Article

Name: Mobility Rights: Characters’ Movement Trajectories in Russian Children’s Literature of the 1920s

Authors: Svetlana G. Maslinskaya

Research Center for Russian Children’s Literature at the Institute of Russian Literature (the Pushkin House) RAS, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; «Children's Readings: Studies in Children's Literature» (journal)

In the section Russian Children’s Literature: Plots and Gender

Abstract: The article presents the analysis of characters’ movement trajectories in the fictional space of Russian children’s literature of 1920s. Gender and social traits of the characters of Soviet children’s literature of the NEP era are correlated to spatial structure of the texts. Characters’ movements are ideologically conditioned and correspond to the propaganda campaign of “uniting city and village”, targeted at the economic and cultural integration of urban and rural population of Russia in 1920s. Male characters are generally more mobile while female characters’ movements are restricted to the rural area where the central accomplishment for them is to enlighten elder women in a family. Children’s literature does not offer examples of girls freely traveling around, notwithstanding the early Soviet propaganda for female emancipation, for the rights of working women, and for including girls in the young pioneer movement. While at the same time, male characters freely travel around the city, suburbs, and countryside. Female mobility is restricted regardless of their social origins (a daughter of a peasant, a daughter of a kulak, a daughter of a priest, etc.). Depiction of spatial emancipation of low- or middle-class girls in Soviet literature is suppressed by the traditional view on women’s freedom of movement, although it was diversely represented in pre-revolutionary children’s literature about daughters of nobility. The analysis showed that among characters of children’s literature of 1920s the city boys are the most mobile while country girls are the least mobile group.

Keywords: Russian children’s literature of the 1920s, space, ideology, gender, city, village, “smychka”

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