Latent Atheism of the Soviet-Era Children’s Books
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/pytlit2015.92.061Keywords:
Socialist realism, children's literature, ideology, atheism, Edward BagritskyAbstract
The article treats the status of the change of aesthetic general cultural paradigm in the period of socialist realism, which raises as completed phenomenon and is interpreted as a version of popular culture (Tatiana Sverbilova), or “artistic force field” (Leonid Geller, Antoine Bodin) with the kitsch basis of the “politicization of aesthetics” (Tamara Hundorova), on the basis of their respective ideological party resolutions of Soviet times. The confrontation with social realism with the modernism and avant-garde (Dmitry Zatonsky) is accentuated. Maria Litovska notices that in totally-ideological tendency of art when the child has acquired the status of State property, her consciousness through literature was formed in perspective of latent atheism. Literature was changed into “long-term propaganda element” (Andrei Fateev). As a result, the range of texts of children’s literature suffered from the ideological, thematic and genre compression, those “atheistic times” the “atheists union” generated a faith in the original “worshipping” of Joseph Stalin. Party strategy of socialist realism began its practice actively and rigidly, basing on literature for children, which suffered not only from the compression of the genre spectrum of texts, but also from the selection of the necessary to a child themes, motifs, images. This children’s literature lost not only its creative originality, but also a thinking recipient. It became a powerful tool of total ideologization of society, by its world outlook program, first of all, depriving the younger generation of faith in God. The poem by Eduard Bagritsky “Death of Pioneer” is analyzed as a typical example of such an ideologization. The poem was based on real events, the renunciation of God appears highest feat. In Soviet times, from the position of former ideological platform, the poem has received extremely appreciation. The heroization of the image of the dying Valentina in the times of socialist realism has contributed to strengthening in the consciousness of recipients her implicit atheistic faith. The suggestive resource of the text is reinforced by phonetic and syntactic repetitions: alliterations, anaphoras, lexical repetitions, variated duplicate address of the girl’s name, parallelisms, as well as a number of rhetorical questions and calls. Bravura pathos of trochee trimeter poem “Youth Guided Us”, which became the famous song, tragically contrasts with the suffering of girl’s mother. Despite the fact that the ideology of socialist realism aspired to “sterilize” the author’s consciousness of the religious dominants in the case of other children’s classics – Agniya Barto, Samuil Marshak, Nicholay Nossov, Korney Chukovsky, refusing to accept the principles of the method, especially total atheism, deviation from the Soviet standard of art for children, provided their lyrics (of course, along with high artistic value and diversification), by the ability to move from contemporaneity to the space of “great time”.
References
Aleksandrova L. P. Istoryzm literatury sotsialistychnoho realizmu [Historicism literature of socialist realism]. Kyiv, 1976, 47 p. (in Ukrainian).
Andreev A. A. O detskoi literature [About children's literature]. Moscow, 1986, 25 p. (in Russian).
Anisimov I. I. Russkaia klassika i sotsialisticheskii realizm [Russian classics and socialist realism]. Pravda, 1976, no. 24, 47 p. (in Russian).
Antimonov M. Iu. Formirovanie mirovozzreniia sovetskikh podrostkov vtoroi poloviny 1930-kh gg. [Outlook formation of Soviet teenagers during the second half of 1930 s.]. Istoricheskaia i sotsial'no-obrazovatel'naia mysl', 2010, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 48–59. (in Russian).
Bagritskii E. Smert' pionerki [Death pioneers]. Moscow, 1961, 32 p. (in Russian).
Beletskii A. I. Voskresenie Khristovo: nekotorye zamechaniia po povodu ateisticheskoi literatury poslednikh let [Christ’s resurrection: several comments about atheistic literature of the past years]. Pitannia lіteraturoznavstva, 2002, no. 9(66), pp. 93–105. (in Russian).
Brandis E. Ot Ezopa do Dzhanni Rodari. Zarubezhnaia literatura v detskom i iunosheskom chtenii : ocherki [From Aesop to Gianni Rodari. Foreign literature in childhood and youthful reading: sketches]. Moscow, 1980, 446 p. (in Russian).
Vlast' i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia [Power and artistic intelligentsia]. Moscow, 1999, 872 p. (in Russian).
Vorob'ev I. S. Sotsrealizm kak “tret'ia estetika” v khudozhestvennoi kul'ture SSSR 1920-kh godov[Socialist Realism as “third aestheticsˮ in the artistic culture of the USSR of the 1920s]. Istoricheskie, filosofskie, politicheskie i iuridicheskie nauki, kul'turologiia i iskusstvovedenie, 2012, no. 12 (26), pp. 45–48. (in Russian).
Geller L., Boden A. Institutsional'nyi kompleks sotsrealizma [Institutional complex of socialist realism]. In: Sotsrealisticheskii kanon. Saint Petersburg, 2000, pp. 289–319. (in Russian).
Glotser V. On “velikii umyval'nik, znamenityi Moidodyrˮ [Him, the “great laver, the famous Moydodyr”]. In: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo Korneia Chukovskogo. Moscow, 1978, pp. 44–54. (in Russian).
Gor'kii M. Sobranie sochinenii [Collection of works]. Moscow, 1953, vol. 27, 589 p. (in Russian).
Hundorova T. Kitch i Literatura. Travestin [Kitsch and the literature of travesty]. Kyiv, 2008, 284 p. (in Ukrainian).
Dobrenko E. Formovka sovetskogo pisatelia. Sotsial'nye i esteticheskie istoki sovetskoi literaturnoi kul'tury [Forming of the Soviet writer. Social and aesthetic sources of the Soviet literary culture]. Saint Petersburg, 1999, 557 p. (in Russian).
Dobrenko E. Formovka sovetskogo chitatelia. Sotsial'nye i esteticheskie predposylki retseptsii sovetskoi literatury [Forming of the Soviet reader. Social and aesthetic reception premises of the Soviet literature]. Saint Petersburg, 1997, 321 p. (in Russian).
Zhidkova E. Sovetskaia grazhdanskaia obriadnost' kak al'ternativa obriadnosti religioznoi [Soviet civil ritualism as the alternative to religious ritualism]. Gosudarstvo, religiia, Tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom, 2012, no. 3–4, pp. 408–429. (in Russian).
Zatonskii D. V. Modernizm i postmodernizm: Mysli ob izvechnom kolovrashchenii iziashchnykh i neiziashchnykh iskusstv [Modernism and postmodernism: thoughts about eternal circulation of fine and not fine arts]. Kharkiv, 2000, 256 p. (in Russian).
Kon L. Detskaia literatura v gody grazhdanskoi voiny [Children's literature during the Civil War]. Moscow, Leningrad, 1953, 40 p. (in Russian).
Krupskaia N. K. O detskoi literature i detskom chtenii. Stat'i i vyskazyvaniia [About children's literature and children's reading]. Moscow, 1954, 76 p. (in Russian).
Litovskaia M. A. Sotsialisticheskii realizm v literature XX veka [Socialist realism in the literature of the twentieth century]. Filologicheskii klass, 2008, no. 19, pp. 14–21. (in Russian).
Litovskaia M. A. “Vremia vsegda khorosheeˮ: sotsial'naia psikhologiia dlia sovremennogo podrostka [“The time is always good”: social psychology for the modern teenager]. In: Detskaia literatura segodnia. Ekaterinburg, 2010, pp. 25–34. (in Russian).
Mitropolit Kievskii i vseia Ukrainy Vladimir. Dukhovnyi smysl detstva i starosti: opyt khristianskogo osmysleniia [The spiritual meaning of childhood and old age: the Christian understanding of the experience]. In: Detstvo v khristianskoi traditsii i sovremennoi kul'ture. Kyiv, 2012, 576 p. (in Russian).
Motiashov I. Voskhozhdenie (Kommunisticheskaia partiia i detskaia literatura) [Ascension (The Communist Party and the children's literature)]. In: Detskaia literatura. Moscow, 1976, pp. 3–39. (in Russian).
Pavlychko S. Teoriіa literatury [Theory of literature]. Kyiv, 2002, 679 p. (in Ukrainian).
Sabat H. Kazky Ivana Franka: osoblyvosti poetyky. “Koly shche zviri hovorylyˮ [Ivan Franco’s fairytales: poetics features. “When animals yet talked”]. Drohobych, 2006, 364 p. (in Ukrainian).
Sinanov B. A. Nekotorye aspekty antireligioznogo vospitaniia molodezhi severnoi Osetii v 1920–1930-e gg. [Several anti-religious youth upbringing aspects of northern Ossetia during 1920–1930 s]. Nauchnye problemy gumanitarnykh issledovanii, 2011, no. 9, pp. 114–119. (in Russian).
Sinel'nikov S. P. “Orudie tsarsko-pomeshchich'ego i burzhuaznogo gnetaˮ: osnovy antireligioznogo obrazovaniia v sovetskoi shkole v 1927–1929 gg. [„A weapon of tsarist-landlord and bourgeois oppression”: basics of anti-religious education in Soviet school during 1927–1929 s.]. Vestnik Rossiiskogo universiteta druzhby narodov. Seriia: Istoriia Rossii, 2010, no. 3, pp. 110–120. (in Russian).
Fateev A. V. Stalinizm i detskaia literatura v politike nomenklatury SSSR [Stalinism and children's literature in the policy of the USSR nomenclature]. Moscow, 2007, 352 p. Available at: http://psyfactor.org/lib/detlit.htm (accessed 14 March 2015). (in Russian).
Chervinskaia O. V. Akmeizm v kontekste Serebrianogo veka i traditsii [Acmeism in the context of the Silver Age and tradition]. Chernivtsi, 1997, 272 p. (in Russian).
Chervinskaia O. V. Pushkin, Nabokov, Akhmatova: metamorfizm russkogo liricheskogo romana [Pushkin, Nabokov, Akhmatova: metamorphism of Russian lyrical novel]. Chernivtsi, 1999, 152 p. (in Russian).
Shabliovs′kyі Іe. S. Sotsialistychnyі realizm i svitova kul′tura [Socialist realism and world culture]. Kyiv, 1973, 59 p. (in Ukrainian).
Shevchenko V. A. Sovetskaia shkola: perekhod ot bezreligioznogo vospitaniia k antireligioznomu (1927–1929 gg.) [The Soviet school: the transition from non-religious education to anti-religious]. Novyi istoricheskii vestnik, 2007, no. 16, pp. 207–213. (in Russian).
Malenova E. Sovetskaia ideologiia i chekhoslovatskaia detskaia literatura (na materiale zhurnala Mateřídouška) [Soviet ideology and the Czechoslovak children's literature]. Litteraria Humanitaris. XIV Problemy poetiky. Brno, 2006, pp. 123–129. (in Russian).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2015 Alyona Boychuk
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
