Orekh E., Boitsova O. (2017) Politicheskiye aktory na detskikh risunkakh 1917–1918 gg.: sotsiologicheskaya refleksiya (na osnove kollektsii V.S. Voronova iz fondov GIM). [Political actors in children’s drawings of 1917–1918: Sociological reflection (Based on Vasily Voronov’s Collection from the State Historical Museum)]. Zhurnal sotsiologii i sotsialnoy antropologii [The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology], 20(4): 185–209 (in Russian). https: ...

Abstract

The paper is based on an analysis of a collection of children’s drawings created by male students of elementary classes of Moscow schools in 1917–1918, which were collected by the teacher of graphic arts Vasily Voronov and are stored at the State Historical Museum. The paper contains a reflection on the possibilities of studying drawings as a source of sociological information by presenting a research of the problems of children’s political socialization based on the content of images. The iconographic analysis of political characters represented in children’s drawings allows to make assumptions on the political socialization of elementary school children during the period of great social transformations of 1917–1918, as well as draw conclusions about sources which influenced the development of children’s political consciousness. Images of the Bolsheviks were chosen for the analysis. In the study, representation of the Bolsheviks in the visual culture of that time was characterized and iconographic features of the Bolsheviks were identified, then images of the Bolsheviks represented in children’s drawings were analyzed in the same way, and in the next stage the results were compared. The analysis indicates that stereotypes from such means of visual propaganda of the epoch as satirical illustrated magazines and humorous postcards were reflected in children’s art. The drawings prove that some children displayed political consciousness, expressed in the notions of «the other» / «enemy», which is revealed by simultaneous presence of several iconographic markers with negative connotations in a drawing. The political consciousness allows us to speak about the beginning of the process of political socialization at the elementary school age already in the period of large-scale socio-cultural transformation of 1917–1918 in Russia. We have also demonstrated that the political socialization of children during the revolution and the beginning of the civil war was characterized by reduction of the traditional influence of family and school institutions on this process, which, it is shown, was compensated to a certain extent by the influence of means of visual propaganda.