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Abstract: This paper examines the works of German-speaking writers, representatives of the so-called proletarian or socialist children’s literature – Berta Lask (1878–1967), Bela Balázs (1884–1949) and Maria Osten (1908–1942), who emigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s and lived in the Soviet Union for a long time. Their children’s works of fiction – “Karlсhen, durchhalten” (1936), “Heinrich beginnt den Kampf” (1938), “Karl, wo bist du” (1940) by Balázs, “Otto und Else” (1935) by Lask, “Hubert im Wunderland” (1935) by Osten – are considered both in the context of the themes and problems of the work of these writers, and in the historico-literary context of Soviet children's literature of the 1930s and 1940s. The work of B. Balázs has become a separate case of research, as this writer occupies a special place in the history of Soviet children’s literature. The object of the study comprises the reasons for the fame of his children’s books in the USSR and the artistic principles of his creative writing that allowed him to integrate into the everyday life literary practices of the USSR. One of the main focuses of the paper is the adaptive strategies of the creative activity of these authors that made their works part of the literary process in the Soviet Union, namely part of socialist realism and the rules of Soviet ideological discourse. A comparative analysis of children’s emigrant literature in European and Soviet exile has become an important research problem. To this end, the study analyzes the children’s works of German-speaking emigrant writers written in Germany and the Soviet Union in the context of the evolution of their creative method – from the fairy-tale science-fiction depiction of reality in the light of communist principles of perception of reality to the artistic principles of socialist realism. Special attention is paid to the concept of the image of the “new child” as an anti-fascist fighter.

About the author(s) :

Tatyana А. Fedyaeva

Saint Petersburg State Agricultural University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8644-1218

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 01.10.2024; date of publication: 28.03.2025

References:

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