V CHASY DOSUGA (“IN LEISURE HOURS”): CHILDREN’S HANDWRITTEN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF THE EARLY XX CENTURY IN THE FUNDAMENTAL LIBRARY OF THE HERZEN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

This publication is dedicated to the handwritten illustrated magazine of the early 20th century. The publication is dedicated to the handwritten illustrated magazine “In Leisure Hours”, which is stored in the Sector of Specially Valuable Collections of the Herzen State Pedagogical University’s Fundamental Library. The magazine is intended for children and on its 30 pages contains stories, poems, charades, and a letter to readers with a review of books read. Based on an analysis of the content of the texts, conclusions are drawn about the supposed authors of the texts. The period of the magazine’s creation is determined approximately by the realities mentioned in the texts and by the peculiarities of artistic design, characteristic of the Art Nouveau style. Presumably, the magazine was created between 1906 and 1908. During this period, in the late 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, there was a sharp increase in the number of amateur magazines for children and teenagers as an embodiment of children’s self-expression and self-organization. This process is associated, among other things, with the relaxation of censorship after the 1905 revolution. Historically, the majority of handwritten periodicals produced by children in educational institutions or at home have not survived, or are kept in libraries and archives, and access to texts of this kind is difficult for a wide range of readers and researchers. Fixing and analyzing this type of sources is a new stage in understanding the worldview of children and teenagers at the turn of the 20th century.

Keywords: children’s magazine, manuscript, handwritten magazine, children’s creativity, the history of everyday life