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Comment by wruza | Hacker News Reader

>Memories of Soviet children’s literature linger today. Immel recounts a story of a Russian colleague who visited her and spotted some Raduga pamphlets. “He knew exactly what they were, being old friends from his childhood,” she says. “He picked up the copy of Kornei Chukovsky’s Barmelai, illustrated by Mstislav Dobuzhinski, and began reciting it from memory.”

"Barmalei" is an innocent poetry, filled with kids-oriented story of two kids, evil~cannibal man and Dr.Aibolit ("Dr. Ouchithurts") in Africa. [1][2] If you feel that the auhor was on heavy drugs, don't worry, that was typical these days. But try to find propaganda in that.

TFA can distort your opinions.

  [1] http://www.stihi-rus.ru/1/chukovskiy/3.htm
  [2] https://translate.google.ru/translate?hl=ru&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stihi-rus.ru%2F1%2Fchukovskiy%2F3.htm

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I wouldn't say a lot of Russian kids' stories were propaganda. Neznayka series by Nikolai Nosov was definitely overt Communist moralizing, though.

Neznayka in the Moon is the master piece. Sometimes I read my favorite places from this book and still enjoy it)

I'd always thought it was pure unadulterated propaganda fantasy, then in my late thirties I discovered coin-operated pay TVs actually are a thing in some cheap motels. Mind=blown

There are several parts of the book that simply describe the modern life as is. That's genius.

The article doesn't call Barmalei propaganda, nor does it claim everything Raduga published was propaganda. Although as a case in point, Chukovsky himself ran into some trouble at the time for the inadequate ideological soundness of some of his earlier children's poetry (like Barmalei) and had to publicly renounce it.

But it leaves room to make such conslusion, so I decided to make it clear. As of ideological adequateness, such abstract story could be pulled in any way with its ears properly grabbed. People love to look for meanings of "curtain color" to make strong arguments out of the void.

But it leaves room to make such conslusion

Not really, it's a conclusion you're making on the basis of... I'm not sure what. It's an article talking about Soviet children's literature and the fact that much of it had an element of propaganda. Not that all of it was propaganda. The article talks about multiple aspects of it, its evolution, includes this particular anecdote, etc.

As of ideological adequateness, such abstract story could be pulled in any way with its ears properly grabbed

I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying here. Take a look at 'чуковщина' in his Wikipedia bio, for instance.

Maybe it is my personal delusion, but the article structure does pretty quick climbing from spreading ideology to escaping to exile, then to purges, and then to something lingering in minds today with the help of the story that non-native folks can't check thoroughly. Good for you not noticing that amazing curve, but most of us know the golden rules of innocent rhetoric delivery. That said, it is probably a false positive (so no accusation), which should be made clear both ways, as you did it for me. Hope this explains what my basis is.

>чуковщина

I suspect I'll miss this part of your point until it is written without vague references.

written without vague references.

It's completely explicit, really. You linked these in Russian so I assume you can read it - it's in his wikipedia page - bring it up, hit 'find' and type the keyword. It's discussed at length in 'От двух до пяти'. He got in (comparatively slight) trouble for the lack of ideology in the poetry you quoted. Why? Exactly because ideological concerns were prevalent in Soviet literature at the time.

Soviet literature of the period was definitely encouraged and even required to have ideological subtext, there's no arguing with that. However, that doesn't tell us much about how successful that policy was. The article is evidently trying to make a point that it was successful by presenting an example of a person who could recite "Barmalei" from memory, without mentioning that "Barmalei" was actually innocent and unrelated to the propaganda-infested books mentioned previously. That is either an error on the article author's part, or a purposeful omission.

Please don't read this as a claim that the policy was not actually successful (which I don't know whether is true or not).

That is not at all 'evident' which is the point of this increasingly odd thread. The article does not make such a claim.

In modern reality, I think authors don't have a moral right to not check the perspectives of what they not say, if the article has "hey, look at these russians/americans/asians" vibes, especially when it hits front pages. We are not claiming that thing explodes, we claim that it is potentially misleading for unaware groups. I can't see any warm reason to refuse these clarifications to appear here.

The article doesn't make such a claim, but it also doesn't make a contrary, leaving it to the structure, which feels questionable.

Let me tell you a story about a particular generation of terrorists. Namely the ones born in the 1950's. First and foremost, Osama bin Laden (1957). We all know what he did. Second, Khaled Mashal, the current Hamas leader (1956). Finally, Abbas al Moussawi, one of the founding fathers of Hezbollah (1952).

Many of us know what terrorists born in the 1950's did, but somehow we all miss the fact that they all belong to the same generation. Weird, eh?

A lot of people think they know who Vladimir Putin (1952) is, but how many of them are aware that twenty years ago Putin was involved in the Chechnya war?

Oh, now I see the source of my confusion. In your first reply, I got meaning of "inadequate" wrong (probably because this word is so abused by russian natives today).

I'm sorry for your main counterargument graying, because it actually clears the "dark" side of my notice. That said, I'm not ready to simply close my eyes on the rhetorical curve I found. Chukovsky was very popular (even iconic), but propaganda wasn't so. I definitely read several books filled with invasive ideology, but can't tell that it was a big influence or someone can cite these from memory. Personally I'm not very old though, SU ended short after I went to school.

> Not really, it's a conclusion you're making on the basis of... I'm not sure what.

Probably the article's title, "The Artful Propaganda of Soviet Children's Literature".

Two factor identification is dangerous, yes.

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