Soviet Childhood: The Land of Golems

Nelly Bekus-Gonczarowa

Abstract

Bekus-Gonczarowa, inspired by the childhood diary she wrote during her stay at the international pioneer camp „Artek” in Crimea, examines the phenomenon of „Soviet childhood”; what is meant by the term is that children’s external world was absorbed by imposed meanings, and their thoughts and desires took on the shape of external ideology. Children, influenced by state educational institutions, became part of a Soviet society. Child’s individual development was replaced by universal stereotypes worked out by the system. The consciousness of the Soviet man did not develop in an evolutionary process. Proper mechanisms caused that he identified with the image designed by the ideological machine. The denial of child’s evolutionary development, its maturity and the training of the child who suddenly became a full-fledged subject of social and cultural relations made them alike Golem. The child was not becoming a Soviet citizen in a process but like a homunculus was to appear at once with the properly moulded system of values and beliefs. Bekus-Gonczarowa compares her experiences with examples of the mythologized Soviet childhood of the little heroes from Mikhalkov’s film Anna: 6-18, Razumny’s Timur and His Squad, Koesayan’s Elusive Avengers and Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood.