“Greyish-brown little pony! How i loved you!”: About the gender filter of the making of a poetic bookshelf for children in the 19th century

Abstract

The article examines the experience of teachers and literary critics in the selection of poetic works and poets for the children’s reading list. Reviewers of the “Pedagogical Collection” evaluated books for students of military educational institutions, and the experts of “Women’s Education” focused on the reading of women’s school students. The paper describes and analyzes approaches to the creation of gender opposed bookshelves, the nature of the requirements for poems for girls-high-school students and boys-students of military schools. Department journals performed regulative and evaluative function of the expert community, which was focused on the educational ideas of the departments. The content of “book- shelves” is considered and analyzed: “classic” authors (G. R. Derzhavin, K. N. Batyushkov, P. A. Vyazemsky, V. A. Zhukovsky, I. I. Kozlov, A. V. Koltsov, M. Yu. Lermontov, M. V. Lomonosov, P. S. Maikov, I. S. Nikitin, N. A. Nekrasov, V. A. Ozerov, A. S. Pushkin, F. I. Tyutchev) , and collections of poems by children’s poets (N. Blinov, A. Kruglov, N. Pozdnyakov, M. Evstigneev, G. Weinberg, I. Derkachev, I. Panov). On the example of the authors reviewed in the 1860s-80s, it is observed how the expert community of teachers and literary critics participated in the formalization of gender differentiation. The article provides evidence for particular diachronic qualities of such selection of poets that have influenced the work of literary critics, publishers, and compilers of poetry readers.

Keywords: Poetry for children, gender, children’s reading of the XIX century, «Pedagogical collection», «Women’s education», criticism of children’s literature