THE ENLIGHTENING HERO AND CHANGING MODELS OF KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IN SOVIET CHILDREN’S NONFICTION LITERATURE OF THE 1920S

Abstract

This article examines the texts of children’s popular science literature, actively published in the first decades of the Soviet Union, the structure of which includes educational plots — situations of teaching, instruction, transfer of knowledge from one character to another. The image of an educator character with expert knowledge is highlighted, and a typology of such characters by age and source of expertise is proposed. The “young educator” is defined as a representative of the new Soviet society with a scientific consciousness, the source of expertise of which is study, and the “old educator” is defined as a person who is experienced rather than educated. The audience of educators can be represented by children and adults separately, or be mixed. Its differentiating characteristics are also determined by age: children are described through emphasizing their curiosity and receptivity to new knowledge, and adults, on the contrary, through resistance to enlightenment. It is shown that educational intentions can come from both an adult educator addressed to a children’s audience, and from a young educator addressed to an older audience. The relationship between the educator and the enlightened in a parent/child pair and in an uncle/nephew pair is also examined; it is revealed that the second type is portrayed in the literature as a more successful educational tandem due to the absence of subordination relations. The relationship between an adult and a child is conceptualized through the prism of the theory of cultural exchange and the theory of child agency. The significance of the role of the educator in a changing social context and the role of the agentic child, who is instructed not only to become an enlightened and active person of a new type, but also to engage in education in his immediate environment, is summarized.

Keywords: children’s literature, nonfiction literature, educational literature, educator, enlightener, parent-child relationship, uncling, children’s agency