Children's World: Growing Up in Russia 1890–1991 (review)

“The Soviet state placed children's affairs at the heart of its political legitimacy” (1), Kelly observes, but her book shows how their actual achievements fell far short of producing, as it claimed, “the happiest children in the world.” Children's World is an encyclopedic, meticulously researched, cultural history of Russian childhood from the last years of the Russian empire through the fall of the Soviet Union. Although Kelly's subject and sources are genuinely interdisciplinary, her argument and approach are traditionally historical. She combed government archives for information on education, orphanages, social services, juvenile delinquency, and the changing legal status of children; conducted personal interviews; mined memoir literature; and studied children's literature, theater and film, children's games and leisure activities, and childbearing/child rearing. A major virtue of the book is its more than 100 illustrations, ranging from rare archival photographs to propaganda posters.

Part I, “Imagining Childhood,” is an overview of “ideologies” of childhood in four historical periods: the prerevolutionary years (1891–1917), the early utopian years (1917–1935), high Stalinism (1935–1953), and post-Stalinism. Part II, “Children on Their Own,” examines the response of government and society to the waves of street waifs and orphans resulting from famine, revolution, purges, and war. Traditional Russian reluctance to adopt, and economic constraints that made life difficult for everyone, only worsened the plight of children who found themselves without the crucial support of biological parents. Part III, “Family Children,” which is organized around four stages of childhood development, is, in many ways, the most engaging material; it deals with the lived experience of most of Russia's children. Class differences between the rural peasantry, the urban working class, and the educated middle class remained far more important than government policies. Ethnicity—Kelly mentions only the Jews and Tatars in addition to the dominant Russians—also played a major role. Her conclusion, “The End of Childhood?” discusses “coming of age”—morally, educationally, and sexually.

Child-rearing traditions passed from one generation of mothers to the next proved extremely resilient, despite the huge political convulsions that transformed Russia. Immediately after the revolution, the young Soviet state attempted to “medicalize” childbirth and “rationalize” the process of child rearing, aiming to reduce Russia's disgracefully high rate of infant mortality. Maternity hospitals, children's medical clinics, nurseries, and day-care centers were decreed, but underfunding made them scarce, even late into the Soviet period. Despite government propaganda, unhygienic practices persevered in some villages well into the middle of the twentieth century. Kelly is well aware of the regional, class, and historical differences of Soviet children's experience and chary of generalizations linking specific practices, like swaddling, to national character. Rather, she offers a path-breaking book with a wealth of information from which others can draw their own conclusions and further research.