Svetlana Vladimirovna Filatova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Penza State Pedagogical University, Penza, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Children’s Reading in the Noble Environment in the Late 18th – First Half of the 19th Century: Functions, Practices, Structure, Interests (Based on the Materials of the Penza Province)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2021-1-1
The article is devoted to the problem of the phenomenon of children’s reading in Russia in the late 18th – early 19th century. This problem is considered in the context of the nobility’s everyday life, since in this period it was among the nobility that the book became a common phenomenon, a stable cultural and everyday practice, including in the province – in this case, in the Penza province. The author concludes that this phenomenon was caused by the processes of modernization and Europeanization of Russian society. The Age of Enlightenment put forward new requirements both for the level of education of the ruling class, and for the forms and methods of organizing and spending leisure time. As a result, the book acquired a status in society it had never had before. In parallel, there was a gradual process of humanization and liberalization of intra-family relations. While maintaining the patriarchal way of life in general, ideas about the place of women and children significantly transformed. This was expressed, in particular, in a new attitude to childhood as an important period of personal development, in a variety of pedagogical approaches and, finally, in the degree of emotional closeness between parents and children. In this regard, the book was designed to perform many functions: pedagogical, educational, communicative, socializing, compensatory, relaxation, and so on. Family reading became a common practice. The children’s reading was also supervised by teachers, both at home and at school. Facts and events from the biographies of writers and memoirists, who spent their childhood in the Penza province, allow us to conclude that the children’s noble book culture corresponds to the interests of their environment and society as a whole.
Publishing: 28/02/2021
The article has been received by the editor on 15.12.2020
How to cite: Filatova S.V. Children’s Reading in the Noble Environment in the Late 18th – First Half of the 19th Century: Functions, Practices, Structure, Interests (Based on the Materials of the Penza Province) // Historical Courier, 2021, No. 1 (15), pp. 9–20. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2021/ISTKURIER-2021-1-01.pdf
Links: Issue 1 2021
Keywords: children’s reading; reading circle; family reading; noble family; upbringing; education; leisure; everyday life