ITALIAN ANTHOLOGIES ABOUT RUSSIAN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE. AN OVERVIEW (1926–1944)

Abstract

The “Archive” section publishes four fragments selected from studies of Italian authors who wrote about children’s literature — the writers and teachers Giuseppe Fanciulli (1881–1951) and Olindo Giacobbe (1880–1950), the children writer, translator and publisher Mary Tibaldi-Chiesa (1896–1968) and teacher Olga Visentini (1893–1961). These works, written between 1926 and 1943, are taken from textbooks and are interesting in that they present the view of Italian experts on Russian children’s literature. The authors build the history of Russian literature for children, give an overview of contemporary émigré children’s literature, and try to determine the national identity of children’s literature in Russia. Giuseppe Fanciulli turns to Russian folklore, to the fairy tale genre and brings the line of his research to the beginning of the 20 th century. The work of Mary Tibaldi-Chiesa gives a detailed review of translations of Russian literature into Italian, made with a
focus on children’s and youthful readers, and also presents a detailed biography of Alexander Pushkin. Olga Visentini’s essay is based on the previous experience of Olindo Giacobbe, supplementing and continuing his work up to the first attempts at Soviet children’s literature.

Keywords: history of textbooks, Russian children’s books, Giuseppe Fanciulli, Olga Visentini, Olindo Giacobbe, Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, Italy, 20 th
century