bourgeois capitalist eats too much ice cream and freezes to death

May 24, 2016 6:15 AM

Out with bourgeois crocodiles! How the Soviets rewrote children's books (Guardian). A new exhibition, A New Childhood: Picture Books from Soviet Russia, will be at the House of Illustration.

A Guardian gallery from Inside the Rainbow: Russian Children's Literature 1920-1935: Beautiful Books, Terrible Times. More pictures from the book.

posted by cwest (13 comments total)

I've been waiting my whole life for this post title and now that it's here I'm at a loss for words. Thank you.
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 6:39 AM on May 24, 2016 [24 favorites]

Hooray! I'm still laughing.
posted by cwest at 6:43 AM on May 24, 2016

OMG that ice cream page. I am 100% sure I had that book as a kid. As soon as I saw that illustration I was totally gripped by the vivid memory of looking at it and wanting the ice cream. I could (and still can) clearly picture the individually wrapped ice creams in those carts. My mouth is actually watering. Help help please send ice cream.
posted by prefpara at 6:51 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

you guys how deliciously ironic would it be if I used that new app Caviar (Caviar!) to order delivery ice cream to my desk because I saw a page out of a Soviet children's book and it made me hungry

I used Caviar once to have $50 of artisanal ice cream delivered to me from a different neighborhood and was like, this is some Marie Antoinette shit, I can never do this again and live with myself

but I may do it now just for the irony

well, and the ice cream
posted by prefpara at 6:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

There is a bit of oversimplification here. While many Russian children's books in the USSR era certainly were focused on communist propaganda, many others still continued to dwell on Baba-Yaga the witch and fantastic animal tales with zero propaganda value. Russian kid-oriented media was actually quite rich.
posted by splitpeasoup at 7:10 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Tangentially related. There's a wealth of good (and sometimes great) easy piano music from the Soviet era, much of it available in public domain, because there was a mandate that a certain percentage of a composer's work had to be directed towards pedagogy.
posted by lagomorphius at 7:14 AM on May 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

The House of Illustration looks like an interesting new place to put on my visiting list for the next time I get to London. Has anyone here been there?
posted by Azara at 7:30 AM on May 24, 2016

I now know how I want to die. Not soon, mind you. But when my time approaches, that's how I'm going.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:40 AM on May 24, 2016

lagomorphius: There's a wealth of good (and sometimes great) easy piano music from the Soviet era, much of it available in public domain, because there was a mandate that a certain percentage of a composer's work had to be directed towards pedagogy.

Is there an online repository of these pieces anywhere? That would be awesome, if there is.
posted by clawsoon at 7:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm taken with this Lidia Popova.

Looks like there's a book.
posted by latkes at 7:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Russian kid-oriented media was actually quite rich.

(while later than the books in this exhibition, I'm reminded of how one of Astrid Lindgren's minor characters, the rather annoying Karlsson-on-the-roof, became a national icon in Soviet Union, supposedly to some extent because the translator pushed the anti-establishment angle even further, possibly motivated by her own background. I have a link somewhere from someone who compared the versions, but cannot find it right now, but if any MeFite has more info on this I'm all ears.)
posted by effbot at 7:57 AM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

lagomorphius: There's a wealth of good (and sometimes great) easy piano music from the Soviet era, much of it available in public domain, because there was a mandate that a certain percentage of a composer's work had to be directed towards pedagogy.

Is there an online repository of these pieces anywhere? That would be awesome, if there is.

IMSLP has a lot of stuff. Here's a nice collection but you'll find much more under individual composers. (IMSLP nags you to join, but downloads are free but delayed.)
posted by lagomorphius at 8:24 AM on May 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Nice post! I have to quibble with this, from the first link:

“Give a new child’s book,” went the caption. “Work, battle, technology, nature – the new reality of childhood.”

I knew as soon as I saw the illustration that if they translated the text they were going to mistranslate it, and sure enough. Yes, literally Даешь [dayósh] means 'you give,' but here it's an exclamation that could be translated "Go for it! You rule!" or in this context (Даешь новую детскую книгу!) "Hooray for the new children's book!" This is the peril of using a dictionary to translate colloquial language use.

> Russian kid-oriented media was actually quite rich.

Yup, and one reason is that many authors who got into political trouble and were not allowed to publish "real" books made a living doing translations and/or children's books. (The Soviet level of translation was also extraordinarily high.)
posted by languagehat at 8:54 AM on May 24, 2016 [5 favorites]