stylised content and an objective style. Tolstoi did not include much original material,
but he revised all the texts to suit his ideals. For young people he wrote a tale of
adventure, A Captive in the Caucasus (1872) which he saw as exemplary in its form.
In a semi-fictional novel, The Childhood of Bagrov-Grandson (1858), Sergei Aksakov
depicted the life of a child of the gentry in the 1790s. The narrator is only 10-years-old,
as he looks back at his early years. Nikolai Garin-Mikhailovsky traced in a trilogy,
starting with Tyoma’s Childhood (1892), the spiritual development of a boy from an
officer’s family. The strict upbringing generates attempts at revolt.
The 1870s and 1880s saw the rapid development of the Russian girl’s story. Evgeniya
Tur pictured a carefree childhood in the families of rich landowners, while Aleksandra
Annenskaya was the first to write about middle-class girls who are forced to earn their
living and thus have a social role outside the family. Others, like Elizaveta Kondrashova,
Nadezhda Lukhmanova and Vera Zhelikhovskaya, wrote about their own childhood and
youth at home or in boarding schools.
Populism with its emphasis on social justice and moral duty strongly influenced
children’s literature. The writers chose as heroes children who live in poverty and
hunger, and the hard life of the common people was depicted with compassion. By
comparing the everyday life of rich and poor children, the lack of equality was made
visible, as in Dmitry Grigorovich’s The Gutta-Percha Boy (1883) and Vladimir Korolenko’s
The Cave Children (1886). Pavel Zasodimsky’s Heartfelt Stories (1883–1884) were based
on the author’s solid knowledge of rural life. Zasodimsky also developed the genre of
sentimental Christmas tales. In the 1880s and 1890s Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak wrote
stories about children, who are deprived their childhood through heavy work. A field of
his own—stories of naval life—was found by Konstantin Stanyukovich. One of the first to
write nature tales for children was Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak. In Emelya, the Hunter
(1884) he combined a love of the Siberian nature with a humanitarian view of man.
All the fairy tale writers of the period acknowledged their debt to Hans Christian
Andersen. The most original was Nikolai Wagner, a professor of zoology, who under the
pseudonym Kot-Murlyka published a collection of philosophical fairy tales in 1872.
‘Eternal questions’ were treated in a pessimistic mood which many critics found more
suitable for an adult audience. More traditional were the allegorical fairy tales of
Vsevolod Garshin. The realist Mamin-Sibiryak surprised with the excellect collection
Alyonushka’s Fairy-Tales (1894–1896). Animals are personified in the tradition of the
folk tale, but simultaneously Mamin-Sibiryak also gave true facts about their life.
Much importance was attached to non-fiction; for example, Russian children first
learned about Puskhin and Gogol from novelised biographies by Vasily Avenarius.
Leading scientists popularised their fields of knowledge in books or special magazines,
like Vokrug mira [Around the World] (1891–1916). A major endeavour was the
publication of a children’s encyclopedia in ten parts in 1913–1914.
Statistics show the continuing growth of children’s literature before the October
revolution. During the first half of the nineteenth century, twenty-two magazines were
published, in the second sixty-one, whereas in 1909 Russian children could chose
between nineteen titles. Among the most popular were Semeinye vechera [Family
Evenings] (1864–1890) and Zadushevnoe slovo [The Heartfelt Word] (1877–1918). The
ideals of the realistic school were upheld by Detskoe chtenie [Children’s Readings] (1869–
RUSSIA 759