The Russianists love their children, too

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
Historical study of children and children’s culture in Russia and the Soviet Union has burgeoned.1 The historiography has begun to reach critical mass and move us closer toward a more integrated and nuanced understanding of children’s experience and culture in addition to adult representations of that culture. Over the course of the twentieth century, Russian children—like their American counterparts—grappled with far-reaching changes, with each decade or era characterized by diverse childhood experiences.2 Russia’s children played, attended school, ate sweets, acted in plays, and learned to ballroom dance. But, for many of them, the twentieth century was an extraordinarily brutal one. Like adults, children faced family disruption, starvation, arrest, disease, and death.