands alone when walking home."1 Benjamin believes that to
understand such "savage, mistrustful, and embittered"
children, an educator must go out on the streets and learn to
relate to the collective life of children on the streets. His
opinion is that "traditional pedagogical methods never make
36
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
much impression on the infantile masses."2 Benjamin suggests a
similar approach to children's literature, one that demands
the adult to perceive the book as a child would perceive it.
"If you give a child four or five specific words and ask them
to make a short sentence on the spot, the most amazing prose
comes to light; thus, not a glimpse into but a guide to
children's books. At a stroke, the words throw on their
costumes and in the twinkling of an eye they are caught up in
a battle, love scenes, a ball. This is how children write
their stories, but also how they read them."3 Whether relating
to the homeless children on the streets of Moscow or writing
books for children, Benjamin insists that adults remove their
masks of experience and view the world as a child would view
it. Benjamin suggests that all visitors to Moscow should view
the city as the homeless orphaned child views the city.
However Benjamin is not always convinced that a complete
removal of the mask of experience is possible for an adult.
The adult wears this mask of experience and is protected from
the shock of life by the indoctrination of ideology during
times of crisis and movement, this is not true for the
adolescent, or for the adolescent orphaned hero, who is caught
in the middle, cut off and unprotected.
37
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
In exploring the adolescent orphaned hero in this
chapter, my goal is to suspend the ideological mask that has
dominated both late Imperial children’s literature as mass
produced sentimentalism and early Soviet children’s literature
as didactic political propaganda. This approach will allow the
adolescent orphaned hero to be assessed as a continuum in
Russian literature for children in this time period. In this
chapter I will discuss six fictional stories, three pre-
Revolutionary and three post-Revolutionary stories that
appeared in the pages of children’s magazines and featured
orphaned adolescent protagonists.
Orphans as Heroes
Russian children’s magazines from 1900-1932 are just one
of the genres of literature that feature orphans as heroes.4
The image of the child orphan has appeared in every mode of
literature, including biographical, legendary and fictional
and it appears in a variety of times and places. Orphaned
heroes are of course abundant throughout mythology. Joseph
Campbell's work, for example, Hero with a Thousand Faces,
suggests that orphan tales can be classified without regard to
specific culture and time since myths are spontaneous
productions of the psyche.5 Myths, he argues, have been the
38
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of
the activities of the human body and mind which, I suggest
also includes children's literature. A quite important theme
for orphan stories, which Campbell discusses, is the exiled
infant. Such myths are told and written down in accordance
with the view that heroes are predestined, rather than simply
being achieved. In mythology and folklore this theme of exile
can take on many different forms, including the orphan. The
child of destiny, after the initial separation, must endure
many hardships and dangers before the child is able to reunite
with his lost community. Often these children possess
extraordinary powers to survive such obstacles. As the child
reaches maturity, he will establish his true origins, initiate
a new order and either settle old scores or become reconciled
with his parents. The end of the childhood cycle is the return
or recognition of the hero, when after a long period of time,
his true identity is revealed. This type of orphan can be
traced back to countless myths that describe gods in
childhood. Most of these gods are described as youths and are
deserted by their parents. Zeus, for example, was abandoned by
his mother in a cave to spare him from death at the hands of
his own father, Kronos. Zeus survived and returned home to
challenge his father, thus fulfilling the prophecy that
39
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Kronos' own children would depose him. Zeus is just one of the
cast-out orphans in world folklore whose childhood fits the
pattern of the exiled infant;6 others include, for Joseph
Campbell, Oedipus, Gilgamesh, Tristan and Moses.
Morphology of the Folktale by Vladimir Propp, a leading
Russian folklorist, gives a structural or formal organization
of a folktale describing the chronological order of the
folktale's events. Propp's morphology can be used to classify
orphan tales as orphan tales. Namely, in Propp's first
function a type of orphanhood is achieved.
1. One of the members of a family absents himself from
home (Definition: absentation)
1. The person absenting himself can be a member of
the older generation. Parents leave for work.
"The prince had to go on a distant journey,
leaving his wife in the care of strangers."
"Once, he (a merchant) went away to foreign
lands." Usual forms of absentation: going to
work, to the forest, to trade, to war, "on
business."
2. An intensified form of absentation is
represented by the death of parents.
3. Sometimes members of the younger generation
absent themselves. They go visiting, fishing,
for a walk, out to gather berries.7
While Propp's functions can be used to determine whether or
not a story can be considered an orphan story, his functions
do not assist in further understanding of the orphaned hero in
particular pre- and post-Revolutionary children's magazines.
Syntagmatic structural analysis, like Propp’s 1928 study,
40
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
deals will the structure of the texts alone, with a lack of
concern for social and cultural context. In Propp's further
study of the fairy tale Istoricheskie komi volshebnoi skazki,
he examines the genesis and historical basis of certain fairy
tales.8 Propp suggests that most fairy tales are derived from
passing rites, in particular the rite of male maturation. In
relation to orphans and adolescents Propp suggests that in
cases where the child leaves home or is forced to leave, these
orphans usually have not yet reached sexual maturity.
Another approach to orphan tales can be found in Barbara
Estrin's work in The Raven and the Lark.9 Estrin suggests that
the lost-child plot, stories like King Arthur and Christ,
represent two philosophically opposed goods: the good that men
invent (nurture) and the good of nature. The good of nurture
is represented when the child takes up with an adoptive
mentor, who pretends or comes to believe that this child is
his or her own. The good of nature is represented by the
temporary separation but ultimate exaltation of the biological
parents, who at first lose and then reclaim their missing
child. According to Estrin, the reader of such tales has a
generic faith that the orphaned hero will turn out to be royal
or at least wealthy, that he will discover his legitimate
ancestors and reject his substitute family. This theme
41
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
represents an aristocratic longing. The conclusion of the
story predicates that the biological parents are better than
the adoptive ones, hence the formula suggests that nature is
better than nurture. The time spent with the adoptive parents
is not time wasted. The good of nurture, of what man invents,
is also an integral part of the orphan's upbringing. Under the
guidance of his adoptive parents the orphan absorbs values
that his biological parents could never teach him.
Adolescence and Orphans
Adolescents, regardless of whether or not they are
orphans, experience orphan-like situations as they move from
childhood to adulthood. In adolescence children begin to
express their own individuality and push away from the parents
that they once held in such high esteem. Children's
admiration, pride and respect for their parents are replaced
in adolescence with skepticism and embarrassment. This
withdrawal of the adolescent from his parents can be felt as a
profound loss and has been likened to mourning.1 0 However most
adolescents slowly pull away from the emotional support of
their parents, in repetitive cycles of emotional withdrawal
and return. Adolescent orphans do not have the luxury of this
gradual separation from their parents. However there is also a
42
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
power that the orphan gains from his situation. Carl Jung
wrote that the orphaned child " is all that is abandoned and
exposed and at the same time divinely powerful; the
insignificant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end."1 1
The child-orphan represents "the strongest, most ineluctable
urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself."1 2
Even adolescents who are not orphans occasionally wish their
parents harm or fantasize about finding out that they belong
to a different (richer, famous, successful) family. Such
wishes attest to the desirability of being an orphan and the
power of a new beginning with no past.
Adolescent orphaned heroes in Russian children's
magazines accomplish both the separation and initiation, but
most do not experience the expected return that Campbell
prescribes for them or Estrin's conclusion that nature is
inherently better than nurture. Orphans in these stories do
not, on the whole, establish their true origins or become
reconciled with their parents. Campbell admits that this
return is the hardest aspect of the mythological adventure
that the hero embarks upon. For all the hero has achieved on
his journey, he may not remember or have any interest in the
world that he came from. Another problem is that if the hero
makes his safe and willing return, he may be met with
43
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
misunderstanding and disregard from those whom he has come to
help. The adolescent orphaned heroes in both pre- and post-
Revolutionary Russian stories, it would seem, do not want to
renew the spiritual energy of the world, or contribute to the
cosmogonic cycle by returning to their lost communities. The
journey of the Russian adolescent orphaned hero in most cases,
whether pre- or post-Revolutionary, is not reattainment or
rediscovery of his past, but indeed a search for something
new, a discovery of a new and better way of life. To what
extent do the orphan-heroes obtain some sort of reintegration
or return? To what extent do they refuse to return to the past
or are ignorant of the past, whether conscious or unconscious?
Is a return to the past, or a new beginning at life portrayed
as a better realization of the orphans’ potentials in this
particular period? This reversal of the expected paradigm in
the Russian context needs to be explored further by
considering the actual texts of orphan stories from this time
period as well as the historical and ideological view of
orphans in pre- and post- Revolutionary Russia. The orphan
stories that will be discussed in this chapter must also be
considered to be different than orphans in mythology, folklore
and world literature, as these stories were written especially
for adolescents.
44
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Orphans in Russia
Russian culture complicates the situation of the
orphaned adolescent. Unlike Western cultures, Russian culture
bestows orphanhood upon a child with the death of just one
parent, whether it is the mother or father. When both parents
are alive, the child lives a life protected from unwanted
contact with the outside world. A death of a parent exposes
the child. Hence the child is considered an orphan since he
can no longer enjoy the sheltered life that a whole family
allowed him. In the case of the mother's death, the emotional
heartstrings of the child are most often pulled and possibly
damaged forever. The child's power of observation and
judgement is raised after the mother's death, since before
this event these emotions were not as necessary.1 3 In a sense
the child is no longer a child and must assume certain adult
roles even though adulthood has not been reached. With the
death of a father, the child is forced into the world. During
his lifetime, a man could often fend off his creditors and
keep his family in the dark as to the true state of his
financial affairs. Even if a family was poor, the presence of
the father kept the family off the streets. After his death
45
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the widow and children would often be at the mercy of
creditors.
The stories that appeared in pre- and post-Revolutionary
magazines for children contain one of three types of orphans.
The first two types are described above, the child who has
lost his mother and the child who has lost his father. The
third type of 'complete' orphan is the child who has lost both
parents and remains without any supervision. While the third
type of orphan existed during the nineteenth century in
Russia, the number of orphans who roamed the streets and
countryside dramatically increased at the beginning of the
twentieth century. The term besprizornik (literally the
unsheltered one, unsupervised one) is most often associated
with the orphan problem that flourished after the Soviet
government took power. Like Walter Benjamin described, these
children took to the streets in huge numbers congregating
wherever they could find food, shelter or potential targets
from whom to steal or beg. These orphans would gather in train
stations for warmth and ride the rails not only for
transportation but to rob the passengers. The orphan problem
after the revolution was exacerbated by seven years of massive
social dislocation caused by continual war and accompanied by
economic problems that caused hunger and homelessness. At the
46
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
height of the problem in 1922, an estimated seven million
children roamed the streets and the countryside of Russia. It
took almost a decade for the Soviet government to develop a
distinctive socialist approach to bring this problem under
control.
Walter Benjamin describes the situation in Moscow in
1927. Benjamin writes that the orphans on the streets "know a
corner beside a door of a certain shop where, at a particular
time, they are allowed to warm themselves for ten minutes;
they know where one day each week at a certain hour they can
fetch themselves crusts, and where a sleeping place among
stacked sewage pipes is free."1 4 However Benjamin is quick to
point out that these street orphans also have a power over
people that is not based on pity. He continues that "they
watch the customers of a pastry cook on a busy street corner,
approach one, and accompany him, whining and pleading, until
he has relinquished to them a piece of his hot pastry."1 5
The new government was not prepared to deal with a
crisis of these proportions. After the revolution the new
government shut down the tsarist child protection services and
voluntary organizations, placing the entire responsibility on
the shoulders of the new state. It took two years before the
Commissariat of the Enlightenment was fully established. The
47
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
care of all orphaned children and destitute children were
placed under its care. Until this decision had been finalized,
the care of children bounced between various commissariats.1 6
The underlying problems that created such an epidemic took
several years to manage successfully.
While the besprizornik is most often associated with the
post-Revolutionary situation in Russia, this phenomenon was
not solely an outgrowth of the Revolution. The very name, as
well as its defining characteristics, was known to pre-
Revolutionary Russia.1 7 Pre-Revolutionary homeless orphans
were estimated at 2 million. Children were left without
supervision for a variety of reasons. The increased number of
women in the workplace was one cause for the increase of
unsupervised children. Women in the workforce began to grow in
the 1890s with a swell in 1904-1906 when men were mobilized
for the war with Japan. There was no system of childcare or
extended daycare in the city, and poverty was rife in the
countryside, forcing women and children to move to the cities.
Women were often faced with impossible decisions. Those women
who became pregnant or had illegitimate births were often
terminated from their jobs. Fathers frequently threw out wives
who had unwanted children and denied both of them support.
Mothers who could not support their children either abandoned
48
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
them or gave them to orphanages.1 8 Neither contraception nor
abortion law eased the number of abandoned children at the
beginning of the century.
This same phenomenon occurred during World War I on a
larger scale. Tsarist troops begem to be mobilized for the
front in August of 1914. As adult males were mobilized, they
deprived their families of the main breadwinners, and mothers
were forced to work outside the home. In the winter of 1916-
17, prices increased by half, but family income decreased as
women and children replaced men in the work force. Poverty was
rampant. Children, left with little supervision, spent most of
their time in the streets begging, peddling, thieving or
occasionally working as prostitutes. Those who turned to
relatives often discovered that these avenues were closed.
When adversity hit the adoptive guardians, the newest addition
was the first to go. Families broke apart under the strains of
survival and hundreds of thousands of children were orphaned
or abandoned.
Guardianship, foster care and adoption were available,
but fell into disgrace because of high mortality rates and
because children often led hard lives at the hands of
exploitative guardians. These types of institutions in rural
areas were run by the zemstvos (rural self-governing bodies).
49
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Only 11 of 43 zemstvos maintained orphanages in 1912; in the
other zemstvos children were sent to almshouses, private
orphanages, or foster homes. In most orphanages children were
left to themselves, and diseased and mentally deficient
children were kept with healthy children. Many institutions
required that children do work that bordered on exploitation.
The situation was slightly better in the cities. By the turn
of the century voluntary services and societies were regulated
by laws and evolved into semi-public institutions that were
independent of the state system of assistance and yet tied to
it both financially and administratively. One example of such
societies was The Homes for Industry and Workhouse Patronage,
which looked after the rights of 20,000 people, including
children in correctional homes and apprenticeship shops. But
most of the orphanages in the cities were run-down, badly
managed and lacking in well-qualified staff.1 9
Regardless of all the problems surrounding the
besprizornik during the early years of the Soviet regime, the
ideology surrounding the orphan was generally positive. The
ultimate goal of the new Soviet regime was to create 'the new
mein’ who would be able to take socialist principles forward
from one generation to the next. Children in particular were
to be the bearers of the new social order, since the child
50
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
represented the beginning, vitality, potential, as well as the
future in which that potential was to be realized. The model
Soviet child does not continue the heritage of his ancestors,
but is instead detached from his roots and forced to lead the
way in a new, unexplored and newly molded environment without
guidance. Hence the orphan plays a unique role. Without the
influence of parents, the orphan became the perfect model for
creating the new Soviet State. From the Soviet perspective an
orphan's upbringing should be more important to the child's
overall development than the child's parental, natural
heritage. Such logic allowed the Soviets to convert not only
orphans, who had few ties to their past lives to the new
Soviet world view, but other children who had gentry or middle
class values.
Early Soviet ideologues had a strong distaste for the
home as the symbol of private ownership and a nest of
bourgeois values. The family in their eyes was a moral and
social entity whose influence rivaled the authority of the
state. They believed that the persons who would prove most
adaptable to the communal society envisioned by the Revolution
would be the children, especially the orphans. Radical
theorists did not care how children lost their parents, be it
through natural causes, adults' voluntary relinquishment of
51
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
their offspring to government care, or the forced transfer of
children from private home to state-run institutions.2 0 The
orphanage was indeed a second family for these youngsters,
with their teacher, acting as their mentor and creating for
them a sense of home. Western critics, while not as radical as
certain Soviet theorists, made similar conclusions about the
origins of the family. Philippe Aries, for example, traces the
evolution of family life in Western European society.2 1 Aries
forwards the idea that the modern concept of family first
gained moral ascendancy among the middle classes. He supports
the claim that the strength of the family increased as the
power of the state diminished. Such links between family,
class and the state elucidate the Soviet's attitude toward the
family as a competing institution.
The Reunited Orphaned Hero
Both pre-and post- Russian Revolutionary stories with
adolescent orphaned heroes favor endings where the hero fails
to return to his roots or establish his true identity. Instead
these heroes usually strive for self-realization by taking new
paths and not looking back at their old lives. Given the
Soviet approach to the orphan, we would expect that orphan
stories in post-Revolutionary children's magazines would
52
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
feature orphans who realize their potential by leading others
towards a new life. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, although no
overt ideology was attached to the orphan, these adolescents
also strove for better lives, perhaps because orphans were
typically from poor backgrounds.22 While most post-
Revolutionary stories with orphan-heroes deviate from the
mythological adventure of childhood as described by Campbell,
and the "nature is better than nurture" approach by Estrin,
occasionally stories appeared that closely resembled the
archetypal childhood of the cast-out child who is able to
return and reclaim his birth right and hence his natural
destiny.
One such pre-Revolutionary story. Life’s Happiness,
appeared in the magazine Heart to Heart for Older Children in
1914 and was written by V. Tsekhovskaia, one of the more
popular female writers for children who often published in
this magazine.2 3 The adolescent orphaned hero, Raisa, is a
girl of about 12, who has lost both her father and her mother.
Her father served as a caretaker for an estate but after
losing his job, he dies leaving the family in need. After the
father’s death, her mother finds a job in an office and is
able to rent a room, support her daughter and continue to send
her to the gymnasium. But after the mother's death, the girl
53
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
is left in the hands of her landlord. Raisa tries to find
work, but with just six years of schooling she is
unsuccessful. Her landlord takes pity on the child and brings
her to work with him; he is a guard at a local bookbinding
factory. The director of the factory decides to take in the
girl as a favor to his guard; in principle he states that he
does not take in lady-like schoolgirls with white hands
untouched by manual labor because they never are well suited
to factory work. Raisa impresses him with her bold
determination to work hard and do everything required of her.
In the factory the workers also chide Raisa for her
proper upbringing, only one worker, Sonya, befriends the
newcomer, defends her and shows her the tricks of binding
books. All Raisa can dream about is gathering enough money to
be able to go back to school. At night she secretly continues
her studies and hopes to get accepted into the women's courses
to become a doctor. Her fellow workers disdain her so much
that they go to the director and almost cause a strike
demanding that Raisa be fired due to her upbringing. Raisa
continues to work hard until she falls ill and must be taken
to the hospital. The doctors inform the director that although
Raisa is a good worker, she is not suited for such hard
physical work. Unless Raisa stops working, the doctors foresee
54
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
an untimely end for the youngster. The director of the
factory, hearing about Raisa's dream of becoming a doctor, is
reminded of his own daughter, who died before realizing the
same dream. The director and his wife decide to take Raisa in
as their own child. After recovering, Raisa is able to go back
to the gymnasium to finish her studies. Her new father
suddenly falls ill with cancer and he has difficulty
performing his duties at the factory. Raisa takes it upon
herself to get a job tutoring for rich families. Soon after,
he is forced to quit his job at the factory and the family
decides to open a shop. Raisa tries to offer him some of the
money she has been saving at his insistence, but her new
father refuses her help. The factory director soon passes away
and Raisa helps to set his wife up in an almshouse and Raisa
herself finally becomes a doctor.
This story of an adolescent orphaned hero follows
Campbell’s description of the exiled child's separation,
initiation and return. Raisa comes from a middle class family,
has a good upbringing and some education. Unlike some of the
exiled child-gods in the paradigm, she knows of her past and
also strives to recover her lost life. Orphaned at age twelve,
Raisa is forced into the world. She does not have the luxury
that other adolescents have of slowly separating herself from
55
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
her parents. Along her journey she accepts the help of people
around her, including her landlord, a girl from the factory,
and finally the director who provides her with an adopted
family. Raisa must endure threatening circumstances in order
to reach her goal. She is ridiculed by her fellow workers, who
do not accept her because she is of a higher social class than
the other factory workers. Her return is achieved when she is
finally able to get an education and become a doctor. Raisa is
able to claim her original class status, regardless of the
initial separation from it with the death of her parents.
This story also comments on the state of orphans and the
role of parents in preventing their children's destitution
should something happen to one or both parents. Raisa's first
set of parents did not adequately provide for her. With their
death she is left to defend herself and must rely on strangers
to enable her to survive. Raisa's adoptive family, in
particular her father, is very much aware of the situation his
family would be in without his support. Upon finding out about
his illness, her adoptive father immediately begins preparing
for the worst. He insists that Raisa open a bank account and
begin saving money and earning interest. He also prepares his
wife by changing his profession and opening up a store with
her. Although his wife decides to sell the shop after his
56
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
death, he has made the effort to insure that his wife has a
source of income after his death. This story has a moralistic
thread, which pits the plight of two different families
against each other. Raisa's first family was not prepared for
the unfortunate events that took place, while Raisa's second
family is the model, which all families should follow.
Tragedies will happen, so it is best to rely upon oneself, and
not the kindness of others or of the state.
This story follows the nature versus nurture approach to
orphan stories, reiterating that nature is stronger than
nurture. Raisa belongs to a middle class background before the
death of her parents. The girl is willing to work to support
herself, but she is not accepted as an equal at the factory.
Nature is too strong a force and her fellow workers at the
factory are unable to see past her heritage. When Raisa is
adopted by the director of the factory, she reclaims her
middle class status, and nurture begins to play a role in
Raisa's life. Raisa's second family is better at preparing for
the worst, and although her second family does contribute to
Raisa's ability to realize her dreams of becoming a doctor,
these dreams are a result of her life with her natural
parents.
57
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Raisa became an orphan after the death of her parents,
but this was only one way in which children were separated
from their parents. The economic situations in Russia for
families, both pre-Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary,
caused some children to orphan themselves, that is, to run
away from their families, most often because the parents were
unable to care and provide for their children. The
besprizornik, described earlier, has been compared to Hermes,
an orphan from Greek mythology, who orphaned himself by
running away from home.2 4 On the day of his birth, he left his
mother to steal cattle from Apollo, and came to be known as
the god of roads and of thieves. One example of the runaway
orphan is a post-Revolutionary story, Dadai, which appeared in
the magazine Young Builders in 1924, two years after the
height of the homeless problem.25 This story is about an
orphan hero named Dadai Eremka and his two street companions,
Chugunok and Grandfather Agap— who is the oldest, at sixteen.
Chugunok makes his living by singing at trolleybus stops.
Dadai gathers firewood and sells it. Agap does not really have
a career, but he looks after the other two, and steals when
necessary. The adolescents are walking down Tverskoi Street,
the main street in Moscow, and near a picture of Lenin they
overhear the whispers of people on the street. Lenin is dead.
58
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Dadai recalls seeing Lenin with his mother in St. Petersburg
in 1917 and he recalls that Lenin promised that when the
Soviets came to power, everyone would be able to go to school.
He tells the boys that he did study for a year, but when the
famine hit, he was sent off to the countryside. The three boys
line up with the others to see the dead Lenin. After seeing
Lenin, Agap goes out and looks for a job, without success, and
his hunger forces him to return to stealing. Chugunok goes out
to sing, but is reprimanded by a policeman, who tells him that
due to the grim circumstances of Lenin's death singing is not
allowed. Chugonok is finally able to earn enough for bread by
singing about Lenin, which is deemed appropriate for the
situation. Dadai cannot forget the words Lenin spoke to him
and Lenin's death has a profound impact on his life: in the
morning Dadai goes to the police station to turn himself
in— he no longer wants to roam the streets and steal. He asks
the police officer to set him up in a factory so that he can
get an education and march under the red flag with pride. He
explains that both his mother and father work in a factory and
he also wants to work.
This adolescent orphaned hero, it is revealed, is not an
orphan at all, but a runaway. The circumstances of his
separation with his parents are not disclosed, but a small
59
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
clue is given. Dadai says that he studied for a year, and when
the famine started he was sent to the countryside. When famine
hit in 1921 many children were sent with their parents'
permission to the countryside with the understanding that in
the country, where food was grown, the children would not go
hungry. Unfortunately in the majority of cases this turned out
not to be true. Children were gathered up by the government
and sent to boarding houses in the country, which were often
ill-prepared to care for the children and had only an
inadequate supply of food, medicine and supervision.26 Dadai
may have been one of these children who made it back to the
city alive, probably by learning to steal. Dadai's parents may
not be dead, but his physical separation from them has allowed
Dadai to begin the adventure of adolescence.
Dadai endures a difficult road on his way to returning
to his destined life and many people help him out while he is
on the streets. When ties to parents are loosened or lost as
in the case of Dadai and Raisa, children search for other
meaningful relationships with other people. While some orphans
may pride themselves on their growing self-sufficiency, the
orphan is inevitably attracted to older and wiser types who
become surrogate parents to him. While sometimes this
relationship is formed with another adolescent, this
60
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
relationship can be formed with another adult, other than a
parent or guardian. On the streets such characters are likely
to be gang leaders who provide advice and lessons on how to
stay alive. When the orphan bonds with a teacher-provider, the
orphan is once again provided with the nurturing and
dependence that he lost with the separation from his family.
This relationship and the act of bonding with the mentor,
whether positive or negative in the overall development of the
orphan, recreates a sense of family. Grandfather Agap, while
also an orphan, is a mentor, not the most positive, and to
some extent a provider for both Dadai and Chugunok. Lenin, as
might be expected in Soviet children's literature, is the true
positive figure in Dadai’s life who helps the orphan to turn
his life around. Finally, the kind police officer, who makes
the call to set him up in a factory, ends the story with a
promising return, maybe not to his parents, but to the
factory, and most importantly a return as a proud and
productive member of the Soviet State. While neither Raisa nor
Dadai makes a full entrance into adulthood, they are both set
on paths that will lead them in this direction.
In this story both nature and nurture play a role in
Dadai‘s future. Dadai's destiny is secured by his parents
before the separation. Dadai's mother takes the boy to hear
61
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Lenin who is giving a speech at the factory where she works.
By heritage Dadai should be part of the working class, and his
early exposure to Lenin leads him towards being a model Soviet
citizen. The separation from his parents interrupts Dadai's
course; he ends up on the street with a different influence.
Life on the street interests Dadai for a while, but Lenin's
death reminds Dadai of his past and helps him to realize his
future and make a return to Soviet life.
These two orphan stories demonstrate that life for the
orphan is radically different from the life of an adolescent
who grows up in a loving protective family. The adolescent
raised under ordinary circumstances gradually ventures beyond
the boundry of the family as his knowledge and curiosity about
the outside world lead him away from home. The adolescent
orphan is not allowed to emerge into the world in his own time
with maturity. Instead the orphan is forced from this realm of
childhood into adulthood often with sudden events, the death
of parents for those like Raisa and national catastrophes for
those like Dadai. Orphans emerge into the life of the street,
like Dadai, or another family or a factory, like Raisa, when
they leave the everyday commonplace existence that home and
family represent. Life becomes an adventure for the adolescent
and to an even greater degree for the adolescent orphan, who
62
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
is unprotected and cut off completely from his past.
Adolescent orphans must often rely on their own abilities to
secure their future.
Both Raisa and Dadai make a return to the destiny of
their lost communities and each returns to a socially
acceptable, and to an extent, prized future. Raisa, our pre-
Revolutionary orphan hero, falls from her protective sphere of
the middle class family with the death of her parents, and
regains it after her journey. Dadai, our post-Revolutionary
hero, also falls from his working class background and becomes
a street urchin in the absence of his parents, but is able to
reclaim a position at the factory. Dadai does not represent
the typical orphan as a model for the new Soviet state; he is
not detached from his roots, but instead rerooted. His return
to his past occurs because he has a socially acceptable and
desirable past, the past of a factory worker. Raisa also has
an acceptable past for pre-Revolutionary society. While she
does not fulfill fairy tale or aristocratic dreams and marry a
prince, she restores her middle class status. Raisa's and
Dadai's return is unusual in comparison to the majority of
orphan heroes from Russian children's magazines at the time.
As the next four stories will demonstrate, most Russian
orphans do not realize themselves by returning to the past.
63
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Instead Russian orphans, both pre- and post-Revolutionary,
realize themselves by creating a new future, one based on
nurture and not nature.
A New Future and the Orphaned Hero
One such story is Radio-Rabbit which appeared in the
magazine The New Robinson in 1925.27 The story opens with the
adolescent orphaned hero Anton faint from hunger after
spending the last two weeks in train stations and on the
streets. Anton has run away from his stepmother after his
father's death. He knows that he cannot go back to her and the
village; she has five other mouths to feed of her own. He
cannot bring himself to steal and is so weak he no longer
wants to eat. As he leans himself up against the side of a
shop, the shopkeeper calls out to him, gives him some food and
offers him a job. Anton happily accepts and becomes a very
good worker. His boss has only two complaints about his young
worker. Anton has a passion for books and mechanics. One day
his boss brings home a box with a secret compartment. Anton is
too busy reading about radios to listen to his boss's
explanation about how the secret compartment operates. Later
Anton becomes intrigued by the box. Just as Anton gets the box
open, his boss walks in the door, while all his boss's
64
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
trinkets, watches and rings fall to the floor. His boss
accuses Anton of stealing and sends him to an orphanage for
under-aged criminals.
At the orphanage Anton is depressed that he has had his
freedom taken from him and finds it difficult to make friends
with the boys who are thieves and murderers. Finally Anton
begins to talk with a boy they call The Electrician and is
amazed to find out that this thief knows how to put radios
together. The Electrician and Anton begin to devise a plan to
get the parts to build a radio. The first week they lower a
box out a window with a sign asking for money so that they can
purchase the parts to make the radio. Some of the passersby
swear at the box. Once the box is stolen. However some people
put money in the box. One day an engineer passes by and sees
the box. He puts a note into the box asking if they need any
technical help building the radio. The orphans answer that
they know how to assemble the radio themselves, but still do
not have enough money to buy the parts. The next day Anton and
the Electrician are called in to see the director of the
orphanage. In the director's office they meet the engineer
that had promised to help them the previous day. The director
agrees to get the parts for the orphans and the engineer comes
every day and helps the adolescents assemble the radio. After
65
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
working with the orphans he invites the boys to come and work
at the radio factory. The engineer and director of the
orphanage agree that there is no such thing as a criminal,
only people who make mistakes.
Anton does not return to his lost community. His journey
has led him far away from his life in the small village where
he was born. The street is his first adventure upon leaving
home, but Anton, unlike other orphans, such as Dadai, is ill
fit for such a lifestyle. The shopkeeper saves his life,
nurtures him to a point of letting Anton pursue his love of
reading and mechanics, but distrusts the orphan. When an
orphan moves from the street to a more stable environment, he
is likely to bring ways of the street back into the home— a
distrust of people, a tendency to steal, lie, fight--which
alter the nature of the home. Even if the orphan does not
bring such tendencies into the new family, the orphan may be
suspected by a family member of doing so. Such is the case
with Anton. Although the reader is aware of Anton's disgust of
stealing, since he'd rather starve than steal, orphans were
often accused of thieving, as it was one way they could
survive on the streets. The shopkeeper's immediate reaction to
seeing Anton with all of his worldly possessions was to think
the worst. The shopkeeper does not embody the Soviet view that
66
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the orphan will be the new model mein; instead he turns the
orphan over to the authorities.
The orphanage is Anton's next stage along his journey,
where at first he is uncomfortable, but eventually finds his
path to redemption through wanting to build the radio with his
peers. His peers, like the peers of all adolescents, direct
Anton towards a path that will lead him away from his
childhood and into adulthood. Building the radio guides him to
his final 'family'; a position in a radio factory. Although
the reader does not know what happens to Anton at the factory,
this position will hopefully allow the orphan to realize his
potential and eventually adulthood. The story makes no
illusion to him returning to his village, or helping out his
stepmother and half siblings. Anton has come too far to go
back to village life, his life experiences have taught him
otherwise and turned him in a new direction.
The engineer nurtures these young criminals back to a
life that contributes to the building of a new Soviet world,
regardless of their pasts. Although Anton is not a criminal,
he is associated with the criminals with whom he lives at the
orphanage. Anton's passion for how things work is both his
savior and his ruin. He is incarcerated for his interest in
mechanical things, but it is also his love for mechanics,
67
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
particularly the radio, that redeems him. Anton's passion for
the radio and the diligence he shows the engineer convince the
engineer that the boy is worthy of being a contributing member
of society and working in a radio factory. Anton's village
upbringing is not what brings about this new direction in his
life. Instead, Anton's change in life is brought about by his
time spent at both his first job as a store clerk and at the
orphanage planning and working on the radio. This nurturing
that Anton receives along his journey helps the boy redirect
his life.
Pre-Revolutionary orphan stories also favored
conclusions in which the hero realizes himself by starting a
new life, instead of reuniting with his past. The Little
Tartar Asan which appeared in the magazine Cornshoots in 1914
features a Tartar boy named Asan.2 8 After the death of his
parents, Asan is sent to work at the stables of a rich stable
owner who rents horses to visitors in Yalta. The owner works
the boy hard and feeds him little. One rich visitor notices
that the boy is ill and has him set up in a sanatorium for six
months to recuperate. The visitors and staff of the sanitarium
try to befriend the little Tartar, but without much luck until
a young Russian woman arrives from Petersburg. By being extra
kind to the boy, she is able to talk with him and find out
68
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
that he misses a horse that he has adopted at the stables. He
runs away to be able to see the horse again, only to be
brought back by the doctor who finds him asleep in the horse's
stall. The visitors at the sanatorium slowly start to become
closer to the young boy. They tell him stories, answer his
questions about far away places, and teach him to read and
write. Asan is surprised to find out that Russians have jobs
and work hard to support their families. His time in the
resort spot in Yalta had led him to believe that all Russians
do is drink wine and relax. And yet with his new friends and
his new knowledge he becomes sour. He pushes everyone away and
it takes several days before his new friends realize what is
bothering Asan. Before his stay in the sanatorium, Asan
dreamed of making a little money and heading back to the
village where his father lived, but now upon hearing about
other places and making friends he is afraid of being forced
to return to his village. One of the visitors, a young man
with a wife and baby back home, decides to adopt Asan and
enroll him in the gymnasium in St. Petersburg.
In this story, as in others, the reasons behind Asan's
separation from his family are unknown. When the story opens,
Asan is already on his own journey. While the reader does not
know whether or not Asan spent time on the streets, his first
69
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
employer, who is referred to in the Russian story as either a
Turk or a Tartar, did not treat him well and did not provide
him with a second home that offered protection or nurturing,
except for a horse with which Asan falls in love. His stay in
the sanatorium starts out not much better. He refuses to
interact with the staff and visitors and one Russian woman
suggests that he would be better off dead, because obviously
he has something heavily weighing on his soul. But the efforts
of the other visitors help the orphan to open up. He learns to
read and write and decides that Russians are not all drunks
with no cares in the world. Most importantly, his new Russian
friends teach him how to love again and to depend on others,
when previously he was only able to depend on himself.
Asan does not return to establish his true origins;
instead the adolescent orphaned hero rejects his dream of
returning to his father's village and tending a small flock of
sheep. His new Russian friends open his mind to new
possibilities and he is no longer content with his former
life. As Campbell suggests about the exiled infant, Asan has
difficulty returning because of all he has achieved along his
journey. Asan is no longer the naive, village Tartar boy that
knows nothing beyond the world of his native village.
Returning is no longer an option and the orphan is overjoyed
70
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
when he finds out that a Russian is willing to bring him into
his family and allow him to continue his education.
Little Tartar Asan is a pre-Revolutionary story that
emphasis nurture over nature. Asan's journey includes exposure
to Russian values and way of life. His decision to move to a
Russian city and live with a Russian family is a rejection of
his former way of life. Such a conclusion to this orphan story
suggests that nurture, the care and advice given to him by his
new Russian friends, allows him more opportunity and a
brighter future than the life of nature, the life he would
have followed had he remained in his village with his parents.
Asan's new friends and adoptive father represent not only a
vote for nurture, but Asan's decision to abandon completely
his old way of life attests to a preference for Russian values
over the values of the "other," in this case Asan's native
Tartar heritage.
Imperialism and the Russians’ view of the "other" and in
particular of the Tartars is important in grasping the roles
of the orphaned "other" and the adoptive "Russian" nation in
this story. Russian imperialism in this story, however, is
difficult to categorize without some elaboration. The process
of the annexation of the Caucasus spanned nearly three
centuries and occurred under a long succession of Russian
71
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
rulers with different objectives. Certain historians believe
that Catherine the Great set the basis for the nineteenth
century imperialist agenda, which continued into the first
years of the twentieth century. Marc Raeff’s essay "In the
Imperial Manner" argues that Catherine's intentions included
economic, military, political, religious and moral
dimensions.2 9 These intentions overlap and run into each
other, making decisive characterizations of Russian
imperialism impossible. A mission to civilizing this part of
the world was included in this imperialist outlook. In
addition, Russian writers, as put forward by Susan Layton in
her book Russian Literature and Empire, were sovereign in
their works and also wielded their works to different ends.3 0
Hence the story about little Asan does not necessarily have to
reflect common intentions of Imperialism. Regardless Asan's
abandoning his Tartar roots in favor of the values espoused by
his new Russian friends reinforces the Russians’ belief that
they were helping backwards peoples emerge from
underdevelopment.
Both Asan and Anton trade in their bleak pasts for
brighter futures. In the first two stories, Raisa and Dadai
experience an initial separation from their true origins, but
after enduring hardships, they are able to return to a
72
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
familiar, kindred and expected mode of life. Both Asan and
Anton do not return to their pasts as Raisa and Dadai, but
instead take the opportunity to improve their lives by
initiating a new path. Asan, the pre-Revolutionary hero,
chooses a more Russian way of life over his native Tartar
roots. Anton, the post-Revolutionary hero, opts for city life
and a chance to work in a radio factory instead of life in a
poor Russian village.
Frequently an orphan chooses a path after being
influenced by a peer group. This peer group leads the orphan
to a final realization that the orphan would not have achieved
based solely on nature. In the next two stories adolescents
form bonds with other adolescents which facilitates their
progression from a troubled childhood to a promising future.
One such story, Forest Day, appeared in the magazine Pioneer
in 1925 written by K. Kalinin. In this story an orphaned boy,
Vaska, is taken in at age five by his aunt and uncle. His
mother and sister have passed away. Vaska does not remember
his father at all. His aunt and uncle decide to adopt the boy
because they have not been blessed with their own children, no
matter how hard they prayed. His uncle makes it clear to him
that in a few years Vaska will work hard for his uncle so that
they will not have to hire someone to work on the land. Vaska
73
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
learns to work especially hard on Sundays because his aunt and
uncle are churchgoers. Every Sunday all the work falls on
Vaska because his aunt and uncle are not allowed to work on
God's day.
Vaska's uncle is a very clever man. He always finds a
way to make money. For example he cheats his customers by
using a faulty measurement when selling butter. He also takes
bribes, makes moonshine and chops down trees from the public
forest. However, his uncle begins to grow uncomfortable with
his nephew’s knowledge of his wrongdoings when Vaska starts to
spend his time at Komsomol meetings. At first his uncle
threatens to throw Vaska out on the street if Vaska tells the
Komsomols of his uncle's actions. Then his uncle begins to
bribe Vaska with pocket money so he can attend lectures and
dances that the Komsomols are organizing.
One evening Vaska goes to a lecture given by an
agronomist. The agronomist speaks about deforestation and the
negative effects it has on the environment. He warns that if
such actions continue, the rivers will dry up and eventually
there will be no oxygen to breathe. He announces that tomorrow
is Forest Day and everyone is asked to respect the forest on
this day and help plant seedlings. Vaska decides his uncle is
very greedy. He has enough firewood and a surplus of wood for
74
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
repairing the house and yet he continues to cut down trees
just to make money. Vaska returns home very late from the
lecture.
The next morning his uncle wakes Vaska up to help him
sell butter. Vaska, who has not slept enough, barely makes it
through the workday. At one point he catches a glimpse of
Komsomols with shovels and seedlings replanting the forest.
Vaska wants to join them in their work, but he is too tired.
He lies down in the back of the cart and falls asleep. He
dreams that the entire forest has been cut down and not a
single tree remains standing, only stumps. The river has dried
up completely and he starts to feel like he is choking. All
the oxygen is gone. At this moment his uncle wakes him up. All
afternoon Vaska feels badly, his head hurts and he can't eat
anything for dinner.
However, after dinner his uncle insists that Vaska join
him to gather wood. The entire way Vaska swoons as he thinks
about the lack of oxygen. His uncle finally reaches the plot
of land covered by linden trees that he once owned. In the
past he had come here every couple of days in secret from the
Communists and cut down a few trees. Today he decides to cut
them all down at once so that the poor will not benefit from
them. But Vaska refuses to help his uncle cut down the
75
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
remaining trees. Vaska screams at the top of his lungs,
“thief, thief!" His uncle threatens to send Vaska away, but
Vaska is no longer deterred by his uncle's threats and he
tells his uncle that he will leave himself. The story ends
with his uncle riding away as fast as he can from the forest
and Vaska's words "thief" echoing and then dying out in the
mountains.
The abrupt ending of the story leaves the adolescent
orphaned hero some place between separation and realization.
The reader is told very little about his birth family. His
mother and sister die when Vaska is five. At one point in the
story his uncle calls his father a drunk, but no other
reference is made to him. While adolescents, who are raised by
their parents, typically withdraw from their parents during
this transition, orphans are forced to separate from their
parents suddenly and completely. The separation of Vaska from
his birth family is complete. However, it is difficult to
assess Vaska's background based on so little information.
More insight is given about Vaska's life after his aunt and
uncle adopt him. He learns quickly to be a good worker and not
to question his uncle's unlawful ways. This new family
certainly shapes Vaska's character and his approach to life.
Vaska thrives in his new family as Dadai thrived on the
76
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
streets. Vaska, like other adolescents, does find people on
whom he relies. At first he depends on his aunt and uncle. But
Vaska has another influence in his life, the Komsomols.
The young Komsomols offer Vaska another direction in his
life and a chance to live an honest life. Like other
adolescents, Vaska pushes emotionally away from his adoptive
parents, and begins to spend time and be influenced by a group
of peers. The extent of his new friends' influence on his
decisions can be seen in his relation to his uncle. In the
past Vaska was fearful of upsetting his uncle. When Vaska
accused his uncle of cheating his customers, his uncle
responded by threatening to throw his nephew out on the
streets. However, Vaska pushes away from his uncle and his
unlawful ways and gathers strength and resolution to stand up
to his uncle through his involvement with a peer group. At the
end of the story the direction of Vaska's future is clear.
Vaska can no longer live in his uncle's house. While Vaska's
immediate plans are not elucidated in the story, he is already
making the transition from his childhood home to his adult
life.
The last orphan story offers two adolescent orphaned
heroes the chance at self-realizations with the help of each
other. The story The Dovecote written by Shepkina-Kupemik
77
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
appeared in Children’ s World in 1907. 31 It tells the story of
two orphans who have both lost their mothers. The orphan Dusia
is an only child and lives with her father and nanny in a
large house. The father has spoiled the girl since her
mother's death; she has beautiful clothes and an overabundance
of toys, but she is always unhappy and spends most of her time
sitting by the window, watching the other children playing in
the courtyard. One girl interests Dusia more than any of the
other children, a thin, poorly dressed girl named Talia. Like
Dusia, Talia is an orphan. She lives with her uncle and his
wife who rent a room in a neighboring building. The wife beats
Talia for the smallest of reasons, makes her work all the
time, cleaning, washing, cooking, running errands and makes
her look after the other children. Dusia's one wish is to
invite Talia over to her house to play. Although her father is
against the idea, he finally gives in, as he is used to
fulfilling his daughter's wishes. He asks Talia's uncle if she
can come over for tea.
When the two girls have tea, Dusia shows Talia her toys
and the poor orphan is entranced by a beautiful china doll in
a silk dress. At first Dusia does not want to play with the
doll, insisting that the doll is boring, but to her surprise,
Talia is able to think up all sorts of interesting stories.
78
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Suddenly the doll becomes fun. Talia is also taken by the
wonderful display of pastries that are put out for tea, and
cannot help but eat several even though she knows it is not
polite. Dusia has so much fun with Talia that she asks her
father if Talia can come live with her as a sister. Her father
doubts that Talia's uncle will allow this, but her uncle
allows her to go. Her uncle knows that his wife treats the
child poorly and hopes that his niece will have a better life
with her new family. The two girls are very happy and believe
that their mothers must be watching over them in heaven and
have also become the best of friends.3 2
This story is unusual in comparison to the other
adolescent orphaned hero stories discussed in this chapter
because of the depiction of the parallel lives of two very
different orphans. When the story opens, the separation of
both girls from their mothers has already taken place. Dusia
is a "partial" orphan in the Western sense, having lost her
mother, but not her father. She still has all the economic
comforts that a girl of her economic background expects, and
her father fulfills her every whim as he tries to make up for
the emotional void in the girl's heart. Dusia lives a
comfortable life, but is unhappy. Dusia misses her mother and
is having a difficult time adjusting to her new life. Talia is
79
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
also an orphan, but life has dealt Talia a much harsher lot
since she has lost both her mother and her father. In addition
to missing the emotional support of her mother, Talia lacks
the benefits of money. She is treated like Cinderella by her
uncle's wife and is beaten as well. Talia does not complain.
She knows that if she causes problems, or if the family falls
upon economic difficulties, she may be thrown onto the street
as the newcomer and outsider.
When the two orphans come together, they realize that
they offer each other the missing piece to a more complete
life. As with all adolescents, these two orphans use their
friendship to replace the admiration and respect that they had
for their deceased parents. Talia is offered a more
economically stable life, one that does not require her to do
the housework for an entire family. Talia will also receive a
better education and hence improve her future in terms of jobs
and marriage. However, money can't solve all the problems of
orphanhood. Poor Talia has something to offer rich
Dusia— friendship and emotional support. Talia has a vivid
imagination, most likely from daydreaming about a better life,
that Dusia does not have, but which fascinates the rich Dusia.
She receives a new outlook on life, which she desperately
80
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
needs, since life had stopped being interesting for the rich
orphan.
Nurture again conquers nature in this orphan story. Only
one of the two girls experiences a return to her lost
community. Dusia is able to emotionally return to the life
that she had lost with the death of her mother. The love and
support that Talia gives her is something that her father with
all his gifts could not accomplish. Talia, on the other hand,
will never return to her past life. Her new life offers her
opportunities that were unavailable to her in the past. Both
girls are able to move forward in their lives, past their
troubled childhood and into a brighter future.
Conclusion
The majority of Russian adolescent orphaned heroes in
both pre- and post-Revolutionary children's magazines do not
return to establish their true origins or become reconciled
with their parents as is suggested by Joseph Campbell in his
work on world mythology. Russian adolescent orphaned heroes
also fail to establish the paradigm established by Estrin that
biology or nature is better than nurture. Her paradigm of
orphan tales assumes that there is a generic faith by readers
81
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
that orphans will turn out to be royal or at least wealthy and
that they will reject their substitute families.
It is possible to argue that Dadai, Raisa and Dusia do
make returns to their lost communities or that nature is more
important than nurture in these stories. Raisa is raised in a
middle class family and temporarily falls into poverty with
the death of her parents. With her own hard work and
determination and the support of friends and a new family,
Raisa becomes a doctor. Dadai, a son of working class family,
also changes his life around. He gives up his life on the
street to work in a factory. Dusia's situation is different.
Having lost only her mother, Dusia has forgotten how to enjoy
life. Dusia learns to love her life after she meets her new
friend Talia. This friendship allows Dusia another chance at a
happy comfortable life. None of these orphans actually are
reunited with their parents. These orphans are true orphans,
regardless of whether the reader, as assumed by Estrin, has a
generic faith that the orphan will be reunited with his or her
family. These orphans, however, make a symbolic return to
their lost pasts by regaining similar status in society to
their status before the death of their parents.
The other orphans, Asan, Anton, Vaska and Talia do not
return to their lost communities, but instead they forge out
82
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
new futures. Asan rejects his Tartar village to move to St.
Petersburg with his Russian adoptive parents. Anton leaves his
stepmother and his brothers and sisters in a small village to
go to the city and becomes a worker in a radio factory. Vaska
lives with his dishonest uncle until the Komsomols give Vaska
the strength to leave his uncle. Talia is treated like a maid
by her poor uncle's family, but her new family offers her a
comfortable life full of love. Regardless of these orphans'
failure to return to their biological parents or to return
symbolically, all of them improved their standing and made
brighter futures for themselves.
It is important to keep in mind that the six stories
discussed in this chapter are not myths and are not only
orphan tales. These stories were written with a particular
readership in mind— the Russian adolescent. While some of the
orphans discussed above do make a symbolic return to a lost
past, it is imperative to stress that all the orphans, in the
stories discussed in this chapter make complete self-
realizations in terms of their transition from childhood to
adulthood. Adolescent orphans are forced into the world, cut
off completely from their past. These orphans do not have the
luxury of other adolescents. They cannot distance themselves
from their parents over time by means of continual cycles of
83
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
emotional withdrawal and return to the parents. Also like
other adolescents, these orphans encounter other adult mentors
and peers that replace the parents' influence on a child.
These mentors, whether adults or peers, have a much more
powerful role in the life of an adolescent orphan than in the
life of only an adolescent. The complete absence of parents
renders these new relationships potentially more life
altering. In the end the adolescent orphan must rely on
himself. However, these new influences can help the orphan to
establish a future that does not necessarily depend on the
past and makes the adult future a positive one.
84
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 Benjamin, "Moscow," Selected Writings vol. 2 1927-1934,
ed. Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 1999), 26.
2 Benjamin, "Moscow," 26.
3 Walter Benjamin, "A Glimpse into the World of
Children’s Books," Selected Writings vol. 1 1913-1926, ed.
Marcus Bullock (Cambridge, Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1999), 435-436.
4 Traditional Soviet besprizomik tales are distinguished
from orphan tales by a hero who is orphaned by tragedies
experienced on a national scale in a period surrounded roughly
by the two world wars. The adolescent orphaned heroes
discussed in this chapter are also different from traditional
Soviet besprizomik tales because they were written for a
child reader. See Sheila Ann Wolohan, "Orphans as Metaphors in
Soviet Literature" (Ph.D. diss.. University of California, Los
Angeles, 1992) .
5 Joseph Cambell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
(Pantheon Books: New York, 1949), 30.
6 The paradigm of the exiled infant does not require that
the child, as in Zeus's case, fulfill a prophecy by deposing
his or her father.
7 Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (Austin:
University of Texas, 1968), 26.
“Propp, Vladimir, Morfologiia/ Istoricheskie korni
volshebnoi skazki (Moscow: Labirint, 1998): 175-178.
9 Barbara L. Estrin, The Raven euid the Lark: Lost
Children in Literature of the English Renaissance (Lewisburg:
Bucknell University Press, 1985), 13-17.
1 0 See Anna Freud, "Adolescence,": 255-78.
85
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 1 C.G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Child Archetype,"
Essays on a Science of Mythology (Princeton: University Press,
1963), 98.
1 2 Jung, Essays on a Science of Mythology, 89.
1 3 Andrew Wachtel, The Battle for Childhood: Creation of
a Russian Myth (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990),
102-105.
1 4 Benjamin, "Moscow," 28.
1 5 Benjamin, "Moscow," 28.
1 6 Judith Harwin, Children of the Russian State 1917-95
(Aldershot: Avebury Press, 1996), 10.
1 7 Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in
Russia Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860-1930 (Princeton
University Press, 1978), 366.
1 8 Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement, 366-67.
1 9 Harwin, Children, 7.
2 0 Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement, 117-118, 266-
67, 351-355.
2 1 Aries, Centuries of Childhood, 365-407.
2 2 For example in the first decade of the twentieth
century, the number of children coming to Moscow from peasant
backgrounds was more than 90 percent in relation to other
social groups. This includes peasants who brought their
children to the city by means of railroads, and peasant women
who had moved to the city for work, and then were forced to
abandon their children to keep their jobs. For more
information see David L. Ransel, Mothers of Misery: Child
Abandonment in Russia (Princton: Princton University Press,
1988), 150- 175.
2 3 V. Tsekhovskaia, "Schast'e zhizni," Zadushevnoe slovo
dlia starshikh detei 10 (1914): 170-172; 11 (1914): 187-190;
12 (1914): 204-6; 13 (1914): 219-222; 14 (1914): 235-238; 15
86
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
(1914): 248-252; 16 (1914): 268-270; 17 (1914): 284-286; 18
(1914): 300-302; 19 (1914): 316-318; 20 (1914): 331-334: 21
(1914): 348-350; 22 (1914): 366-67; 23 (1914): 380-382.
2 4 Wolohan, Orphans, 2-11.
2 5 K. Kozhevnikov, "Dadai," Iunye stroiteli 4 (1924): 9-
11.
2 6 Harwin, 10.
2 7 Boris Lavrenev, "Radio-zaiats," Novyi Robinson 12
(1925): 1-11.
2 8 M Tolmacheva, "Tartarchenok Asan," Vskhody 10 (1914):
739-753 .
2 9 See Mark Raeff. "In the Imperial Manner" Catherine the
Great. A Profile. Ed. Mark Raeff (New York: Hill and Wang,
1972): 197-200.
3 0 See Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1-14.
3 1 T. Shepkina-Kupernik, “Golubiatnia," Detskii mir 1
(1907): 3-13.
3 2 The appearance of this story in the January issue of
Detskii mir and the emotional saccharine plot encourages a
reading of this story as part of the Russian Christmas story
genre. See the introduction in Chudo rozhdestvenskoi nochi:
sviatochnye rasskazy, ed. E. Dushechkina and Kh. Baran (St.
Petersburg: Khudozh. Lit-ra, 1993), 1-23.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 3
Girl Power:
Female Adolescence and
the Active Female Hero
The young Russian girl at the beginning of the 1900s
engaged in an important transition— like the young girls from
earlier eras, she moved from childhood to adulthood— but she
also made a transition from one dominant ideological construct
to another with the Revolution in 1917. Despite the political
upheaval, the young Russian had opportunities that were
unavailable to her mother and grandmother. Beth Holmgren in
her 1996 article Why Russian Girls Loved Charskaia suggests
that girls in Russia in the early 1900s experienced the same
fate as their European and North American counterparts.1 These
girls had better access to education and were encouraged more
to take part in leisure activities than the previous
generations, but they were still restricted in their physical,
88
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
intellectual and professional development. Books supplied
these girls with the adventures and accomplishments that they
so craved in life, and writers and publishers began to
identify girls as an important subset of the juvenile market.
Before the turn of the century, girls in Russia and in Europe
had their own magazines that catered solely to them, but these
magazines apparently failed to give girls what they wanted.
Gillian Avery in her book on British children's books connects
girls' discontent with the previously offered fiction and the
rapid growth of a new type of fiction for girls.
Maidens in those days grew for a long time, and the
Girl's Own Paper, which was founded in 1880 to
provide them with wholesome reading, catered for an
age range of twelve to twenty five. It is hardly
surprising that the fiction that was supposed to
cover the needs of all of them should have pleased
very few of them. The younger girls in particular
wanted something with more life, and turned to
their brothers' school and adventure stories.2
In her book The New Girl on girls' culture in England Sally
Mitchell furthermore suggests that while in the nineteenth
century fiction became less obtrusively didactic, towards the
end of the century a divide opened up between the type of
reading endorsed by adults and the books most loved by girls.3
A very similar situation occurred in Russia at approximately
the same time. Both writers and publishers capitalized on this
new demand. In Russia before the revolution this demand for
89
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
school and adventure stories was filled in part by large
publishing houses such as Vol'f and writers such as Lidia
Charskaia. With the simultaneous coming of age of both the
concept of adolescence and the emerging genre of girlhood
stories, the stories that appeared in magazines for this group
offer insight into the position of the adolescent girl in
Russia at the turn of the century. After the revolution the
situation regarding market forces changed irrevocably. With
the increase, once again, of adult controlled publishing and
hence the restraint of girls' influence on the creative
process, one would expect that literature for girls would once
again become instructive, didactic and representative of new
Soviet ideology. However the process and concept of
adolescence did not disappear with the Revolution. As Walter
Benjamin suggests in his work on children's literature, the
adolescent is cut off from dominant ideology and exposed.
Consequently, adolescent literature during times of crisis and
political movement may also be cut off from ideology.4 The aim
of this chapter is to identify how female adolescence, as a
period of transition, was depicted in Russian literature while
the literature itself was undergoing a transformation during
late-imperial and Early Soviet Russia.
90
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Faa&l* Adolescence
Female adolescence in the beginning of the twentieth
century either assimilated the experience of the girl to that
of the boy, or alternately cast the difference as stark. The
accepted view of womanhood, put forward by Western
psychologists such as Hall, Clarke, Wolfe and others, was that
it was not cultural but predetermined.5 Women and girls were
thought to be incapable of intellectual work because of
menstruation and hence could never achieve full identity and
self-knowledge. In spite of this, Elizabeth Busse-Wilson,
writing in 1920, maintained that women could develop their
intellectual and artistic talents and become financially
independent if only the responsibility for raising children
were shared.6 Reaction to such ideas was strong, with critics
claiming that modern women were trying to deviate from their
natural being and overstep womanhood's natural boundaries.
Similarly, in Russia the question about a woman's place in
society and the discourse surrounding it was largely male-
dominated in the beginning. Men first debated the issue in
public debates and lectures, while women continued to take
care of practical day-to-day existence. The women's question
in Russia pertained to both practical and philosophical
issues. For example, were girls physically and psychologically
91
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
capable of study? Should girls be educated for future
employment or trained only in the accepted feminine areas such
as hygiene, needlepoint and music? Would education affect
girls' future roles as mothers? However, in the Russian
context a young girl's future did not look so bleak if we
examine the literature for children that was offered to girls
in the magazines of this period. These stories encouraged
girls throughout adolescence with models of positive and
active female heroes.
Female heroes in fictional stories experience many of
the same adolescent experiences as their male counterparts.
Similar to the adolescent orphaned hero from Chapter Two, when
female heroes push away from their parents whom they once
placed on a pedestal, these heroes often experience feelings
of self-disparagement and grandiosity. Adolescents overcome
such feelings to magnify their importance over time. Often
this withdrawal from the parents and the contradictory
feelings that accompany it yield to new friendships outside
the family. These new relationships are often formed at first
with a member of one's own sex. The intense relationships of
this phase assume an unprecedented importance that differs
altogether from friendship in pre-adolescence. The friend is
often idealized as the adolescent seeks to replace what has
92
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
been lost as the parents' role diminishes in her life. Girls
also experiment with both gender roles, usually preferring
male mentors, forms of dress and activities that males
universally enjoyed over females. This depiction of androgyny
was not exclusive to literature for girls. Androgyny and its
contrasts between "masculine" and active elements, and
"feminine" and passive elements appeared in both men's and
women's writings of the modernist period. In literature for
adults transgression of these boundaries between masculine and
feminine was meant to be shocking and perverted.7 In
literature for adolescents androgyny was an experimental
component of accepting gender. Regardless of the individual’s
adolescent experiences, the inevitability of becoming a woman
and the conscious decision to accept such "womanly"
responsibilities is the end result in the fictional stories
for adolescent girls.
The Position of Girls in Imperial Russian Society
The blossoming of active female heroes in magazines for
children is at least in part related to the position of women
in Russia at the turn of the century. As mentioned above, the
woman’s question in the 1850s and 1860s was largely a male
one. However, the exclusion of women from this public
93
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
discourse prompted a group of women to begin to take action on
their own behalf in the 1890s. This group from the privileged
classes attempted to extend the restricted limits of their own
lives, to end the legal and social subordination of women of
all classes, to open up opportunities for education and work,
and to provide help for women in poverty. The popularization
of the movement did not take place until the beginning of the
twentieth century when women's suffrage became an issue. As
the movement developed, it created its own literature and
force, but the role of men in the woman's question did not
disappear. By the time the revolution came about, women had
attained little more than wider access to education and
professional employment. Women had to wait for the fall of the
monarchy in 1917 for any significant extension of their civil
and political rights. According to Edmundson and Bartlett in
their article, "Collapse and Creation: Issues of Identity and
the Russian Fin de Siecle,■ if the feminist movement was not
accepted by many women's writers during this period, feminism,
in a broad sense, was absolutely fundamental to the evolution
of women's writing around 1900.8 Many of the new women
writers of this period were direct beneficiaries of the
advancements made in women's educational opportunities. Many
had graduated from women's gymnasiums and several attended the
94
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
university-level women's courses. Few women writers at the
beginning of the twentieth century hid behind male pseudonyms
as their female predecessors did in the 1850s and 1860s. Most
importantly, women began to produce an immense body of work
that included all literary genres and methods. The influence
of the feminist movement created opportunities for many of the
female authors to share their outlook on adolescence.
The Female Haro aa Literary Tradition
Regardless of the frequency with which the female hero
appeared on the pages of children's magazines there is a long
standing tradition in Western Culture that heroes are male.
Heroes, such as Odysseus and Jack of Jack and the Beanstock,
are strong, brave, skillful, rational and dedicated. Their
stories are about superiority, dominance and success. Women in
these stories are designed to serve men. Women who refuse to
serve them are threats to the natural order and must be
controlled.9 However, there emerge from the Western tradition
two types of female heroines that seem almost allergic to each
other: the active heroine such as Joan of Arc, Psyche, or in
Russian history, Nadezhda Durova or the folktale Vasilisa The
Priest's Daughter; and the passive heroine exemplified by
Cinderella or Snow White. This second type of heroine
95
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
represents the traditional (and the now Disney-fied) role
played by women: that of mother, wife, mistress and muse.
These heroines are ultimately rewarded for a passive and
docile endurance. The first type of heroine is a woman who
takes upon herself attributes that are associated with male
heroes.
Male-centered views about heroes as exclusively male
were broadly held in the beginning part of the twentieth
century by scholars such as the Austrian J. G. von Hahn, the
Freudian analyst Otto Rank and the English myth-ritualist Lord
Raglan.1 0 This early argument is characterized succinctly by
folklorist Roger D. Abrahams, who states that "the actions we
consider heroic reflect a view of life, which is based upon
contest values, and a social hierarchy built on the model of a
male-centered family. A hero is a man whose deeds epitomize
the masculine traits which one group or another has found
attractive."1 1 Joseph Campbell, whose work was discussed at
length in Chapter Two, describes the hero as "the man or woman
who has been able to battle his personal and local historical
limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms."1 2
However, Campbell uses exclusively male exemplars to
demonstrate his theory about the hero. Heroic traits are
typically associated with men.
96
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
With feminist theory in the 1970s the position of heroes
became controversial among scholars. Feminist Elizabeth Gould
Davis contends that women are actually more heroic than men,
being superior to them biologically and emotionally. Davis
writes that "the heroic deeds of women are seldom recorded in
books or periodicals. Male editors, with their preconceived
notions of female timidity, brush these stories aside as
having some explanation other than courage." 1 3 According to
Davis “it all boils down to the fact that in the eyes and
minds of the masculine judges, boys are heroes and girls are
not. If a girl performs a heroic act it is an anomaly, a freak
episode. One can ask: how many times must an anomaly occur and
reoccur before it ceases to be an anomaly?"1 4 Davis'
understanding of the female hero, I suggest, is just as biased
as the male perspective that recognizes traits of a hero to be
decidedly male. Davis is correct, however, about the scarcity
of collectively recognized female heroes, particularly in the
world's epic song traditions and formalized hero cults.
All of this notwithstanding, examples of strong female
heroes who emulate traditionally male characteristics of being
a hero do exist. One heroine who stands out in the Western
tradition is Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc has been described as
the ideal image of female heroism.
97
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
A universal figure who is female, but neither a
queen, nor a courtesan, nor a beauty, nor a mother,
nor an artist of one kind or another, nor— until
the extreme recent date of 1920 when she became
canonized--a saint. Joan of Arc is a preeminent
hero because she belongs to the sphere of action,
while so many feminine figures or models are
assigned and confined to the sphere of
contemplation. She is anomalous in our culture, a
woman renowned for doing something on her own, not
by birthright.1 5
Another example of the active female hero is the tale told
about Psyche.1 6 Psyche must perform four strange and difficult
labors at the command of Aphrodite if she is to be reunited
with her husband Eros. Her four acts are the typical path for
a male hero as she endures hardship and pain and displays her
bravery and courage as she completes each of the impossible
tasks. And like the male hero she is rewarded with the return
of her lover.1 7 However, in the Russian context neither Joan
of Arc nor Psyche had a particularly important role in the
literary tradition concerning the female hero.
Despite the active female hero described above that
rivals any male hero in deed and in manner, another tradition
that contributes to the influence on the Western heroic
tradition and provides ideal models for women's behavior is
the fairy tale. Many tales recount the adventures of male
heroes who slay dragons, outwit giants and perform all manner
of marvelous feats to win their rightful rewards. Female
98
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
protagonists, in contrast, are more frequently rewarded for
passivity and docile endurance. Today, as we enter the twenty
first century, the best known fairy tale figures are female:
Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, Little Red Riding
Hood, etc. Folklorist Max Luthi correlates this peculiar
predominance of females to the popularity of the Grimm
Brother's collections which have mostly female informants.
Luthi believes that "today's children learn fairy tales mainly
from their mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and female
schoolteachers. Thus it is natural that the principal figures
are mostly female. Moreover, the child— whether boy or
girl— is basically closer to the feminine than the masculine,
living in the domain of the mother and female teachers and not
yet that of the father and the male teachers."1 8 This passive
hero represents the traditional role played by women, and such
heroes appeared on the pages of children's magazines in
Russia, authored by both female and male authors. Luthi's
explanation for the abundance of passive female heroes in
fairy tales does not explain the positive female heroes that
were often written by female authors in Russia. Instead, when
creating for a particular age group, from about ten to
fourteen, writers often called upon a different model than the
passive female hero. This model, based on the active female
99
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
hero, whose characteristics mirror that of the male hero, gave
the young girl an important source of encouragement and
solidarity with other adolescents during her adolescent years.
Russia'■ Fsaala Haroas
Writers in Russia had many models of active female
heroes for inspiration. In the beginning of the nineteenth
century Russia had its own Joan of Arc, Nadezhda Durova (1783-
1866), the Cavalry Maiden, who was a Russian officer in the
Napoleonic Wars. In 1805 Durova, disguised as a boy, ran away
from home and joined the Russian cavalry and served for nine
years against Napoleon, including active combat. Durova
described her action as her determination to escape the
"sphere prescribed by nature and custom to the female sex" but
she did not renounce her sex and continued to identify with
women regardless of the man's role she had taken. Durova moved
beyond the particular stereotypes of women and took on the
male attributes of a hero. Durova's life proved fertile
material for at least one children's writer. In 1908 Lidia
Charskaia wrote A Daring Life that portrayed Durova as a girl
who ram. away to fight the Napoleonic wars, found love, and
happily returned home at the end of the wars.1 9 According to
Mary Zirin, Durova's life per se was of little interest to the
100
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Soviets in their first 25 years of power because of Durova's
loyalty to Alexander I.2 0 However, in both pre- and post-
Revolutionary periods, active heroes such as Durova did
appear, whether or not Durova was the direct model.2 1
Various other models of active female heroes occur in
Russian culture. Russians are quite proud of their Amazons
whose legendary homeland was in the steppes of Russia.2 2 Some
of the epic songs feature distant echoes of the Amazons, who
after challenging their husbands in combat became dutiful
wives. One well-known Russian fairy tale featuring an active
female hero, recorded by Aleksandr Afanas'ev, is the story of
Vasilisa The Priest's Daughter.2 3 The priest's daughter, like
Durova, wears man's clothing, rides horseback, is a good shot
with a rifle and drinks vodka. Very few people know that she
is a girl because she does everything in such an unmaidenly
way. One day the king sees her and decides he needs to find
out whether or not she is a girl. The king goes to a witch and
together they devise a plan to prove that she is a girl, but
each time the girl outwits the king. In the end Vasilisa
voluntarily reveals to the king herself that she is a girl.
The existence of fairy tales with active female heroes
or of Russia's "Joan of Arc* suggests that adventure stories
featuring female heroes were not a result of girlhood in the
101
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1900s because they existed long before. I would argue that the
increase in frequency of such stories and the increased
passion with which girls turned to such girl powered stories,
as suggested by Holmgren, is a result of the period of
adolescence emerging as a discrete period in social
development. By examining active female heroes who appeared in
magazines for adolescent readers during the early 1900s, we
can glimpse the girl's experience of maturation from childhood
to adulthood.24 Regardless of the pre- or post-Revolutionary
rhetoric the transition of adolescence continues to make its
imprint on stories written for this age group.
Lidia Charskaia and bar Pre-Revolutionary Female Heroes
One of the most beloved writers of pre-Revolutionary
girls was Lidia Charskaia. Scholars today have cited Charskaia
for her ability to present girls with role models and a new
self-conception, as her novels offer an escape from the
constraints of being female. Other scholars cite Charskaia's
girl-centered plots as encouragement for girls to see
themselves in her works as all gifted, beautiful and
"universal favorites" among their peers.2 5 Hence Charskaia
exerted a powerful influence over these girls which testifies
that her works were more than mere entertainment. Charskaia,
102
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
however, was following a tradition of depicting active female
heroes that appeared in both life and literature. I agree with
scholars that part of Charskaia's talent was her ability to
keep girls in the foreground of her works and offer girls a
variety of attractive behaviors, which contrasted with
highbrow Russian literature written mainly by male writers
that occasionally featured idealized heroines. However, I will
add that part of Charskaia's accessibility was not only that
she was female herself, but that she offered a portrayal of
female adolescence in her works.
Charskaia's heroes all have attributes that are readily
associated with male heroes and hence can be considered active
female heroes. Her heroes are brave, intelligent, determined
and proud. But they also have more feminine features that
would rarely be ascribed to their male counterparts.
Charskaia's protagonists are beautiful and compassionate and
most often enjoy balls, wedding celebrations, and name day
parties. Most of Charskaia's characters are princesses, either
by birth, or are adopted into such privileged families, or
become aware of their special rights and are accustomed to
having other girls look up to them. Charskaia's heroes are
popular with girls because they offer girls the best of being
male and female, which can also be described as adolescence.
103
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the period between childhood, when the two genders look most
alike, and adulthood when the two genders take on the roles of
adult women and men.
The Adolescent Hero — Princess Nine
Charskaia's most well known and widely read books are
those that belong to her series surrounding the life and death
of princess Nina and her adventures. Princess Dzhavakha
(1903), Liuda Vlassovskaia (1904), The Second Nina (1909) and
The Dzhavakha Clan (1912) were all printed serially in the
children's magazine Heart-to-Heart. Lidia Charskaia creates in
her novel Princess Dzhavakha a striking prototype of a female
adolescent hero who is in the transitional period of
adolescence, and identifies first with male and eventually
with female heroic traits. Pincess Nina, the only child of a
proud Georgian prince who helps defeat the Moslems in the
Caucasus, is faced at age nine with the death of her mother.
Beth Holmgren, in her 1996 article, suggests that Charskaia's
heroines must be motherless, because this means that they grow
up without training in the socially approved behaviors of wife
and mother.2 6 And true, without her mother's care, Nina runs
wild through the Caucasus as she attempts to find her way in
life and establish her true identity.
104
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
I suggest that Nina represents a character experiencing
the transitional period of adolescence. This adolescent period
is a process by which the individual has an emotional
disengagement from her family, allowing her ultimately to
develop new ties outside the family. Nina's mother dies when
Nina is still a child, and while the exact cause of her
mother's death is not given, the child attributes the death to
homesickness. "She died from grieving for her native aul,
where she was not permitted to go even for a visit, afraid of
the insults from fanatic Tartars, especially from her
irreconcilable enemy— the old mullah."27 Nina's mother dies,
in her child's eyes, as a result of the marriage to her
father, a Russian who has her mother convert to Christianity
and hence abandon her previous existence as a Tartar. Marriage
is an almost inescapable result of womanhood at the beginning
of the twentieth century for a young woman, and the child's
fear is that death accompanies womanhood, as it is her mother
who has sacrificed her past and died as a result.
In addition, Nina has difficulty relating to the
remaining female figures in her life. Her paternal grandmother
also represents a fear of becoming a woman. Her grandmother's
role does not appeal to Nina as a way to spend her future
life. However, Nina does have a special place in her heart for
105
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bella, her mother's younger sister. Bella's exotic world of
the aul is attractive to Nina, but not the subservient role
that women are assigned in the culture. Since Nina has been
deprived of a mother, she separates herself as much as she can
from other adult females, wishing instead to strive for some
idealized representation of the feminine that does not include
the female models she sees around her.
While adolescents distance themselves from their
families and previous role models, they experiment with new
friendships, which are often idealized. In the early part of
the novel, Nina spends her days influenced by masculine
behavior. Nina strives for a male heroic identity (or an
active female role) when the passive subserviant female role
offered by other women does not suit her. Nina's maternal
grandfather guides her development, and fosters her love of
the mountains and her horse. She becomes a tomboy, rides her
horse, visits her grandfather in his Tartar village, tracks
bandits to their hideout and even protects a sickly male
cousin in an attempt to stall her impending womanhood. Nina is
often described as a boy, dressed in pants, a riding coat and
a cap to cover her curls, and her behavior is deemed wild by
her grandmother and her father's new wife. Such desciptions
are attempts to deny what the process of puberty is making
106
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
apparent. Nina is female. Her relationship with her younger
cousin Yuliko is also a step backwards into childhood and away
from her adult future. Nina finds Yuliko most abhorrent at
their first meeting, but the younger boy and older girl become
fast friends as the novel progresses. Nina's friendship with
this younger male is again her attempt to link herself with
her childhood past, instead of facing womanhood. Yuliko's
death, from a mysterious illness that depletes the young boy
of his strength, represents an end to childhood for Nina and a
realization that she must go forward into adulthood.
Nina's father and his plans to remarry also force Nina
to look ahead. While her father was one of the few who Nina
felt understood her at the opening of the book, his new
marriage will take him away from her. Nina is pushed into the
adult sphere, but she refuses to accept it and devises a plan
to run away and is captured by bandits. It is on this
adventure that Nina makes her first tentative acceptance of
her future womanhood. The Tartar bandits pull Nina further
away from her childhood past. After being captured, Nina feels
her life is at stake. "Strange, but now that death seemed
nearest, I did not fear it! I had seen my mother and Yuliko
die."2 8 Death would allow Nina to stay forever in the limbo of
adolescence, suspended halfway between childhood, represented
107
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
by Yuliko, and adulthood, represented by her mother. At this
moment a young bandit Magoma cuts the ropes that bind Nina and
hoists her onto her horse, rescuing her from her uncertain
fate. Magoma has set her free against the will of his own
brother and Nina feels a close bond with this strange man whom
she calls her savior and her protector. Upon arriving home
Nina implores her father not to punish Magoma when the robbers
are caught. This experience with the strange man Magoma pushes
Nina temporarily back towards the loving protecting arms of
her father. Like many adolescents, she vacillates between
distancing herself from her parents and exploring new
relationships outside her family.
Nina is destined, however, to find a path through the
friendship of female companionship when she travels to
Petersburg and is enrolled in an all girls' school. The girls'
school forces Nina to give up her pursuits as a tomboy and
take a step towards forming a relationship with a close friend
of the same sex. An adolescent often chooses a close friend
with qualities that she would like to have--or projects these
onto a friend. With this new friendship the adolescent has a
different relationship to idealize. This new friend is heir to
the child's earlier idealization of the parents, and the
adolescent feels affirmed by the relationship. Such a
108
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
relationship helps adolescent girls in enduring the
difficulties of early adolescence.29 While Nina feels homesick
at first, she soon bonds with one girl, Irene, after Nina is
taken ill. When Nina first sees Irene, she thinks Irene is a
fairy or goddess. "And then the moon, listening to my wishes,
made a fairy appear before me. She had light hair like the
purest flax, which fell in thick waves over her shoulders."3 0
Nina tells Irene all about her home, about her running away to
track bandits and how the girls in her class have persecuted
her. Nina's attraction to this other girl seems strange to
Nina herself. "Why I had fallen in love with her so suddenly I
did not know, but I loved her with all of my heart."31 They
talked every night until dawn sharing all their secrets. Nina
does not advance into a later stage of adolescence when young
women may act out on some level the sexual urges they are
feeling. Nina's progress through adolescence is marked and the
story ends with her being fully accepted into the new
community of girls. Nina's new friendship allows a scene of
"joined-ness" that is neither a regression into childhood, nor
yet sexual, but which moves the girl forward toward her future
in the adult world.
Charskaia's Nina is a hero in several different respects
for her readers. As described above, Nina represents the
109
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
active female hero who is able to influence her future by
bringing her rather non-conventional tomboy upbringing into
her female dominated school life. Nina also represents another
type of hero for adolescent girls as she is making the
difficult transition from childhood to adulthood. Charskaia's
accuracy in reproducing this stage of development is one of
the reasons that girls loved Charskaia and loved her heroes.
Charskaia was loved because her heroes had the power to engage
the reader. While her characters were fictional creations,
they lived in the imaginations of her readers as if they were
real people. Her readers were willing to suspend disbelief
because the experiences of the characters bore a relation to
the reader’s own observations and experiences, real or
imagined.
Why? My Taim about Mymalft Lidia Charskaia as Adolescent
Charskaia’s popularity among girls has been attributed
to her ability to represent a middle ground between different
types of popular writers in the West for children. According
to Holmgren, Charsksaia was a cross between respectable
authors who offered girls interesting and morally instructive
heroes such as Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Little Princess,
1905) and imitative works that were produced by various
110
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
writers under a pseudonym, such as Nancy Drew series. Many of
Charskaia's stories, including Why?, have similar plots and
character development to her novel Princess Dzhavakha. Both
Why? and Princess Dzhavakha depict the process of female
adolescence.
Charskaia's story Why? is part of the author's
fictionalized autobiography and is illustrated by photographs
from Charskaia's childhood in Tsarskoe Selo. The hero of the
story, Lida, has lost her mother and although she is loved by
her father, is faced with a foe: a new stepmother. Like Nina,
Lida has a permanent separation from her mother by death as
she enters the adolescent stage. As Lida's mother died giving
birth, Lida has concerns about her transition from childhood
to adulthood since motherhood is connected with death for the
girl throughout her life. Lida is raised instead by her four
aunts and her father who strive to give Lida her every wish as
a replacement for the emotional loss of her mother She is
spoiled terribly and her nasty character is remarked upon by
everyone.
Lida experiences a terrible blow when her father decides
to remarry. Even before Lida meets her new stepmother, she is
determined to hate her. Her desire to keep her father close to
herself is also part of the process of adolescence. Her new
111
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
stepmother is a threat to Lida, as she will ultimately lose
her father to her stepmother as she has lost her mother to
death. Lida yearns for the past when she felt she was the
center of her father's existence. Lida displays her confusion
when she runs away on a cold snowy night in an attempt to kill
herself and make her father sorry for his decision to remarry.
With the act of running away Lida wishes to place distance
between herself and her father, as well as win him back. She
has a vision of a woman dressed in white who tells Lida to go
home and save her life. Whether the vision is a representation
of Lida's own dead mother, or Lida as a full grown woman, or
another woman, her vision is of cm adult mature woman who
instructs the adolescent, who is running away from her
maturity, to go home. Despite her desperate attempt to prevent
it, the marriage takes place.
Lida feels that her stepmother does not understand her
at all. She is constantly reprimanding Lida for her behavior
and also suggests that Lida be sent away to a boarding school.
Like Nina and other adolescents, Lida is trying to deny the
inevitable maturation of her body and retain ties to her
childhood. Her stepmother describes Lida as a wild thing, a
boy. "This little wild thing, a little boy. It's true, it
would be a good idea to send her away to school."3 2 When Lida
112
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
is upset that her stepmother does not understand her she
exclaims, "Why am I punished for not being like everyone else?
Why does my fate torture me, making me wild, unbridled, and
excessively a hot-headed girl?"3 3 Lida is unsure about both
the external and internal changes that are taking place as she
reaches adolescence. Being sent away to school allows Lida to
have permanent distance from her father and her new
stepmother, and to make important friendships that will take
the place of the idealization that was previously reserved for
her father.
At school Lida is not quite ready to commit to her new
community of girls. At first the other girls tease her, but in
time they learn to love Lida for both her outstanding moral
character and the hot-headedness that separates her from her
classmates. In addition, she comes down with smallpox. During
her illness a nurse takes care of her, with whom Lida becomes
fast friends. Although this friendship is initiated while Lida
is delirious from her illness, Lida begins to accept her
maturation through a friendship with an older woman. Many
young girls form relationships with girls of their own age, as
with the example of Nina and Irene, while some girls pick
other adult females to adore and emulate. After her illness,
Lida realizes that the nurse who took care of her is her new
113
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
stepmother, who has come to look after Lida during her
illness. Her stepmother's kindness and self-sacrifice during
Lida’s illness makes the girl repent for her former illwill
towards her stepmother.
Like Nina in Princess Dzhavaka, Lida also has a tendency
toward both self-disparagement and grandeur throughout the
story. At home and at school Lida is complimented on her
character and her physical beauty and she has formed a high
opinion of herself. She claims, "I am a princess, a princess
from my aunt's fairy tale. When I make believe, I am either a
princess or a queen. There is nothing else that I want or wish
to be."3 4 Lida also experiences moments of concern about
gender and the responsibilities associated with gender roles.
Lida wishes to be a boy at certain parts of the novel. As two
of her suitors fight over whose eyes are more beautiful,
Lida's or her archenemy Lili's, Lida become frustrated with
her own gender. As the insults are exchanged between the two
boys, Lida wishes that the two boys would fight over her,
because knights always fight for their princess' honor. She
continues that, "however this very princess was ready to turn
into a knight and fight for her honor herself," and then she
adds, "Oh, why am I not a boy."3 5 At other moments in the
story, however, she humbles herself or is scorned by others
114
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
for her behavior. Her fellow classmates refer to her as a
barbarian, savage and a shrew and ask her if she is from
Australia or America.3 6 Contemporary critics of Charskaia
point out almost unanimously that such narcissism is unhealthy
for young girls. However, alternating periods of grandeur and
self-disparagment and a questioning of one’s future
responsibilities and limitations of one's sex are common among
adolescents as they make the transition to adulthood and find
their identity.
The stories of Princess Dzhavaka and Why?, as the
majority of Charskaia's other novels, are similar in terms of
character development and plot. As Susan Larsen points out in
"Girl Talk," Charskaia's works are often played out in
settings that are simultaneously familiar and exotic.
Adventure stories set in the Caucasus allow the active female
heroes in Charskaia's novels to be wild and uncivilized. These
active female heroes are often at odds with the boarding
school setting representing an idealized community of girls
isolated from their families and other influences. Larsen
points out that many girls were disappointed with Charskaia's
fictional autobiography Why? My Tale about Myself as Charskaia
represented herself as a bad-tempered, neurotic and
intolerable young lady. Larson does not suggest that girls
115
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
could not accept Charskaia's own autobiography as the 'real
thing' because Charskaia was not of Georgian blood and did not
have an exotic past. Hence her readers did not want to allow
the fictionalized Charskaia the wild and uncivilized
personality that she had created for her other active female
heroines. Her readers would have preferred if her
fictionalized self had in fact been representative of the
perfect, kind and beautiful institute student.
Criticism of Chaxskaia's Work
Charskaia, as I will argue later in this chapter, is not
the only writer from 1900 to 1932 who is able to capture
adolescence in her writing. Since Charskaia's work was highly
criticized by contemporary scholars, their comments need to be
assessed in relation to Charskaia's ability to render
adolescence.
Most of Charskaia's contemporary critics found her
characters' egotism and exalted self-image narcissistic and
dangerous to little girls. Kornei Chukovskii led one of the
first attacks on Charskaia in 1912, pointing out the
"banality, vulgarity, triviality, tastelessness, Pharisaism,
hypocrisy, philistinism and inertia" she brought to the field
of children's literature.3 7 Chukovskii dismisses any value of
116
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Charskaia's heroes for her girl readership. He calls her
protagonists "superfluous, fearful, stupidly superstitious,
greedy, erotically fantasizing, lisping, lying hysterics" and
disapproves of Charskaia's endorsement of undesirable girlish
behaviors and attitudes, such as a frivolous approach to
schoolwork, and a belief in superstitions and dreams. He also
makes fun of the girls’ frequent fainting spells and endless
kisses that are bestowed on everyone, including a lowly cook.
Chukovskii's mean-spirited attack on Charskaia should be
viewed with an understanding of Chukovskii's own approach to
children's literature which calls for the writer to look to
children for inspiration and address their needs and tastes
when writing for them.3 8 Since Chukovskii takes such delight
in the mind of the child, with countless articles and his
famous book on child language development From Two to Five,
which celebrates the creativity of the young child, it may be
that Charskaia's writing which focuses on the transition from
childhood to adulthood, disappointed him. Possibly
Chukovskii's theories of childhood fail to recognize girls as
different from boys. Chukovskii's own daughter, Lidia
Chukovskaia, admits in her memoir that while her father
allowed his children to read "girlish" books, he seemed to
disapprove of them.3 9 Chukovskii tolerated these kinds of
117
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
books in regards to his own daughter's maturation, whether or
not he recognized to what extent such books helped guide girls
through adolescence with active female heroes.
Other contemporary critics, while overall negative in
response to Charskaia's work, admitted some positive aspects.
In 1913 in Warsaw, at a children's book exhibit, V.
Komarnitskii gave a paper in this vein about Charskaia, which
was later published in Russia.40 In his paper, L. A.
Charskaia as Children's Writer, Komarnitskii has two goals:
the first is to determine why children love Charskaia, and the
second is to decide what the relationship of the educator
should be towards the work of Charskaia. Komarnitskii believes
that one of the most important attractions for children in
Charskaia's works is her romantic conception of the hero.
Komarnitskii claims that "the heroic element influences not
only the intellect and the imagination, but also liberty and
the heart, stimulating a thirst for heroic deeds, and a wish
to become higher than drab reality. Charskaia's work
wonderfully guesses this demand of the child's psyche."4 1
Komarnitskii recognizes, in part, a connection between the
needs of adolescents and Charskaia's heroes. The child in
transition to adulthood searchs for another reality, one with
infinite possibilities. These adolescents need other models to
118
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
look up to and take the place of their once idealized parents.
Stories with strong female heroes offer an alternative to
girls and can act as substitutes for new relationships during
adolescence when the child becomes preoccupied with herself.
However Komarnitskii does not recognize the adolescent's
tendency toward grandeur as a positive aspect of Charskaia's
work. He claims that Charskaia goes too far in her
representation of the hero because she cultivates in girls the
habit of admiring themselves. Overall, Komarnitskii cannot
recommend Charskaia as reading for children. In his opinion
there are many other books that would serve a child better.
Other contemporary critics, such as Z. Maslovskaia,
recognize Charskaia's ability to speak to girls in her
writing. Maslovskaia comments on the difficulty of finding
appropriate books for girls at this age. Boys, she suggests,
are easier to appease because they are interested in hunts,
war, and heroes such as Napoleon and Alexander the Great.4 2
But writing for girls is harder because she believes that
girls fall under the influence of books, who give them far
greater significance than boys do. Girls are interested not
only in the plot, but also the heroes themselves, and need to
be able to identify with the hero. Regardless of whether or
not we agree with Maslovskaia's opinion about the differences
119
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
between boys and girls, it is important that she correctly
recognizes the possibility of a difference between boys and
girls during adolescence.
Maslovskaia embraces Charskaia’s work for girls as a
necessary part of their maturation. She asks, "Is all the
banality, and all that conceit a fruit of her imagination or
is she reflecting life and the psychology of contemporary
girls, as it is in reality?" 4 3 Interestingly enough,
Maslovskaia, unlike other critics, decides that girls really
do think this way and Charskaia is able to describe a side of
children’s lives that very few other writers do with the
amount of success that Charskaia achieves. She believes that
pride or high self-esteem is what animates girls' thoughts and
leads their actions, and Charskaia’s heroes facilitate a
girl's ability to grow by offering a model. Maslovskaia
understands that girls' exaggerated pride or self-esteem is
clearly a characteristic of adolescence.
Walter Benjamin views children's books very similarly to
the way in which Maslovskaia views Charskaia's stories for
girls. Benjamin and Maslovskaia believe that children's books
offer children the ability to grow and mature, and not just
knowledge about the world. Benjamin writes "in their
[children's] reading they absorb; they do not empathize.
120
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Their reading is much more closely related to their growth and
their sense of power than to their education and their
knowledge of the world. This is why their reading is as great
as any genius that is to be found in the books they read. And
this is what is special about children's books."4 4 Benjamin
asserts that through reading, children, including adolescents,
gain a sense of power that allows children to grow and
progress in childhood and beyond.
Children themselves seemed to have as much of a
love-and-hate relationship with Charskaia as the critics. In
the magazine Heart-to-Heart, questionnaires appeared asking
children to respond on various topics including favorite
stories and authors. On the insides of the front and back
covers of the magazine were printed letters of children who
wished to make comments about the magazine, find a pen pal, or
submit their own work. Children often listed Charskaia with
Gogol and Pushkin as their favorite authors. Charskaia's
books, which appeared serially in the magazine and made up the
bulk of the weekly installments of the magazine, were often
listed by children among their favorites. Children also
corresponded with each other through the magazine.
Occasionally fierce debates arose among the readers of the
magazine concerning the heroes of Charskaia's books. While
121
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
some readers chastise her protagonists for their behavior,
others have high praise for the same characters. One girl
states that she loves Charskaia because she writes only about
the truth and describes girls the way they really are.45 Such
reactions from girls, with such passionate feelings for
Charskaia's heroes, encourage a reading of Charskaia as a
bridge that helped young girls transition from childhood to
adulthood. 4 6
Negative comments about Charskaia appear in a competing
magazine Lighthouse. A questionnaire appears in this magazine
in 1913-1914 and asks children which stories they liked or
disliked, what they thought about Lighthouse, and what other
children's magazines they read. Regarding the magazine Heart-
to-Heart there were several negative responses. Maiia
Gafferberg, age 13, responds, "Heart-to-Heart I do not like at
all. The majority of the magazine is taken up by the novellas
of L. Charskaia whom my mother does not let me read, but I
myself don't want to. The remaining stories are uninteresting
and senseless."4 7 Another response comes from a girl, Alema
Tiron, age 14, from Tashkent. She writes, "In the summer I
read Heart-to-Heart for Older Children at my cousin’s house.
But I really did not like the magazine because way too much of
it is filled with the stories by Charskaia and in general the
122
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
magazine is somehow uninteresting. I would never recommend
this magazine to anyone to read. "48 These are just two
examples, but it is interesting to note that girls made both
these negative comments. Obviously, the adolescent experience
described by Charskaia in her writing was not entertaining for
the entire reading population. One could postulate from these
two responses that as children matured through adolescence to
adulthood, Charskaia’s themes which highlighted adolescence
were no longer interesting or that these responses came from
children that were in a sense too young to appreciate
Charskaia's novels.
After the revolution, despite Charskaia's overwhelming
popularity among most girls, her clear support for the
monarchy was enough to have her books banned in the 1920s. In
addition, opinions such as Chukovskii's about the quality of
her writing did not help her position. Chukovskii’s views,
combined with the new high-culture legislators of children's
literature after the revolution, such as Samuel Marshak, did
not leave room for what at the time was considered children's
literature with high entertainment value. Marshak ascribed
virtually all the sins of popular pre-Revolutionary children's
texts to women writers, both the ineptitude of institute-
trained female translators and the blatant political agendas
123
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
of * lady-patriots" and "lady-liberals. ■*’ As Beth Holmgren and
other critics such as Helena Goscilo assert, the new approach
to children's literature after the revolution implicated
gender in the hierarchies of high to popular, ranking female
as somehow second rate to their male counterparts.5 0 Pre-
Revolutionary children's literature was dominated by women,
with several women such as Ishimova, Soboleva and Solov'eva
manning their own magazines, not to mention the countless
female translators and authors. Was the post-Revolutionary
period, which wanted to rescue children's literature from
literary hacks and factory production fueled in part by market
demands able to offer girls the type of active female heroes
that Charskaia and other pre-Revolutionary writers had given
their readers? Do these post-Revolutionary active female
heroes continue to offer girls representations of the
adolescent experience? After the revolution women continued to
be heavily involved in the production of children's
literature, but legislative power was reserved for men. It was
also men after the Revolution, such as Marshak and Chukovskii,
who played the prominent roles as critics, editors and patrons
in establishing criteria for literary taste.
124
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Position of Oirls aftsr tho Revolution
In the post-Revolutionary period there were no cult-like
writers who catered to girls, such as Charskaia, although
women continued to be active in children's literature.
Regardless of the Bolsheviks' commitment to total sexual
equality and their initiation of a range of legislation to
that effect, after the revolution all opposition groups were
banned and hence it could be argued that the revolution
restricted women's independent action as practiced under
tsarism.S 1 Changes that were made were not necessarily
beneficial to women or in their best interests. When it was
expedient to draw on women to increase the workforce in large
numbers, Soviet ideology backed it up with reference to
women’s equality. But when increasing the birthrate became a
greater priority, the understanding of women's equality was
adjusted accordingly.5 2 The question to be answered is whether
post-Revolutionary children's writers, whether male or female,
were able to offer girls active heroes such as Charskaia's
protagonists; and if female heroes were prominent in post-
Revolutionary magazines, did they reflect an active male type
hero?
125
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Adolescence after tha Revolution: Another Mountain Oirl
In 1928 magazine Knowledge is Strength appeared a story
called "Kara-Kol" written by a female author, Maria
Morozova.5 3 In this story a girl named Andrena decides to go
on an adventure, much like Nina, into the Altai Mountains.
Unlike our pre-Revolutionary Nina, very little background is
given about Andrena's life. The story opens with her talking
with an older woman Ivanovna, who is bringing the samovar to
Andrena for tea. Andrena expresses the wish to go into the
mountains and take a look at the life style of the Altai
people and Ivanovna urges her to go on her adventure.
The opening picture in this Soviet story represents a
more peaceful view of the people and their mountains than was
presented in the pre-Revolutionary story featuring Nina. In
this story, unlike our pre-Revolutionary story, the only adult
presence is Ivanovna and later Kudyr, an old native man who
Andrena meets in the mountains. Andrena is fascinated by Kudyr
and listens to his stories with great interest and asks many
questions regarding the spirits that live in the mountains.
Kudyr does not understand this Russian girl, or why she goes
into the mountains on her own, and why she likes spending time
with him. One day on her way home from Kudyr's village,
Andrena gets caught in a fierce storm. She loses her way on
126
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the trail and tries to find a shortcut back to the city. When
a small avalanche starts she becomes buried in snow. The rocks
give way beneath her and she falls into a cave, unconscious.
When she regains consciousness, she creates a torch from a
piece of fat out of her lunch to explore the cave and find an
exit. She discovers not only all kinds of jewels and gold, but
also the skeleton of a Russian explorer she thinks is from the
fifteenth or sixteenth century. As she explores the cave, a
stream of water carries her away. She is found alongside the
stream by an Altai woman who brings her back to Kudyr‘s aul.
Surprisingly, Kudyr believes the Russian girl's story even
though she can't find the entrance to the cave. He suggests
that the mountain spirits have saved her.
Nina and Andrena have similar adventures in the Caucasus
mountains. Both girls leave their Russian roots in search of
something more exciting. The lack of background information
means that Andrena is in a sense the total orphan, or the
happy adolescent who has managed to disengage herself from her
family. The only mention of her heritage is that she is
Russian and therefore different from Kudyr. The women that
appear in the story do so only momentarily. Andrena, like
Nina, finds a male mentor who guides her development.
127
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The reader is told that Kudyr has met Andrena on two
other occasions. The first time Andrena and Kudyr meet,
Andrena is hanging onto a tree that she has climbed to
catapult herself onto the rocks to be able to see the river
better. The rock gives way beneath her and the tree limb
breaks at the same time. Kudyr saves the young girl who is
hanging from the tree and helps her down to safety. Andrena*s
position is reminiscent of a traditional Russian mermaid
(rusalka)a female persona from Russian folklore who is found
either near water, or in the trees. Like Andrena the mermaid
is mischievous,and looks for attention and adventure in
encounters with unknown males. According to Russian folk
tradition, mermaids are either deceased unchristened children,
unwed young girls or drowning victims. Their appearance varies
depending on local traditions ranging from a beautiful naked
maiden to a large breasted amazon who is sometimes hairy and
hideous. Mermaids are also attributed with both positive and
negative actions. They are known for enticing young men to
their deaths by song or by beauty, and tickling people to
death. In some regions they ask young girls for gifts and in
response grant them fertility. Mermaids, in some
manifestations, are deceased unwed girls who are caught
between childhood and adulthood. While Andrena is not a full-
128
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
fledged mermaid, since she does not lure the man to his death,
the contradictions embodied in the idea of the mermaid are
very similar to the contradictions embodied by Andrena as she
makes her way through adolescence.
The second meeting with Kudyr finds Andrena again alone
in the mountains, wrapping a wound on her leg with a bandage.
Kudyr is surprised to see the young lady out alone in the
mountains. She has suffered some sort of accident, which is
not disclosed to the reader. When Kudyr asks Andrena where her
traveling companions are, she points to the mountains, the
river and the forest. And then she invites herself to go
hunting with Kudyr. Andrena's desire to discover the mountains
alone and align herself with nature is her adolescent need to
withdraw into her self while she progresses through
adolescence. In adolescence this pre-occupation with one's
self is a common way in which adolescents distance themselves
from their parents. This inclination is relinquished once the
adolescent begins to make friends. Kudyr fills this role
during her transition.
Andrena exhibits similar masculine behavior and
attributes as the other Nina in her adventure story. The first
two occasions of her meeting with Kudyr attest to her
adventurous spirit. Andrena's heroic male attributes are her
129
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
bravery, quick thinking, and fearlessness that carry her
through the story. Her quick thinking and bravery are
displayed during the storm. When she realizes that she can not
take the same path home because of the weather, she remembers
an alternate route. She also is able to devise a way to make a
lantern out of a piece of fat from her lunch and her
handkerchief in the cave. She is not at all frightened by the
skeleton that she finds in the cave and explores it at great
length to determine that it was a Russian and not an Altai
native who died, unable to find his way out of the cave. Her
superiority over the Russian male explorer is made clear in
the story, since Andrena manages to escape from the cave,
while the Russian died in his attempt. While a physical
description is not given of Andrena, the two pictures of
Andrena which accompany the story depict a young figure, with
short hair, baggy pants that reach just below the knee, and a
shirt. Neither picture depicts an overtly female figure. In
addition, the first four letters of her name in Greek, Andr,
means 'male' and hence she is in a sense named "man."
Unlike Nina, Andrena does not belong to a family at the
beginning of the story or a peer group at the end. This lack
of markers makes determining Andrena's progress through
adolescence difficult. Regardless of Andrena's ultimate
130
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
progress in this story, the similarities of the transition
from childhood and her identification as an active female
heroine are depicted with remarkable likeness to the pre-
Revolutionary story. As we will see, this lack of family ties
is not indicative of post-Revolutionary stories.
Another post-Revolutionary story written by a female
author, E. Burno, appeared in the 1926 magazine Pioneer "No.
22 of Unhappiness"5 4 about another Nina, who is in the midst
of pulling away from her family and finding a new path.5 5
Unlike her pre-Revolutionary namesake, this Nina does not
chase bandits and dress like a boy, but she has her own
adventure. Nina is described as a rather lazy girl who loves
to sleep and shrug off her responsibilities at home. She
refuses to put the samovar on for tea, refuses to iron her
dress, sweep the floor and wash the dishes. Her older sister
reproaches her for her laziness. While Nina is not described
as a boy, she does have certain masculine attributes. Although
younger than her sister, Nina is taller and stronger than her
sister is. Nina is also able to beat all the boys in her
Pioneer squadron in arm wrestling. One morning, Nina is having
a wonderful dream about being a deep-sea diver when her sister
wakes her up. In a foul mood, Nina refuses to put the samovar
on for tea, shoves her sister against a wall, refuses to make
131
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the bed and finally decides she will not eat if she must do
chores. Her older brother, to whom Nina looks up with great
respect, reproaches Nina for her unpioneer-like behavior. In
the story Nina is described as a good Pioneer, she works on
the newspaper and tutors other students, she is respected and
dependable and she is the leader of her squadron. But at home
her behavior is very different and her brother plans to report
her to the Pioneers so she will not advance to the Komsomols.
Nina is so taken aback by her brother's words she runs
out into the rainy street so her family does not see her cry.
She can't go home and she is already late for school. So she
catches a number 22 streetcar, pays the conductor and rides it
aimlessly through the city. At home her mother and sister
realize that Nina is missing and they begin searching for her.
Her sister tells her mother not to worry since Nina is no
longer a child.
Finally the streetcar comes to the end of its route and
the conductor calls Nina a "lady" and asks her to get off the
streetcar. While Nina is upset at the aristocratic title
applied to her by the conductor, she gets off the streetcar
and realizes that she is in an unfamiliar part of the city.
She decides the best thing to do is to get back onto the
streetcar but she has no money. At that moment she decides she
132
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
would be happy to put the samovar on for tea and realizes that
she has acted poorly. Nina decides to walk home. The rain is
so fierce that she meets no one on the street and she wishes
she had a wet suit like a deep-sea diver. When her Pioneer
squadron learns that Nina is missing they organize a search
for her. They decide that something serious must have happened
to her because she would not just run away from home. Finally,
one of the groups comes upon Nina and she is ashamed when she
realizes that her whole squadron has been out searching for
her in this terrible weather.
Our Pioneer Nina shares many characteristics with our
pre-Revolutionary Nina from the Caucusus. Both girls identify
themselves more with males than the females in their lives.
Pioneer Nina looks up to her brother, is stronger and taller
than her older sister, and also is able to beat the boys in
her squadron at arm wrestling. Pioneer Nina also dislikes the
feminine activities associated with the house. Like the Nina
of the Caucasus, Pioneer Nina runs away when confronted with
an obstacle that threatens her way of life. Nina of the
Caucasus runs away and chases bandits when her father decides
to marry again. Pioneer Nina runs away when her older brother,
the only authoritative male in the story, reprimands her for
her behavior. Both Ninas also have a tendency of displaying
133
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
improper behavior and are reprimanded for their unruly
attitudes. Nina of the Caucasus is chastised by the female
contingency in her family and then again by the girls at the
boarding school. Unlike Nina of the Caucasus, Pioneer Nina is
not accused of unladylike behavior, but instead she is deemed
a poor Pioneer and such behavior, according to her brother,
will keep her from joining the Komsomols. Pioneer Nina is also
rebelling from the path that is ultimately her future, that of
an adult female, by refusing to do her domestic chores.
Nina’s journey on the streetcar gives the adolescent a
new outlook on her current situation. It is interesting to
note that Pioneer Nina embarks on a journey that Walter
Benjamin himself made in Moscow. Benjamin suggests that "more
quickly than Moscow itself, one learns to see Berlin through
Moscow. "5 S By venturing out into a foreign city Benjamin
learns to look at his own life differently. Nina, our active
female hero, uses the streetcar as a means by which to
separate herself from her current reality and from the city
she knows. In the process of getting lost in the city on the
streetcar, she finds her way back to the feminine role that
she had abandoned before her adventure.
The two Ninas are also different in terms of their
placement in the process of adolescence. In the pre-
134
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Revolutionary story, the reader is introduced to Nina while
she is still exploring the various options available to her
and has not yet found a peer group with which to align
herself. Pioneer Nina has already been initiated into a peer
group, which can be seen as an adolescent's replacement for
parents' love as a child matures. Her temporary fall from
grace in the eyes of the Pioneers and her family is just part
of the repetitive cycles of emotional withdrawal and return
that occur during adolescence. Pioneer Nina is also rebelling
from the path that is ultimately her future, that of an adult
female. The Komsomols is the young adult group, signifying
that Nina must accept her fate to mature and become a young
woman. She is the leader of her Pioneer squadron and
considered extremely reliable by her fellow Pioneers. When
Nina turns up lost, the entire squadron assumes that something
terrible has happened because Nina is a role model. Regardless
of the different wording used in the post-Revolutionary story.
Pioneer Nina is still scolded for not wanting to perform
female dominated tasks. In the end Nina gives up her more
active heroine role and agrees to put the samovar on for tea,
as well as carry out other domestic chores signifying that
Nina must accept her fate to mature and become a young woman.
135
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The story "Wild Animals" appeared in the 1925 magazine
Young Builders.5 7 This story— written by Fedorov-Davydov, one
of the few children’s writers who wrote for children both
before and after the revolution— offers a male view of female
adolescence. In this story Pioneers from the city come to the
countryside to help organize the country folk. Natasha's life
has been difficult as she has spent most of it living in
poverty in a small village. After her father's death the
family falls on hard times and Natasha's mother acquires debts
to almost everyone in the village. Natasha turns her life
around when the Pioneers come to her village. She begins to
read books, organizes work parties and holiday celebrations.
The Pioneers even begin their own newspaper. While Natasha
enjoys her new life among the Pioneers, her life at home does
not offer her much satisfaction. Although Natasha helps her
mother out around the house, her mother is constantly upset
with Natasha's new activities. Her mother gets angry with her
daughter when she wastes kerosene at night to read and gets
angry when Natasha brings home a portrait of Lenin to copy.
One day Natasha begins to notice an abundance of food in
the house that has never been there before. Natasha also
notices that her mother frequently meets with a very well to
do peasant to whom she previously owed a lot of money. Then
136
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
one day at the Pioneer club, the other Pioneers begin to make
fun of Natasha, laughing behind her back. Natasha runs home to
find her mother drunk. She questions her mother to discover
that her mother has rented out her cellar to the rich kulak
peasants and has become comfortable on the small amount of
money they give her. Natasha's new friends decide that Natasha
knew nothing of her mother's agreement with the kulaks. They
decide that such matters need to be brought to the Komsomol to
decide the fate of her mother and others like her. Natasha
feels sorry for her mother since she knows it was because of
her poverty that her mother turned to such schemes. Natasha
decides the correct thing to do is to write everything down
and publish her story in the newspaper, explaining how the
rich peasants pressured her mother into helping them because
of her debts. But the other villagers like her mother who were
benefiting from deals with the rich peasants, do not take
kindly to her story and lure her into the cemetery where she
is beaten up. Natasha is found, left for dead, in a ditch, but
the experience of almost losing her daughter makes Natasha's
mother reassess the situation. She decides to go to the police
and turns in the rich kulaks and their hoarding practices.
Like Pioneer Nina, Natasha has separated herself off
from her mother as she joins the Pioneers who have come from
137
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the city to organize the country, which was a widespread
practice in the late twenties. Her father is dead, leaving
only her mother as the parental unit from whom Natasha must
distance herself in order to pass into adulthood from
adolescence. The Pioneers offer Natasha a new approach to
life, she becomes interested in school, reading, and looks up
to Lenin as an ideal worth emulating. While Natasha takes an
ultimate step towards separation from her mother when she
decides to turn her in to the authorities, Natasha is not
allowed a complete break at this time. Instead, this story
becomes part of the repetitive cycles of emotional withdrawal
and return to a parent, as Natasha's mother decides to turn
the kulaks in for their practices and hence saves her
relationship with her daughter.
Natasha is different from the other adolescent girls
described in this chapter, since she displays no signs of
wishing to retain her childhood status as far as her
appearance is concerned. She displays no overtly male behavior
or dress and tries to be helpful around the house, completing
household chores with little complaint. She is also not
outwardly adventurous as the other female heroes described in
this chapter are; she does not travel in unknown parts of the
city, scale the mountains in the Caucasus, or chase bandits.
138
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Possibily these differences are due to the author's distinctly
male view of female adolescence— a view that has an adolescent
girl more true to traditional female roles. However, Natasha
is an active female hero in a way different from other girls
in this chapter. Her adventurous spirit is motivated by the
ideological concerns of the Soviets. Natasha's separation from
her mother is colored by her embrace of Soviet ideals, which
are in opposition to her mother's outdated views. In this way
Natasha is a precursor to Pavlik Morozov, the hero Pioneer and
chiId-informer who in the early 1930s denounced his own father
as an enemy of the Soviet State and was later killed by his
uncles and grandfather for his actions. Like Pavlik, Natasha
sides with Communist ideology, instead of her mother. At the
end of the story Natasha is not murdered like Pavlik, and all
charges are dropped against her mother when her mother finally
turns the rich kulaks in to the police. One might suggest that
the particular ideological bent that accompanies this story
leaves very few options when depicting the transition from
childhood to adulthood. Like Pioneer Nina, Natasha must choose
Soviet ideology if she is to become a productive and active
member of society.
139
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Conclusion
The existence of stories such as Vasilisa The Priest's
Daughter in Russian folklore and the real-life adventures of
women like Nadezhda Durova attest to the presence of active
female heroes who are not bound by a particular point in
history. While the selection of stories discussed in this
chapter is just a fraction of the stories that appeared on the
pages of children’s magazines, this representative sample
presents active female heroes in the transitional period of
adolescence. I have used Lidia Charskaia's stories as a pre-
Revolutionary model due to her extreme popularity in
reproducing this stage of development in a girl’s life.
Charskaia was loved because her heroes had the power to engage
the reader. Her readers were willing to suspend disbelief
because the experiences of the characters bore a relation to
their own observations and experiences, real or imagined.
Post-Revolutionary writers, while they did not reach the
legendary status that was attained by Charskaia, were able to
produce stories that featured aspects of female adolescence.
This representation of adolescence may have been hindered by
the need to adhere to Soviet ideology, but as we saw in the
case of "Kara-Kol," ideology can be almost absent and the
course of adolescence and an active female hero can still
140
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
exist. Whether female adolescent heroes are depicted in pre-
or post-Revolutionary stories in children's magazines, all
these heroines turn to typically male heroic attributes as a
way to deal with adolescence. All these girls show their
adventurous spirit and dislike of the female roles offered to
them. All the girls, except for Natasha, look toward male
models for inspiration. And in the conclusion to each story
each active female, whether in Imperial or Soviet Russia,
accepted the future role of the adult female, as determined by
her gender.
141
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 See Beth Holmgren, "Why Russian Girls Loved Charskaia"
The Russian Review 54.1 (1995): 91-106.
2 Gillian Avery, Childhood Pattern: A Study of the Heroes
and Heroines of Children's Fiction, 1770-1950 (London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1975).
3 Sally Mitchell, The New Girl, 1-22.
4 Walter Benjamin, "Children's Literature," 250.
5 Neubauer, The Fin-de-Siecle, 157-159.
6 Neubauer, The Fin-de-Siecle, 157-159.
7 Linda Edmondson and Rosamund Bartlett, "Collapse and
Creation: Issues of Idenity and the Russian Fin de Siecle,"
Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution 1881-
1940, eds. Catriona Kelly and David Shapherd (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 191-207.
8 Edmondson and Bartlett, "Collapse and Creation," 207-
211.
9 Margery Hourihan, Deconstructing the Hero: Literary
Theory and Children's Literature (London: Routledge, 1997), 1-
8 .
1 0 See Otto Rank, trans. Dr. F Robbins, The Myth of the
Birth of the Hero (New York: Robert Bruno, 1952).
1 1 Roger Abrahams, African Folktales: Traditional Stories
of the Black World (New York :Pantheon Books, 1983), 341.
1 2 Cambell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 19-20.
1 3 Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex (New York:
Putanum, 1971), 319.
1 4 Davis, The First Sex, 8.
1 5 Maria Warner, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism
(New York: Knopf, 1981), 9.
142
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 6 The Psyche myth is represented in Russian Folklore by
a group of folktales: "Peryshko Finista iasna sokola" (The
Feather of Finist the bright falcon; Afanas'ev 1957, 2: 236-
46, nos. 234-235.) See Alexander Zholkovsky, "An Archetype:
Psyche," Text Counter Text (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1994), 282-286.
1 7 In most marriage stories the man hero is rewarded with
marriage at the completion of his journey while in stories
with female heroes marriage represents a mystery and the
beginning of her adventure.
1 8 Max Luthi, Once Upon a Time: On the nature of Fairy
Tales, trans. Lee Chadeayne and Paul Gottwald (New York:
Fredrick Ungar Publishing,1970) , 135-136.
1 9 Charskaia's novella, while it falls under the time
period covered in my dissertation and was published serially
in the magazine Heart-to-Heart, will not be discussed at
length. Historical fiction for children, such as A Daring
Life falls outside the scope of my interests, at the present.
Charskaia's stories about institutes are discussed in Chapter
Five.
2 0 Mary Zirin, "Nadezhda Durova, Russia's 'Cavalry
Maiden, '* The Cavalry Maiden, trans. Mary Zirin (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1988), ix-xxxvi.
2 1 There was a popular musical, play and movie about her
life by A. Gladkov in the 1920s in Moscow.
22 See Amazony in 0. P. Valianskaia, Zhenshchina v mifakh
i legendakh (Tashkent, 1992), 23-24.
2 3 "Vasilisa The Priest's Daughter" Russian Fairy Tales,
ed. Aleksandr Afanasiev (New York: Random House, 1976), 243-
248.
24 Examples of passive female heroes also appear
frequently in children's magazines of this period but are not
discussed in this chapter.
25 Susan Larson, "Girl Talk," Self and Story in Russian
History, ed. Laura Engelstein and Stephanie Sandler (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2000), 141-167.
143
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
2 6 See Holmgren, "Why Russian Girls," 91-106.
2 7 L. Charskaia, Kniazhnia Dzhavakha (St. Petersburg,
1905), 14.
2 8 Charskaia, Kniazhna Dzhavakha, 199.
2 9 The critical psychological importance of a close
friend during adolescence is discussed by P. Bios in her
article "The second individuation process in adolescence,"
Psychoanalytical Study of the Child 8 (1967): 8-24; H.
Deutsch, The Psychology of Women (New York: Grune and
Stratton, 1944); H. S. Sullivan, The Interpersonal Theory of
Psychiatry (New York: Norton, 1957).
3 0 Charskaia, Kniazhnia Dzhavakha, 262.
3 1 Charskaia, Kniazhnia Dzhavakha, 270.
3 2 L. Charsksaia, "Za chto?" (St. Petersburg: Vol'f,
1908), 240.
33
Charskaia, Za chto?, 398.
34
Charskaia, Za chto?, 14.
35
Charskaia, Za chto?, 60.
36
Charskaia, Za chto?, 122-123.
3 7 Kornei Chukovskii, "Lidiia Charskaia," Sobraniie
sochinenii v shesti tomakh, vol. 6 (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia
literatura, 1969), 158.
3 8 Kornei Chukovskii, "Ot dvykh do piati," Sobraniie
sochinenii v shesti tomakh, vol. 1 (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia
literature, 1969), 335-725.
3 9 Lidiia Chukovskiaia, Pamiati detstva (New York, 1983),
174.
4 0 V. Komarnitskii, L. A. Charskaia, kak detskaia
pisatelnitsa, (Warsaw Scientific Circle: Warsaw, 1914): 1-14.
4 1 Komarnitskii, L. A. Charskaia, 4.
144
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
4 2 Z. Maslovskaia, "Nashi deti i nashi pedagogi v
proizvedeniiakh Charskoi," Russkaia Shkola 9 (1911): 103.
4 3 Maslovskaia, "Nashi deti," 111.
4 4 Benjamin, "Children's Literature," 255-256.
4 5 Quoted in Maslovskaia, "Nashi deti," 104.
4 6 See Susan Larson's article "Girl Talk" for a
discussion about the mail box page of the magazine Heart-to-
Heart and the heated discussion among Charaskaia's readers
about her protagonists.
4 7 Maiia Gafferberg, letter to magazine Maiak, 1913-1914,
fond 122 N. 2 ex. 476, RGALI, Moscow.
4 8 Alema Tiron, letter to magazine Maiak, 1913-1914, fond
122 N. 2 ex. 476, RGALI, Moscow.
4 9 Samuil Marshak, "Vospitanie slovom," StaC'i. Zametki.
Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1961), 298-299.
5 0 Helena Goscilo, "Introduction," Fruits of Her Plume
(New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), xvii-xxiii.
5 1 Edmondson and Bartlett, "Collapse and Creation," 198-
200.
5 2 See Linda Attwood and Catriona Kelly, “Programmes for
Idenity: The 'New Man' and 'New Woman, ' " Constructing Russian
Culture in the Age of Revolution 1881-1940, eds. Catriona
Kelly and David Shepherd (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998), 256-290.
5 3 Maria Marozova, "Kara-Kol," Znanie- Sila 9 (1928):
227-231.
5 4 Twenty Two Misfortunes is also the nickname for
Epikhodov in Chekov's Vishnyi sad. The clerk, Epikhodov,
bumbles his way throughout the play talking nonsense and
bumping into things.
E. Bumo, "22 Neschast' ia," Pioner 18 (1926): 2-6.
145
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
5 6 Benjamin, “Moscow," 22.
5 7 Fedorov-Davydov, "Dikie zveri," Iunye stroiteli 5
(1925): 2-5.
146
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 4
The World of Fantasy and
the Adolescent's World
Writing on fairy tales, Walter Benjamin notes that "in
one of Andersen's tales, there is a picture-book that costs
'half a kingdom. ' In it everything was alive. 'The birds sang,
and the people came out of the book and spoke.' But when the
princess turned the page, 'they leaped back in again so that
there should be no disorder.' Pretty and unfocused, like so
much that Andersen wrote, this little invention misses the
crucial point by a hair's breadth. The objects do not come to
meet the picturing child from the pages of the book; instead,
the gazing child enters into those pages, becoming suffused,
like a cloud, with the riotous colors of the world of
pictures."1 Benjamin suggests that the child becomes lost in
the fantasy as he reads fairy tales and that the child enters
147
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the world of the book and of the illustrations. Benjamin
continues that the child "overcomes the illusory barrier of
the book's surface and passes through colored textures and
brightly painted partitions to enter a stage on which fairy
tales spring to life." Benjamin asserts that children refuse
to be bound by sense and join in the game and masquerade that
a book offers them. These tales can seem more alive to the
child than life itself. Fairy tales are often considered
reading for younger children; however, the world of fantasy
and imagination offers the adolescent a vital escape from
everyday existence as well.
Adolescents and Imagination
While adolescents pull away from their parents and begin
to form new friendships, fairy tales and the world of fantasy
can fulfill a void in their lives. G. Stanley Hall, an
American psychologist, the first American to receive a Ph.D.
in psychology (from Harvard University), wrote in his
pioneering study Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations
to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion
and Education suggests that imagination begins in adolescence.
Puberty is the birthday of imagination. . . .
in many sane children, their own surroundings
not only shrivel but become dim and shadowy
148
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
if compared with the realm of fancy. Here,
near the verge of normality, belong many of
the long-continued stories, imaginary
companions, fancied but perhaps zoologically
impossible animals, and romances. . .2
Whether we agree or disagree with Hall's statement made in
1904 that imagination begins in adolescence, the role it plays
in an adolescent's life is evident in the literature for this
age group. Adolescents, as noted by Hall and other
psychologists, often experience a "reading craze" which helps
them to transcend personal experience and profit from the
lessons of fantastical stories. Stories with fantastic
elements offer their young readers characters, settings and
plots that present utopian states. Such stories act as an
escape from the tensions of the reality of the world that
becomes increasingly evident during the adolescent years but
which the adolescent has little power to affect. Hall
tolerates the imagination of adolescents only as long as it
does not interfere with their growth. Hall believes that
solitary activities, such as flights of imagination,
counteracted socialization and the progress of adolescents.
Hall's reservations about fantasy and the development of the
adolescent were shared by many Russian educators as well.
In this chapter the polemics of both the well-known
post-Revolutionary debate and the lesser-known pre-
149
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Revolutionary debate surrounding the fairy tale and the use of
fantasy in literature for children will be examined. In
addition, the use of fantasy in stories published in magazines
for older children will be considered in relation to the
transitional period of adolescence.
Folklore, Fairy Talaa and Fantasy
Folklore, in its broadest meaning, refers to anonymous
creations of wisdom and art of a people: games, songs,
superstitions, fables, myths, ballads and folk tales. Folklore
reveals the efforts of people to explain the phenomena of
nature, the interrelationship among human beings and the
cultural patterns of a society from which folklore stems.
Folklore was created and originally handed down for people of
all ages. Fairy tales, a type of folklore, are usually
described as tales of magic. In a fairy tale the characters,
settings and motifs are combined to produce wonder in the
listener or reader. Fairy tales include features of works from
other traditional oral folklore: generic settings, stock
characters and magical elements. According to Maria Kravchenko
in her book The World of the Russieui Fairy Tale, magic is
inherent in all fairy tales, adding that the most interesting
aspect of Russian fairy tales is that magical and everyday
150
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
motifs are found side by side.3 According to Kravchenko, this
is how the fairy tale is distinguished from other oral tales
such as the legend, fable, anecdote and myth. Wonder is also
an element that distinguishes the fairy tale from the moral
story, novella, sentimental tale and other modem short
literary genres.4 However, as Jack Zipes points out in When
Dreams Come True, it is extremely difficult to precisely
define a fairy tale, since other forms of folklore contain
magical and wondrous elements. Instead he suggests that fairy
tales emphasize more than other tales transformations by
magical means with spells, enchantments, resurrections and
recreations.5
The Russian word skazka can be translated in many
different ways, which adds to the confusion of the term. The
term skazka in Russian encompasses several genres of oral
narrative tradition, including: tales of everyday life
(bytovaia skazka), animal tales and magical tales (volshebnaia
skazka) and legends and tales of superstition (bylichki) .
Closely related to these genres are the byliny, the epic poems
of Russia. In addition, scholars also make a distinction
between the narodnaia skazka and the literaturnaia skazka.
While literaturnaia skazka is an authored literary version of
the original narodnaia skazka, more often than not the average
151
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Russian literary critic at the beginning of the twentieth
century employed the term literaturnaia skazka as a derogatory
aesthetic quality applied to the skazka in general. This
chapter is concerned with the volshebnaia skazka, or fairy
tale, which is often referred to as simply skazka in Russian
literature, increasing the confusion of the term.6
As universal education and literacy spread in societies
all over the world, the primary audience for the fairy tale
changed. The fairy tale today is more a part of children's
literature than any other age group, even though it was not
created solely with children in mind. Children are attracted
to fairy tales because they contain the same elements that
appeal to children in any story. For example, fairy tales
start briskly, are filled with action, appeal to a child's
sense of justice, and have a satisfying and definite
conclusion. Fairy tales usually include a magical element of
either setting, character or time. Fantasy and magic also add
to the appeal of fairy tales for children. In addition,
children welcome fairy tales because the stories tell of
change and independence. I will argue that all of the stories
discussed in this chapter are literary fairy tales written for
adolescents, not in a derogatory sense, but rather in the
sense that these tales have been adapted to the standards of
152
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
literacy, to the audience for whom they were written, and to
the social realities of the period.
Fairy Talaa in Ruaaian Children1a Literature
The first Russian anthologies of folk tales, including
fairy tales, for children date back to the eighteenth century,
but extensive collections appeared only in the 1850s and
1860s, when an emphasis was placed on their instructive value.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century Russian children
were more or less established as a separate literary audience.
Nonetheless, the majority of literature available for children
was consisted of republications of works originally written
for adults. Fairy tales made up a large percentage of adult
works that crossed over into publications for children.7 For
example, from the nineteenth century come the stylized folk
tales of Aleksander Pushkin and Peter Ershov, works that were
never the sole property of the adult audience for whom they
were intended.8 When Lev Tolstoi opened his first peasant
school in 1859, he found no suitable primers and turned to the
oral tradition and folk tales. Tolstoi included folk tales in
his pedagogical journal Iasnaia poliana and believed that "the
only books comprehensible to the people and to their tastes
are not those written for the people, but those which have
153
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
their origin in the people: folk tales, proverbs, collections
of songs, legends and riddles (italics added).”9 By the
beginning of the twentieth century fairy tales were a
flourishing business. Many critics considered such tales to be
the best native literature available to young Russians, while
other critics considered fairy tales to be the worst
literature for children. Little attention has been given to
the pre-Revolutionary debates about fairy tales, either by
Russian or Western scholars.
The Reception of the rairy Tale Before the Revolution
The problematic reception of the fairy tale as
children's literature in Russia dates back to the eighteenth
century. By the middle of the nineteenth century Vissarion
Belinskii fueled the debate with such a fierce attack that his
words continued to shape the reception of the fairy tale for
the rest of the century.1 0 F. Toll, the author of the first
Russian history of children's literature, Our Children's
Literature, published in 1862, drew on Belinskii’s attack of
fairy tales.1 1 Toll rallied against giving them to children
because of the child's strong but 'false' imagination that
leads to contradictory views about life. Toll suggested that
154
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
instead of reading fairy tales, children should go outside and
play.
Despite the early attack on the fairy tale, in the 1880s
and 1890s several critics supported the fairy tale. I.
Feoktistov, in his book On the Question of Children's Reading
published in 1881, has an entire chapter dedicated to fairy
tales.1 2 Feoktistov explains that while there are both friends
and enemies of the fairy tale, the difference of opinion stems
from the inability of the groups to differentiate between
different kinds of fairy tales: those in which the goal is
fantasy and those in which the real and fantastic are
intertwined. Feoktistov considers only the second type of
fairy tale worthy of being children's literature, discarding
tales of pure fantasy. He concludes that although children can
be given fairy tales, they must also be given realistic
reading material to balance their education. While Feoktistov
approves of fairy tales as children's literature, he does not
embrace all types equally.
There is a marked increase in the number of critical
responses in the beginning of the twentieth century regarding
the fairy tale. This increase of responses, whether positive
or negative, is caused by a number of factors including an
increase in publishing in Russia which made fairy tales more
155
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
widely available. In addition, an increase in literacy among a
wider protion of the population in Russia may have influenced
the critical response. The increased volume of children's
literature may have induced critical reception in an attempt
to separate quality from inferior work.
The most positive reception of the fairy tale came from
a pre-Revolutionary critic Nikolai Chekhov. This Chekhov
authored several textbooks on children's literature, published
at length in scholarly journals and taught at the Moscow
Women's Pedagogical Institute. Chekhov maintains in his
Introduction to the Study of Children's Literature, from 1915,
that acquaintance with the fairy tale is necessary for every
educated person because these tales have had an influence on
all aspects of Russian art, poetry, music, painting and
sculpture.1 3 He adds that fairy tales are best understood and
have the most meaning during childhood.
Chekhov believes that the child must learn to order the
world around him and that the fairy tale facilitates this
process. The fairy tale also introduces the child to everyday
life and the beliefs and morals of his ancestry. Chekhov notes
the character building aspect of the fairy tale for the child.
The fairy tale forces the child to understand concepts of good
and evil and the interrelationship of people in the world.
156
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chekhov actually believes that the fairy tale does more for
the child than other types of reading, including scientific
explanations and religion. Chekhov adds that older children
should be introduced to fairy tales of other peoples to help
broaden their education and understand the world as well as
raise questions about certain aspects of life that Russian
culture does not touch upon.1 4 But Chekhov has one reservation
about offering fairy tales to children. Fairy tales written
and published expressly for children, Chekhov warns, can only
be as good as the individual author is talented.
Another pre-Revolutionary critic whose point of view is
useful for understanding the adolescent's relationship to the
fairy tale is Evegenii Elachich. Elachich published several
articles at the beginning of the twentieth century in various
pedagogical journals and then released them under the title
Collection of Articles on the Questions of Children's Reading
in 1914. His chapter on fairy tales begins with a tirade about
the way Russian and Western critics have battled against the
fairy tale for the last 30 years. He suggests that critics are
not willing to submit the fairy tale to the aesthetic norms to
which other types of children's literature are subjected.1 5
Critics, he claims, who think logically about other types of
children's literature, can't seem to do so with fairy tales.
157
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Elachich, however, emerges as an opponent of the fairy tale
for young children. Elachich suggests that not all children
are ready for fairy tales; children age four, five and six do
not understand the symbolism in fairy tales and mistake the
imaginary for the real. He argues that children create their
own worlds of fantasy and that the fantastical elements of
fairy tales are at odds with the imagination of the child
because the imagination of the adult and the young child are
not compatible. According to Elachich, the young child has not
yet learned to tell the difference between the real and
unreal; hence fairy tales with their mixture of real and
unreal can only serve to confuse the child and delay the
child's ability to think logically. Instead, the way to
encourage a child's imagination is to present him with the
various aspects of the real world and with the wonders of
nature.1 6
In contrast, Elachich recognizes benefits of fairy tale
for older children from approximately age eight. The fairy
tale offers a vehicle for drawing the older child’s attention
to the complicated questions of adult morals, and also gives
the child an understanding about love for truth and for the
underdog in life. Elachich suggests that the genre of the
fairy tale supports such moral instruction, while other
158
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
stories for children fall short of their moralistic goal.1 7
Elachich concludes his chapter on fairy tales with the notion
that fairy tales are most useful for children ages thirteen to
fifteen, for this is the age that they will receive the most
benefit from these types of stories.
While Elachich does not expand further on his belief
that fairy tales are most appropriate for older children, such
a statement supports the idea that adolescents are well suited
for fantasy or fairy tales. Unlike Hall, Elachich does not
make the assertion that adolescence is when the imagination
begins. Nevertheless, his critique of this genre as harmful to
young children because of their immature imagination leads the
reader to assume that the adolescents' imagination had
developed to the point of making fairy tales important
reading.
The Recaption of the Fairy Tale After the Revolution
After the revolution, fairy tales continued to be
produced and published for children, regardless of the heavy
attacks by proletarian critics who found fairy tales
unsuitable for the new Soviet child. The fairy tale occupied a
very curious place in the creation of a new children's
literature. The very nature of the fairy tale as part of pre-
159
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Revolutionary literature, made it subject to controversy. A
certain faction of Soviet educators felt that the fairy tale
automatically reflected an ideology that was alien to the new
state because of the elements of fantasy. Literature was meant
to nurture the new communist morality and the future of the
communist state, the children. Yet creating a new children's
literature was not simple. After the revolution Soviet
educators began to realize that the fairy tale was also a
literature of the people and hence worth preserving.
Kornei Chukovskii was a strong supporter of the fairy
tale as children's literature. One reason for his approval of
fairy tales, in comparison with other post-Revolutionary
critics who were much more negative, may be due to the
duration of his career as a critic of children's literature
and his love of children. Chukovskii was one of the few
critics who began his work with children's literature before
the revolution and continued after the revolution. In
addition, Chukovskii's fondness of children, his interest in
their language and the many hours he spent with children
recording their behavior, gave him an understanding of the
fairy tale that was not shared by many.1 8
Chukovskii recognizes the specific importance of the
fairy tale for children. His defense of the fairy tale as
160
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
children's literature is based on his assessment that "for
every normal child the fairy tale is the healthiest of food—
not a delicacy but an essential and very nutritious bread; and
no one has the right to deprive him of this food which nothing
else can replace."1 9 Chukovskii's main argument for the fairy
tale holds that if children are not told fairy tales, they
will invent their own. "Really it doesn't matter if you give a
child fairy tales or not. The child himself is his own bard,
he himself is Andersen, Grimm and Ershov. In a child's play
there is always a dramatic fairy tale, which he will create
for himself in a second, making objects come alive at his
command. He will change any chair into a train, a house, an
airplane or a camel.” 2 0 Chukovskii believes that the fairy
tale fulfills a special role in a child's life that could not
easily be replaced by a work of literature that was just a
story. Chukovskii is certain that fairy tales and fantastical
stories help root children in everyday reality. Children laugh
at the absurd, the fantasy, in a given fairy tale, proving
that they see through the unreal events. Fantasy, he believes,
is a valuable quality of the human mind, and it needs to be
thoroughly developed from the beginning of childhood. "The
fairy tale helps the child to orient himself in his
surrounding world, enriches his internal life, forces him to
161
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
feel himself a participant in the fight for fairness,
goodness, freedom." 2 1 According to Chukovskii, when the child
no longer needs the world of the fairy tale in order to deal
with life, he abandons it. In addition, Chukovskii feels that
all folklore should be made available to children and suggests
that folklore should serve as a guide for writers wishing to
produce children's literature. "I came to the conclusion that
folk poetry is the single reliable compass for a children's
writer. One must not ignore the fact that over many years, in
their songs, tales, epics, and verses, the people have worked
out ideal methods for an artistic and pedagogical approach to
the child. "2 2
Chukovskii has harsh words for the Soviet educators who
fought against the fairy tale.
Only those bureaucratic contrivers who,
attending meetings from morning to night and
never seeing a live child, could fear that
some little fairy tale will turn children
into romantics, incapable of practical
living. This is the only true fairy tale
with which we must fight, the backward
educators' fairy tale about the fairy tale.2 3
Chukovskii, however, does not evaluate all fairy tales as
being of equal merit. As Chekhov before him, Chukovskii warns
that fairy tales have varying aesthetic value due to authors
that are ' groveling-hack-workers' and care little for
162
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
children's literature.2 4 Regardless of this judgement,
Chukovskii's attitude toward the fairy tale is one of the most
positive receptions among both pre- and post-Revolutionary
critics of children's literature.
Chukovskii suffered in part because of his embrace of
the fairy tale during the 1920s. His own fairy tales came
under harsh fire in the 1920s and in some cases ceased to be
published.25 Chukovskii's own fairy tales, such as Dr. Ouch-
it-Hurts and Crocodile fall outside the rubric of this study
because they are intended for younger children and were not
published, for the most part, in children's magazines for
older children.
One of Chukovskii's severest critics, Nadezhda
Krupskaia, Soviet educator and the wife of Vladimir Lenin, had
much to say about the fairy tale as children's literature.2 6
She disapproved of the bourgeois elements in the fairy tale,
not the fairy tale itself, and she held a favorable view of
certain fairy tales, pointing out that they embodied more than
just the fantastic. Still, she did not advocate them all as
appropriate children's literature.
There are many interesting fairy tales,
which are especially valuable because they
teach children to understand people and
their different characteristics. Fairy tales
are simply a literary device that helps to
163
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
reveal life. But there are fairy tales which
are full of mysticism, frayed nerves,
frightening and misinterpreting conditions
that instill obsolete morals, and kindle a
chauvinistic temper.2 7
There is a certain cautiousness in Krupskaia's critique of the
fairy tale. Although she does not openly condemn fairy tales,
recognizing that they may be useful to children in
understanding people, her words imply condemnation as she
recounts their negative aspects. She prefers that children be
given other kinds of reading more centered on reality. She
does not share Chukovskii’s belief that the fairy tale helps
the child understand reality. Krupskaia's view of the fairy
tale does not represent the most rigid attack on the fairy
tale, however.
One of the first works objecting to the fairy tale for
the new Soviet child, The New Fairy tale for The New Child,
was published in 1919 by S. Poltavskii. As one might suspect
from the title of the work, Poltavskii advocates creating new
fairy tales for the new Soviet child. This commentary on the
fairy tale was the first to call to completely abandon all
pre-Revolutionary tales.2 8 "Our Russian fairy tale does not
belong to our time. It was born simultaneously with our
history. Every new generation, every new epic left its mark on
the fairy tale, and it arrived to us not in its original form,
164
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
but with all of the layers that were built up over time."2 9
Pre-Revolutionary fairy tales, he suggests, are too far
removed from the everyday life of the Soviet child. Poltavskii
believes, however, that the child will create his own naive
fairy tales, if not offered something in their place. "It [the
fairy tale] not only arouses a child's thoughts but gives him
knowledge about reality, even if mixed up with fantasy— it is
for the child his own type of code for behavior in life."3 0
Poltavskii's solution is to create new fairy tales that
connect the child's fantasy with the real world that surrounds
him. So while Poltavskii rejects all fairy tales of the past,
he does not reject them as a literary genre for children's
literature. In addition, unlike other post-Revolutionary
critics, he does not call for abandoning fantasy. Poltavskii,
on one hand, is more radical than Krupskaia, as he wants to
take all pre-Revolutionary fairy tales out of children's
hands. But on the other hand, he is more accepting of the
genre of the fairy tale and of fantasy as a positive and
natural influence in a child's life.
G. Fortunatov offers the most extensive work on the
subject, touching on not only the history of the fairy tale in
more depth than other post-Revolutionary critics, but also
delving into a theory about the positive and negative effects
165
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
fairy tales can have on children. Fortunatov published his
article entitled "The Fairy Tale and The Child" in 1928 in a
collection of works under the same title. Fortunatov's work
points to the historical class issues of the fairy tale, but
he includes the new Soviet fairy tales as part of the history
of the genre. Fortunatov suggests that some of the pre-
Revolutionary fairy tales can be educational for children but
not at a young age. In addition he believes that by no means
should all pre-Revolutionary fairy tales be offered as
children's 1i terature.
Fortunatov presents a rather liberal reading of fairy
tales for children in comparison with Poltavskii. Fairy tales,
he suggests, are very diverse in terms of formal
characteristics, class origins, aesthetic value and
pedagogical suitability.3 1 He argues that fairy tales should
be offered to children based on their age and their personal
taste, since there has been no conclusive research about the
way in which children are affected by various types of fairy
tales.3 2 Fortunatov, like Chukovskii, admits that fairy tales,
whether they are Russian in origin or from the body of world
literature, are a product of the inspiration of individual
authors. Hence fairy tales can be the work of a genius or the
work of a hack who knows nothing about children, literature or
166
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
language. Both Chukovskii and Fortunatov believe that
children, whether or not they have been exposed to fairy
tales, will create their own stories with elements basic to
all fairy tales.3 3
Fortunatov supports the idea that the fairy tale helps a
child realize what he or she cannot yet achieve in real life.
"Many children are interested in fairy tales because children
find in them a celebration of fairness, punishment of evil and
rewarding of goodness, which they do not find in real life."3 4
For the lonely child, the fairy tale offers an interesting
group of people with which to associate. A fairy tale can be a
surrogate to a child that can not yet act in life. Fortunatov
recognizes what he calls 'biological reflexes' in children
that attract them to fairy tales. "These complexes, the
foundations of human behavior, are interesting to the child
from the start: feeding, sleep, sexuality, aggression, fear,
curiosity, sociability, competition, pride, shame, seizure of
power or possessions, restlessness and others--all of these
attract the child to fairy tales."3 5 Fortunatov also adds that
the fact that children like fairy tales does not mean that
fairy tales are appropriate for them. As the child grows, some
children get stuck in the magical world of fairy tales and do
not want to face reality, a condition that may lead to
167
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
neurosis. Fortunatov believes there is a small window when
children are interested in fairy tales. By the time a child
enters school, a child can be introduced to realistic
material.36 He concludes, however, that if certain stories
can keep a child from properly developing, then it is possible
that fairy tales can help a child form his identity.3 7
While Fortunatov offers a rather liberal approach to
fairy tales, he feels they should be limited to reading for
pre-school children, which would imply that the fairy tales in
magazines for children ages ten to fourteen included in this
study should not exist. Fortunatov, however, raises issues
about the desirability of fairy tales for young children that
should also hold true for older children.
Western View of Fairy Tales
Western educators have debated similar questions
surrounding the appropriateness of fairy tales and the use of
fantasy in children's literature. Jack Zipes, in his book
Don' t Bet on the Prince, reminds us that the debate
surrounding fairy tales, fantasy and children's literature—
which began in the West as soon as the tales were written down
and established as a genre in the late seventeenth century—
continues until the present. The basic question that
168
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
continually arises is, should children be exposed to the
violence, cruelty, and superstition of make believe worlds?
Serious talk has centered on the moral aspect and related
psychological effect of these tales as well. Zipes, however,
suggests that the pedantic posture of educators should be held
suspect. According to Zipes, "instead of examining social
relations and psychological behavior first--the very stuff
which constitutes the subject matter of the tales— both the
proponents and opponents of fairy tales have based and
continue to base their criticism on the harsh scenes and
sexual connotations of the tales, supposedly unsuitable for
children. "3 8
One Western scholar who examines the psychological
behavior and social relations in fairy tales and the possible
benefits of fairy tales for children is Bruno Bettelheim.
Bettelheim presents a Freudian interpretation of fairy tales
in his classic work The Uses of Enchantment. Bettelheim argues
that life is difficult for a child and in order for the child
to understand himself in this complex world, the child must be
presented with a way to make sense out of his feelings. Fairy
tales offer a child a way to master psychological problems of
growing up, such as narcissistic disappointments, sibling
rivalries and oedipal dilemmas. The form and structure of the
169
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
fairy tale suggest to the child a way to structure his or her
daydreams and give better direction to his or her life.
Bettelheim points out that modem stories for children often
avoid tough topics such as death, aging and sickness. He adds
that fairy tales teach little about the specific conditions of
life in modern mass society, since the tales were all created
long before the existence of such a society. He suggests
instead that a child can learn more about the inner problems
of man, and about solutions to his own predicaments in any
society, than he can from other types of stories for children.
Bettelheim believes that children need a moral education that
subtly conveys to him the advantages of moral behavior, not
through abstract explanations but something that seems
tangible to the child and therefore has meaning.3 9
Bettelheim also offers insight about the role of fairy
tales during the transition of adolescence. He states "I have
known many examples where, particularly in late adolescence,
years of belief in magic are called upon to compensate for a
person's having been deprived of it prematurely in childhood,
through stark reality having been forced on him."40 Bettelheim
suggests that certain adolescent behavior finds expression in
fairy tales. Adolescence, according to Bettelheim, is a period
of great and rapid change and is marked by periods of
170
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
passivity and those of frantic activity. This back-and-forth
behavior finds expression in characters that rush into an
adventure only to be turned to stone or put to sleep.41 This
period of passivity, associated with the early years of
adolescence, is an inactive period teaching adolescents that
things evolve slowly. Adolescents, after this period of
passivity, become active and make up for this earlier period.
They have gathered their strength in solitude and now they are
ready to become themselves.
An adolescent must leave the security of
childhood, which is represented by getting lost
in the dangerous forest; learn to face up to his
violent tendencies and anxieties, symbolized by
encounters with wild animals or dragons; getting
to know himself, which is implied in meeting
strange figures and experiences. Through this
process the adolescent loses a previous
innocence suggested by their having been
"Simpletons," considered dumb and lowly, or
merely somebody's child. The risks involved in
bold adventure are obvious, as when Jack meets
the ogre. "Snow White" and "Sleeping Beauty"
encourage the child not to be afraid of the
dangers of passivity.4 2
According to Bettelheim the adolescent realizes through fairy
tales that their conflict is not with the adult world, or
society, but only with their parents. In fairy tales the child
not only survives the parent but surpasses the parent as
well.4 3 Many of these same adolescent themes are present in
171
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the fairy tales for older children that appeared in Russian
children's magazines.
Whan ia a Fairy Tala a Fairy Tala?
Vladimir Propp's famous study, The Morphology of the
Folk Tale, will help to determine the elements that constitute
a fairy tale. Propp outlined thirty-one basic functions that
make up the formation of a fairy tale paradigm, which Propp
suggests is common in Europe, North America and Russia. Below
is a summary of Propp1s functions:
1. The protagonist is confronted with an interdiction or
prohibition that he or she violates in some way.
2. There is a departure or banishment of the
protagonist, who is either given a task or assumes a
task, which is related to the interdiction or
prohibition.
3. Protagonist has an encounter with (a) a villain; (b)
a mysterious individual or creature, who gives the
protagonist gifts; (c) three different animals or
creatures who are helped by the protagonist and
promise to repay him or her; (d) three different
animals or creatures, who offer gifts to help the
protagonist, who is in trouble. The gifts are often
172
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
magical elements, which bring about miraculous
change.
4. The endowed protagonist is tested and moves on to
battle and conquer the villain or inimical forces.
5. There is a sudden fall in the protagonist's fortunes
that is generally only a temporary setback. A wonder
or miracle is needed to reverse this fall.
6. The protagonist makes use of endowed gifts to achieve
his or her goal. The result is (a) three battles with
the villain; (b) three impossible tasks that are
nevertheless made possible; (c) the breaking of a
magic spell.
7. The villain is punished or the inimical forces are
vanquished.
8. The success of the protagonist usually leads to (a)
marriage; (b) wealth; (c) survival and wisdom; (d)
any combination of the first three.4 4
This summary will provide a model for determining to which
extent the selection of stories from pre- and post-
Revolutionary Russian children's magazines adhere to the
traditional fairy tale. Studies like Propp's structural
analysis of the fairy tale have inspired other scholars to
approach formulaic literary genres in similar ways. Katerina
173
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Clark's groundbreaking work on Socialist Realism, The Soviet
Novel: History as Ritual, is an example of one such study.4 5
Clark asserts that formulaic literature, such as the Socialist
Realist Novel, are ritualized; they repeat a master plot.
Clark's definition of ritual is used in the same sense as it
is used by anthropologists. Ritual is a term for those social
acts that are felt by the participants to have the most
cultural meaning. In addition, rituals always involve some
kind of transition, a passage from one state to cinother.
Interestingly, as mentioned in Chapter Two, Propp's belief is
that most fairy tales are derived from rites of passage, in
particular the rite of male maturation.
My usage of Propp's structural analysis of the fairy
tale is only as a framework for discussing the stories printed
on the pages of children's magazines. Following Clark's and
Propp's example, I discuss below the ritualistic nature of
stories that follow closely Propp's morphology. As might be
expected, the number of stories that correspond to the
functions identified by Propp are considerably higher before
the revolution than after the revolution. Despite the decrease
in fairy tales that follow Propp's formula after the
revolution, there continues to be creative examples of how
individual authors keep the fairy tale and fantasy alive. The
174
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
ritualistic nature as well as the fantastic elements of these
stories offer adolescents a model of passage from one state to
another. It must be pointed out that stories for this age
group do deviate from the functions outlined by Propp, as
these literary fairy tales accommodate a twentieth-century
adolescent readership.
The Pre-Revolutionary Fairy Tala
Pre-Revolutionary fairy tales also offer their readers
creative twists on the traditional fairy tale genre. In fact,
the greater tolerance of fairy tales and the role of the
market in the creation of fairy tales translated into an even
greater number of creative fairy tales in pre-Revolutionary
children's magazines than in post-Revolutionary children's
magazines.
The Forest Princess written by V. Mirovich appears in
the Symbolist magazine for children The Little Path in 1909 .4 6
This fairy tale is about a princess who gives away all her
earthly processions. First she gives away all her money and
jewels, then she gives away her castle, and finally she gives
away the crown off her head and the gown she is wearing to the
needy people of her kingdom. At this point a prince comes
along and sees a beautiful girl wandering around the forest.
175
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
He learns from the people that this girl is their princess and
that because of her kind heart and unselfish ways, she has
given away all her possessions to make others happy. The
princess's story so touches the prince that he asks her to
marry him. The princess refuses the prince's offer. She
explains to him that the only way she can be happy, would be
to give away all of the prince's earthly processions as well.
So the prince leaves, and the princess goes off to live in the
forest. In the forest a magician finds her and turns her into
a tree making her happier them she has ever been before in her
life.
This fairy tale follows Propp's functions with a twist
in terms of the ultimate quest of the hero. As would be
expected the princess hero leaves her kingdom on a quest to
find ultimate happiness. Along her journey she meets many of
her subjects who are in need and consequently relinquishes one
by one all of her possessions. Each object she gives away
makes her a little happier, helping her to complete her quest.
The entrance of the prince and his falling in love with a
plain "peasant" girl reasserts traditional fairy tale plots.
For example Snow White has been forced to take up residence in
the forest regardless of her birthright. One may assume that
ultimate happiness will occur when the prince and princess
176
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
marry and live happily ever after. In the Forest Princess,
however, the expected outcome is subverted. The princess does
not agree to marry the prince. Instead she warns the prince
that she will give away all of his possessions if they marry.
Another possible conclusion to the tale is foiled when the
prince leaves the princess. One possible happy ending would
entail that the prince also give away all of his possessions
and together the two would live in the forest. Another
anticipated ending would have both the prince and princess
turned into trees so that they could spend eternity together
as part of the forest. The prince, however, is not willing to
make this sacrifice and he leaves the princess in the forest
to live alone after she rejects his offer of marriage.
Instead, the princess finds her own happiness without a prince
when a magician turns her into a tree.
This fairy tale shares some of its narrative with the
Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo. Daphne loves to hunt with the
other girls, but would have nothing to do with men. Apollo
falls deeply in love with Daphne after being shot with Eros'
gold-tipped arrows. Apollo follows her into the forest and
when she realizes that she can not escape, she prays for help
and is transformed into a laurel tree. The frustrated god has
to content himself with breaking off a branch of the tree to
177
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
wear on his head. Daphne is turned into a tree just as the
forest princess is in our Russian tale. The forest princess,
however, obtains ultimate happiness from her transformation,
while Daphne's transformation leaves both parties unsatisfied.
Daphne prays in desperation to be saved and, regardless,
Apollo takes a piece of her.4 7
The unexpected ending of this fairy tale offers the
adolescent reader an unusual model in this transitional period
between childhood and adulthood that is not offered in the
Greek myth. Adulthood implies taking on adult responsibilities
and ending the transitional stage of adolescence and the
uncertainties that accompany this stage in life. In this fairy
tale the princess' adolescence is spent giving away her
possessions, including her castle and crown, two objects that
signify the responsibility of her position in life. When the
princess relinquishes these objects she also lets go of the
responsibility that she acquired at birth, separating herself
from her parents, who are absent from the tale yet still
implied. Her rejection of the prince's marriage proposal (she
gives him away, too) is also a rejection of her future role as
an adult. Instead the princess prefers to remain forever in
adolescence in a mystical communion with nature that allows
her ultimate happiness. Such a fairy tale may have offered a
178
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
perfect solution to young people who are not yet ready to
accept the responsibilities of adulthood but are also no
longer children.
In the 1909 Children's World a fairy tale appears that
reflects the scientific achievements at the turn of the
century. The story is based on the character of Ivanushka the
Simpleton and is entitled Ivanushka the Idiot with the
subtitle The Electric Fairy Tale.*a This is a tale of three
sons. The first and second son are hard workers, but the third
son Ivanushka is lazy, does everything wrong and is always
getting into trouble. One day while the third son is out
wandering in the forest, when he should be at home helping his
brothers in the fields, he is hit by lightning. Ivanushka runs
home to tell his family what has happened. He asks his
brothers about the electricity in the clouds. His older
brother suggests that it is coupling. His middle brother says
it is accumulation. Ivanushka doesn't believe them and begins
to conduct his own experiments to learn about electricity
including a dangerous experiment with a piece of paper and
fire in which Ivanushka almost goes up in flames. Finally, he
and his brothers go to the city to find out about electricity.
In the city the three brothers locate a scientist who explains
about the formation of electricity and suggests to the two
179
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
older brothers that Ivanushka' s experiments were in fact
demonstrating forces of electricity. The two brothers are
amazed that their stupid, uneducated, lazy brother had done
something so intelligent. The scientist tells the three
brothers that many great scientists, for example, Newton, had
very little formal schooling and were often considered fools
by their contemporaries. When the three brothers return home,
the oldest two continue to work on the farm, but Ivanushka
decides to head out on his own to discover more about
electricity and lightening.
This pre-Revolutionary fairy tale uses a traditional
Russian fairy tale character, the simpleton, and yet the tale
incorporates a very modern theme of science and electricity.
In traditional Russian fairy tales (volshebnaia skazka) Ivan
the fool plays a heroic role where his simplicity or
foolishness is often a fabrication by his envious brothers. In
this children's story, after being hit by lightening Ivanushka
is challenged by his two brothers about the origin of
electricity. His older brothers, who hold different opinions,
are both sure that they understand electricity. Neither
brother gives much consideration to Ivanushka's theories and
experiments. The three brothers set off on a journey for the
city. Similarly, many Russian villagers at the turn of the
180
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
century made the trek to the city looking for a better way of
life, to escape the burdens of country life, and to find work
or an education. In this fairy tale the three brothers do not
meet a magical creature or a mystical individual who helps
them in their quest, but they meet instead a scientist. The
scientist helps the three brothers understand electricity. The
scientist also gives Ivanushka not a magical object to assist
him in his quest, but encouragement. The scientist compares
Ivanushka to Newton, building his self-esteem and urging him
to continue his quest for knowledge.
This fairy tale also encourages adolescents during this
transitional period. The parents are absent, but Ivanushka has
his two older, successful and hard working brothers with whom
to compare himself. In contrast with his older brothers,
Ivanushka is stupid and lazy. Adolescents experience similar
feelings when compared to their parents, already productive
adults, and older siblings, who are at least further along in
the transition from childhood to adulthood. The fairy tale
character of Ivanushka offers adolescents the hope that one
day they will also surpass their older siblings and their
parents in their adult lives. Ivanushka presents the assurance
that one day adolescents will be able to accomplish what today
may not be in their power. As Bettelheim suggests, adolescents
181
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
have periods of dormancy, followed by periods of great
activity. This fairy tale reinforces for adolescents that
periods of dormancy are for gathering their strength. In the
end the character Ivanushka heads out on a great adventure,
proving that his time for action and intelligence has arrived.
This fairy tale, nevertheless, is not a usual one in at
least one significant sense. While subtitled an "electric
fairy tale" by the author himself, this fairy tale contains no
fantasy. The story follows Propp's functions rather closely in
terms of the advancement of the plot, and uses a well-known
fairy tale persona as the main character. This fairy tale
contains no traditional villain or battle, except for the
villain of ignorance and the battle to overcome it. Instead,
this “fairy tale" is a creative attempt by the author to
employ the fairy tale genre without employing the fantastical
elements that many educators found so unattractive in
children's literature. Regardless of the lack of magic in the
tale, if we follow Maria Kravchenko's belief that a fairy tale
is distinguished from the moral story, the novella and other
short literary genres by a feeling of wonder that it produces
in the listener or reader, then this tale fulfils its
obligations as a fairy tale. Science and the wonders of the
natural world create the wonder in this fairy tale.
182
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The Poet-Revolutionary Fairy Tala
According to Lynne Atwood and Catriona Kelly in their
chapter "Programmes for Identity: The 'New Man'and the ’New
Woman'" from Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of
Revolution 1881-1940, an emphasis on folklore was not formally
adopted in the Soviet Union until the mid-1930s. They suggest
that it is not until 1932 when the Union of Soviet Writers is
founded that folklore is rehabilitated with a leading role
played by Maxim Gorky. Yet from the documents surrounding the
fairy tale in children's literature it would seem that the
fairy tale was tolerated as an element of children's
literature even earlier.
After the revolution in Russia very few fairy tales
appeared that resembled the pre-Revolutionary tale The Forest
Princess. As may be expected by the increase in negative
criticism surrounding fantasy and the bourgeois elements of
the fairy tale, many more fairy tales appeared that offered
creative approaches to the genre. Some tales recreate Propp's
functions, evading fantasy, as in Ivanushka the Idiot,
discussed above. Other tales employ different devices to
invoke aspects of the fairy tale. In 1924 the magazine Young
Builders published a fairy tale A Book about the Truth
183
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
subtitled A Fairy Tale by Al. Altaev, a popular children's
writer (female) both before and after the revolution.4 9 In
this fairy tale, a boy Petya wants his father, a man who works
at a paper factory, to bring him a book about the truth. His
father promises to bring the child a book and in the meantime
puts the boy to bed. As the child falls asleep, he watches the
fire, and in the flames a city grows, and a man made out of
flames comes out of the fire. The man of fire tells Petya that
if he is afraid of nothing, not even death, that the man of
fire will help him create a book about the truth. Petya
responds that he is not afraid of anything. The man of fire
takes Petya through the flames of the fire. The two end up on
the edge of the city where there is a forest. Petya wishes to
be a tree and the man of fire immediately turns him into a
tree. The boy must then choose his fate to become paper or to
become firewood. Petya decides to become paper. The fire
person disappears and in his place appear people with
hatchets. One of the shinning hatchets lands right in Petya's
heart. Petya-wood is then taken to the city, and turned into
wood chips. Whitener is added to Petya and finally Petya is
paper. Petya-paper then moves to the printing room to become a
book. At the printing press the little black figures, letters,
run to greet the paper, when suddenly out of a box in the
184
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
corner comes the old pre-Revolutionary alphabet. The old and
new alphabets begin to fight, yell. Petya wants to get rid of
the hated old alphabet because he is afraid that it will put
Untruth in the place of Truth. Petya is helpless because he
doesn't have arms and legs. All he can do is rustle. Suddenly
through the floorboards appears a typesetter, Petya's father.
His father pushes the old letters aside and the book about the
truth is written. The fairy tale concludes when Petya wakes up
in his own bed wanting to know where the little black letters
and his book have gone. Petya's father tells him not to worry,
that Petya will soon grow up and will write a story about the
truth.
While not the standard interdiction, Petya needs to find
a book about the truth. The protagonist’s journey begins when
he leaves his bed for the city beyond the flames. The man of
fire is the mysterious individual who helps the protagonist
realize his quest. He turns Petya into a tree and hence
assists the boy in realizing his quest for a book about the
truth. Petya goes through three tests as he moves toward his
goal: he goes through fire, a hatchet is put into his heart
and he is turned into wood chips. Petya survives his ordeal
and moves on to completing his task. An unexpected obstacle
arises when the pre-Revolutionary alphabet attacks the new
185
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
alphabet. Petya's father arrives to save his helpless son. At
this point Petya ’ s adventure ends as he is awaken from his
sleep.
Petya's fairy tale dream allows the boy to achieve in
his sleep what he cannot yet achieve in life. Adolescents
experience a similar helplessness as their bodies may have
reached maturity, but they are still unable to function as
adults in society. Petya wants to be like his father, who
works in a publishing house, but he also wants to be better
than his father, as Petya wants to create a book about the
truth. His father makes it clear to Petya that he must grow up
in order to create such a book. Petya is in a period of
inactivity, but this period will not last forever. The fairy
tale concludes on a positive note, however, since the boy is
reassured that eventually he will be able to reach his
ultimate goal in reality.
Reality and fantasy are intertwined in this tale with
the use of a dream. The part of the tale that corresponds to
Propp's functions takes place while Petya is asleep. This
device allows the story to utilize the subtitle of fairy tale
but at the same time avoid the harsh criticism that it may
have endured without the dream device. This is especially
pertinent since this story appears during the years, 1923-25,
186
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
when some of the most extreme attacks on the fairy tale are
published, calling to abandon all fantasy and base children's
stories on realism. In addition, the author of this fairy tale
purposely sets the action of the story in definite post-
Revolutionary reality, marked by the war between the old and
new letters of the alphabet.
Curiously Petya's task of finding a book about the truth
is undermined by the fantastic elements of the story. Petya's
goal seems mundane: to become a book. Petya’s quest for the
truth is threatened by the fact that he creates the truth from
the untruth, or the fantastic. All the fantastic elements of
the story, a man of fire, the war of the alphabets, Petya
being turned into a tree, killed with an axe through his
heart, chopped into wood chips and made into paper, are all
revealed to be untrue— all part of a dream. Possibly the use
of the fairy tale subtitle is the author's attempt to show
that a book about the truth, whatever this may be, will never
actually exist. Such a book will always contain some elements
of the untruth or fantasy.
The story The Snake's Apple was published in November
1928 by Nikolai Zabolotskii in the magazine Hedgehog. 5 0 This
tale is a version of Jack and the Beanstalk. In Zabolotskii's
version two children Taraska and Leshka go to find a giant,
187
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
who, Taraska claims, is taller than the ceiling. Leshka
maintains that giants do not exist, adding that if Taraska
cannot produce a giant, then Leshka will beat Taraska up.
Leshka and Taraska head out into the maze of the city streets
to find the giant. They finally reach the giant's door and
after some discussion, they enter. But there is no giant, just
an old man, a blacksmith, who tells the boys that no one
fitting their description works at this shop. Taraska keeps
prodding the old man with questions until the old man finally
confesses that if he takes a good piece of metal and starts to
work with it, he immediately grows to the height of a two-
story building. Taraska desperately wants to know the old
man's secret. The old man finally agrees to sell his secret
for a ruble. The old man gives Taraska a snake's magic apple
and tells Taraska that he'll grow as tall as the ceiling by
nightfall after he consumes the apple. The boys go home and
Taraska eats the apple and waits. While Taraska is growing,
Leshka runs off to find his friends and show them Taraska as a
giant. But Taraska falls asleep while waiting and the spell is
ruined. Taraska does not grow. The boys conclude that the old
man must be a sorcerer and has tricked them. The children run
back to the sorcerer's house, and because they are afraid to
approach, they throw rocks at his door. The old man finally
188
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
emerges from his house and admits to the children that he is
not a sorcerer, the apple was just an apple and they should be
more careful with money and not believe so readily that giants
and sorcerers exist.
The tale begins with an interdiction about the existence
of giants. The two boys head out on their journey to determine
whether such magical creatures exist. Instead of a giant the
boys find an old man, who is ready to help the boys with their
quest. This old man, a sorcerer in the boys' eyes, presents
the boys with a snake's apple. This apple is the magic object
that will assist the boys in their quest. An unexpected
obstacle arises after Taraska eats the apple. The boy falls
asleep and breaks the apple's transformative power. The two
boys go back to confront the villain, the old man, who has
tricked them by giving them a defective apple. The boys defeat
the villain, but in an unusual way. The villain turns out not
to be a villain, but a product of the boys' imagination. The
old man scolds the boys for their active imaginations and
gives them back their money. Zabolotskii's fairy tale,
however, concludes with a common reward for fairy tale heroes.
The boys are rewarded with both fortune and wisdom.
As in the pre-Revolutionary tale Ivanushka the Idiot,
this tale closely follows Propp's functions. The two tales
189
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
differ, however, in their use of fantasy. While the pre-
Revolutionary tale is devoid of fantasy, the post-
Revolutionary tale utilizes fantasy in the form of the boys'
imaginations. The fantastical elements of this tale are all
revealed to be a product of active imaginations. The tale
closes with Taraska admitting to Leshka that he had made the
giant up from the start. Zabolotskii pays homage to the
child's imagination and his ability to fantasize, which is
undercut to some extent when the old man criticizes the boys
for their poor judgement.
Zabolotskii's use of a snake's apple, whether or not it
is magical, has definite biblical tones. Zabolotskii could
have referred to the apple as just magical, and it would have
served a similar purpose in the fairy tale. This reference to
the Bible gives the already strongly moralistic and didactic
tale a Christian slant, which is very rare among fairy tales
published after the revolution. Bettelheim points out that in
many myths and fairy tales the apple cam stand for love and
sex, in both its benevolent and its dangerous aspects.5 1
Bettelheim also suggests that the apple in religious
iconography symbolizes the mother’s breast. In the Bible, man
is seduced to renounce his innocence for knowledge and
sexuality with an apple. Eve is tempted by male masculinity
190
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
represented by the snake as well. The snake, however, is not
enough. The apple is needed to lure the pair out of paradise.
Zabolotskii's choice in both the title of his tale and the use
of the magical object of the same name emphasizes the story's
religious significance to the author himself.
Zabolotskii's use of the snake's apple adds an
additional layer to the adolescent theme in his fairy tale.
The two boys head out on an adventure that leads them one step
closer to adulthood as they gain experience about life. Their
active imaginations, while condemned by the old man, allow
them a break from everyday reality in which they are amidst a
difficult adolescent transition. The snake's apple is also an
allusion to the boys impending sexual maturity. The powerless
snake's apple, that turns out to be just an apple, may
symbolize the boys precocious attempt to participate in an
adult world of sexuality and temptation that they are not yet
prepared to join. Regardless, the boys' imaginations are
enough for the old mein to scold the boys for their behavior.
In the old man's eyes these boys are far from being adults.
The year 1928, coinciding with the publication date of
Zabolotskii's fairy tale, can be considered the year of the
fairy tale. In this year Fortunatov's work was published,
Chukovskii made his famous remarks about the fairy tale and
191
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Krupskaia attacked Chukovskii's fairy tale Crocodile. After
1928 there was a relaxation of discourse regarding the
position of fairy tales in Russian children's literature. This
direction can be seen in the comments made by Krupskaia, who
was not willing to completely throw out fairy tales, as was
suggested as early as 1923. In addition Maxim Gorky, a
vigilant supporter of fantasy in children's literature, did
not take a public stand in favor of the fairy tale until 1929.
"The Fairy tale, more than anything else, is the instruction
of 'inventiveness'--this amazing ability of our thoughts to
look far beyond just facts."5 2 In fairy tales, he continues,
people fantasized about the flying carpet centuries before the
airplane was invented. Gorky also points out the cultural
importance of fairy tales. According to Gorky the process of
borrowing from different cultures and adding to ancient fairy
tales about the particularities of various races, nations and
classes has played an important role in the development of the
culture. A full rehabilitation of folklore and the fairy tale
did not come in full until 1931 when Gorky returned from exile
and helped to establish the Union of Soviet Writers. Yet the
positive reception that Gorky and Chukovskii gave the fairy
tale was an anomaly in terms of not only post-Revolutionary
192
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
children's literature but in terms of the entire history of
criticism of Russian children's literature.
Conclusion
A Western critic of fairy tales may help to explain the
heated debate among both pre- and post-Revolutionary critics
surrounding the fairy tale as children's literature. Zipes, in
his book Breaking the Magic Spell, advances the idea that folk
and fairy tales have always vexed the dominant social
classes.5 3 He argues that because tales project stories of
other and better worlds, they are often considered subversive,
or, in a more positive light, he suggests that tales provide a
critical measure of how far we are from taking history into
our own hands and creating more just societies. According to
Zipes, oral tales were once part of communal property. They
united a community and helped a member understand social
problems in a narrative mode that was familiar and at the same
time indicated the possible fulfillment of utopian longings.
Zipes concludes that it was not by chance that the culture
industry, such as for example Disney in the United States, has
sought to regulate tales. Taking Zipes' theory into
consideration, regardless of the ruling class in Russia,
whether pre- or post-Revolutionary, there existed discontent
193
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
with the fairy tale. As discarding these tales proved
difficult, there was an attempt to regulate these tales by
means of powerful cultural narratives. So as readers today we
should not be surprised that the dominant social classes in
Russia were also discontent with fairy tales both before and
after the 1917 revolution.
Despite the attacks on fairy tales by critics during the
revolutionary period, the tales continued to be written,
published and read. The Russian literary fairy tale has been
modified by aesthetic norms, educational standards and market
conditions or, in post-Revolutionary Russia, dominant
ideology. Using fairy tales from this period, I have tried to
demonstrate how the tales incorporated the social realities of
the pre- and post-Revolutionary period as well as the utopian
functions of the fairy tale as studied by V. Propp. In
addition, these tales that appeared on the pages of magazines
for older children, like other forms of ritualistic formulaic
literature, guided the adolescent through a difficult
transition in life regardless of the various influences on
these tales during this time. As suggested by Benjamin the
reader of fairy tales can be transported into the pages of the
story, leaving harsh reality behind. Possibly N. Chekhov
offers the most astute comment regarding the future of the
194
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
fairy tale in Russia. "Children and practical educators in the
family, schools and libraries have decided the fate of fairy
tales long ago. Children's literature throughout the ages has
been rich with fairy tales of different types, and this is a
clear index that fairy tales have not suffered even when
professional educators have reacted to them negatively. "5 4
While Chekhov is referring to pre-Revolutionary Russia, fairy
tales were integral parts of post-Revolutionary children's
literature as well. All in all, despite critics' mixed
reception of fairy tales, adolescents and fairy tales
continued to live happily ever after in Russia.
195
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 Walter Benjamin, "A Glimpse into the World," 435.
2 G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its
Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime,
Religion and Education, 2 vols. (New York: Apleton, 1904),
1:313; 2:302.
3 M. Kravchenko, The World of the Russian Fairy Tale
(Berne: Peter Lang, 1987), 1-60.
4 For a more detailed discussion of the fairy tale verses
other genres see Zipes, Jack, Spells of Enchantment (New York,
Viking 1991), 5.
5 Jack Zipes, When Dreams Came True (New York: Routledge,
1999), 1-29.
6 The orphan tales discussed in Chapter Two, while they
can be categorized as folk tales, do not include magical
elements of tramsformation. These tales are not fairy tales
since fairy tales are characterized as a subset of folk tales
that contain this magical element.
7 Sokol, "Children's Folklore," 25-44.
8 Sokol, "Children's Folklore," 25.
9 Lev Tolstoi, "Iasno-poliamskaia shkola za noiabr' i
dekiabr' mesiatsy,* Polnoe sobranie sochinenii vol. VII
(Moscow: 1929-58), 60.
1 0 Belinskii reversed his view on fairy tales as
children's literature during his career. In the beginning of
his career he was accepting of them, while toward the end he
became disenchanted with grotesque fantasy going as far as to
condemn Pushkin and Ershov's fairy tales. Due to Belinskii's
wavering opinion of the fairy tale, Russian critics of the
fairy tale have generally used him as need dictated. For more
information on Belinskii's views on children's literature see
Belinskii, Chemyshevskii, Dobroliubov o detskoi literature i
detskom chtenii, ed. S. Sillegodskii (Moscow, 1954) .
196
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 1 See F. Toll, Nasha detskaia literatura (St.
Petersburg, 1862).
1 2 See I. Feoktistov, O voprose detskoi chteniia (St.
Petersburg, 1881).
1 3 Nikolai Chekhov, Vvedenie v izuchenie detskoi
literatury (Moscow, 1915), 19.
1 4 Chekhov, Vvedenie v izuchenie, 17-21.
1 5 Evgenii Elachich, Sbornik statei po vroprosam detskogo
chteniia (St. Petersburg, 1914), 70.
1 6 Elachich, 105.
1 7 Elachich, 106-107.
1 8 Chukvoskii, "Ot dvukh do piati, " I: 552.
1 9 Chukvoskii, "Ot dvukh do piati," I: 552.
20 Chukvoskii, "Ot dvukh do piati," I: 545.
2 1 Chukvoskii, "Ot dvukh do piati," I: 551.
2 2 Quoted in Sokol, Russian Poetry, 29.
23 Chukvoskii, "Ot dvukh do piati," I: 551.
24 Chukvoskii, "Ot dvukh do piati," I: 552.
25 For more information on the pedagogical controversy
and the difficulties Chukovskii had publishing see Chukovskii
"Ob etikh stikakh,* I: 163-171.
26 Nedezhda Krupskaia, "O 'krokodile' K. Chukovskogo, "
Pedagogicheskie socheneniia v desiati tomakh vol. X (Moscow,
1962), 252-256.
2 7 Krupskaia, Pedagogicheskie, X: 448.
197
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
2 8 It is interesting to note that L. Kon in her book
Sovetskaia detskaia literatura 1917-1929 (Moscow, 1960) does
not mention Poltavskii’s article on the fairy tale.
2 9 S. Poltavskii, Novomu rebenku -novaia skazka (Saratov,
1919), 6.
30
Poltavskii, Novomu rebenku, 16.
31
Poltavskii, Novomu rebenku, 23.
32
Poltavskii, Novomu rebenku, 24.
33
Poltavskii, Novomu rebenku, 27.
34
Poltavskii, Novomu rebenku, 43.
3 5 G. Fortunatov, "Skazka i rebenok," Skazka i rebenok
(Moscow, 1928), 41.
3 6 Fortunatov, "Skazka i rebenok," 32.
3 7 Fortunatov, "Skazka i rebenok," 47-50.
3 8 Jack Zipes, Don't Bet on the Prince (New York:
Methuen, 1986), 1.
3 9 Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning
and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Vintage Books, 1989),
50.
40
Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 50-51.
41
Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 225.
42
Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 226.
43
Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 97.
* * Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, trans.
Laurence Scott (Austin, Texas: The University of Texas, 1968),
25-65.
4 5 Caterina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981), xiii.
198
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
46 V. Mirovich, "Lesnaia printsessa,■ Tropinka 15 (1907):
587-591.
47 Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.452-567, trans. A. D. Melville
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 14-18.
48 "Ivanushka-Durachek Elektricheskaia skazka," Detskii
mir 16 (1909): 444-449; 17 (1909): 475-489.
4 9 Al. Altaev, "Skazka o pravde," Iunye stroiteli 1
(1924) : 5-6.
5 0 Nikolai Zabolotskii, "Zmeinoe iabloko,■ Ezh 11 (1928):
1-7.
5 1 Bettelheim, Uses of Enchantment, 212-213.
5 2 Maxim Gorky, "0 skazkakh," 0 detskoi literature,
detskom i iunosheskom chtenii (Moscow, 1989), 90-92.
5 3 Jack Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell (London:
Heinenmann, 1979).
5 4 Nikolai Chekhov, Detskaia literatura (Moscow, 1910),
179.
199
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 5
Adolescence and
the Role of a
Russian Education
"Is not education, above all, the indispensable ordering
of the relationship between generations, or if one wishes to
speak of control, the control of the generational relationship
rather than of the children."1 According to Walter Benjamin,
this control of the younger generation is not an attempt by
adults to control children, but an attempt by adults to
control the relationship between generations. If there is some
threat— left unspecified by Benjamin--that is attached to a
certain generational hierarchy, one can easily recognize
adolescence as the stage where generations come into direct
conflict with each other. Adolescents assert their
independence, their freedom of choice, and begin to make
decisions that affect their own lives. By the end of this
200
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
transitional period adolescents begin to shape not only their
own lives, but society as well.
This need to control the relationship between
generations is part of Benjamin's understanding of childhood.
Childhood for Benjamin has a direct link to politics. If one
revisits the Moscow Diary, for example, one can see that
Benjamin describes how the political adult recaptures the
world that had previously belonged to the child. It is through
the mood and feeling of being a child that Benjamin describes
his own sudden experiences of estrangement and extreme
political shocks. Benjamin's arrival in 1926 Moscow is marked
by his association with childhood. "The childhood stage starts
right upon arrival. On the thick glazed ice of these streets
walking must be learned anew."2 Speaking of the wintry streets
of Moscow and the sledges used for transportation, Benjamin
notes, that there is "a tender and rapid skimming along stones
and by people and horses,n which makes “one feel like a child
gliding through the house on a stool."3 Benjamin places the
child at the center of the experience of shock and the feeling
of estrangement that accompanies it. He short-circuits the
widely held belief that places the "political" and the "child"
at opposite ends of a spectrum. For Benjamin the child cannot
but refer us to the political, that is, to a world composed of
201
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
varying degrees of shock. One might unpack this by introducing
a term (which Benjamin does not himself use) to help elucidate
what he means here. That word is ideology. If it is the
function of ideology to buffer the individual from shock, then
ideology is what becomes fractured and uncertain in times of
crisis and movement.4 The adolescent stage depicts precisely
this time of crisis and rift in ideology. Hence the "need,"
according to Benjamin, for an adult to control the generation
gap can be seen as a desire to repair the rift in ideology and
overcome the crisis of adolescence. Situated between childhood
and adulthood, the adolescent figures a moment of political
and ideological instability that is commonly represented as a
conflict between generations.5
The role of education in an adolescent's life has been
remarked upon by many Western scholars. Erik Erikson, for
example, notes the relationship of adolescence, education and
technology. "As technological advances put more and more time
between early school life and the young person's final access
to specialized work, the stage of adolescence becomes an even
more marked and conscious period."6 While it can be inferred
from Benjamin that adolescents change the existing adult order
by being outside and cut off from adult ideology and control,
other scholars make this argument openly. G. Stanley Hall,
202
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the American psychologist from the beginning of the twentieth
century, suggests that adolescent mental and physical conflict
may threaten the social order. "Every step of the upward way
is strewn with wreckage of body, mind and morals. There is not
only arrest, but perversion, at every stage, and hoodlumism,
juvenile crime, and the secret vices seem not only increasing,
but develop in earlier years in every civilized land. . . .
Thus the foundations of domestic, social, and religious life
are oftenest undermined. "7 Education and the ordering of
generations is one way adults attempt to control these
adolescent tendencies.
According to John Neubauer in The Fin-de-Siecle Culture
of Adolescence, the most important institution for adolescents
is the secondary school.8 Neubauer argues that it is the
expansion of secondary education that defines the formation of
adolescence in industrial societies. Schools, he suggests,
played both an active and a passive role in the process of
adolescence, as adolescence was both a product of this
changing institution and a force of change within the
institution. Neubauer, like Benjamin, recognizes the dual role
of education in the life of an adolescent. On the one hand,
education is a means of ordering the relationship between
generations. On the other hand, adolescents fall outside the
203
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
political and ideological constraints of both adulthood and
childhood, making them a force for change within institutions.
This opposition and the role of education in Russian
adolescence is the focus of this chapter.
education in Russia
The expansion of the concept of adolescence in Russia is
also tied to greater modernization and more educational
opportunity. According to the Domostroi, the sixteenth century
guide for the management of Russian households, the child was
viewed as hardly different from other lesser relatives and
domestic servants who comprised the Russian household.9 The
father ruled the household and his duties were to protect
those in his household from harm, educate them in a both moral
and spiritual sense, and prepare them for salvation. The
family was the school and the father was its teacher. The
curriculum included such topics as personal morality, civic
responsibility, and preparation for various trades and crafts
that were practiced in a given family. The child was just one
of the many members of the household who received this
direction. Neither the child nor education existed
independently of the family unit. The family was a total
learning environment; books and literacy were not necessarily
204
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
a part of this education. Literacy was acquired only by people
whose livelihood demanded it.
In the eighteenth century, influenced by Western
philosophies, the concept of childhood and education changed
in Russia. Along with these changes the concept of the child
emerged in its right.1 0 Education, more and more frequently,
came from outside the family unit. At the end of the Petrine
era, parents, as long as they were part of the gentry, had the
option of sending their children to either the classical
grammar schools run by the state or the church, or several of
the technical schools. Alternatively parents could opt for the
principles of the Domostroi and raise their children at home.
By the end of eighteenth century this type of education was
often supplemented by private tutors and could later lead to
entrance into a formal institution.
In most European countries private tutors were gradually
replaced by the secondary school system in the early
nineteenth century. This trend occured in Russia as well but
at a much slower pace until the beginning of the twentieth
century. One distinguishing feature between the early
twentieth century Russian educational system and Western
counterparts was that the boundary between formal education
and vocational education was blurred. While both types of
205
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
education were valued, there was a strong class distinction in
the pre-Revolutionary period, which continued into the post-
Revolutionary period. Peasants were most likely to give their
children an education based on the livelihood of their
parents. Reading and writing were not considered of utmost
importance. Instead, apprenticeships as tradesmen and
craftsmen were the most common education. In certain cases a
peasant child was sent to a nearby village or even to a large
city in order to take up a new trade that his parents found
desirable. Working class children in the cities were also set
up as apprentices, for example, at factories, shops and
taverns.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, all children
had a greater possibility of attending school, as the number
of schools and teachers increased. Literacy and school
attendance among children grew along with their proximity to a
city during this time. Peasants flooded the cities to find
employment, to trade and to make small purchases. Shop signs,
street names, price tags, newspapers, and announcements all
encouraged literacy. The literate found it easier to gain
employment and were more likely to migrate to the cities than
the non-literate. More privileged children had many more
opportunities in terms of formal schooling before the
206
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
revolution. Privileged children living in the country or the
city were likely to receive an education at home, taught by
private tutors who were employed by the family. Such children
had the opportunity to later attend a prestigious gymnasium or
institute in one of the larger cities. Another option for
privileged children was attending private boarding schools.
The preference for one type of education over the other
depended on class. Consequently, pre-Revolutionary children's
stories feature both vocational and formal education based on
the economic position of the hero. Given the tradition of both
vocational and formal education, it is not surprising that
certain institutions became increasingly linked to different
social classes. Education became a means by which children
were indoctrinated into the class structure and into
adulthood.
Post-Revolutionary Russia also valued both vocational
and formal education. The Soviets' goal was to achieve
universal literacy in the shortest possible time. Shortly
after the revolution they organized a network of schools and
offered universal, compulsory and free instruction to reach
this goal. The People's Commissariat of Education was
established in 1917 and headed by Lunacharskii. One aim of
this new organization was to blur the lines between the
207
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
privileged types of educational establishments such as the
gymnasium, and the primary and secondary schools and trade and
technical schools and colleges as institutions of the common
people. Since not all schools could be raised to the level of
the pre-Revolutionary classical gymnasiums, the educational
level of schools was consequently lowered. In addition,
polytechnic training was introduced in all schools as an
adaptation of Marx's principles to the Communist school.1 1 The
idea behind polytechnic education is that children should not
be trained for a trade but rather acquainted in practice with
the methods of all the most important forms of labor. The
practical implication for all Soviet schools was that they
were linked to a factory or other labor environments. Soviet
theorists advocated a vocational education for children of all
social classes and wanted all children to go to the same kinds
of schools. They believed that this single and comprehensive
educational system would automatically provide all children
with equal educational opportunities, regardless of their
social past.
While the Soviets attempted to rid the educational
system of the class distinctions that had been formed over
several centuries, the stories that feature education in both
pre- and post-Revolutionary magazines continued to mirror
208
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
these class divisions. Several patterns regarding education
emerge from these stories, which all see the role of education
as a transitional bridge between childhood and adulthood.
Whether attending school or learning a trade, adolescents
during this period of time are in a quasi-public place,
separated from their parents and already learning about the
rules of adulthood. The stories that will be examined in this
chapter all revolve around adolescents from lower, working
class or peasant backgrounds and their educational goals.
These stories feature orphaned heroes, situations in which
both parents and adolescents are "educated,* and the education
of non-Russian nationalities.1 2 In these stories adolescents
play both an active and passive role in their education. For
all of these adolescents, education, whether vocational or
formal, defines their future.
The Orphan's Plight
Education plays a pivotal role in many of the stories
featuring orphaned heroes that have been already discussed at
length in Chapter Two. In several of these stories, education
becomes one of the main forces that allows the adolescent to
move towards adulthood. In such instances the Domostroi model
of family as educational unit must be abandoned, since the
209
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
orphan is not afforded this traditional model. The orphan must
forge ahead in the world alone and find his education wherever
possible. In the post-Revolutionary story Dadai, the orphaned
boy has several different teachers and several different
schools that are presented to him along the way. Dadai starts
out on the streets and surrounds himself with other orphans,
one of which acts as a mentor about life on the streets. After
hearing Lenin speak, Dadai decides that the homelessness is
not his destined future. He asks to be set up at a factory so
he can learn to work and go to school.
Pre-Revolutionary orphaned heroes also use education as
a way to find their place in the adult world. In the pre-
Revolutionary story Life's Happiness, Raisa has had just six
years of schooling when she becomes an orphan. The only work
she can find is a factory job. Yet all she dreams about is
going back to school. She secretly continues her studies at
night and hopes to get accepted into the women's courses to
become a doctor. The director of the factory, hearing about
Raisa's dream, adopts her. Consequently, she is able to go
back to the gymnasium to finish her studies. Raisa, like
Dadai, has several educational opportunities before settling
on a certain path. She attends school, works in a factory,
attends school again and finally becomes a doctor. Both
210
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
orphaned heroes use education as a means to help transfer
themselves from childhood to adulthood.
In these two stories importance is placed on both kinds
of education. Raisa receives a double education--a practical
education at the factory and a formal education in school. At
the factory Raisa is taught by the more experienced factory
workers in the surrogate family of the factory setting. When
factory life does not suit her constitution, Raisa's job at
the factory supplies her with the opportunity to turn her
vocational training into formal education. Dadai, the Soviet
hero, also receives the opportunity of a double education. He
collects firewood to sell, thieves, works in a factory and
goes to school. When he decides to join the factory and become
a worker, he is also given the opportunity for more formal
education as well. Class distinctions remain for Dadai despite
the Soviets' attempt to eradicate such differences. As a
homeless boy from the working class, his main goal in life is
to become a trained worker. The need for formal education and
literacy is secondary in importance for this adolescent. Class
distinctions also exist for Raisa, the pre-Revolutionary hero.
She has a very difficult time finding a job because of her
status. At one point in the story, her fellow workers threaten
to strike if the 'educated' girl is not tossed out on the
211
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
streets. But Raisa's personality wins the heart of one of her
fellow workers who protects Raisa from her working class foes.
Orphans comprise just one set of heroes acquiring an
education in children's stories that appeared in both pre- and
post-Revolutionary children's magazines. Children's magazines
from 1900 to 1932 ran hundreds of stories that highlighted
some form of education. Adolescents growing up in loving
families were also expected to receive an education in this
transitional period between childhood and adulthood, and often
this education defined the child's role in life. While
orphaned adolescents, as in the example of Raisa and Dadai,
were pushed into an education and into an adult phase of life
due to the absence of parents, other adolescents were also
forced into educational systems by their parents. In these
stories adolescents strove to create a better future for
themselves and for their parents by searching for the best
educational opportunities available even against their
parents' wishes and understanding. Adolescence was both a
product of changing educational institutions and a force of
change within these institutions. It is to this dichotomy that
I will turn in the next section.
212
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Adolaictnts in Changing Educational Institutions
The Little Jackdaw, one of the most humorous pre-
Revolutionary magazines for children, published the story
"Vanka-Five" by V. Verkhoustenskii in 1911.1 3 In this story,
Vanka is very happy working alongside his parents in the
fields. He knows how to lead the horses to the bam and cut
wood. He also helps his mother in the kitchen and watches his
younger brother. But one day his father announces that it is
time for Vanka to go to school, and from this day on Vanka's
life becomes difficult. At first Vanka threatens that he will
run away from school, and his mother tries to convince his
father to let him stay home for another year. But it is no
use. Vanka will go to school. He screams the entire length of
the village and he screams so loud that one man thinks that a
pig has been run over by a horse and cart.
As the school year begins, Vanka is very shy. The
teacher tells Vanka not be afraid and she promises not to eat
him, but Vanka refuses to speak. The teacher leaves Vanka
alone as she tells the other children stories, teaches them to
count and to read the alphabet. She only addresses Vanka at
the end of class, pointing out to him the number five on the
board. Vanka pleads with his mother not to send him back to
school. But he is sent back. Vanka continues not to speak—
213
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
except for the word five. His father is very upset by Vanka's
behavior and tells the teacher to beat Vanka if he does not
behave himself. The teacher does not agree to such punishment.
The teacher becomes more and more frustrated with Vanka
as the school year continues. He responds to all the teacher's
questions with the same answer— five. She tries to make
friends with him by bringing him a cookie, but he continues to
say only the word five. By the middle of the school year his
teacher is beginning to think that Vanka is retarded and
should not be in school. Then one day the teacher has an idea.
She puts a mirror in front of him and asks him who he sees in
the mirror. Although part of Vanka wants to say five, he can’t
because his tongue won't let him. Instead he answers: "oh
that's me sitting there." From this point on the teacher and
Vanka become good friends. Vanka answers all of her questions
correctly and is very happy that he is able to go to school.
Vanka's reaction to the mirror is reminiscent of Jacques
Lacan's description of the earliest period of child
development which he calls the 'mirror phase.'1 4 The basic idea
behind the mirror phase is that a young child, age six to
eighteen months, experiences its body as fragmented. To
overcome this lack of unity the child replaces his or her
incomplete self with an ideal unified self or imago. The child
214
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
constructs this imago, a future self-identity which is other
than what it is in the present. This imago is further
complicated in that the desire realized in this unified self
is not necessarily the child's desire, but the mother's as
well. The child's identification with this ideal self is the
basis of narcissism. This narcissistic fixation, however, is
not confined to childhood, but continues into adulthood. The
goal of psychoanalysis, according to Lacan, is to release the
patient from the imago, from the imaginary self-obsession. In
this story, Vanka experiences a type of fragmentation when he
starts to attend school. He cannot imagine himself as a
student, nor does he want to attend school. When his teacher
makes him look in the mirror, Vanka is forced to see his
unified self, as a student.
Whether this imago is his own desire, his parent's
desire or his teacher's desire is unclear. This narcissistic
fixation of the other allows Vanka to continue his education.
Vanka, against his own initial wishes, becomes a willing
student in a village classroom. His parents see the value of
an education and are eager to force their son to attend
school, knowing that an education will help him in his future
endeavors. While Vanka is certainly from a peasant background,
the story gives little detail in regard to his parents'
215
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
educational background. Vanka is initiated into the education
process, which will allow him to distance himself from his
parents and eventually enter into adulthood.
Jeffrey Brooks, in his book When Russia Learned to Read:
Literacy and Popular Literature 1861-1917, remarks that a
growing number of peasants and working poor by the end of the
old regime began to see the usefulness of literacy and an
education for themselves and for their children.1 5 The
disadvantages of schooling for children of peasants are
numerous. Such families often rely on their children to help
with the daily chores. Among peasants, traditional farmers had
the fewest reasons to send their children to school. Reading,
however, was related to economic concerns in agriculture.
Brooks points out that peasants who could read were able to
record inventory, count and record money, and also sign
agreements. Craftsmen had more uses for literacy than
traditional farmers did. The uses of literacy for the
craftsman are obvious, as they were continuously buying and
selling and counting what they owned. Those craftsmen who
attended school or an apprentice program had a better chance
of becoming independent craftsmen. The mobilization of reserve
for the war with Japan and for World War I also created a
demand for information among the peasants. The demand for
216
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
newspapers in the villages rose after the 1905 conflict with
Japan and after the 1917 revolution. While the interest of
Vanka's parents in a formal education for their son is rather
unusual, as other stories will help to illustrate, all the
reasons mentioned by Brooks make their concern in their boy's
future conceivable. In this story Vanka is part of a changing
education system that allows adolescents the chance to excel.
The didactic role of adults to order the generational
relationship, as well as to educate the ignorant masses may
also be an issue in this type of story. In the last decades of
the Imperial regime, one of the most constant concerns of
educated society was the great divide between the educated,
overwhelmingly urban society and the uneducated masses of the
peasantry. In the early 1860s competing groups with very
different views advocated education of the masses. A struggle
ensued between the church, the government, and the
intelligentsia for control over education. It is possible that
such stories about peasants who wholeheartedly wanted their
children to receive a formal education were a fabrication by a
more educated part of society in hope of influencing the
uneducated. However, scholars such as Eklof and Brooks believe
that it was peasant initiative for schooling, above all else,
that spurred the growth of schools during this period.1 6
217
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
The same obstacles, however, remained after the
revolution. The Soviets attempted to streamline the pre-
Revolutionary Russian educational system. Ideally, the Soviets
wished to create one single co-educational institution, which
would replace all the previous vocational schools, elementary
schools, secondary schools and universities. The state
promised hot breakfast, shoes, clothing, paper, pencils and
books in an effort to tentice children to attend these
schools.
In the story "Envy," a skating rink is opened at the
school to encourage children to go to school. This story
appeared in the magazine Pioneer in 1932. Sasha does not want
to go to school because he thinks school is boring.1 7 Instead,
Sasha spends all day on top of the roof with some young men
who keep pigeons. One day a letter comes for Sasha. His mother
tries to keep it from him, since he can't read anyway, but his
grandmother tells him about the letter. When his father comes
home he agrees to read the letter to Sasha. The letter
announces the opening of the new school skating rink and
invites everyone to skate and participate in a skating
contest. The letter is signed by Pavel, the leader of the
Pioneers. At first Sasha is very excited about the rink only
to remember that he does not own any skates, in fact, Sasha is
218
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
so envious of Pioneers who own skates that he beats them up
whenever he has the chance. By chance, Sasha and Pavel meet at
the well and Pavel tells Sasha to come to the rink anyway and
he can borrow skates.
Following the contest, in which Sasha does very well,
the Pioneers invite Sasha to go back to the school to see the
taxidermy exhibit. Sasha decides that the Pioneers are fun and
agrees to attend school. That night Sasha goes to visit the
pigeon-fanciers and tells them about his eventful day. Sasha
announces that he has decided to attend school and not to beat
up Pioneers. These old friends try to tell Sasha that school
will be boring, the lessons long, and math will be very
difficult. Sasha, however, convinces his old friends that
education is worthwhile and they all agree to go to school.
Sasha's parents have only a small part in the story. His
father's and grandmother's speech in the story suggests that
his family is not well educated. His father makes a small
effort to suggest school as a possibility. After the incident
with the letter, his father mentions that he will go visit the
teacher, ostensibly to talk to her about Sasha starting
school. Sasha's parents, however, are only mildly interested
in Sasha' s education as they have not previously forced him to
attend. They recognize the benefits of an education for their
219
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
son in contrast to the other adults in the story, the pigeon-
fanciers, who are against Sasha going to school and who try to
dissuade him. Very few post-Revolutionary stories placed
fathers and mothers in the absolute position of directing
their children's education. Instead, post-Revolutionary
stories pose Communists against non-Communists. In this story
Sasha's parents are mildly in favor of education. In contrast,
the Pioneer organization convinces Sasha to go to school.
Sasha's parents are not put in a negative light, despite their
lack of education. Instead the ignorant and non-literate
pigeon-fanciers are portrayed as anti-education and hence
anti-Communist, but are wooed to school by Sasha at the end of
the story.
Adolescents as Forces of Change
Stories in which parents have overriding authority in
their child's education are not common in the post-
Revolutionary period. Instead, Children are the changing force
behind education. The story "Envy" can be read as this type of
story as well because Sasha is convinced to go to school by
the Pioneers, and Sasha himself persuades his adult friends to
attend school. In other post-Revolutionary stories, children
220
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
demonstrate to their parents the correct way of life, the
bright communist future and the value of education.
The magazine Pioneer published the story "Airplane" by
N. Kliaz'menskii in 1925.1 8 Grisha is the son of a shoemaker
and is learning the trade from his father. His father tells
Grisha that trades are wonderful things and that our ancestors
lived better than we did by learning to be craftsmen. He adds
that they were not scholars and did not need to go to school.
At first Grisha is bored with shoemaking, but he learns to
like the feel of the hammer in his hand. Grisha also has
trouble with his mother, who is a very religious woman. In
defiance Grisha refuses to say his prayers regardless of being
sent to the cellar, or tied to the bed. Grisha dreams of being
a Pioneer and flying an airplane, but his father thinks all
Communists are loafers and that in school all children will be
taught to be lazy. His father uses as an example a Communist
who had his wife's shoes fixed and picked them up without
paying for them. His son does not think poorly of the
Communists or their accomplishments. Grisha loves to watch the
airplanes in the sky and throws down his work every time he
hears the distant rumble of the engines. He already imagines
himself a pilot flying above in the sky. But he is punished
every time he runs down to see the planes. Grisha's father
221
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
does not want his son to grow up and become a loafer, like the
other Communists. When the harvest is bad and the Communists
in the village help out Grisha's family, Grisha's mother and
father begin to see that the Communists are the future. They
agree to let Grisha join the Pioneers and to go to school so
that someday he will fly an airplane.
Grisha envisions a very different world from the world
his parents are able to imagine. While Grisha learns to like
his manual work as a cobbler, his dreams take him much higher.
His parents are both described in the story as people who have
little understanding of the changes that have taken place in
the country or the bright future promised by the Communists.
His mother is a religious woman who punishes her son for not
praying to God. His father does not see the benefits of a
formal education, preferring a more traditional vocational
education for his son. His father does not understand the
Communists, who in his opinion do not work and want their
shoes fixed for free. He is convinced that the old ways are
the best ways and does not tolerate Grisha's interest in a
formal education or his dream to fly planes. Only with
reservation at the end of the story do Grisha's parents agree
to allow him to join the Pioneers and go to school. In this
222
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
story the adolescent Grisha decides the direction he wants his
education to take him.
The adolescents' role as an active participant in the
changing educational system is paralleled by their role in the
new society that was forming. The key to a new Communist world
was to rid the old society of bourgeois ideology, everything
that represented such values, including a child's own parents.
Children, who were considered untainted by values of the past,
were viewed as the key to securing the Communist future. This
story is suggestive of a genre of stories based on Pavlik
Morozov, a boy who was called a hero for turning in his
parents to the Soviet authorities for their disobedience to
the new Soviet State.1 9 Although Grisha does not turn his
parents in, he forsakes his parents, who represent the old
values, for the new Soviet future, and he attempts to educate
them about the best way to live.
Adolescents in pre-Revolutionary children's magazines
also plan their education and their future. In the story
"Niar" a Turkish girl rejects both her traditional past and
her family in favor of Russian traditions and education.20 In
the story from 1907, which appeared in the magazine The Little
Path, the fourteen-year-old Niar, the youngest daughter of a
Turkish prince, is allowed to travel to Russia to attend
223
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
school for a year. When the year comes to an end, her father
decides that his daughter has had enough education. She is
chaperoned by two Russian teachers back to her home village.
Niar's hope is that her teachers will be able to convince her
father to let her enroll full time in a gymnasium.
Much of the story is a depiction of Turkish life through
the eyes of the Russian teachers and the recently converted
Niar. Turkish women, including Niar, must remain standing in
the presence of men as a sign of respect; the Russian teachers
are permitted to sit as foreign female guests. Turkish women
are also secluded in the women's side of the compound, while
the Russian women are permitted to join the men. Niar points
out to her Russian teachers that girls are not valued in her
culture and are considered useless, while boys are valued
because they work. She claims that she is tired of these old
traditions and would rather die than be left to such a life.
She advises her teachers to approach her mother with the
suggestion that she be allowed to return to Russia to study.
Education for girls is not completely without value in
the fictional Turkish family. The new wife of Niar's brother
is well educated and valued highly by her new family because
of her academic achievements. The teachers hope that they can
convince Niar's family that Niar too should have an education
224
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
like her brother's new wife. Her father is a very rich man,
but he has not arranged to give a formal education to his
daughters, which would make them even more attractive as
wives. The Russian teachers are warned that even an education
will not help Niar's plight, since traditions still dictate
that her marriage will be arranged for her and she will be
imprisoned in her husband's compound.
At the end of the story Niar's father and mother finally
agree to let Niar return to Russia and continue her education.
However, in light of the traditions described in the story, it
is unclear whether Niar will be happier with her decision.
Once she is educated, and becomes accustomed to the traditions
of Russian society, her ultimate return to her traditional
Turkish life may be impossible for her. Education in this
sense may be worse than no education at all. Niar's father
warns her that although he has decided to let her go back to
Russia for five years to be able to continue her education,
her children will mind her even less than she minds her own
parents.
Niar, like Grisha, decides that she knows better than
her parents about the type of education that is best for her
future. She has concluded that the traditional Turkish
lifestyle is not the path she wishes to follow. She therefore
225
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
chooses a Russian education that will give her more desirable
opportunities. The choice of the ’other' that crosses over to
a dominant culture and tradition is a cliche that reappears in
school stories at the turn of the century. According to Sally
Mitchell in her book The New Girl, a common cliche in English
children's literature as well as Russian is the use of another
nationality to put distance between the main character and the
reader.2 1 The use of another nationality allows the author to
discuss issues that may be otherwise too progressive for the
average reader. In this case, Niar rebels against her family's
values and chooses a much more liberal path for her life and
the life of her future children. Such a story with a Russian
as the main character might have met with strong opposition
and would not have been published. Niar, like Grisha, chooses
to venture away from her parents' influence and pursue
educational goals which are beyond her parents' initial
understanding. These adolescents, however, choose paths that
are accepted by the readers of these children's magazines.
Niar differs from the other heroes encountered previously
because she comes from a wealthy and noble family. However,
her family is not Russian and they are portrayed in the story,
written by a Russian author, as being backward and uneducated
226
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
in comparison to the Russian culture with which Niar is
enchanted.
Niar rejects her previous life when she is indoctrinated
into a different culture and future after attending a Russian
boarding school in Petersburg. The situation of national
groups and their access to schools in pre-Revolutionary Russia
was very difficult. This was especially true of small national
groups who lagged far behind the general Russian level of
economic development. In theory pre-Revolutionary education
since the 1860s had numerous progressive features; it was
free, girls and boys were taught together until the age of 13,
and in accordance with the statute of 14 July 1864 primary
schooling was begun in the languages of the local
nationalities, switching to Russian only in the second year.
In practice there were few schools outside of large cities and
a formal education often meant, as in the case of Niar, living
in a boarding school far away from family and traditions.
The "Other” After the Revolution
The education of the "other" after the revolution was
complicated by the spirit of internationalism that was
entwined with Communism. However, internationalism was
interpreted for practical reasons not as a drawing together of
227
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
different nations with equal rights and preserving their
national differences, but as an accelerated discarding of
national characteristics and traditions. Internationalism also
affected the type of schools offered to these nationalities,
as wll as the stories featured in magazines for children. Like
Niar, non-Russian children after the revolution were also
depicted as turning to the Russians for formal education.
In the story "By their own means," which appeared in the
magazine Peace-Loving Kids in 1931, two young Kalmyk boys,
Bassan and Galzyn, decide to take their future into their own
hands by providing themselves with an opportunity for
education.22 The story opens with a young shepherd, Bassan,
out in the fields watching after the herd under his
supervision. The steppes endlessly surround the young boy and
he daydreams about growing up and ending this boundless
boredom. The young boy's master is asleep, and the young boy
feels that he is not needed as the dogs keep the sheep safe.
One of his friends, Galzyn, approaches to tell him the news
that a fellow friend is heading off to school at the local
headquarters. Both boys bemoan the injustice of the available
education; one must have relatives who work at the
headquarters in order to be allowed to attend school because
there are so few schools. Bassan's mother also has educational
228
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
plans for her son. She wants him to join the monastery and
study the law of God. Bassan and Galzyn have a different idea.
They will start their own school to benefit all the children
of their village.
These two boys have several hurdles to overcome,
including finding a teacher, a schoolroom and supplies.
Several members of the village think their quest useless.
However, while the majority of the village is illiterate, the
two boys find one old man, an invalid, who can read and write
well. He decides to teach the children if they agree to help
feed and clothe him. They decide to open their school under
the open skies and ask for textbooks from the local
headquarters. The headquarters supply the school with
textbooks, paper and pencils. The school is such a success
that the headquarters decide to help build a permanent school
building so that the children can continue to study when the
weather turns cold. The parents of Bassan and Galzyn are very
proud of their sons' achievement.
As in the majority of the other stories about education,
the children offer the main initiative for formal schooling.
Their parents are satisfied with the boys’ vocational
education as shepherds; Bassan's mother dreams that her son
will pursue a religious occupation. As in the story about
229
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Grisha, there is an opposition between Communists and non-
Communists in this story. The boys’ parents and the majority
of the villagers, the non-Communists, have little interest in
the school. But the Communists who work at the main
headquarters are willing to assist the boys in their mission
to build a school. Again, as in the story of Niar, the
assistance to build a school comes from outside the village
and is indirectly associated with the Russians as the leaders
of the Communist movement. The invalid is the only villager
who openly endorses the children's idea and agrees to become
their teacher.
A similar situation of an educated "other" appears in
the magazine The Hedgehog in 1931. The story "Kibitka-school"
is about the building of a school in a Turkmenian village.2 3
While most of the villagers are in favor of a school, some are
apprehensive. There are not enough villagers to officially
open a school, hence a neighboring village would also attend
the school. This worries the villagers because they are afraid
that there will not be enough water to support the extra
people. But the plans for the school continue and many new
things arrive in the village, including desks, which the
villagers have never seen before. At first just a few children
attend the school and then more and more appear. Another well
230
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
is dug to supply water. But only boys study. After a month
thirteen students are attending school. Classes are also
started for adult men who wish to learn to read and write.
The men, however, are not the only villagers who want to
learn. A thirteen-year-old girl Uzil desperately wants to go
to school. She steals paper out of her younger brother's
notebook and copies the letters out of his textbook when her
mother sends her on chores. When she fills the paper with
writing she buries it so that no one will find it. Every
opportunity she has she hides herself outside the school and
listens to the lessons that the teacher, a Russian, gives to
the boys. One day Uzil becomes so caught up in the lesson that
she yells out loud. Uzil's desire to learn and her brazen
outburst soon spread all over the village. The teacher
believes that girls should learn to read and write as well as
know about the daily chores of the village. In response to
Uzil's outburst, her father is chastised by other villagers
for having such an outspoken daughter. The villagers feel that
girls have no place in school; their education should consist
in weaving rugs. When her father finally agrees to allow her
to study, his conditions are impossible to fulfill. She can
study only if a complete class of girls is formed.
Unfortunately such a class is not formed. But her desire to
231
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
study is too great. She leaves her village and goes to the
city to study.
Uzil's experience in receiving an education after the
revolution is very similar to Niar's plight before the
revolution. Uzil's parents, too, are reluctant to give her an
education different from her family's traditional values. Like
Russian families of peasant backgrounds, her family sees more
use in an education for their son than for a daughter who most
likely will never leave her village. Both Uzil and Niar have
people outside their family and outside their nationality who
fight for their right to an education. Niar's Russian teachers
from her boarding school convince her mother that an education
is a valuable commodity even if Niar is only to be married off
by her parents. Uzil has the village teacher try to convince
Uzil's father to let her attend school. Both girls leave their
native homes to find an education and a future.
Girl's Kducation
While adolescent girls such as Niar and Uzil had a more
challenging experience receiving an education and securing
their futures, Russian girls also found gaining an education,
either formal or vocational, a challenge. A formal education
in school was less common for pre-Revolutionary girls than for
232
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
boys. Before the revolution, boys from working class families
often went to school in order to attain a prestigious job such
as working in a shop as a clerk. Girls were sometimes kept at
home based on the assumption that they would not be hired for
such a job. The most common nonagricultural job for a woman
was that of a servant. Literacy was not a prerequisite for
such employment, but it could bring higher wages.
The story "As It Should Be" appeared in A Little Guiding
Light by Fedorov-Davydov in 1915. In this story a poor village
girl, Ksiushka, is set up to work as a domestic servant in
Moscow.24 Her village is poor, and there is not enough food to
feed her large family. At age thirteen Ksiushka's mother feels
that it is time for her oldest daughter to receive an
education and to help the family monetarily as well. At first
Ksiushka misses the village and her parents and she cries day
and night. Soon she becomes interested in the busy city life.
Her mistress treats her well and Ksiushka feels like a proper
lady dressed up in her city clothes. For a time she is lent
out to a hat making shop to learn the trade and then to a
flower shop to learn arrangement. According to her mistress
Ksiushka has hands of gold, and she values her services. As
time passes Ksiushka thinks less and less about the village.
She writes home to her parents often and sends money every
233
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
month. When the war breaks out, however, Ksiushka begins to
notice changes in the city and in her parents' letters. More
and more village faces are seen in the city. When her father
is sent to war she worries about how her family will survive
in the village. In the spring her mother shows up in Moscow on
the doorstep of Ksiushka's employer. Her mother desperately
needs Ksiushka to come home and look after her younger
brothers and sisters. With her father off at the war, her
mother has had to find work in the village. At first Ksiushka
refuses to go back. She has become accustomed to life in the
city and enjoys her work. Finally, she agrees to go back to
the village and assume her family obligations.
Ksiushka's education is on-the-job training at one of
the most common jobs for women of lower classes. Ksiushka is a
servant of a well-to-do woman in a large city. Approximately
twelve million people worked legally outside their native
provinces in 1897. This number increased each year with large
influxes during the war with Japan and World War I. Peasants
left their villages in search of seasonal or permanent work.
This legal designation of peasant also included many city
dwellers, who were second or even third generation urban
inhabitants.
234
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
At first Ksiushka does not like being away from her
family and her peasant lifestyle, but like Niar, Ksiushka
learns to enjoy city life. She is able to wear nice clothes
and eat plenty of food. The work demanded of her is not as
physically challenging as work in the fields. Ksiushka is
proud that her mistress values her work as both a flower
arranger and a haberdasher. Through her education, Ksiushka
has learned about a different type of life. Like Niar,
Ksiushka does not feel that she can go back to her old
traditional life and be satisfied. Yet Ksiushka, unlike Niar,
agrees to go back with her mother to the village. Ksiushka's
decision to go back home and Niar's refusal to stay at home
are possibly grounded in the girls' nationalities. Niar's
intention to follow a Russian tradition would have been openly
accepted by the Russian girls reading these magazines and also
by the publishers of these magazines. Ksiushka, a Russian
girl, does not have the distance from her readers. If she
refuses her mother, then she is seen as disrespectful.
Ksiushka is not accepted as a young girl who wishes to better
herself and give herself a promising future.
Unlike the other adolescent heroes in this chapter,
Ksiushka is not offered a formal education in school. In pre-
Revolutionary Russia it was very difficult for a girl from the
235
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
lower classes to acquire a formal education. In 1894 only one
percent of all females were in school as opposed to 3.9
percent of all boys. The numbers increased steadily up to the
Revolution, but the ratio between girls and boys in attendance
remained around 1:3. The quality of education varied greatly
depending on the location and position of the girl. As is to
be expected certain wealthy groups possessed the advantages of
home education, whereas peasants and the urban poor were
reluctant to lose the labor of a daughter for the sake of an
education. While Ksiushka's literacy is not explained, she is
fortunate that she is literate.
Ksiushka's decision to return to the village coincides
with trends in children's literature from other countries.
Mitchell notes that in England the feminine ideal of service
and self-sacrifice is reworked to encompass women's employment
in stories about working class women.25 Such is the case with
Ksiushka who sacrifices her childhood to move to the city and
then sacrifices her future by moving back to the village.
In addition, girls who are sent away to work as help in
a family are often, in a certain sense, returned to a family.
While girls are separated from their own families in this
transitional period, the new families offer support while the
adolescent ventures into the world of adult responsibilities.
236
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Ksiushka cried for the first several days when her mother
dropped her off in the city but soon her new family allowed
her new opportunities in the big city. She grew as a person
and saw a different life from that of her previous village
life. Work for lower class children in pre-Revolutionary
Russia was a temporary learning stage and also provided
training for the lower classes. Work, like education for the
upper classes, was a passage between childhood and
adulthood.2 6
Other Institutions
For some adolescents the school setting and education is
not a path that leads towards maturation. School life or
vocational training sometimes produce problems for adolescents
that are difficult to overcome. In both pre-and post-
Revolutionary stories for children institutions other than
traditional or vocational schools allowed adolescents to
distance themselves from their parents and to explore their
own place in the world. In The Fin-de-Siecle Culture of
Adolescence, John Neubauer suggests that organizations such as
the church and youth groups can offer the adolescent similar
experiences for growth.2 7 Like schools, the church and youth
groups are both institutions which try to exert control over
237
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
the adolescent and at the same time are challenged by the
adolescent.
The story "Held Back" by Ekaterina Nechaeva appeared in
the 1913 Family and School.2 8 In this story, Lena is repeating
a grade at school because of her bad marks. Last year her life
had been much easier, as she was not made to study and was not
constantly reprimanded. This year Lena feels guilty and tries
to show that she is not lazy. Despite her efforts, the facts
refuse to stay in her head. At first the teacher encourages
her by telling Lena that she should not be ashamed at having
to repeat a year of school, and instead she should work to be
the top student in the class. The other students, however,
make fun of her and call her names. No matter how hard she
tries, Lena still has difficulties. On one occasion she
forgets that she does not have any paper and has to ask the
teacher for some. Then she can't remember all of the spelling
rules during the dictation and makes a lot of mistakes. Again
Lena fails, but she has one favorite place that makes all of
her worries about school disappear: church.
Sundays are Lena's favorite day of the week. This is the
only day that she does not have to go to school and prepare
lessons. She feels that Sunday is a real holiday and loves to
go to church service. At church she prays and stares at the
238
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
dark faces of the icons. She has hope that she will be able to
achieve her dreams. Lena feels that the time is near when she
will be praised and loved. All day long after church Lena
feels confident in herself and at peace. Unfortunately Sunday
comes rarely in comparison with the other six school days.
The religious theme in this pre-Revolutionary story
attests to the religious indoctrination of pre-Revolutionary
society. Religion gives Lena a worthy goal to pursue in
life— a goal that is highly respected and revered in pre-
Revolutionary Russian society. In this story Lena is not an
element of change in the church, but is comforted by the
religious rite of passage between childhood and adulthood.
Religion and the church offer Lena a chance to excel and to
plan her future, since formal education is unable to assist
Lena in this area.
After the revolution the church could no longer offer
support to struggling adolescents, instead another non-school
institution--the Pioneers--gave these adolescents support. The
story "Two Letters" appeared in the magazine Little Lights in
1931. Kot'ka, the hero of the story, is nine years old and has
a terrible time in school because of the two letters, sh and
r, which he cannot pronounce.2 9 He would be the top student in
his class if only he were not plagued by these two letters.
239
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Although his teacher sends him to special lessons to help him
with his problem, his fear makes him more tongue-tied. In
addition, the other children make fun of his speech. No matter
how hard he tries to avoid these two letters, they constantly
creep into his speech.
His problem follows him everywhere, including into the
country to a kolkhoz where he has gone to spend his summer as
a member of the Pioneers. At the kolkhoz Kot'ka learns about
many new things that he has never seen before in the city.
There are lots of questions that he would like to ask but he
is afraid to speak in front of the other children. He learns
about feeding the chickens and tending to the vegetable
gardens. He decides that he wants to be a tractor driver when
he grows up. His new motivation and his love of the kolkhoz
and country life give him the strength to go back to the
speech teacher and try once again to learn to pronounce sh and
r. His desire to be a tractor driver and not a 'tlactol'
driver is the driving force that helps Kot'ka to overcome his
problem.
The official organization for children in the Soviet
Union was the Pioneers. It was established in 1922 for
children ten to fourteen years old. Pioneers, like Scouts, had
their own rituals and codes of behaviors. They were instructed
240
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to be disciplined, hard working and pure in mind and deed.
Pioneers took a very serious view of their political
responsibilities. About 15 percent of primary-school pupils
and 23 percent of those in secondary school were Pioneers at
the end of 1925.3 0 There were a great number of pro-Soviet
children especially among the urban population. These children
were strongly influenced by the images of revolutionary
liberation and class war. Their organizations--both official
and unofficial--strongly resented discipline because the
revolution had liberated children from the oppression of
adults. The Soviet child tended to be an enemy of authority
and a vigilant defender of the rights of the student. Despite
the adolescents' rights within the Pioneer group and the power
that they had, the organization was also a means of control by
adults. In this story, as in the story about Grisha, fellow
children, the Pioneers, give Kot'ka the strength to change his
life. In addition, the different setting of a farm allows
Kot'ka to dream about the possibilities in his future. Formal
education is not the answer in Kot'ka’s life.
In both of these stories an institution other than the
school environment encourages the children to continue with
their pursuits to reach towards their dreams and to move
beyond their childhood into productive life. The two stories
241
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
end, however, very differently. While Kot'ka is shown to have
overcome his speech impediment through his Pioneer experience
at the kolkhoz, Lena is not offered this parallel experience
with her love of the church, nor is the reader told concretely
Lena's dreams. It would seem that Lena's dreams have more to
do with a religious calling than with strength to continue and
endure hardship at school. The church will help Lena achieve a
life that would be defined as successful.
Conclusion
In the pre- and post-Revolutionary periods, both
vocational and formal education freed children from the direct
rule of the mother or father. In the case of orphaned heroes
the influence of biological parents is absent from the child's
life, allowing the child to follow his or her education
without interference. While these children meet mentors along
the way, the orphaned hero makes the final decisions about the
type of education he or she will pursue. When children are
raised by their parents, in most stories the children, whether
Russian or of other nationalities, continue to make decisions
about the best type of education to reach their goals. Girls
in most cases also follow their own dreams regardless of their
parents' wishes. In contrast, stories such as "Vanka-Five" and
242
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
"Envy," in which parents encourage their children to receive
an education, appear with much less frequency.
One reason for the lack of parental influence in these
stories is the change that was taking place in both the pre-
and post-Revolutionary periods in terms of education. Unlike
the Western educational system, Russia's system for the poor,
peasant and working classes was much slower in making the
adjustment from vocational education to more formal education.
While there was progressive movement in the pre-Revolutionary
period towards universal schooling for all, these efforts were
interrupted by the Revolution. In the first decade of Soviet
power there were many different opinions on educational policy
and none of them held absolute priority. A number of different
government and party institutions contributed to the formation
of policy and their decisions were related to the particular
needs of a given institution. The results were a maze of
educational opportunities much like the situation in pre-
Revolutionary Russia.
In the late twenties and early thirties changes begin to
take place within the Russian education system that are
reflected in the stories that appear in post-Revolutionary
stories about education. Early stories such as "Dadai" value
both vocational and formal education. Yet economic conditions
243
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
and the reality of the situation in schools make the policy of
polytechnic education difficult to realize. In the mid
twenties, during the time of the NEP, while more schools and
teachers were available, opportunities for upward mobility
were limited. Most of the professionals and salaried employees
kept their jobs and privileges under the new regime. In
addition, there were restrictions on access to primary and
secondary education as peasant movement into towns was
inhibited by unemployment. Workers and peasants continued to
complain about the unfair educational opportunities. By the
late twenties and early thirties a more traditional curriculum
began to be followed in the schools. Hence the focus moved
away from vocational skills in favor of more formal education
in both stories and in Soviet society.
Education continues as a means of ordering the
relationship between generations in post-Revolutionary Russia
as in pre-Revolutionary Russia. Adolescence, however, figures
as a stage in life that is removed and cut off from
ideological constraints. Adolescents, therefore, have the
power to influence education and the future of their country.
In these stories adolescents lead the way to a future that
features education, and prove to their parents that formal
education, as the children themselves, are the future.
244
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 Quoted in Peter Szondi, "On Textual Understanding,"
155.
2 Walter Benjamin, "Moscow," 23.
3 Benjamin, "Moscow," 33.
* Louis Marin's definition: "An ideology is a system of
representation of the imaginary relationships which
individuals have with their real living conditions" from
Marin, "Disneyland," 65.
5 This liminal situation of the adolescence is a concept
which first emerged in Victor Turner's work in anthropology.
Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press: 1967), 93-111.
6 Erik Erikson, Identity, Youth and Crisis (New York:
Norton and Co., 1968), 128.
7 G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, 1: xvi-xv.
8 Neubauer, The Fin-de-Siecle Culture, 160.
9 See The Domostroi: Rules for Russiem Households in the
time of Ivan the Terrible, ed. and trains. Carolyn Johnston
Pouncy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994).
1 0 Max Okenfuss, The Discovery of Childhood in Russia:
Evidence of the Slavic Primer (Newtonville, Massachusetts:
Oriental Research Partners, 1980), 1-13.
1 1 There is disagreement between scholars on the origin
of polytechnic education. The idea that this education is
based on Marx can be seen in works by Soviet scholars. For
example see Dora Shturman, The Soviet Secondary School, trans.
Philippa Shimrat (London: Routledge Publishing, 1988). Certain
Western scholars believe that this educational system reflects
the American educational theorist John Dewey. For example see
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the
Soviet Union 1921-1934 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979).
1 2 I have decided to restrict my discussion in this
chapter to lower, peasant and working class children because
private tutors and private boarding schools, education limited
245
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
to the wealthy, had no equivalent after the revolution. Such
schools are discussed at length in Chapter Three in regards to
girls' education.
1 3 B. Verkhoustenskii, "Vanka-piat, “ Galchenok 7 (1911):
5-6.
1 4 See Jacques Lacan in Modem Movements in European
Philosophy, ed. Richard Kearney (Oxford: Manchester University
Press, 1994), 268-298.
1 5 Jeffrey Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy
and Popular Literature 1861-1917 (Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1985), 35-58.
1 6 See Brooks, When Russia Learned to Read, and Ben
Eklof, Russian Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture
and Popular Pedagogy 1861-1914 (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986).
1 7 N Dobrol'skii, "Zavist'," Pioner 22 (1932): 7-9.
1 8 N. Kliaz'menskii "Aeroplan," Pioner 11 (1925): 6-8.
1 9 See Yuri Druzhnikov, Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik
Morozov (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1997).
20 Evgeniia Solov'eva, "Niar," Tropinka 11 (1907): 458-
472; 12 (1907): 491-501.
2 1 Mitchell, The New Girl, 16.
2 2 Kobal'chuk, "Svoimi silami," Druznye rebiata 24
(1931): 15-18.
2 3 Nataliia Nikitiia, "Kibitka-shkola," Ezh 15-16(1931):
23-26.
2 4 Fedorov-Davydov, "Tak nado," Putevodnyi ogonek (1915):
346-349.
25 Mitchell, The New Girl, 23-44.
26 The cases in which Russian children have a mediator or
'other' of a different nationality that act on their behalf
are few. The most common examples in pre-Revolutionary
246
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
stories are tutors and nannies of well to do Russian children,
who defend the children's rights against their parents or
other adults.
2 7 Neubauer, The Fin-de-Siecle, 160-181.
28 Ekaterina Nechaeva, "Vtorogodka," Sem'ia i shkola 11
(1913): 695-698.
29 Gorodilova, "Dve bukvy," Ogon'ki 11 (1931): 6-12.
3 0 Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility Press, 27.
247
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chapter 6
Conclusion: Adolescence,
Children's Magazines
and Liminality
Adolescence in pre- and post-Revolutionary Russian
children's magazines inhabits an indeterminate space between
the stages of childhood and adulthood and the periods of
Imperialism and Communism. The fictional stories published in
children's magazines for older children that are discussed in
the previous chapters are representative of this indeterminate
space. These works are caught in the upheaval of the
revolution and transition termed "adolescence.'' The
similarities in these fictional stories are a result of the
concept of adolescence as an interval that recures at
different times and in different places but as a similar
process.
248
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Victor Turner first remarked on the liminal period of
adolescence in his book The Forest of Symbols.1 He claims that
societies are built upon a structure of positions and hence
there must be a period of margin or 'liminality' as an
interstructural situation. He proposes three stages in marking
the transition from one state to the next: separation, margin
and aggregation. He suggests that periods of liminality are
'invisible' to the members of society. This liminal period has
structural invisibility, ambiguity and neutrality in regards
to the society on the whole.
All the stories discussed in my dissertation were
written with a particular readership in mind— the Russian
adolescent. The ambiguity of the adolescent period is
represented in these stories featuring orphaned heroes, female
protagonists, as well as stories depicting worlds of fantasy
and fairy tales and the role of education. The codes of
Russian adolescence and this transitional period are reflected
in these stories.
The adolescent orphaned hero is forced from the realm of
childhood into adulthood by the loss of his or her parents.
While some of the orphans make a symbolic return to a lost
past, it is imperative to stress that orphans generally
achieve complete self-realizations in terms of their
249
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
transition from childhood to adulthood. Adolescent orphans are
forced into the world, cut off completely from their past.
These orphans do not have the luxury of distancing themselves
from their parents over time by means of continual cycles of
emotional withdrawal and return to the parents. The complete
absence of parents renders these new relationships potentially
more life-altering. However, mentors and other influences can
help the orphan to establish a future that does not
necessarily depend on the past and makes the adult future a
positive one. In the end the adolescent orphan must rely on
him- or herself. The neutrality of the adolescent process,
however, makes the plight of the pre-Revolutionary orphan more
similar to, than different from, the plight of the post-
Revolutionary orphan.
Similarly, representative active female heroes in the
transitional period of adolescence also exhibit this
neutrality despite the ideological divide created by the
Revolution. Lidia Charskaia's stories exemplify the pre-
Revolutionary active female hero during this period of
development in a girl's life. Post-Revolutionary writers,
while they did not reach the legendary status that was
attained by Charskaia, continued to write stories that
featured aspects of female adolescence and active female
250
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
heroes as protagonists. All these girls show their adventurous
spirit and dislike of the traditional female roles offered to
them. Instead, these girls look toward male models for
inspiration but in the end accept the future role of the adult
female as predetermined by society and gender. Whether female
adolescent heroes are depicted in pre- or post-Revolutionary
stories in children's magazines, these heroines typically turn
to stereotypical male heroic attributes as a way to deal with
adolescence.
The world of fantasy and of the fairy tale in these pre-
and post-Revolutionary stories is contained in a protective
marginal domain away from the dominant ideology. Fantasy and
the fairy tale, despite the fierce attacks on them by both
pre- and post-Revolutionary educators, hold their place in
literature for older children. Fantasy and the fairy tale
perform two functions for the adolescent. They provide a
momentary escape from everyday reality and the protagonists
(and readers) are forced, in the majority of these stories, to
return to the concrete world. Secondly, these tales that
appeared in the pages of children's magazines, like other
forms of ritualistic formulaic literature, guided the
adolescent through a difficult transition in life despite the
251
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
various influences on these tales before and after the
revolution.
The role of education in a child's passage into
adulthood is represented in both pre- and post-Revolutionary
stories. This aggregate role of education deposits adolescents
back into society and forces them to contemplate how their
society is sustained and generated. In the pre- and post-
Revolutionary periods both vocational and formal education
freed children from the direct rule of the mother or father.
The protagonists of these stories are allowed positions of
neutrality, away from parental influence, in which to make
decisions that help to define adulthood. Whether in pre- or
post-Revolutionary stories, education continues as a means of
ordering the relationship between generations. In these
stories adolescents lead the way to the future and prove to
their parents that formal education, as well as the children
themselves, are the future.
The structural invisibility, ambiguity and neutrality of
the liminal period in regards to the society as a whole must
be considered in terms of popular children's magazines. As
noted earlier, Walter Benjamin believes that adults cannot
fully understand the needs of a child or an adolescent.
Benjamin suggests instead that children and adolescents be
252
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
exposed to works of world literature, fairy tales and cheap
novels. Works of cheap literature, he believes, which emerged
simultaneously with the rise of technological civilization,
offer the adolescent something that ordinary literature could
not offer. He asserts that this popular literature transcends
the horizon of young readers and guides young people as they
successfully cross the threshold from childhood into the
"Promised Land" of adulthood.2 Both pre- and post-
Revolutionary Russian children's magazines should be regarded
as this exemplifying type of popular literature.
The beginning of the twentieth century is the most
prolific period in terms of Russian children's magazines.
Despite the sometimes didactic nature of the contents of these
magazines children and adolescents had a wide selection of
available magazines, which catered to different reading
publics. In the late Imperial period, older children had the
possibility of influencing the market for children's
magazines, making writers such as Lidia Charskaia and the
magazine Heart-to-Heart some of the most widely read in pre-
Revolutionary Russia. After the Revolution, regardless of the
change in the market forces and an increase in ideological
fervor, older children continued to have a large selection of
magazines from which to choose. The fictional stories
253
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
represented in this period from 1900 to 1932 can be viewed as
a continuum in terms of the representation of Russian
adolescence, as adolescence depicts a transition in life that
is removed and cut off from ideological and market
constraints.
Popular children's magazines are similar in several
senses to the period of liminality itself. As suggested by
Benjamin, children's magazines offer children, and more
specifically adolescents, a way to cross over from childhood
into adulthood. Regardless of the political upheaval and the
change in ideology after the Revolution, these stories created
by adults for older children are often ambiguous in terms of
dominant ideology. Such ambiguity and neutrality of Russian
children’s magazines from 1900-1932 allowed adolescents their
own time for reflection before joining society as adults.
254
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1967), 93- 111.
2 Benjamin,"Children's Literature," 250.
255
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Annotated Bibliography of
Children's Magazines
I have compiled below a complete list of the children's
magazines researched for my dissertation. The majority of the
magazines are located in both Biblioteka akademii nauk (BAN)
and Rossiiskaia natsional'naia biblioteka in St. Petersburg,
Russia. All of the magazines listed are intended for older
children unless otherwise noted.
Baraban (The Drum). Moscow, 1923-1926.
This was the first magazine linked with the youth
organization, the Pioneers. The magazine contained information
about the Communist youth movement, current events and letters
from readers. Fictional stories occupied only a small part of
the magazine's contents. The magazine becomes Pioner (Pioneer)
in 1926.
Detskii mir (Children's World). Moscow, 1907-1915.
This twice monthly magazine was for children aged eight to
twelve. The contents of the magazine include fictional
stories, poems, plays, articles on science and nature, jokes,
riddles and other activities. Editors included N. I. Fidelli,
V. A. Anzimirov, and G. A. Iovenko.
256
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Detskii otdykh (Children's Relaxation). St. Petersburg: N. O.
Popov, E.V. Popov-Lavrova, 1881-1907.
Monthly magazine edited by N. 0. Popov and E.V. Popova-
Lavrova. The main task of the magazine was to supply children
with realistic literature. The magazine also contained
articles on science and nature, games, piano music, and art
and craft projects.
Detskoe chtenie (Children's Reading). Moscow: 1869-1906.
This magazine was part of a new wave of children's literature
that followed the thinking of such men as V. Belinskii.
Fictional works comprised the largest part of this magazine.
Over the years this magazine had many editors including well-
known educators such as A. N. Ostrogorskii, V. P.
Ostrogorskii. In the twentieth century the magazine was edited
and published by D. I. Tikhomirov and E. N. Tikhomirov. This
monthly magazine became Iunaia rossia (Young Russia) from
1906-1916.
Druzhnye rebiata (Peace-loving Kids). Moscow, 1927-1953.
This twice monthly magazine was published for peasant children
in order to strengthen the Communist youth movement in the
countryside. Fictional stories maked up the majority the
magazine's contents. The magazine became Kolkhoznye rebiata
(Collective Farm Kids) in 1934-1938.
Ezh (The Hedgehog). Leningrad, 1928-1935.
The fiction and poetry stand out in this magazine with
contributions by Chukovskii, Marshak and Kharms. The magazine
published many novellas serially, games, and serious and
humorous current events. In addition, the magazine employed
several well-known illustrators. This monthly magazine was
edited by N. Venger, N. Oleinikov, Ditrikh, A. Lebedenko, D.
Neusikhin, Rakhmilovich. Much of the staff from Novyi Robinson
(The New Robinson) began work on Ezh.
257
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Galchenok (The Little Jackdaw). St. Petersburg: M. G.
Kornfeld, 1911-193.
One of the few children's magazines devoted primarily to
humor. This weekly illustrated magazine contained humorous
stories, poems, riddles and comics. Editors included A. A.
Radakov and S. G. Kornfeld
Iunaia rossia (Young Russia). Moscow: E. N. Tikhomirov, 1906-
1916.
This monthly magazine had a number of consistent contributors
and was edited by D.I. Tikhomirov. The contents of the
magazine was generally fictional short stories and longer
serialized fiction.
Iunye stroiteli (Young Builders). St. Petersburg, 1923-25.
This magazine, like Baraban (The Drum), was one of the first
magazines for young Pioneers. The magazine contained mostly
fictional stories, but included articles on nature, science,
and techology. The magazine merged with Pioner (Pioneer) in
1926.
Maiak (The Lighthouse). Moscow: M. V Gorbunova, 1909-1916.
This pre-Revolutionary monthly magazine was promoted as a
magazine for children of the working class. Like other
magazines Maiak featured scientific, biographical,and
geographical articles. In addition, articles on current events
were included. While this magazine was published for older
children, a section of it was intended for younger children.
Editors included I. I. Gorbunov-Posadov, M. V. Gorbunova, and
L. N. Gorbunov.
Nezabudka (Forget-me-not) . St. Petersburg: A. M. Temomerov,
1914-1916.
This illustrated monthly magazine comprised mostly literary
stories and poems. Occasionally games and activities were
included. Editors included A. M. Temomerov and A. F.
Platonova.
258
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Novyi Robinson (The New Robinson). Leningrad, 1924.
This twice monthly magazine was headed by S. Marshak and
employed many well-known children’s writers. This magazine
became a laboratory for their experiments in children's
literature. Novyi Robinson (The new Robinson) published mainly
adventure stories and science fiction.
Ogon'ki (Little Lights). Moscow, 1927-1932.
This monthly magazine was published for children aged eight to
twelve. It featured realistic fictional stories, poems and
articles about science and nature.
Pioner (Pioneer). Moscow. 1926-19??
This twice monthly magazine was connected to the youth
organization of the same name. It had the largest circulation
of any Russian children's magazine. While the magazine did
publish fictional stories, the bulk of contents was articles
on various topics including travel, political life, factories
and the International Communist movement.
Putevodnyi ogonek (A Little Guiding Light). Moscow: A. A
Fedorov-Davydov, 1904-1916.
This twice monthly magazine comprised mostly fictional stories
and serialized novellas and novels. In addition, the magazine
had a "mail box" containing letters from the magazine's
readers.
Rodnik (The Spring). St. Petersburg: 1882-1916.
This monthly magazine was recommended for children aged 13-15.
It contained very diverse material including articles on
current events, fiction, poetry and scientific articles.
Editors included A. N. Al'medingen and N. A Al’medingen.
Sem'ia i shkola (Family and School). Moscow: V. N. L'vov,
1905-1916.
The content of this monthly magazine was very diverse with an
inclination towards more non-fiction, than fiction. It
contained fictional stories, historical and biographical
recounts, articles about geography and social science. The
magazine was edited by V. N. L'vov.
259
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Severnoe siianie (Northern Lights). Petrograd, 1919-1920.
This short-lived bimonthly magazine was headed Maxim Gorky. It
is often referred to as the first Soviet magazine for
children. Many of the writers of this magazine were well-known
authors, including K. Bal'mont and N. Gumilev. The magazine's
main focus was literature, although it also contained articles
on art and science. The magazine was forced to close due to
shortages caused by the war.
Tropinka (The Little Path). St. Petersburg: P.S. Solov'eva and
N. I. Manaseina, 1906-1912.
This monthly magazine had consistent contributions from
Symbolist poets and writers. The magazine contained mostly
fiction, poetry and a variety of illustrations. Editors
included P. S. Solov'eva and N. I. Manaseina.
V shkole i doma (At School and Home) . Moscow: M. V. Kliukin,
1911-1915.
The format of this monthly magazine stands out from the
others. Each issue contained two to four separate stories,
bound together to make a small book. The stories were literary
in nature and included both original literature and
translations from other languages. The editor of the magazine
was M. V. Kliukin.
Vokrug sveta (Around the World). Moscow: I.D. Sytin, 1885-
1916.
This weekly illustrated magazine contained mainly adventure
stories and fictional travelogues. Occasionally articles on
science, art and other literature appeared as well. Editors
included E. N. Kiselev, E. M. Polivanova, N. V. Tutupov, V. A.
Popov.
Vorobei (The Sparrow). Leningrad, 1923.
This monthly magazine was edited by Z. Linina but many other
well-known authors participated unofficially in its creation
including S. Marshak, K Chukovskii, E Shvarts. The magazine
had a very strong literary section, but also included games,
logic problems and political articles. The magazine became
Novyi Robinson (The New Robinson) in 1924.
260
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Vskhody (Comshoots) . St. Petersburg: E.C. Monvizh-Motvid,
1896-1916.
This twice monthly magazine contained mostly original fiction
and translations from other languages. Articles regularly
appeared on science, history, famous people, art and travel.
In addition, the magazine features games, logic problems and
riddles. Occasionally the magazine published stories and poems
written by readers. Editors included E.C. Monvizh-Motvid and
P.B. Goliakhovskii, E.S. Monvizh-Motvid and D. F. Chepikov,
and N. N. Morev.
Zadushevnoe slovo dlia starshikh detei (Heart-to-Heart for
Older Children). St. Petersburg: M. 0. Vol'f, 1876-1916.
The magazine declared that its goal was to be a true friend
and a confidant to its readers and to guide them in their
reading. From the years 1900 to 1917 the serialized novels of
Lidia Charaskaia made up the bulk of this weekly magazine. In
addition, the magazine featured a 'mail box' on the back page.
Readers mailed in letters to the magazine debating their
favorite authors and protagonists. Editors of the magazine
included N. Kh. Vessel, P. M Olkhin, L. M. Vol'f, and S. M.
Proskurin.
Znanie-sila (Knowledge is Strength). Moscow, 1926-1941.
This magazine focused on technology and science. The fictional
section of the magazine often featured science fiction and
fantasy. Some of the editors included S. Marshak, I. II'ch, V.
Shkolvskii, Professor Frank, K. Paustovskii, Safonov and 0.
Pisarzhevskii. After World War II the magazine continued, but
as a publication for young adults.
261
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Bibliography
Abrahams, Roger. African Folktales: Traditional Stories of
the Black World. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983.
Alekseeva, M. "Nashi pervye zhurnaly dlia detei." Detskaia
literatura 1 (1967): 3-4.
Alekseeva, M. Sovetskie zhurnaly 20-x. Moscow: Moscow
University, 1982.
Alston, Patrick. Education and the State in Tsarist Russia.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969.
Altaev, Al. Pamiatnye vstrechi. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel',
1955.
. "Skazka o pravde." Iunye stroiteli 1 (1924): 5-6.
Anikin, V. Russkaia narodnaia skazka. Moscow:
Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1984.
Aries, Phillipe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of
Family Life. New York: Vintage, 1962.
Avery, Gillian. Childhood's pattern: A Study of the Heroes
and Heroines of Children's Fiction, 1770-1950. London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1975.
262
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Ball, Alan B. And Now My Soul Is Hardened: Abandoned Children
in Soviet Russia, 1918-1930. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994.
Beetham, Margaret. A Magazine of Her Own? Domesticity and
Desire in the Woman's Magazine 1800-1914. London: Routledge,
1996.
Benjamin, Walter. Selected Writings Volume 1 1913-1926. Ed.
Marcus Bullock. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 1996.
. Selected Writings Volume 2 1927-1934. Ed. Michael
Jennings. Cambridge: The Belnap Press of Harvard University
Press, 1999.
. The Moscow Diary. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1986.
Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and
Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Bibliografia periodicheskikh izdanii Rossii. 1901-1916. Eds.
L. Beliaeva, M. Zinov'ev, M. Nikiforov. Leningrad, 1958-61.
Bibliograficheskii ukazatel' russkikh periodicheskikh izdanii
dlia detei. Ed. M. I. Kholmov. Leningrad, 1973.
Bios, Peter. On Adolescence. New York: Free Press, 1962.
"Bor'ba s polovoi raspushchennost'iu v shkole," Russkaia
shkola 7/8 (1907): 23-41; 9/10 (1907): 42-49.
Brooks, Jeffrey. When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and
Popular Literature 1861-1917. Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1985.
Burno, E. "22 Neschast'ia." Pioner 18 (1926): 2-6.
Cambell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Pantheon
Books: New York, 1949.
Charskaia, L. Za chto? St. Petersburg: Vol'f, 1908.
. Kniazhnia Dzhavakha. St. Petersburg, 1905.
263
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Chekhov, Nikolai. Vvedenie v izuchenie detskoi literatury.
Moscow, 1915.
. Detskaia literatura. Moscow, 1910.
Cherevan, N. N. Tema truda v russkoi sovetskoi detskoi
literature. Kiev, 1954.
Chudo rozhdestvenskoi nochi: sviatochnye rasskazy. Ed. E.
Dushechkina and Kh. Baran. St. Petersburg: Khudozh. Lit-ra,
1993.
Chukovskiaia, Lidiia. Pamiati detstva. New York, 1983.
Chukovskii, Kornei. Materiam o detskikh zhurnalakh. St.
Petersburg, 1913.
. Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh. Moscow, 1965.
Clark, Katerina. The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Danko, Elena. "0 chitaleliakh Charskoi." Zvezda 3 (1934): 3.
Dalsimir, Katherine. Female Adolescence: Psychoanalytic
Reflections on Works of Literature. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986.
Davis, Elizabeth Gould. The First Sex. New York: Putnum, 1971.
Detskaia literatura. Ed. A. V. Lunacharskii. Moscow: 1931.
Detsakaia zhurnalistika SSSR: Bibliogrficheskii ukazatel' . Ed.
Iu. N. Bogatyreva, L. N. Kolesova, M. N. Kholmov. Leningrad,
1974.
Derrida, Jacque. A Derrida Reader: Between the Blinds. Ed.
Peggy Kamuf. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
Deutsch, H. The Psychology of Women. New York: Grune and
Stratton, 1944.
Dobrol'skii, N. "Zavist1." Pioner 22 (1932): 7-9.
264
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan
the Terrible. Ed. and Trans. Carolyn Johnston Pouncy.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Druzhnikov, Yuri. Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov.
New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1997.
Eklof, Ben. Russian Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village
Culture and Popular Pedagogy 1861-1914. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1986.
Elachich, Evgenii. Sbornik statei po voprosam detskogo
chteniia. St. Petersburg, 1914.
Eleonskaia, E. H. Skazka, zagovor, i koldovstvo v Rossii.
Moscow: Indrik, 1994.
Erikson, Erik. Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton,
1968.
Estrin, Barbara. The Raven and the Lark: Lost Children in
Literature of the English Renaissance. Lewisburg: Bucknell
University Press, 1985.
Farmakovskii, VI. "Mneniia po voprosu o 'polovom
prosveshchenii' iunoshestva." Zhurnal ministerstva narodnogo
prosveshcheniia 7/8 (1910): 123-143.
Fedorov-Davydov. "Dikie zveri." lunye stroiteli 5 (1925): 2-5.
. "Tak nado." Putevodnyi ogonek (1915): 346-349.
Feoktistov, I. 0 voprose detskom chteniia. St. Petersburg,
1903.
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Commissariat of Enlightenment: Soviet
Organization of Education and the Arts Under Lunacharsky
1917-1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
. The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary
Russia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
. Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet
Union 1921-1934. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979.
265
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Fortunatov, G. "Skazka i rebenok.■ Skazka i rebenok. Ed. N. A
Rybnikov. Moscow, 1928.
Fridenburg N., “Za chto deti liubiat i obozhaiut Charskuiu?"
Novosti detskoi literatury 6 (1911-1912): 1-8.
Freud, Anna. "Adolescence." Psychoanalytical Study of the
Child 13 (1958): 255-78.
Freud, Sigmund. The Freud Reader. Ed. Peter Gay. New York:
W. W. Norton, 1989.
Letters to magazine Maiak. 1913-1914. RGALI, Moscow.
Germonius, A. K. "Perekhodnyi vozrast i ego pedagogicheskoe
znachenie" Russkaia shkola 9 (1910): 160-175;10 (1910): 115-
130.
Goldman, Wendy. Women, The State and Revolution: Soviet Family
Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Gorkii, Maxim. O detskoi literature, detskom i iunosheskom
chtenii. Moscow, 1989.
Gorodilova. "Dve bukvy." Ogon'ki 11 (1931): 6-12.
Goscilo, Helena. Fruits of Her Plume. New York: M. E. Sharpe,
1993.
Greenleaf, Monika and Stephen Moeller-Sally. Russian
Subjects: Empire, Nation and the Culture of the Golden Age.
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998.
Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its
Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex,
Crime, Religion and Education, 2 Vols. New York: Apleton,
1904.
Harwell, Xenia Srebrianski. Images of the Female Adolescent
in Excile in Select Works of Russian and German Woman
Writers. Diss. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1997.
Ann Arbor: UMI, 1998, 9840303.
Harwin, Judith. Children of the Russian State 1917-95.
Aldershot: Avebury Press, 1996.
266
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Hiner, N. R. "Adolescence in eighteenth century America,"
History of Childhood Quarterly 3 (1975): 258-279.
Holmes, Larry. The Kremlin and the Schoolhouse: Reforming
Education in Soviet Russia, 1917-1931. Bloomington: Indiana
Univers i ty Pres s, 1991.
Holmgren, Beth. "Why Russian Girls Loved Charskaia?" Russian
Review 54. No. 1 (1996): 91-106.
Hourihan, Margery. Deconstructing the Hero: Literary Theory
and Children's Literature. London: Routledge, 1997.
Hunt, Peter. An Introduction to Children's Literature.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
. Criticism, Theory, and Children’s Literature. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1991.
Hurlimann, B. Three Centuries of Children's Books in Europe.
New York: The Wold Publishing Company, 1959.
Ianovskaia, E. Nuzhna li skazka proletarskomu rebenku?
Kharkov: Knifospilka, 1925.
"Ivanushka-Durachek elektricheskaia skazka." Detskii mir 16
(1909): 444-449; 17 (1909): 475-489.
Ivich, Alexsander. Vospitanie pokoleniia. 4th ed. Moscow:
Detskaia literatura, 1969.
Jaan, Pennar, Ivan I. Bakalo and George Z. F. Bereday. Soviet
Education with Special Reference to National Groups. New
York: Praeger Publishers, 1971.
Jung, C.G. Essays on a Science of Mythology. Princeton:
University Press: 1963.
Kapitsa, Olga. Detskii fol'klor. Leningrad, 1928.
Kaplan, Louise J. Adolescence: A Farwell to Childhood. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
267
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Kearney, Richard. "Jacques Lacan." Modem Movements in
European Philosophy. Oxford: Manchester University Press,
1994.
Kelly, Catriona and David Shephard. Constructing Russian
Culture in the Age of Revolution 1881-1940. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998.
Kholmov, M. I. Russkaia detskaia zhurnalistika. Leningrad,
1978.
. Stanovlenie sovetskoi zhurnalistiki dlia detei.
Leningrad, 1983.
Kiell, Norman. The Adolescent Through Fiction: A Psychological
Approach. New York: International Universities Press,
1959.
Kliaz'menskii, N. "Aeroplan." Pioner 11 (1925): 6-8.
Kobal'chuk. "Svoimi silami." Druzhnye rebiata 24 (1931): 15-
18.
Kolesova, L. N. Detskie zhurnaly sovetskoi Rossii.
Petrozavodsk, 1993.
. "U istokov detskoi publitsistiki." 0 literature
dlia detei. Leningrad: Detskaia literatura, 1972.
Komarnitskii, V. L. A. Charskaia, kak detskaia pisatelnitsa.
Warsaw: Warsaw Scientific Circle, 1914.
Kon, L. Sovetskaia detskaia literatura 1917-1929. Moscow,
1960.
. Sovetskaia detskaia literatura vosstanovitel 'nogo
perioda 1921-1925. Moscow, 1955.
Korobets, I. "Bezprizomye deti i ikh perevospitanie."
Russkaia shkola 7/8 (1914): 37-68.
Kozhevnikov, K. "Dadai." Iunye stroiteli 4 (1924): 9-11.
Kovalevskii, E. "Sovmestnoe obuchenie mal'chikov i devochek v
srednei shkole." Russkaia shkola 3/4 (1904): 96-117.
268
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Kravchenko, M. The World of the Russian Fairy Tale. Berne:
Peter Lang, 1987.
Krugov, Alexander. Literatura malen'kogo naroda. Moscow: M. D.
Naumov, 1897.
Krupskaia, Nadezhda. Pedagogicheskie socheneniia v desiati
tomakh. Moscow, 1962.
Kuznetsova, V. Tsekhemovskii. Leningrad, 1973.
Larson, Susan. "Girl Talk." Self and Story in Russian History,
Ed. Laura Engelstein and Stephanie Sandler. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2000.
Lavrenev, Boris. "Radio-zaiats." Novyi Robinson 12 (1925): 1-
11.
Layton, Susan. Russian Literature and Empire. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Litsovskii, N. Bibliografia russkoi periodicheskoi pechati
1703-1900 g. Moscow, 1915.
Luthi, Max. Once Upon a Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales.
Trans. Lee Chadeayne and Paul Gottwald. New York: Fredrick
Ungar Publishing,1970.
Magkov, M. "Zadachi vospitaniia v sviazi s polovoi zhizn'iu
chelovecheskogo organizma." Russkaia shkola 9 (1910): 1-23;
10 (1910): 17-36; 11 (1910): 67-81.
Marin, Louis. "Disneyland as Degenerate Utopia." Glyph 1
(1987): 65.
Marozova, Maria. "Kara-Kol." Znanie-Sila 9 (1928): 227-231.
Marshak, Samuil. Stat'i. Zametki. Vospominaniia. Moscow, 1961.
Maslovskaia, Z. "Nashi deti i nashi pedagogi v proizvedeniiakh
Charskoi." Russkaia Shkola 9 (1911): 101-121.
Materialy po istorii ruskoi detskoi literatury (1750-1855),
Ed. A.K. Pokrovskaia and N.V. Chekhov. 2 Vols. Moscow:
Institut metodov vneshkol'noi raboty otdel detskogo
chteniia, 1927-1929.
269
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Mirovich, V. "Lesnaia printsessa." Tropinka 15 (1907): 587-
591.
Mitchell, Sally. The New Girl: Girls' Culture in England.
1880-1915. New York: Columbia University, 1995.
Nechaeva, Ekaterina. "Vtorogodka." Sem'ia i shkola 11 (1913):
695-698.
Neubauer, John. The Fin-de-Siecle Culture of Adolescence. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Nikitiia, Nataliia. "Kibitka-shkola." Ezh 15-16(1931): 23-26.
Nikolajeva, M. Children's Literature Comes of Age. New York:
Garland Publishing, 1996.
0 zhurnalakh dlia detskogo chteniia. Moscow: Komissii po
organizatsii gomashnego chteniia, 191?.
Odinetz, Dmitiry. Primary and secondary schools in Russia:
Schools and Universities in the World War. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1929.
Okenfuss, Max. The Discovery of Childhood in Russia: Evidence
of the Slavic Primer. Newtonville, Massachusetts: Oriental
Research Partners, 1980.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Trans. A. D. Melville. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986.
Periodicheskaia pechat' SSSR. 1917-1949. Moscow, 1958.
Peterburgskaia, I. ”Ob institutakh." Russkaia shkola 7/8,
(1914): 103-119.
Pokrovskaia, A. K. Osnovnye techeniia v sovremennoi detskoi
literature. Moscow: Rabotnik prosveshcheniia, 1927.
Poltavskii, S. Novomu rebenku -novaia skazka. Saratov, 1919.
Privalova, Z. V. Sovetskaia detskaia literatumaia skazka 20-
30 godov. Moscow, 1959.
270
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Propp, Vladimir. Morfologiia/ Istoricheskie komi volshebnoi
skazki. Moscow: Labirint, 1998.
. Morphology of the Folktale. Trans. Laurence Scott.
Austin, Texas: The University of Texas, 1968.
Putilova, E. 0. Puti razvitiia russkoi literatury dlia detei
XIX nach. XX. St. Petersburg, 1993.
Raeff, Mark. "In the Imperial Manner" Catherine the Great: A
Profile. Ed. Mark Raeff. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.
Rank, Otto. The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. Trans. Dr. F
Robbins. New York: Robert Bruno, 1952.
Ransel, David L. Mothers of Misery Child: Abandonment in
Russia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Rodin, A. "Opyt1 organizatsii chital'ni dlia podrostkov."
Novosti Detskoi Literatury 8 (1916): 1-4.
Rodnikov, V. Detskaia Literatura. Kiev, 1915.
. Ob ocherkakh detskoi literatury. Kiev, 1912.
Rokov, G. "Iunost1 i iunoshestvo." Russkaia shkola 3/4 (1905):
65-75.
Rusakov, Victor. "Avtor 'Zapisok institutki.' Biograficheskaia
zametka.” Zadushevnoe slovo 44 (1906): 952-955.
. O chem i kak pishut deti. St. Petersburg: M. 0. Vol'f,
1911.
. Za chto deti liubiat Charskuiu? St. Petersburg: M. 0.
Vol'f, 1913.
Russkaia detskaia literatura. Ed. F. I. Setin. Moscow:
Prosveshchenie, 1972.
Russian Peasant Women. Ed. Beatrice Farnsworth and Lynne
Viola. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Sawin, Nikolai. "Erotika v detskoi literature." Novosti
detskoi literatury 8 (1913-14): 1-10.
271
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Opyt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1908.
• Opyt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1909.
. ODVt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1910.
. Opyt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1911
. ODVt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1914.
_. Opyt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1915.
. Opyt ezhegognika detskoi literatury. Moscow, 1916.
. Osnovnye napravleniia detskoi literatury. Leningrad:
BROKGAUZ-EFRON, 1926.
Shcheglov, Yuri and Alexander Zholkovsky. Poetics of
Expressiveness: A Theory and Applications. Amsterdam/
Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company,
1987.
Shchepkina-Kupemik, T. "Golubiatnia." Detskii mir 1 (1907):
3-13.
Shklovskii, Victor. Staroe i novoe. Moscow: Detskaia
Li teratura, 1966.
Shturman, Dora. The Soviet Secondary School. Trans. Philippa
Shimrat. London: Routledge Publishing, 1988.
Sillegodskii, S. Bel inskii, Chernyshevskii, Dobroliubov o
detskoi literature i detskom chtenii. Moscow, 1954.
Sinel, Alan. The Classroom and the Chancellery: State
Educational Reform in Russia Under Count Dmitiri Tolstoy.
Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1973.
Sokol, Elena. Russian Poetry for Children. Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 1984.
Solov'eva, Evgeniia. "Niar." Tropinka 11 (1907): 458-472; 12
(1907): 491-501.
272
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
. "0 detskom zhumale." Trudy pervogo vserossiiskogo
s'ezda Peter'sburg 30.XII 1912-6.1-1913. St. Petersburg,
1914.
Startsev, Ivan. Voprosy detskoi literatury i detskogo
chteniia, 1918-1961. Moscow: Detskaia literatura, 1970.
Stites, Richard. The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia:
Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860-1930. Princeton
University Press: Princeton, 1978.
. Soviet Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since
1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Storey, John. Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular
Culture. Athens: University of Georgia, 1996.
Sullivan, H. S. The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry. New
York: Norton, 1957.
Szondi, Peter. On Textual Understanding and Other Essays.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
Tarasov, M. "Shkola pri fabrikakh dlia maloletnikh rabochikh."
Russkaia shkola 3/4 (1906): 139-142.
Thompson, Stith. The Folk-Tale. New York: Holt, 1946.
Tikheeva, E.I. 0 chtenii detei. Moscow, 1909.
Tinker, Penny. Constructing Girlhood: Popular Magazines for
Girls Growing up in England, 1920-1950. London: Taylor and
Francis, 1995.
Toll, F. Nasha detskaia literatura. St. Petersburg, 1862.
Tolmacheva, M. "Tartarchenok Asan." Vskhody 10 (1914): 739-
753.
Tolstoi, Lev. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Moscow: 1929-1958.
Trites, Roberta Seelinger. Waking Sleeping Beauty: Feminist
Voices in Children's Novels. Iowa City: University of Iowa,
1997.
273
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Tsekhovskaia, V. "Schast'e zhizni." Zadushevnoe slovo dlia
starshikh detei 10 (1914): 170-172; 11 (1914): 187-190; 12
(1914): 204-6; 13 (1914): 219-222; 14 (1914): 235-238; 15
(1914): 248-252; 16 (1914): 268-270; 17 (1914): 284-286; 18
(1914): 300-302; 19 (1914): 316-318; 20 (1914): 331-334: 21
(1914): 348-350; 22 (1914): 366-67; 23 (1914): 380-382.
Turner, Victor. W. The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1967.
Vakhterova E. "0 chtenii detei i iunoshestva." Russkaia shkola
7/8 (1909): 145-165.
Valianskaia 0. P. Zhenshchina v mifakh i legendakh. Tashkent:
1992.
Vasil'evskii M. N. "Nuzhen li detiam detskii zhurnal?" St.
Petersburg, 1911.
Vinogradov, S. P. "Erotika v detskoi literature." Novosti
detskoi literatury 8 (1914): 1-13.
Virenius, A. "Period polovogo razvitiia" Russkaia shkola
10/11 (1902): 113-126; 12 (1902): 120-130.
Vladislavlev, I. "K voprosu ob ozhivlenii deiatel'nosti
bibliotek dlia iunoshestva." Novosti detskoi literatury 8/9
(1915): 1-6.
Vygotsky Reader. Ed. Rene Van Der Veer and Jaan Valsiner.
Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
Wachtel, Andrew. The Battle for Childhood: Creation of a
Russian Myth. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990.
Warner, Maria. Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism. New
York: Knopf, 1981.
Wolohan, Sheila Ann. Orphans as Metaphors in Soviet
Literature. Ph.D. diss. University of California, Los
Angeles, 1992.
Zabolotskii, Nikolai. "Zmeinoe iabloko." Ezh 11 (1928): 1-7.
Zelenko, V. A. Rukovoditel'stvo detskim chteniem. St.
Petersburg, 1915.
274
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Zhitomirskii, K. "K seksual'nomy voprosu v pedagogii."
Russkaia shkola 7/8 (1905): 152-174; 9/10 (1905): 120-131.
Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell. London: Heinenmann,
1979.
. Don't Bet on the Prince. New York: Methuen, 1986.
. Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children and the
Culture Industry. New York: Routledge, 1997.
. Spells of Enchantment. New York: Viking, 1991.
. When Dreams Came True. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Zirin, Mary. "Nadezhda Durova, Russia's 'Cavalry Maiden.'" The
Cavalry Maiden. Trans. Mary Zirin. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1988.
275
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

A cut above: Fashion as meta -culture in early -twentieth -century Russia

PDF

The debate over Bakunin and Dostoevsky in early Soviet Russia

PDF

"Master of many tongues": The Russian Academy Dictionary (1789--1794) as a socio -historical document

PDF

A necessary epigone: The fantastic and "dvoeverie" in the works of A. K. Tolstoi

PDF

Impostors, antichrists, and satanists: Textual strategies of the central and eastern European fin de siecle

PDF

Binding the new together with the old: Fifteenth -century writers on the origins of the Polish state and people in the face of earlier tradition

PDF

The Russian metahistorical imagination and Russian fiction of perestroika

PDF

Natan Altman and the problem of Jewish art in Russia in the 1910s

PDF

Terrible screeching: Adaptation of Pushkin's "Queen of Spades" in theater, opera and film

PDF

The friendly epistle in Russian poetry: A history of the genre

PDF

A culture of sociability: Popular speech in ancient Rome

PDF

Two plays and a film: The Meyerhold /Faiko collaboration

PDF

Pushkin's taste and taste for Pushkin: Toward a reconstruction of taste mechanisms

PDF

Johann Krieger and sacred vocal music in Zittau, 1682--1735

PDF

Generals and particulars in Thucydides

PDF

Between dream and reality: a study of Nathalie Sarraute and Fedor Dostoevsky

PDF

Andrej Belyj's "Petersburg" and James Joyce's "Ulysses": A comparative study

PDF

A dark starry night: The reconfiguration of Europe in contemporary European cinema

PDF

Beyond words and phrases: A unified theory of predicate composition

PDF

Issues in the syntax of resumption: Restrictive relatives in Lebanese Arabic

Asset Metadata

Creator Wheeler, Lora D'Anne (author)

Core Title Children in transition: Popular children's magazines in late imperial and early Soviet Russia

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Slavic Languages and Literatures

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, Slavic and East European,mass communications,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Pratt, Sarah (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-167150

Unique identifier UC11334740

Identifier 3054824.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-167150 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3054824.pdf

Dmrecord 167150

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Wheeler, Lora D'Anne

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA