1917. L’infanzia come territorio tra continuità e rottura

The article aims at exploring the concept of childhood during the Revolutionary period, with particular reference to critique, illustration and literature for children and young people. The brief description of key events and works of art of such period confirms that the year 1917 was only partially a turning point in the history of Russian culture; in fact, many characteristics of the previous decade, which were inspired by the democratic wave of the Russian Populism, have been kept and developed until at least 1924-1925. Therefore, the alleged “complete rupture” with the past was mostly an imaginary conjecture of Soviet writers and artists that wanted to mark the difference between the new Soviet era and the bourgeois past in order to acquire credibility and defend themselves from severe criticism by the Party and the censorship. The developments in the pedagogical field, the graphic innovation in children’s publishing houses and the new language of children’s literature were inspired by the research carried out between XIX and XX centuries.