For understanding any country it is the culture of childhood which is particularly significant. This course aims at providing the students with knowledge of the development of children's culture in XX-th century Russia (Pre-Soviet - Soviet - Post-Soviet) with its social values. The course concentrates on problematization of contradictions between ideological conceptions and real practices of education and upbringing in all three periods. Children's literature as a significant part of a Russian culture of socialization encodes the main values of the society - that's why it will be in the centre of the course. Lectures will be supported also by various pieces of evidence from Russian  folklore, periodicals and movies.

Preliminary programme

1. Brief history of childhood conceptions in the Russian history.
2. Children's culture during the Russian "Silver Age".
3. Soviet conceptions of childhood: ideas, slogans, institutions.
4. Soviet youth communist organizations: "Oktyabr'ata" - "Pioneers" - "Young Communist Leage".
5. Children Art in the USSR: directions and institutions.
6. Children's writers in the USSR: servants of regime?   escapists?  secret dissidents?
7. "High Literature for the smallest": key texts.
8. Soviet children's cinema.
9. Everyday life of Soviet children: 1920-1940.
10. Everyday life of Soviet children: 1950-1980.
11. Post-Soviet childhood and Post-Soviet children literature.

Enrolment via NettiOpsu