Small Comrades: Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932

ISBN-13: 9780815339458 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 232 str.

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum

Opis

An examination of Soviet conceptions of childhood and the resulting policies directed toward young children. Working on the assumption that cultural representations are not entirely separable, this study probes how the Soviet regime's representations structured teachers' observations of their pupils and often adults' recollections of their childhood. It offers some tentative answers to the questions, What did children make of the Revolution? and What is the Revolution make of them? Although other studies have looked at families and children in the Soviet Union, most have focused on abandoned and homeless children, or on children in the context of other gender and family issues. This project emphasizes young children as the subjects of policies and politics in their own right. The book draws on work that has been done on Soviet schooling, and focuses specifically on the development of curricula and institutions, but it also examines the wider context of the relationship between the family and the state, and to Bolshevik vision of the children of October.

Recenzje

"Lisa A. Kirschenbaum's Small Comrades offers a bird's eye view of Bolshevik theory and life in the 1920's. While examining early childhood education in the new Soviet society, it also reflects on Bolshevik social practices after the revolution, charts the decline of utopian schemes for liberating women and children, and describes the triumph of work during the first Five-Year Plan. ... This in-depth review of early childhood education will interest students in Soviet history and women's studies courses, as well as those studying pedagogical theory in schools of education." -- Slavic Review

Spis treści

Introduction: Real and Imagined Children Part One: The Kindergarten and the Revolutionary Tradition in Russia 1. Pedagogy and Politics Part Two: The Children of October and the Civil War 2. Save the Children 3. The Family as Fiction 4. The Nature of Childhood Part Three: Rethinking Revolution and Childhood, 1921-1932 5. The Withering Away of Kindergarten 6. Rescripting Childhood 7. Thank You, Comrade Stalin, for Our Happy Childhood Conclusion Postscript: Three Childhoods

O autorze

Kirschenbaum, Lisa A.