Invitation to participate. Issue 21. The relations between Italy and Russia in children’s literature
The 21st issue of Detskie Chteniia (Children’s Readings) is devoted to the relations between Italy and Russia in children’s literature.
Unlike the study of English and German influences on Russian children’s literature, the Italian impact rarely comes into the focus of scholars’ attention. In fact, cooperation between Italy and Russia has developed and strengthened over the past three centuries. From the 18th century onwards more and more Italians visited Russia, and Russian travellers, among them writers and poets, became acquainted with Italian culture, which was clearly reflected in the literature addressed to children. The works of Edmondo De Amicis were extraordinarily successful among Russian readers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as it was the discovery in Italy of the fables of Krylov, the Russian folktalkes collected and arranged for children’s reading by A.N. Afanasiev, and the tales of Alexander Pushkin, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Russian classical and Soviet literature gets a new rise in popularity in Italy in the 1920s, when the first courses of Slavic Studies started at different universities in Italy, and the Russian emigrants of the first wave began to actively cooperate with the Italian cultural figures. At the same time Soviet Russia starts to publish translations and retellings of world classics into Russian, and Italian literature has a place of honour among them. “The journey to Russia” by a wooden puppet called Pinocchio, is an illustrative example of the transfer of an image and its ideological domestication in Soviet Russia; in the second half of the 20th century another example of an Italian writer’s resounding success with Russian children is Gianni Rodari.
The influence of Maria Montessori's methodology was of great significance in shaping the common field of pedagogical ideas in Italy and Russia. The assimilation of her pioneering ideas, at the beginning of the 20th century, had a profound effect on the conception of childhood in early Soviet Russia and had a considerable influence in the 1990s, an influence that continues to endure to the present day. These ideas were most directly embodied in the experimental children’s books of the 1920s and beyond.
In the era of totalitarianism, there are also some similarities between the ideological attitudes in Italy and in the Soviet Union. In particular, the great attention paid to youth organizations, the censorship regulations of the publishing process (especially in the field of children’s literature), and the propagandistic desire to form a “new citizen”, they all serve to highlight the role of ideology in the education of children and its visualization in both Fascist Italy and in Communist Soviet Union.
In the current situation, Italy and Russia continue to develop the established cultural links, in a twofold direction by translating contemporary Italian children's literature into Russian, and contemporary Russian authors into Italian.
In this context, we would like to suggest the following areas for discussion:
- Italian children's literature in Russia and Russian children's literature in Italy: authors, genres, topics, images;
- the image of Italy in Russian children’s literature and the image of Russia in Italian children’s literature;
- translations and publishing projects of Russian-language children’s literature in Italy and Italian works for children in Russia: a linguistic or sociocultural analysis;
- the mutual influence of pedagogical theories and concepts;
- the mutual influence of visual culture in Italian and Russian children’s literature, in particular the tradition of children’s book illustration;
- the role of ideology in children's education and its visual embodiment in the epoch of Fascism and Stalinism.
- Trends in recent translated children’s literature in Russia and Italy.
Articles written in Russian, Italian and English will be accepted for publication. All articles reviewed and accepted for publication will be translated into English. The working language of the issue is English.
You are welcome to participate. Please advise colleagues who may be interested in the above mentioned areas of research.
In addition to submitting papers on relevant issues, we also welcome papers in the REVIEWS and CONFERENCES sections of the journal.
More information on our website: http://detskie-chtenia.ru
Submission requirements:
http://detskie-chtenia.ru/index.php/journal/about/submissions
Length of articles: max. 40.000 characters
The deadline for submission is December 1, 2021.
The deadline for submission of the final version of the article is March 1, 2022 after undergoing double review.
The issue will be published in June 2022.
Please send proposed articles for publication to the Editorial Board at detskie.chtenia@gmail.com
Cooperation is welcome,
“Detskie Chteniia” Editorial Board
