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Abstract: The article analyzes the artistic features of I. Likstanov’s novella “Malyshok” (The Little Boy), dedicated to the work of teenagers in the factories of the Urals during the Great Patriotic War. Special attention is paid to the type of character and the image of the world typical of the author. The article shows that in his novella, Likstanov managed to achieve an organic synthesis of both innovative and traditional principles of exploration and realization of reality. On the one hand, the poetic world of “Malyshok” contains images and motifs of an industrial novel, recreated with reporter’s accuracy. Hence the vision of the factory as a force determining the life of the characters, the use of professional vocabulary in the style of the novella, and the emergence of figurative formulas combining martial and labor principles. On the other hand, the central place in the novella is occupied by the image of an orphan, which was not new for children’s literature and corresponded to the realities of wartime. The plot collisions accompanying this image embody the path of a child’s spiritual maturation, finding both his family and himself. It is emphasized that the image of an orphan in the writer’s depiction contains those problems of reality that require independent solution, when it is no longer possible to rely on the help and protection of close people. The author compares the image of the main character with the earlier and modern images of child workers from the books by D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak, S. Mikhalkov, L. Panteleev, L. Kassil, and emphasizes their typological similarity. Other features of the poetics of the novella include strengthening of the lyrical line, metaphorization of factory images and the use of symbols referring to the Urals mythology. The methodological basis of this research includes monographs devoted to the analysis of children’s literature (I. Arzamastseva, O. Bukhina, T. Polozova, Ben Hellman), as well as conceptual works considering the genre specificity of literature of the 1930s and 1940s (K. Clark, G. Gunther). The scientific novelty of the work consists in an attempt at systemic analysis of the novella by Likstanov in a historical-literary context.

About the author(s) :

Ilya V. Petrov

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russian Federation)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7351-398X

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 04.02.2026; date of publication: 31.03.2026

References:

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