Russian Modernism for Children

An appreciation in English of the marvelous verse tales of Kornei Chukovskii and Samuil Marshak is long overdue. It can be found in Elena Sokol's Russian Poetry for Children, an informed survey of twentieth-century Russian children's poetry. A welcome addition to past translations of children's literature (see Miriam Morton, ed., A Harvest of Russian Children's Literature, Berkeley, 1968), Russian Poetry for Children is a critical study of both the major poems and their poets. It contains poems, such as Chukovskii's "Krokodil" (The crocodile), that are known today by virtually every Russian schoolchild as well as works by émigré Sasha Chernyi and children's poems by such major writers for adults as Boris Pasternak and Osip Mandelshtam.

Russian Poetry for Children traces the development of "modern" children's poetry written in Russian from Chukovskii and Marshak in the teens and twenties to the present day. These two poets, as Sokol explains, set a new course for children's literature in Russia. Turning away from the sugary, didactic, moralizing fare common early in the century, they endeavored to use language that would appeal to children and subjects that would engage the imagination. Chukovskii drew upon the rich Russian oral tradition of nursery rhymes and folktales in his eminently recitable, at times nonsensical poetry; and he was influenced as well by the avant-garde futurist poetry of the day, with its penchant for verbal play and nonsensical language. It is the combined influences of folklore and futurism, Sokol concludes, that account for the mixture of child's play and adult absurdity in Chukovskii's verse tales. Consider, for example, the shifting rhythms and fantastic images of the opening stanza of "Krokodil" (The crocodile 1916):

Zhil da bylKrokodíl.On po úlitsam khodíl,Papirósy kuríl,Po-turétski govoríl,—Krokodíl, Krokodíl Krokodílovich!

Once upon a timethere lived a crocodile.He strolled the streets,he smoked cigarettes,and spoke Turkish—Crocodile, Crocodile Son of Crocodile!

In discussing Chukovskii's verse Sokol observes that the affinity between the new children's literature and the Russian avant-garde has not yet been explored in scholarly studies. What is needed, she suggests, is a comparative study of the poetry of Chukovskii and of futurist Velemir Khlebnikov, known for his childlike primitivism. As for the other formative influence on Chukovskii's works, Russian folklore, Sokol notes that it has long remained inaccessible to English speakers. To help remedy this state of affairs, an entire chapter of Russian Poetry for Children is devoted to a general introduction to the rich Russian oral tradition. Essential reading for all students of the Russian language, the chapter provides descriptions and examples of miniature oral genres—from counting rhymes and tongue twisters to "topsy-turvy" nonsense verse—and their approximate equivalents in English.

Sokol adds that there was still one more formative influence on the new poetry: the "English tradition." Both Marshak and Chukovskii visited England in the early years of the twentieth century; both became admirers of English nursery rhymes and subsequently translated a number of them into Russian. Moreover, Chukovskii was struck by the premium such authors as Lewis Carroll, A. A. Milne, and Hugh Lofting placed upon fantasy (Carroll, in turn, admired Russian folktales), and in some of his works Chukovskii followed in their footsteps. After translating Doctor Dolittle into Russian, Chukovskii penned his own salute to Lofting, the verse tale "Aibolit" (Ouch-it-hurts 1929). As Sokol's discussion indicates, rich materials are available for a study of links between modern English and Russian works for children.

In tracing the development of the new poetry, Sokol reports on the opposition it aroused in utilitarian post-revolutionary Russia. Leftist pedagogues demanded that children be introduced to serious subject matter rather than fairy-tale nonsense and crocodiles who smoke cigarettes. Others, such as poet Vladimir Maiakovskii, began writing politicized, agit-prop verse for children. Although the Soviet account of the development of children's poetry grants a prominent role to...