Markers of “Soviet” in children’s illustration of 60–80s of 20th century

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the search for “Soviet” markers in children’s illustration. The author conducts the search for the reasons of demand of the Soviet editions at the modern consumer by researching private book collection of children’s illustrated books of 1960–1980th years and collection of reprints of modern publishing houses. The author provides the visual analysis of features of the image of the Soviet children in the state-approved books. “Soviet” is considered as a symbol of the ideology of a specific authoritative discourse, which clearly defines the content and form of a certain proportion of children’s books of this period, and as a time frame for the creation of a whole corpus of highly artistic publications on topics far removed from revolutionary pathetics and communist ideas. The author states, using the model of A.Yurchak, that the modes of “sub-reachability” and “for his own” are the ways of creative self-realization of the artists-illustrators of the Soviet period. The duality and internal contradictions of the regime of “sub-reachability” are the main reasons for the rise of the phenomenon of the Soviet children’s illustration in the perception of modern generations.