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UDC 316.614+316.774
BecTHMK CnörY Соцнопогнн. 2023. T. 16. Bwn. 2
Children's drawings of 1917-1918 in Moscow: From iconography to sociology
E. A. Orekh1, O. Yu. Boitsova2
1 St. Petersburg State University,
7-9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
2 Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
3, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
For citation: Orekh E. A., Boitsova O. Yu. Children's drawings of 1917-1918 in Moscow: From iconography to sociology. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Sociology, 2023, vol. 16, issue 2, pp. 168-182. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2023.204
The paper demonstrates the possibilities of sociological research on the basis of children's drawings. The authors analyze drawings made by schoolboys in Moscow during the revolution and the beginning of the Civil War in 1917-1918 in Russia. Using iconography as a research method, the authors examines how political characters are depicted in children's drawings. The objective is to explore the content of the drawings to establish whether the process of political socialization of younger schoolchildren has begun, and whether the sources of visual propaganda of the time influenced the formation of the political consciousness of children. The presence of the four iconographic attributes of the Bolsheviks in children's drawings indicates that children distinguished them from other political characters. The authors find that some children formed their own attitude as early as 7 to 11 years of age. In a number of drawings children expressed their opinion to the Bolsheviks, equipping the characters with a complex of traits signifying low cultural level, negatively marked poverty, aggression and unhealthy habits. The study therefore concludes that political socialization in Russia in 1917-1918 began under the significant influence of visual propaganda. The analysis of the drawings by school children suggest that the caricatures published in satirical journals and postcards were capable of exerting a direct influence on the children's political impressions.
Keywords: children's drawings, iconographic analysis, visual propaganda, political socialization, Civil War in Russia.
Introduction
Our paper is based on the analysis of a collection of children's drawings made in 1917-1918 and stored in the archives of the State Historical Museum (Moscow). The collector, Vasily Voronov, taught graphic arts at the I. I. Aleksandrov non-classical secondary school (realschule) and the M. V. Lomonosov gymnasium for boys in the 1910s in Moscow. Voronov collected about 1,500 children's drawings of events that took place in 1917 — early 1918 in Russia. In 1919, he passed these drawings to the Museum archives. The drawings were made by boys from 7 to 11 years old who attended schools where Voronov taught. Most pictures are not signed, so it is impossible to identify who exactly drew them.
© St. Petersburg State University, 2023
Judging by the teacher's notes, the boys created their works at home. The exact phrasing of the assignment is unknown.
As additional material we use extracts from children's essays on the topic of the Great Russian Revolution that Voronov collected in 1917 and published in 1927 [1; 2]. The drawings studied here stem from three sources:
1) the temporary exhibition of 2017 "I'm drawing the Revolution" that was held in the State Historical Museum (a total of 127 exhibits);
2) Nadezhda Goncharova's album [3] published as a dedication to that collection (87 pictures);
3) 20 pictures that were not on display in the exhibition but are posted on the State Historical Museum's website in the section "Electronic catalogue of Museum items".
The drawings and essays collected by Voronov have already attracted the attention of researchers in various fields of the humanities. Historians state that children perceive and evaluate events in a specific way, their view being obviously more impartial than the adults' [4]. Some authors consider children's reflection of revolution, discuss possible sources of influence on children's creativity of the revolutionary time [5]. Art historians analyse those drawings in the context of other pictures made at the time, posing questions about the character of children's and adults' expressive language used to represent such topics as warfare [6-8]. But why does the collection attract sociologists?
Political socialization of young schoolchildren as a subject of research
The analysis of children's drawings from 1917-1918 can contribute to the study of political socialization of young schoolchildren. Although there are diverging views on the essence and results of political socialization, scholars tend to agree that political socialization is the acquisition by an individual of relatively stable attitudes regarding politics [9]. There is also agreement on the gradual character of the process and the fact that it starts in childhood, although the role of early childhood is estimated differently. Young children inevitably obtain information about politicians, state institutes and political behaviour; they can even get their first experience of political participation together with their parents. At the same time, getting information does not mean that the child is able to understand and internalise it and, more important, form his or her own attitude. Some studies found evidence of young schoolchildren forming political opinions and preferences [10], some confirmed that they do have structured political beliefs [11] and political identity [12]. However, the age that could be considered as a starting point for the formation of stable political attitudes is debatable [13; 14]. Researchers agree that this age lies between childhood and adolescence, but the exact frames vary [15; 16].
At the beginning of the 21st century scientists decided that the results of political socialization studies had to be revised in the light of globalisation and major socio-cultural, economic and political transformation of the world [16; 17]. Presumably, the context of the modern child development unavoidably influences the process of political socialization, in particular by expanding the boundaries of its beginning and end. At the same time, researchers elaborate the idea of dependence of political socialization and internalisation of political beliefs on specific local socio-political context. Political socialization in certain countries and periods of time may be more intense and start earlier, or otherwise
[18-20]. So, the question about the period of the beginning of stable political attitudes formation is still open.
A thorny issue that has occupied researchers ever since political socialization has been studied is the matter of agents and agency. Initially the family was considered to be the primary agent [21; 22], but studies then found evidence of that the family's role had been overestimated [10; 23]. Some studies turned to analysing the parallel influence of several agents [17; 24; 25].
Russia went through a period of great social transformations during the second decade of the 20 th century. Such periods of change are characterised by diminishing influence of traditional institutions of political socialization — family and educational establishments. Indeed, published memoirs and children's essays about the revolution [1; 2; 26; 27] reveal that close adults were unprepared to explain to children what was going on, what the revolution was. In 1917, children often skipped school and went to rallies, helped revolutionary soldiers to search for and arrest policemen, and distributed leaflets [28; 29]. Scientific articles of the day recorded evidence of children's participation in various political campaigns and events [30; 31]. Consequently, with the fading influence of family and school, it is likely that the significance of other socialization agents, such as mass media, increased. Is this true? What were the sources that could have a real impact on children? We will try to answer these questions by analysing Voronov's collection.
Visual evidences as a source of sociological information
The most frequent method used in political socialization studies is interviewing. However, this theme is hard to discuss with young children (and consequently, because of the (lack of) knowledge of the specific political discourse terms). Some scholars have attempted to adapt tools of information gathering to the child's age and his or her capability to express thoughts. For example, in a quiz children who could not yet read and write well had to choose among prompts such as pictograms and pictures [16]. Another option is to ask children to respond by means of making a drawing.
Very few studies of political socialization at an early age use children's drawings [32; 33]. While this visual approach is suited to the respondents' age, it involves a number of foreseeable difficulties in data processing. The main challenge is thematic systematisation and coding of information obtained as a drawing. For example, it is not easy to distinguish between political and non-political themes. Whatever solution is suggested, the criteria eventually come down to the researcher's subjective evaluation. Another weak point is the implied connection between the drawings' "political" content and the child's political socialization.
Interpreting and analysing drawings are expedient when communication with the informant is either hindered or impossible. It is not possible today to interview the participants of those past revolutionary events, so using drawings as a source of information is justified.
Usually, children's drawings used by sociologists as an information source are made on the spot and "commissioned" by the researcher [34; 35]. The analysis of drawings made on an assignment has a specific character: if the researcher knows how the assignment was phrased and whether there was a verbal or visual template for the picture to be made, the interpretation becomes much easier. Expert reading is also facilitated by a possibility to take into account social characteristics of the informants. However, our study entails
unusual challenges. In our case, the objects of analysis are drawings that date back to the beginning of the 20th century. The children grew up in circumstances that are socially and economically different from those of today; the authors, as well as their social standing, are often unknown; precise wording of the assignment, if there was one, cannot be defined; the context in which the drawings appeared is also buried in history.
So the greatest challenge of the analysis is how to achieve a correct interpretation of the content of the drawings in order to determine whether the child has begun political socialization? We believe that its presence can be judged positively if the children represent specific political actors (for example, representatives of a political party), endowing their image with specific traits and attributes and thereby distinguishing them from other characters.
During the dramatic year 1917 that brought the Russian Revolution, the beginning of the civil war, party campaigning and propaganda, a child was showered with information about the overthrow of the monarchy and the change of power, elections to the Constituent Assembly, political parties and their programmes [36]. Depending on how the teacher formulated the assignment, children may have tried to portray the political characters, but the presence of such characters does not mean that they understood and were able to process the information they received about them.
If a child has a developed vision of some political groups' substantive features, their representatives will look different from each other and from other people in the child's drawing. The way members of various parties looked like in reality is not important here: they may have appeared similar in everyday communication, but the very situations in which a child met them, made his or her typical views of them specific. In other words, if a young child draws a Bolshevik, a Menshevik and a Socialist Revolutionary1 on a teacher's assignment, and they all look the same, it means that the representation of those party members in his or her mind is apparently superficial. But "dressing", for example, a Bolshevik in recognizable clothes, as compared to the others, "supplying" this party member weapons or another specific attributes, "giving" him or her a typical facial expression, would be a sign that the child was able to identify him or her visually and had, to some extent, formed a notion of that political actor, what means that the child's political socialization has already begun.
Usually, children do not invent all the features and elements of the appearance of social characters in their drawings. They borrow some characteristics from visual stereotypes [37]. In the visual culture of that time there existed (or, with reference to some social groups, were being formed) established images with a number of specific details that represented people's social characteristics. Those images were circulated in mass media and visual propaganda. A child's drawing with all its individuality and expressivity may still contain stereotypical features from visual sources, including propaganda.
Methodology
We used the method of iconography to study the drawings. Following the method's creator, art historian Erwin Panofsky [38], contemporary visual studies use the icono-graphic method to analyse a wide range of visual materials. The method entails comparing
1 Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries — representatives of parties of a socialist orientation in Russia of the considered period of time. The Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks are two wings of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party after its split.
the analysed pictures, selected by topic or plot similarity, with each other in order to identify iconographic features — recurring characteristics or attributes. On the basis of iconographic features, it is possible to draw conclusions about the specifics of representing the image (theme, plot) in the specific context of time and place of its creation. Iconographic features are distinguished by the researcher on the basis of fixing their repeatability in images, however, quantitative counting of repetitions is not performed: it does not matter for analysis whether there are only two repetitions of any feature or ten. The method also does not imply a quantitative comparison of images having a particular iconographic feature with images in which this feature is absent. When analyzing a sample of images, one can distinguish not one but several iconographic features, but it should not be expected that all these features will be present in the images at the same time.
The use of iconography for the analysis of children's drawings is appropriate, as one important feature of the "language of children's drawings" is the designation of the significant attributes of the depicted object. When children draw, they imbue their creations with recognizable character traits. As the psychologist Maria Osorina writes: ".. .from the child's point of view, the drawing has to include a set of necessary and sufficient recognizable characteristics of the depicted object. This allows the drawing to properly represent this object and makes it possible to determine which of the depicted objects is, for example, a bird and which — a man" [39, p. 112].
When publishing drawings from the V. S. Voronov's collection, the creators of the album [3] and the exhibition [8] systematised the material by grouping the drawings the-matically. One of these groupings contained representations of political subjects — Na-dezhda Goncharova called them "images of the revolutionary epoch". Some of the names given to the drawings by the children are labels, such as "the bourgeois2" and "the speculator", some are names given to members of specific parties: "the Bolshevik", "the Menshe-vik", "the Cadet", "the Socialist Revolutionary". Children's drawings of the "images of the revolutionary epoch" became a sample for our analysis (61 images). We judged about the political character based on the child artist's label. We analysed grouping contained representations of political subjects as a single case, regardless of the presumably diverse social background of the children who drew the pictures3.
In most drawings, political characters are presented one at a time (that is, one image is dedicated to one character), and only in four cases are they presented in pairs. Of the 61 drawings in our sample, most images represent the Bolsheviks (35 images). Thus, we focused on analysing representations of the Bolsheviks in comparison with the images of other political characters. At the first stage of the analysis, we compared the images of the Bolsheviks in children's drawings (1) with each other, (2) with images of representatives of other parties. We identified: (1) typical features in the images of the Bolsheviks and (2) where possible — signs of children's emotional attitude towards the Bolsheviks. This analysis served to address the first question of our study about whether the political socialization of early school children began in 1917 in Russia. At the second stage, we
2 In Russian, there are two terms that denote members of the bourgeoisie. One is the general equivalent of the English "bourgeois", while the other — "burzhuy" — is a derogatory descriptor. Here, we speak of the latter connotation of "the bourgeois".
3 Most of the children whose drawings were collected by Voronov came from families of the Moscow intelligentsia, as well from middle-class families (i. e., artisans, hired workers, small merchants). There were probably no peasant children among them.
highlighted visual stereotypes in the images of the Bolsheviks, using a continuous selection of images of political characters from illustrated satirical journals of 1917, such as Baraban (Drum), Bich (Whip), Budilnik (Alarm clock), Novyi satirikon (New Satyricon), Pugach (Popgun) and Strekoza (Dragonfly), as well as a series of humorous postcards of artists S. Kushchenko, E. Sokolov, V. Taburin of the 1910s on political topics. At the third stage, we compared the iconographic features of the Bolsheviks identified from children's drawings and from magazine cartoons.
Findings
The "Bolsheviks" in the children's drawings present an impressive range of visual types. Among them there are sailors, soldiers wearing greatcoats and astrakhan hats, soldiers in service shirts and caps, people dressed in civilian clothes, both good and with patches, and a woman dressed in festive clothing. Despite the variety of images some drawings feature distinct characteristics which may be called iconographic, i. e. they are typical of the Bolshevik when depicted by the drawing children.
One characteristic feature of the "Bolsheviks" in the analysed children's drawings is their weaponry, which is sometimes excessive: the "Bolsheviks" are depicted wearing machine-gun belts, carry not one but two revolvers and may even be shown shooting with both hands at the same time (Fig. 1). When the same child depicts a "Menshevik" and a "Bolshevik", or a "Bolshevik" and a "Socialist Revolutionary", they may frequently be distinguished by the fact that the "Bolsheviks" is armed, while the "Mensheviks" and "Socialist Revolutionaries" are not.
Fig. 1. "Bolshevik shooting two revolvers at the same time". A drawing by young artist Grigoriev. 1917. State Historical Museum (Moscow). Exhibition "Russian Revolution in Children's Drawings". Moscow. 19.04.2017-19.06.2017
Source: https://catalog.shm.ru/entity/OBJECT/ 2171696?page=3&fund_ier=647759298&exhibition=6 19322483&index=104 (accessed: 20.01.2023).
The visuals of the satirical journals of 1917 provide evidence that there was no single visual Bolshevik stereotype in the culture at that time. The Bolsheviks were depicted in untucked worker's blouses and suits, in jackboots and shoes, with long and short hair, with moustaches, with beards, completely shaven, with and without glasses, with hats, peaked caps or without hats, and even with watches on chains. Nevertheless, some of magazines
Fig. 2. "Bolshevik". A caricature in Strekoza. 1917 [41, p. 10]
developed their own consistent set of features that was clearly linked with members of that party. For example, in 1917, the satirical journal Strekoza depicted both Bolsheviks and Anarchists as highwaymen4. Thus, within the framework of a given journal, certain features and details are repeated from image to image to characterise this political party and its representatives.
The characteristic of being excessively armed may have been borrowed by the child from real-life experience or from stereotypes, including those propagated by certain satirical journals: in the latter, the Bolsheviks sometimes were portrayed as being "armed to the teeth". The children could see the visual incarnation of this stereotype on the pages of satirical journals such as Strekoza, which, in 1917, equated the Bolsheviks to bandits and depicted them with machine-gun belts, rifles, knifes and — admittedly only one — grenade in hand [41, p. 13; 42, p. 2]. The presence of excessive weapons on the Bolshevik's image in the children's drawing does not yet permit a conclusion about the positive or negative attitude of the young artist to his character.
Another distinctive feature of the "Bolsheviks" in children's drawings is their relative size compared to other characters in the drawing (Fig. 3). In Russian, a Bolshevik is ety-mologically and phonetically related to "bolshoy", which means "big". The visualization of Bolshevism and Menshevism through size is present in "Child-politicians", a series of postcards created by artist V. A. Taburin in the 1910s: one of the postcards depicts the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, with the latter being depicted several times smaller than the former.
4 Attributes of "bandits": a hat with a feather, a scarf around the neck, a dagger, patched-up clothing (see, for example, the caricature "The Visitor" [40, p. 8]), a cloak draped across the shoulders. Starting from the 24th issue of Strekoza of 1917 onwards, this journal used the same characteristics for both Anarchists and Bolsheviks (Fig. 2).
Fig. 3. "Menshevik and Bolshevik". A children's Fig. 4. "Red Guard". A drawing by young drawing. 1917 [3] artist Nikitin. 1917 [3]
In a caricature drawn by N. Nikolaevsky, published in an issue of Bich in 1917 [43, p. 7], the "Bolshevik" is juxtaposed to the common man through sheer size. Furthermore, in an anonymous caricature titled "In the literal sense" published in a 1917 issue of Pugach, a tall woman says to a man of small stature: "And you still ask who I ditched you for! Naturally, for a 'Bolshevik'!" [44, p. 7]. Thus, children could arrive at the idea of conveying political distinctions through size independently or by being influenced by jokes that already existed at the time. Such an iconographic sign as a comparatively larger size of the Bolshevik's figure also does not allow us to characterise the child's attitude to his character as positive or negative. At first glance, one could attribute positive connotation to a larger size, but this would be unfounded.
Another distinguishing feature of the "Bolsheviks" that recurs in children's drawings is patched-up clothing (the patches are drawn in bright colours, so that they stand out) (see Figs 3, 4). In the visual culture of that time, patches on clothes were used in derisive or satirical depictions of proletarians and the Bolsheviks (for example, the caricature in Strekoza, 1917 [41, p. 10] (see Fig. 2); the caricature on the cover of Strekoza, 1917 [45]; or the postcard titled "The Proletarian" by artist E. G. Sokolov), and were not used by the Bolsheviks themselves in their visual propaganda. It seems likely that the patches used in children's drawings to denote the "Bolsheviks" could be a marker of poverty.
The last of the distinguishing features of the Bolsheviks that we found in children's drawings is smoking. Although smoking was widespread in the Russian Empire at the turn of the century [46], representation of smoking was not always neutral and could have various connotations. The Russian emperor Alexander the Third did smoke, but very few family photographs show the smoking tsar [47]. Soldiers and sailors were prohibited from
smoking in the street until March 1917. The sight of soldiers and sailors smoking in the street (even after the ban was lifted) could be unusual and cause a mixed response. In the children's pictures from 1917 that we have analysed it is those Bolsheviks who are dressed as soldiers and sailors who smoke (see Figs 1, 4). In a 1918 drawing entitled "Unified Labour School", the young artist uses satire: one of the pupils is smoking right inside the school, while another, red flag in hand, is throwing garbage out of the window. Depicting the characters smoking seems to be a way to draw attention to the provocative behavior of the figure in the portrait.
Depictions of smoking in published caricatures are rare. Lit cigarettes along with bottles of alcohol and packets of sunflower seeds are used to condemn a lack of discipline in the army (the caricature "Disorder in the Army" in Strekoza, 1917 [45, p. 8-9]) or to ridicule the low cultural level of the characters (the caricature "Lamentation of the Bourgeoisie in a Tram" in Pugach, 1917 [48, p. 7]). The depiction of smoking to a Bolshevik is not typical for caricatures. Thus, such iconographic feature in children's drawings as smoking is attributed to the Bolsheviks by the boys themselves.
How can a child's attitude to the figure he (or she) portrays be understood? At first glance, the iconographic features described above cannot themselves be seen to express the author's positive or negative opinion. They can be informative of the child's view only by taking into account other details of the picture, such as a lit cigarette and patches on the drawing of a "Red Guard"5 endowed with a low forehead, a massive lower jaw, a red nose and with his hands in his pockets (see Fig. 4). Visual features marking alcohol abuse (the red nose), lack of intelligence (low forehead), lack of upbringing (hands in pockets) are signal that the boy's attitude to the characters is negative. For some young artists smoking is a way to emphasise a pejorative connotation of the figure in the portrait and an icono-graphic method of expressing a negative attitude towards them. Knowing this permits a more accurate assessment of the attitudes of the authors to their figures they portray. In the drawing by the boy Grigoriev the "Bolshevik", who is depicted as shooting two revolvers at the same time (see Fig. 1), is evidently intended to be seen as an unsavoury character because the young artist made him smoke a cigarette whilst shooting.
Several images of the Bolsheviks were accompanied with explanatory inscriptions that repeated roughly the similar ideas: "The Bolshevik is the one who is against the war", etc. In some cases, the Bolshevik in the drawing holds a flag with a slogan: "Down with the war! Give us bread", etc. These may be the words of the teacher explaining to the children the political program of the Bolsheviks. Our attention was drawn to a drawing in which the Bolshevik is presented as a tall man with large bulging evil eyes, shooting a revolver (fig. 5). The explanation the child artist provided: "The Bolshevik goes against war and the government and wants to betray Russia". The first part of the inscription repeats the idea found in the inscriptions for other images. However, the second part — "and wants to betray Russia" — probably expresses child's own opinion about the representatives of this party.
In some cases, it is possible to detect the presence of a direct influence of illustrations from satirical journals on children's drawings. For instance, we discovered the source of the caricature drawn by one of Voronov's pupils, A. Konstantinov (Fig. 6): the child drew an accurate copy of a caricature originally published in Strekoza, 1917 [41, p. 13] (Fig. 7),
5 The Red Guards are participants in voluntary armed groups created by the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks). We consider the Red Guards as representatives of the Bolsheviks.
Fig. 5. "Bolshevik". A children's drawing. 1917. Explanatory inscription of the child artist: "The Bolshevik goes against war and the government and wants to betray Russia" [3]
changing only the caption. In the original, "Russia" is telling her interlocutors6 about a door with "freedom" inscribed upon it: "I am sorry, but I will not let you back into that room again. I have prepared another, more secure room for you, with iron bars. These bars shall prove very useful, for they will protect you from being lynched by an outraged public".
The child-artist wrote the following dialogue under the caricature that he copied from Strekoza: "Please, allow us to go there — No, gentlemen, I shall not let you. You are too nice". Here, the wordplay of the original caption is lost, where freedom was juxtaposed with the opposite concept of imprisonment, where bandits ought to be put. This is, perhaps, because the child did not pick up on this double meaning (that said, the young artist did employ the trope of irony — too nice). However, the child's caption preserved the more general idea of the original caricature: the Bolsheviks are no good.
The same child-artist A. Konstantinov drew "The Bolshevik is Going to a Rally", where he used distinctive visual attributes of the Bolshevik such as patched-up clothing and a large broad-brimmed hat. Even though, in contrast to the caricature described above, we could not find any original source that the young artist copied, we already know
6 The original does not state explicitly whether the figures standing next to "Russia" are "Bolsheviks" or "Anarchists". In this and other issues of Strekoza, both are visually indistinguishable (they can only be distinguished if they are labeled) and are depicted in the same fashion, with visual attributes of highwaymen. Other satirical journals also did not always distinguish the Anarchists and the Bolsheviks. In Pugach, 1917 [49, p. 10] there are "Bolshevik-anarchists", and in Bich, 1917 [50, p. 5], B. Antonovsky's caricature features the terrible character of the "Anarche.. .vik".
Fig. 6. A drawing by young artist Konstantinov. 1917 [3]
СТРЕКОЗА. 13
РосЫя;—НЬтъ, ужъ извините, опять в'ь это поАщето я ваоъ не пущу. Для васъ у меня приготовлено другое, прочное н оъ железными решетка-ми воторыя вамъ будутъ очень полезны, такъ какъ защитятъ васъ огъ самосуда возмущеннаго народа.
Fig. 7. "Russia". A caricature in Strekoza. 1917 [41, p. 13]
that he was acquainted with the visual language of the satirical journal Strekoza, where large-brimmed hats, hinting at highwayman attire, and patched-up clothes were attributes denoting the "Bolsheviks" or the "Anarchists"7.
Discussion
Our analysis of the drawings by school children suggest that the caricatures published in satirical journals and postcards were capable of exerting a direct influence on the children's political impressions. The children are likely to have found the visual language of the caricatures in satirical journals easier to understand than the verbal language of the feuilletons and pamphlets found in the same publications: the young artist accurately copied the caricature, yet did not create a verbatim copy of its caption and its difficult verbal wordplay. Even if children did not read journals targeted at an adult audience, they may well have been able to look at the illustrations contained therein. Our analysis provides evidence that they did, indeed, do so. Thus, it can be concluded that published caricatures are probable sources of influence on the development of children's political consciousness. This thesis resonates with the opinion about the influence of schoolbooks and media on children's ability to describe, classify and represent social phenomena by Alexander Bikbov who used drawings in the study of children's perceptions of state and power in contemporary Russia and France [52].
The presence of the four iconographic attributes of the Bolsheviks in children's drawings indicates that children identified the Bolsheviks as representatives of a certain social group and distinguished them from other political characters. Children's drawings, unlike posters and advertisements, do not always allow the viewer to judge "on whose side" the child may be. However, the iconographic analysis demonstrated that, in some cases, it can be confidently determined "on whose side" the children most definitely are not. Children's creativity and their own position manifested themselves in the selection and combination of the stereotypical features drawn from magazines with other traits that have an evaluative character. In a number of drawings children expressed their attitude to the Bolsheviks, which was negative, equipping the characters with a complex of traits signifying low cultural level, negatively marked poverty, aggression and unhealthy habits. Sometimes a negative attitude was confirmed by inscriptions on images. This allows us to draw conclusions about the development of political consciousness in some young schoolchildren in 1917-1918: the process of political socialization of those children was already well underway at that moment, rather than being in its preparatory stage.
Our analysis suggests that by the time they received the drawing assignment from the teacher, some children had already formed ideas of the Bolsheviks in their minds. That is why they gave the Bolsheviks iconographic features borrowed from the visual culture of that period, distinguishing the members of the party from other characters. Except in rare cases, children did not copy images from magazines and postcards, but just used and creatively combined some iconographic features of political characters (not only the Bolsheviks) from these publications. Although it is not possible to define precisely all the sources of the image formation in the children's minds, our material indicates that visual propaganda was one of the things that had a certain impact on children's estimation of
7 For example, Strekoza, 1917 [51, p. 12] features a "Bolshevik" in a broad-brimmed hat and patched-up clothing.
political actors. In some of the reviewed pictures the Bolsheviks possessed iconographic features of villains, which corresponds to the recurrent notion of the Bolsheviks in the satirical visual culture of the day.
As researchers, we are aware that the unfortunate lack of substantive information about the authors makes it impossible for us to consider the differences in the emerging political consciousness within the analysed age group of boys. Even more important is the fact that a huge amount of children who could not attend schools are outside the scope of our view. Given that perception is determined by a child's social standing, social background (students of a gymnasium and a realschule), place of residence (Moscow) and sex (boys) of the children whose drawings became the material for our research, it is difficult to extrapolate from the findings of our study to other social groups of young school children. More studies are therefore needed to examine the drawings of other children, both boys and girls, in different historical contexts.
References
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Received: September 3, 2022 Accepted: April 28, 2023
Authors' information
Ekaterina A. Orekh — PhD in Sociology, Associate Professor; [email protected] Olga Yu. Boitsova — PhD in History, Researcher; [email protected]
От иконографии к социологии: рисунки юных москвичей 1917-1918 гг.
Е. А. Орех1, О. Ю. Бойцова2
1 Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет,
Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 7-9
2 Музей антропологии и этнографии им. Петра Великого (Кунсткамера) РАН, Российская Федерация, 199034, Санкт-Петербург, Университетская наб., 3
Для цитирования: Orekh E. A., Boitsova O. Yu. Children's drawings of 1917-1918 in Moscow: from iconography to sociology // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Социология. 2023. Т. 16. Вып. 2. С. 168-182. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu12.2023.204
Статья демонстрирует возможности социологического анализа детских рисунков. Авторы анализируют рисунки, сделанные московскими школьниками во время революции и начала Гражданской войны в России 1917-1918 гг. Используя иконографию в качестве метода исследования, авторы анализируют образы политических персонажей, представленных в детских рисунках. Цель статьи заключается в том, чтобы на основе содержания рисунков установить, начался ли процесс политической социализации младших школьников и повлияли ли источники визуальной пропаганды того времени на формирование политического сознания детей. Анализировались образы большевиков в сравнении с репрезентациями кадетов, эсеров, меньшевиков и других политических групп. Выяснилось, что дети осознанно отличали большевиков от других политических персонажей: об этом говорят четыре специфических иконографических признака, которыми юные художники наделяли представителей этой партии. В результате анализа было обнаружено, что некоторые дети сформировали свое собственное отношение к большевикам уже в младшем школьном возрасте (от 7 до 11 лет). В ряде рисунков представители этой партии предстают как «чужие», наделяются комплексом негативных черт, означающих низкий культурный уровень, негативно маркированную бедность, агрессию и нездоровые привычки. Также в исследовании делается вывод о том, что политическая социализация младших школьников в России в 1917-1918 гг. шла под значительным влиянием визуальной пропаганды. Анализ рисунков позволяет утверждать, что карикатуры, опубликованные в сатирических журналах и на открытках, оказывали непосредственное влияние на политические впечатления детей. Ключевые слова: детские рисунки, иконографический анализ, визуальная пропаганда, политическая социализация, Гражданская война в России.
Статья поступила в редакцию 3 сентября 2022 г.; рекомендована к печати 28 апреля 2023 г.
Контактная информация:
Орех Екатерина Александровна — канд. социол. наук, доц.; [email protected] Бойцова Ольга Юрьевна — канд. ист. наук, науч. сотр.; [email protected]
