“FROM A LOG CABIN TO THE WHITE HOUSE”: BIOGRAPHIES OF AMERICAN PRESIDENTS IN A RUSSIAN BOOK FOR CHILDREN’S READING IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY

Abstract

The article discusses biographies of American presidents written and published by Russian writers in the second half of the 19th century. The biographies were predominantly original texts, based on documents, books, and other diverse sources in English. The paper analyzes the context of the era and the specifics of America-Russia relations in the second half of the 19th century, when several American presidents (Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, James Garfield) were the subjects of biographical narratives created by children’s writers Maria Rostovskaya, Alexander Khrebtov, Alexander Lyubimov, Anna Munt-Valueva, Alexan- dra Annenskaya, Catherine Sysoeva, and A. Platonov. The work identifies the techniques used in the biographies to construct the image of the hero- president, and the reasons why writers turned to the figure of the American president as an ideal model for emulation in the Russian children’s book. The identified plot features help to clarify the specifics of the genre model, which used the Bildungsroman. The narrative about the “thorny” life path of the presidents allowed the writers to demonstrate to the children the hard work and will of the characters, the results of the career (presidency, fame, independence of the country), emphasized the value of these qualities for the reader-child, and thanks to the genre specifics, the psychological, moral, and social formation of the personality of the hero-American was revealed.

Keywords: biography, president of the U.S.A, russian children’s literature, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, James Garfield