PRINTED SOCIALISM AND (MULTI)NATIONAL CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Abstract

Presenting the collection of archival articles on the creation of national literatures for children in the USSR, the brief introduction proposes to see the early Soviet construction of a new subfield of national literatures as yet another example of invented traditions. New children’s literatures in Soviet republics demonstrated their deep involvement in the common — Soviet — literary development and simultaneously their cultivated sense of cultural autonomy, marked by specifically national themes, plots, and styles. Translations of international classics into national languages added a necessary “global” and “universal” dimension to national children’s literatures. In turn, the activation and instrumentalization of folklore helped to identify and popularize “specific” ethnic points of view and intonations. As the key example of this dynamics, the introduction examines two performative “parades” of national children’s literatures, which were staged in the journal Detskaia literatura (Children’s Literature) in 1936–1937 and in 1971–1972. Within forty years, almost universal complaints about the lack of qualified children’s writers were replaced with extensive reports about highly developed systems of creation, production and dissemination of literature for children.

Keywords: imagined communities, invented traditions, national press, folklore, rituals