
The Artful Propaganda of Soviet Children’s Literature - prismatic
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/soviet-childrens-books-propaganda
======
wruza
>Memories of Soviet children’s literature linger today. Immel recounts a story
of a Russian colleague who visited her and spotted some Raduga pamphlets. “He
knew exactly what they were, being old friends from his childhood,” she says.
“He picked up the copy of Kornei Chukovsky’s Barmelai, illustrated by Mstislav
Dobuzhinski, and began reciting it from memory.”

"Barmalei" is an innocent poetry, filled with kids-oriented story of two kids,
evil~cannibal man and Dr.Aibolit ("Dr. Ouchithurts") in Africa. [1][2] If you
feel that the auhor was on heavy drugs, don't worry, that was typical these
days. But try to find propaganda in that.

TFA can distort your opinions.

    
    
      [1] http://www.stihi-rus.ru/1/chukovskiy/3.htm
      [2] https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=ru&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stihi-rus.ru%2F1%2Fchukovskiy%2F3.htm

~~~
EGreg
I wouldn't say a lot of Russian kids' stories were propaganda. Neznayka series
by Nikolai Nosov was definitely overt Communist moralizing, though.

~~~
sAbakumoff
Neznayka in the Moon is the master piece. Sometimes I read my favorite places
from this book and still enjoy it)

~~~
tsukikage
I'd always thought it was pure unadulterated propaganda fantasy, then in my
late thirties I discovered coin-operated pay TVs actually are a thing in some
cheap motels. Mind=blown

~~~
sAbakumoff
There are several parts of the book that simply describe the modern life as
is. That's genius.

------
coppolaemilio
I like how western people label propaganda anything that was made outside of
the US

~~~
Swizec
As someone born during a transition from "democracy where communist party gets
all the seats every time because everybody loves their glorious leader Tito"
to real democracy, I can tell you from personal experience that there was
shitloads of propaganda in everything my parents and grandparents had access
to.

I've read books and comics from the 50s and 60s in Yugoslavia and I can tell
you that the Communist Party can do no wrong, the Partisans were all heroes
built like Superman and who never ever commited any war crimes, and Tito
himself was a poor lad who rose from nothing to ultimate power just because of
how awesome he is. And of course we all are equal in everything, if someone
feels unequal or god forbid better then they are stealing and robbing and
doing bad things.

The history books I was taught from in the 90s and 00s painted a very
different picture.

~~~
llukas
C'mon - at least propaganda was easily discernible and you could avoid it
easily if you wanted.

Today's propaganda is hidden as organic voices of different organizations and
you need to do some digging to see if org is genuine or someone is pulling the
strings.

~~~
Swizec
> C'mon - at least propaganda was easily discernible and you could avoid it
> easily if you wanted.

In retrospect. At the time it was taught as real history at schools. At least
according to my mum, she never even found out about all the mass graves and
other attrocities until after Yugoslavia fell apart. Partisans being the
absolute good guys was just the accepted default.

~~~
llukas
At least in Poland there was "official" truth (taught at shools/media) and one
that was a bit closer to reality that was taught at (most) homes.

I think this may be related to slightly different history - Poland was invaded
in '39 by Russians as well and suffered fair deal of their atrocities - it
wasn't possible just to eradicate knowledge about that.

~~~
Swizec
Yeah the tricky part of Yugoslavia is that when our king announced alliance
with Hitler, we executed a civil coup and forced the king to flee to the UK.

Hitler then invaded when the new government said they were not going to
collaborate.

Then as part of fighting off axis powers, we also fought an internal civil war
between the communists and the ... I don't know if they had a real name, we
call them the whites. It's details of that civil war that communist propaganda
liked to sweep under the rug and talk only about how they singlehandedly saved
the country from the nazis.

What kind of history you were taught at home depended primarily on whether
your parents were Red or White. My dad for example was told a lot about the
bad things the Partisans did because of his family's alignment to the
religious, white, side.

~~~
pandaman
"Whites" are loyalists. In Slavic languages "white" stands for "pristine,
unsullied" and in the context of a revolutionary civil war refers to the side,
which remained loyal to the government being overthrown.

------
aqsalose
By the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet children's fiction was maybe more
recognizable as such. Eduard Uspensky's [1] works are quite widely translated
into Finnish (looking at the local library catalog, with remarkable number of
reprints in 1990s/2000s).

My view of the Great War of Currents between Edison and Westinghouse [2] has
ever since been colored by the version told in the _Warranty People_. (A story
about tiny little engineers, living inside everyday electric appliances,
keeping them running and in order until the warranty period is over, after
which they leave.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Uspensky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Uspensky)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents)

------
atentaten
I think this is a good way to build inculcate a societies morals, ethics and
values into the next generation.

~~~
scotty79
I'd like to see more real life technology and economy featured in childrens
media, so they can develop appreciacion for what miracles, we, as a species
have achieved.

Instead at age 10 they think it's as mundane as rain because nobody told them
otherwise and most of them keep thinking it way into adulthood.

~~~
jlg23
> Instead at age 10 they think it's as mundane as rain

It is. When was the last time you admired a pencil as technological marvel or
thought about all the science that went into making microwave food possible?

~~~
tgb
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Pencil](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Pencil)

~~~
ue_
Unfortunately this is less about the marvel of the pencil than the global
capitalist system and free market evangelism.

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throw3107098
I like Сказка о Мальчише-Кибальчише, it's about a child soldier during an
unspecified war against the Bourgeoisie.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHmwsv4ZFso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHmwsv4ZFso)
(a higher quality torrent exists)

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cletus
Always makes me think of Worker and Parasite from the Simpsons [1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2_dhUv_CrI)

------
goda90
This reminds me of a skit a comedy group did at my alma mater about communist
rhetoric in children's books. Good for a chuckle:
[https://youtu.be/QpHxyFFi69w](https://youtu.be/QpHxyFFi69w)

------
sebastianconcpt
I'm missing the part of what Soviet propaganda has to do with Hacker News.
What is it?

~~~
gregw134
It's interesting.

------
boomboomsubban
I wonder if they'll gain the widespread acceptance like Grimm's fairy tales,
propaganda for the unification and strengthening of Germany.

~~~
aleh
Or Holy Bible for that matter.

------
__derek__
> TFA can distort your opinions

What does "TFA" stand for here?

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14577888](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14577888)
and marked it off-topic.

