Russian Children's Literature and Culture [Hardcover]

Soviet literature in general and Soviet childrens literature in particular have often been labeled by Western and post-Soviet Russian scholars and critics as propaganda. Below the surface, however, Soviet childrens literature and culture allowed its creators greater experimental and creative freedom than did the socialist realist culture for adults. This volume explores the importance of childrens culture, from literature to comics to theater to film, in the formation of Soviet social identity and in connection with broader Russian culture, history, and society.

Series Editors Foreword

Preface

INTRODUCTION: Reading Soviet and Post-Soviet Childrens Culture: Contexts and Challenges

1. Creativity through Restraint: The Beginnings of Soviet Childrens Literature

Marina Balina

2. From Character Building to Criminal Pursuits: Russian Childrens Literature in Transition

PART I Ideology, Literature, and Culture: Genres, Themes, and Issues

3. The Whole Real Childrens World: School Novella and Our Happy Childhood

Evgeny Dobrenko

4. Between Sputnik and Gagarin: Space Flight, Childrens Periodicals, and the Circle of Imagination

Anindita Banerjee

5. Crafting the Self: Narratives of Pre-Revolutionary Childhood in Soviet Literature

Marina Balina

6. Literature and Cultural Institutions By and For Soviet and Post-Soviet Youth

Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya

PART II Popular Childrens Entertainment

7. Arresting Development: A Brief History of Soviet Cinema for Children and Adolescents

Alexandr Prokhorov (College of William and Mary)

8. Comforting Creatures in Childrens Cartoons

Birgit Beumers (U of Bristol)

9. Juggernaut in Drag: Theater for Stalins Children

Boris Wolfsol3$