{"id":532,"date":"2016-12-16T10:48:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T14:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/?p=532"},"modified":"2017-02-20T19:48:48","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T23:48:48","slug":"revolutionary-sources-part-iii-childrens-books-red-army-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/2016\/12\/16\/revolutionary-sources-part-iii-childrens-books-red-army-parade\/","title":{"rendered":"REVOLUTIONARY SOURCES, PART III: CHILDREN\u2019S BOOKS. “Red Army Parade.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Grant Collins<\/p>\n

Note: \u00a0this is the sixth of several articles posted to\u00a0<\/em>The New Contemporary\u00a0that feature writing from this Fall\u2019s Havighurst Colloquium, \u201cRussia in War and Revolution.\u201d \u00a0Each student in the class had to select an object from the Andre de St.-Rat Collection in Miami\u2019s Special Collections and write about it. \u00a0These writings, as you will see, spotlight the incredible collections in our library. \u00a0They also highlight how the Russian Revolutions in 1917 involved a battle over meaning: \u00a0through these primary sources, one can read the words, see the images, and therefore gain more insight into the experiences of revolution. \u00a0Other papers have been posted to the History Department\u2019s new online journal,\u00a0<\/em>Journeys Into the Past: \u00a0https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/hst-journeys\/category\/essays\/. \u00a0Special thanks to Masha Stepanova, Miami\u2019s extraordinary Slavic Bibliographer.<\/em><\/p>\n

UA772.D45 1930<\/p>\n

Dei\u0306neka, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich. Parad Krasno\u012d Armii. <\/em>[Moskva?]: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel\u2019stvo, 1930.<\/p>\n

Red Army Parade<\/em><\/p>\n

Parad Krasno\u012d Armii<\/em>, translated as Red Army Parade<\/em>, is an early Soviet-era children\u2019s book published in 1930. The education of children provided the Soviet Union new opportunities to shape the next generation of the USSR. Marina Balina has stated that the \u201cutopianism of the early Soviet years directly influenced the association of children with the promise of the better future: through occupying the same space in narratives, children and adults were separated paradoxically by a completely different frame\u201d (pg. 10). Red Army Parade <\/em>provided twelve pages of illustrations, from cover-to-cover, that not only supported notions of service and loyalty to the Red Army but also illustrated an amicable relationship between animals, people, and technology.<\/p>\n

Red Army Parade<\/em>, first and foremost, attempted to familiarize children with the Red Army through illustrations. Images of soldiers, or civilians participating in military-like activities, served as the focal point for every page. In fact, Red Army Parade<\/em> is comprised of only illustrations\u2014it is a picture book. Therefore, this book was not only accessible to children who could not yet read, but to rural peasants who were illiterate\u2014through illustrations messages and themes from Red Army Parade<\/em> could be interpreted universally across the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

The cover, and pages one through three, of Red Army Parade<\/em>, show soldiers participating in more traditional military tasks. The cover illustrated soldiers in the recognizable Red Army military uniform, holding bugles\u2014many are mounted on horses. Pages one and two have soldiers in the same military garb, but with the soldiers in formation on horses and marching respectively. It is interesting that nearly the rest of Red Army Parade<\/em> illustrated soldiers more modern-like with respect to modes of transportation and weaponry. Perhaps the book illustrated a turn toward a more modern Red Army in order to illustrate the Red Army\u2019s transition into a modern fighting force for the USSR.<\/p>\n

Beginning on page four, the illustrations take up this transformation. Soldiers riding motorcycles can be seen, and on the next page soldiers are mobilizing cannons with horses. Pages four and five illustrate the implementation of more modern warfare technology; the soldiers moving cannons with horses follows the image of soldiers using new motorcycles\u2014new and old technology are side-by-side. This relays the message that although military technology and strategy change in accordance with the times, that the military force is still the same Red Army as before. The soldiers in both images are wearing the same uniforms\u2014the Red Army is the same despite the new technologies and opportunities available to them.<\/p>\n

Page six appears to have Russian school children showing support for the Red Army. The children are uniformly raising their hands, staring forward, and many are even standing or leaning forward. Page ten also was created to convey patriotism\u2014three Red Army soldiers are marching in a Russian city. \u00a0The edited volume Russian Children\u2019s Literature and Culture<\/em>, stated that when children read books such as Red Army Parade<\/em>, \u201cabout their heroes and about the everyday life of the school, they also enter into the collective spirit\u201d (48, Balina and Rudova). The paragraph goes on to read: \u201cthrough this reading children find themselves in a network of signs and meanings from which there is no escape. In this network they can easily be revealed, identified, and ultimately, controlled and normalized\u201d (48-49, Balina and Rudova). This quotation supports what Deneika\u2019s book contained; namely, that the USSR attempted to indoctrinate children with qualities such as loyalty and patriotism.\u00a0 The illustration on page 6 shows the desired reaction by children when they encounter the Red Army.<\/p>\n

Pages seven and eight illustrated the relationship between Red Army soldiers and new military technologies. Page seven has a soldier marching in front of a tank and on page eight the soldier is marching in-between two military vehicles. The illustration on page seven shows that, despite the tank having a huge presence (the image of the tank nearly consumes the entire page) a Red Army soldier is leading the tank. On page eight a solider in marching in unison with military vehicles. The fact that the solder is marching in tandem with two, more modern, vehicles, illustrated that advances in modern warfare technology are a part of the Red Army\u2019s image\u2014that the Red Army is not an old fashioned army, rather it is a unit that embraces modernity.<\/p>\n

Pages nine and eleven created an \u201cintended message of harmonious symbiosis between nature and machine\u201d (K. Reynolds, 32). Page nine has a group of women outdoors in gasmasks. The masks on the women reminded readers of elephants, due to the long hanging tube on the masks (or maybe even aliens, due to the oval face of the masks and shape of the eye-holes). Page eleven show both fighter planes and what appears to be carrier pigeons flying together in harmony. Furthermore, the pigeons and planes are the same size and their wings are nearly touching as they fly in circular motions. This two pages together further promote the theme of cooperation with modern technology, and these pages specifically promote cooperation among technology, Russians, and nature.<\/p>\n

Red Army Parade <\/em>provided examples for how the Soviet Union attempted to instill patriotism and loyalty into the thoughts of Russian school children. Following the Russian Civil War, the belief that, \u201cchildren embody the future in the present\u201d, dominated the creation of children\u2019s books (Inside The Rainbow, <\/em>18). One author wrote that in Soviet Russia, \u201cthere are no princes, no Baba Yagas, no Zmei Gorynych, where instead there are soldiers and pilots, heroes and leaders\u201d \u2013 this sentiment is applicable to Red Army Parade<\/em> (Balina and Rudova, 53). The cheering children on page six convey the theme of loyalty and excitement for the Red Army.<\/p>\n

During the Soviet era many children\u2019s books contained new heroes that were more reflective of the government\u2019s desires to create more \u201cSoviet\u201d heroes. Lev Kassil, a Soviet children\u2019s writer, created heroes in his work that would, \u201csacrifice their lives by diverting the fascist patrol so that reconnaissance of the Soviet Army may finish its sortie in the enemy\u2019s rear\u201d (Balina and Rudova, 252). Kassil shifted, \u201chis focus to highlight heroism\u201d, while he created an, \u201cair of adventure\u201d (253).<\/p>\n

Aspects of life within Russia were often adapted to fit in theoretical framework that the USSR desired. For example, orphan-hood was a major aspect of life for Soviet children so many authors created, \u201cdepictions of replacement of family by the society, in which the society takes over the traditional family functions of caring, educating, and providing for its little members\u201d (Balina and Rudova, 96).<\/p>\n

Red Army Parade<\/em> is a Soviet-era children\u2019s book that captures many themes of children\u2019s books from that time period such as loyalty, patriotism, and embracing change (such as modernity and technology in this example). Aleksandr Dei\u0306neka was a renowned artist in Russian, and although Red Army Parade<\/em> is only one work from the extensive genre of Russian children\u2019s literature, it provides a great example of how children\u2019s literature within the Soviet Union attempted to shape children\u2019s perceptions of the Red Army, service, loyalty, as well as the nation\u2019s relationship between people, animals, and especially technology.<\/p>\n

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Images: front cover, page six, and page eleven<\/p>\n

Bibliography<\/p>\n

Reynolds, K. “Radical Children’s Literature.”\u00a0Google Books<\/em>. Palgrave MacMillian, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.<\/p>\n

“Princeton University Digital Library — Item Overview.”\u00a0Princeton University<\/em>. The Trustees of Princeton University, n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2016.<\/p>\n

Balina, Marina, and Larissa Rudova, eds.\u00a0Russian Children’s Literature And Culture<\/em>. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.<\/p>\n

Rothenstein, Julian, and Olga Budashevskaya, eds.\u00a0Inside The Rainbow<\/em>. N.p.: n.p., 2013. Print.<\/p>\n

Grant Collins is a senior History major.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Grant Collins Note: \u00a0this is the sixth of several articles posted to\u00a0The New Contemporary\u00a0that feature writing from this Fall\u2019s Havighurst Colloquium, \u201cRussia in War and Revolution.\u201d \u00a0Each student in the class had to select an object from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":781,"featured_media":583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}