“Gender Didactics”: The Author’s Voice In The Soviet school Novel Of The 1960s–1980s

Abstract

The article deals with the representation of ideas about gender norms and gender roles in children’s literature on the material of a Soviet school story of the 1960s-1980s. The author refers to the element of narrative structure — the text in the voice of the author-narrator analyzes the main artistic techniques (direct reference, commentary, remark, delegation of the statement to the characters) by means of which the writer broadcasts his ideas about the gender picture of the world. It is argued that the position of the text written in the voice of the narrator in relation to the child reader is more authoritative than the direct speech of the characters or their internal monologues. The article substantiates the legitimacy of combining into a single subject of study the texts of the school story written in the last decades of the Soviet era, examines the works of the classics of Soviet children’s literature (Vladislav Krapivin), and also both famous and little-known writers
(Maria Prilezhaeva, Lev Davydychev, Simon Soloveychik, Sergey Ivanov,
Ivan Zyuzukin, German Matveev, Natalia Loiko, Nikolay Nikonov), reveals
a certain gender asymmetry proposed by school authors as a norm of gender socialization and notes that this asymmetry appears to be more pronounced in the depiction of adult characters.

Keywords: Soviet school story, author, gender, focalization, clichés