The objective world of Soviet everyday
life in illustrated books for children of the 1950s and 1960s

Korvatskaya Elena Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0003-2502-8643 PhD in Art History Associate professor, Department of Art Education and Decorative Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. 196143, Russia, Saint Petersburg, Lensovena str., 52 sun3109@yandex.ru

*The research was carried out within the framework of grant 23-18-00419 "Leningrad Art Industry enterprises of the 1940s-1960s and their role in shaping the living environment" (grant from the Russian Science Foundation in the priority area of activity of the Russian Science Foundation "Conducting fundamental scientific research and exploratory scientific research by individual scientific groups". The project "Leningrad art industry enterprises of the 1940s-1960s and their role in shaping the living environment").

The children's illustrated book occupies a significant place in the space of Soviet culture of the 1950s and 1960s. There are at least two groups of factors that influenced the specifics of the development of Soviet post-war book culture.

The first group includes elements of State policy in the field of culture and education. The increase in circulation, the expansion of the subject, the creation of books on current topics on special government orders became part of the program of education of the Soviet man, the contours of which were clearly defined by the mid-1950s. The addition of a system of compulsory seven-year education, the introduction of school uniforms, the development of children's art, music and sports schools became markers of state cultural policy, and reading played a significant role in this new structure of the Soviet enlightenment.

The second group of factors is related to the changes that have occurred in the everyday culture of Soviet citizens in connection with the growth of the urban population and the intensification of the processes of forming a single typical space of everyday life. In recent decades, scientific interest in everyday practices has increased significantly. Today, we can talk about a fairly representative historiography of the issue ^[1] and the addition of theoretical foundations for studying the daily routine of daily routine practices, which, nevertheless, have a symbolic meaning ^[2]. The study of Soviet everyday life is one of the leading topics of cultural anthropology. Thus, N.B. Lebina studies in detail the main paradigms of adult existence from the red scarf to kitchen factories, lotteries and prostitution ^{[3, 4]}. Housing issues, norms of behavior, and levels of communication deserve special attention.

It is quite natural that childhood in its everyday dimension appears in the field of artistic and scientific discourse - the specifics of educational practices, the objective world, the system of ideas about childhood as an important stage of life ^{[5, 6]}.

The modern book industry responds to the current topic with publications that plot or stylistically refer the reader to the Soviet period (publishing houses "Rech", "Melik-Pashayev"). For adult readers, there is a nostalgic component in these practices ^[7,8], for young readers, the publications rather represent a different system of aesthetic coordinates. Among the books by modern authors immersing in the world of Soviet childhood, the author's book by the artist Evgenia Dvoskina "Will Sasha come out?": Soviet childhood in illustrations and pictures" (Speech, 2021), the books "The History of the old apartment" and "Transsib deserve special attention. The train is leaving!" by illustrator Anna Desnitskaya published in the publishing house "Samokat" in collaboration with Alexandra Litvina, the edition of E.V. Murashova and N.O. Mayorova "When grandma and grandpa were little" in two books (Polyandria, 2022) in illustrations by Ekaterina Bauman. Unlike, for example, Daniil Granin's documentary book "The Leningrad Catalog" (1986), based on the author's personal experience and his associations with specific things, modern authors turn to facts from Soviet history indirectly - through printed and visual sources and memories of the older generation.

It is all the more interesting to consider how the subject world surrounding the child was seen by the artists of the children's book of the post-war twentieth century. This world of things itself is becoming an extremely important component of the culture of the 1950s and 1960s. The analysis of the representation of the space of the house in art (primarily in painting), since the 1940s, allows a number of researchers to talk about a fundamental turn from the primacy of the themes of the social situation of the Soviet man (demonstrations, processions, troika, collective farm holidays) to themes that allow the depiction of the private life of the family with its mundane details - moving to a new apartment (painting by A. Laktionov), receiving a deuce (painting by F. Reshetnikova), haircuts in a barbershop (painting by M. Suzdaltsev).

An illustration in a children's book is a kind of representation of representation, visualization of a text representing the real world in artistic images. In the 1950s and 1960s, the objective world of everyday life was depicted by artists quite carefully, which confirms in the book material the idea of strengthening the role and importance of the private environment in its material details in the life of a Soviet person.

Research sources and approaches to their study

The children's book is still outside the scope of research practices in the field of studying the culture of everyday life. Domestic researchers sometimes turn to an illustrated children's book when considering Soviet everyday culture ^[9,10], but the issues of artistic design of a children's illustrated book in the context of the formation of Soviet culture of everyday life did not become the subject of special attention.

The presented article will analyze the corpus of book publications, the illustrations of which reflect the objective world of Soviet everyday life. This will allow us to identify elements of everyday culture that, according to the artist, are significant for visualization and reading accompaniment.

The main sources of study were publications addressed to children and adolescents. The advantage was given to publications issued by the Leningrad branch of Detgiz publishing house (since 1963 – "Children's Literature"). During the research, more than two hundred publications on topics related to the life of a Soviet child were reviewed. An important source for the work was the series of encyclopedic illustrated publications "Artists of the USSR Children's Book, 1945-1991", edited by S.V. Chistobaev since 2017 ^[11].

The children's illustrated book of the late 1940s – mid-1960s quickly reacted to the change of artistic preferences in popular culture, namely, in the visual arts and in the development of technology.

The difficulties of the post-war printing business were reflected in the artistic design of books for children. The mass illustrated book for children and teenagers of the 1940s and 1950s is characterized by a modest appearance. Due to the limitations and complexity of printing, multi-page editions of the standard format with a large text block and black-and-white linear illustrations were more often published. Page-by-page illustrations were inserted less often. The drawings were reproduced in small size on low-quality newsprint. The 1960s were marked by the revival of the picture book and a full-color large-format edition (format 60x90 1/32, 0.5 and 1 printed sheet). This provided artists with new opportunities for creativity, and the researcher with an analysis of illustrations with a high degree of detail.

The main difficulty in depicting the attributes of everyday life is a certain amount of generalization and stylization of illustrations, inattention to detail or inaccuracy in conveying specific details. It should be noted that the insufficient elaboration of the issues of the history of Soviet industrial design does not always allow us to accurately determine the model of the things depicted. The exception is the exact indication by the author of the book of the model names. This is associated with difficulties in determining the specific brands and release years of the depicted everyday items.

Let's list the main authors whose books were illustrated and published in the 1950s and 1960s. It is possible to single out a group of writers who, in their work, paid considerable attention to everyday practices. Among them are A.L. Barto, N.N. Nosov, S.V. Mikhalkov, to a lesser extent S.Ya. Marshak and K.I. Chukovsky.

In the 1940s and 1950s, children's books on everyday subjects were actively illustrated by I.M. Semenov (1906-1982), N.A. Noskovich (1911-1955), Yu.N. Uzbyakov (1916-1982), A.M. Kanevsky (1898-1976). In the 1960s – G.A. Mazurin (1932-2023), V. Moroz (?-?), K.P. Rotov (1902-1959), T.A. Eremina (1912-1995), I. Kesh (?-?), Y.D. Korovin (1914-1991), N.V. Kononova (1938-?), M.S. Belomlinsky (1934-2020) and others.

Among the illustrators of the 1950s and 1960s, I.I. Kabakov (1933-2023) stands out. His imaginative thinking and the peculiarities of the artistic language made it possible to look at the objects of everyday life from a different angle. I.I. Kabakov analyzes both the object itself and the situation in which it is used into separate components. In the publication of A.M. Markush's "Tim at Home" (Kid, 1968), things are presented through portrait images of the mentioned TV or radio model. However, this is rather an exception due to the peculiarities of the creative method of the largest artist of Soviet conceptual art.

So, let's turn to the main motives and plots of the transfer of the material space of everyday life in a children's illustrated book of the late 1940s – 1960s.

The personal space of a Soviet person

The vast majority of illustrations from the 1940s and 1950s are small individual mise-en–scenes corresponding to a certain part of the narrative, in a multi-page full-text edition. According to the interior items, the reader determines the place and time of the action. More often it is a room, but it is difficult to say whether it is a communal or a separate apartment. The peculiarities of human social life are not traceable. Public places of communal space (kitchen, toilet room, corridor) are not depicted.

The accuracy of attribution of everyday objects is significantly influenced by the stylistic features of the illustrator. A.L. Barto wrote a collection of poems "Grandfather's granddaughter. Satirical poems" in 1938. The 1954 and 1959 editions of Detgiz publishing house came out with different cycles of illustrations by A.M. Kanevsky. Their visual range includes things familiar to both the 1930s and 1950s: a sofa with a high back and a wooden frame; a table alarm clock with round legs; massive oak desks with bedside tables and side drawers; and on them paperweights and table lamps with a glass shade on the an oval-shaped wooden base and lamps with an elongated shade made of fringed fabric; a wall clock with weights and a cuckoo; a black bakelite (carbolite) telephone with a rotating disk. It is difficult to identify the models and their names. Judging by the proportions, it is possible that the cover of the 1954 edition depicts the TAN-6m device manufactured by the Perm Telephone Factory.

Less often, but there are illustrations depicting a part of the room with the essential attributes of everyday life – a high-backed sofa upholstered in leather or cloth, a high-backed chair and leather upholstery (E.M. Emden "Marina Petrova's School Year" with fig. N.I. Kalita (Detgiz, 1952)), an ottoman with one cushion (E.A. Blaginina "That's what a mother is" with fig. A.F. Bill (Ed. and f-ka det. Detgiz Books, 1949).  The decoration of the room is complemented by a floor-standing mezzanine with three shelves and curly legs (O.B. Rusanova "Sisters" with fig. B. Kovalenko (Detgiz, 1953). In the edition of E. Kahn's The Little Chess Player, I. Borisov showed the complete interior of the room (Physical Education and Sports, 1959).

The picture book, as a large-format publication for children with an overwhelming number of illustrations, received its rebirth only by the early 1960s. This was primarily due to the crisis of the printing business in the war and post-war period and the technical achievements of the next decade. In the 1950s, there were almost no such publications. As an exception, we will call "My Dad" by I.I. Nekhod (translated from Ukrainian by E. Blaginina) with an illustration by T.A. Eremin (Detgiza, 1950). In the everyday life of a Soviet family, you can find a VEF M-557 tube radio receiver from the Riga factory, a bookcase and a wide table clock with decorative elements and a round dial. The center of one of the page-by-page illustrations, as well as the main focus of the life of the townspeople, remains a joint tea party at a round table with an enameled wide teapot.  Above the table is a large fabric lampshade with tassels, next to it is a low bookcase with a family library.

In the 1950s, the home library was present in a personal space on the shelves of large bookcases with cornice decorations (A.L. Barto "The House Moved" with K.P. Rotov (1939) and "What's wrong with it?" (Children's Literature, 1966)). In the latest edition, illustrator A.M. Kanevsky puts this piece of furniture on the cover.

For the 1960s, cabinets–sections and cupboards-slide-cupboard, which were used for decorative glass and linen, became familiar in the depiction of the interiors of residential apartments, but books are more often in them in publications. Suspended closed bookshelves are also in use ("Where are you from?" by T.A. Eremin (1964), N.N. Nosov "Dreamers" with I.M. Semenov (1964); "About a Blue basin, a grater and a needle and thread" with T.A. Eremin (1960)).

Technical innovations also appear in the collections of riddles. In the "Green Eye" by N.S. Kostarev (Detgiz, 1958) with illustrations by A.M. Eliseev and M.A. Skobelev, the authors propose to solve the riddle about a vacuum cleaner (a model of the Prokopiev Electromechanical Plant, 1957), about a "green eye" - a TV and an aquarium turned into an apartment building. In the last of all household items, such as a radio or a gas column, it is interesting to have a dressing table with a mirror and a rotary mechanism.

In the edition of I.S. Kholin "Necessary Things" (Detsky Mir, 1963), illustrators E.V. Bulatov and O.V. Vasiliev create decorative and abstract images of the robot KN-124 (aka vacuum cleaner), draw an electric floor, an electric iron, a TV, a refrigerator. In the book "New Words" (Malysh, 1966), G.V. Sapgir concerns not only everyday life, but also technical innovations: plastic, raincoat, spacesuit, phototelegram, electronic machine (computer), carbonated water vending machines, portable and stationary radio on legs, etc. This edition was also designed by E.V. Bulatov. He highlights the figures of people, making them three-dimensional against the background of a flat object world.

In the 1960s, the space of illustrations increased. Artists expand the visual boundaries of storytelling. So G.A. Mazurin, M.S. Belomlinsky and T.A. Eremina directed their attention to the image of the entire apartment.  The main area of the interior space of everyday life remains a living room (less often a corridor). It occupies the entire composition of the sheet, the interaction between the hero and the objects is built. Illustrators depict not only individual household items, according to which the reader determines the location and plot, but also convey the dimensions of the apartment, work out the background. The design of the title page and the title page of the book "The Boy grew up" by the artist T.A. Eremina is indicative. 

However, there are almost no images of the kitchen in the illustrations. As an exception, one can cite the publication of E. Kahn "The Little Chess Player" with I. Borisov ("Physical Culture and Sport", 1959) and the works of illustrator T.A. Eremina in 1962, published in Detgiz ? "The Boy grew Up" by L. Galina and "Annushka" by N.D. Berezin. In the book "Annushka", on one of the page-by-page illustrations, the artist paints the kitchen environment. The wall is decorated with a crockery stand – a separate open shelf for dishes with a curtain (it can also be seen in the "Motley Pages" by V.V. Andrievich and I.L. Bruni (1958)), a lot of dishes themselves: an enameled cone-shaped teapot with a curly spout, a cup and a blue saucepan.

Since the 1950s. Tatyana Alekseevna Eremina worked for a long time in a children's book. Her illustrations clearly show the change of artistic eras in Soviet culture, and with them the interior items. So in "First Graders" by A.L. Barto (Detgiz, 1950), its design features a familiar student's table, next to a bed decorated with four balls.

Since the 1960s, a typical residential (room) cell has been tightly included in T.A. Eremina's children's books. The characteristic cushion-shaped armrests disappear from upholstered furniture. In "Rainbow Houses" (Detgiz, 1959) the artist is already depicting a light bed made of chipboard (chipboard). In the 1960s, the artist placed the characters in rooms against the background of chipboard furniture and conveyed their glossy texture and color. In terms of style and compositional solutions, her illustrations resemble drawings and photographs of typical interiors of that time. In N.D. Berezin's book "Annushka", one of the illustrations focuses on a wardrobe and a wooden baby bed on wheels, produced in Czechoslovakia since the 1950s. In "The Boy Grew Up", T.A. Eremina depicts the interior of a residential building on each page.

The artist continued to illustrate children's books in the 1970s and 80s. Her interest in everyday life has been preserved, and the drawings have become more detailed in detail.

Interior items – Soviet design

It is the furniture that is the most expressive element of everyday life, which is reflected by the change of epochs. Already in the large-format colorful edition of A.L. Barto's "The House has moved" (Detizdat of the Central Committee of the Komsomol, 1939) with K.P. Rotov's illustration, it is the furniture that becomes the main character of the illustrations. Heavy and large furniture sets made of natural wood, wardrobes and cupboards are transported and transferred to a new house, which is not yet equipped with central gas. People still use a primus stove, metal basins, buckets and a large samovar have not come out of everyday life. A massive cube-shaped stool and a table lamp with a removable double-layer glass shade look familiar.

Furniture as a marker of a living space is the main subject of book illustrations of the period under consideration. Its shape and proportions convey the characteristics of a typical interior of the time and determine the change of epochs. The most popular item in the illustrations of children's fiction of the 1940s and 1960s is a wooden square stool with additional slats for stability, linking time and epochs of Soviet everyday life. Stools with a round base appeared by the end of the 1960s (the poem "Leml and the Mouse" by E.A. Meshkov in the edition of L.M. Kvitko's poems "Lemele is in Charge" (1969); "Blue Katya" from the picture by P.N. Pinkisevich (Children's Literature, 1970)).

The symbol of the post-war period remains a sofa with a high back in a wooden frame. But A. Brey's edition of A.L. Barto's "Your Holiday" (1948) has a rare example in the illustration of a children's book – this is a small sofa with a back of a complicated shape, referring to the aesthetics of Art Deco in the Soviet interior.

The tradition of covering upholstered furniture with fabric to preserve the upholstery is still found in publications of the late 1940s - early 1950s. Sofas were more often covered (V.V. Mayakovsky with Fig. Pakhomova "What is good and what is bad" (L.: OGIZ, 1943), but there are also chairs in covers (Z.N. Alexandrovna "In our apartment", with fig. E.A. Afanasyeva (Ed. and f-ka det. Detgiz Books, 1949). Soon, this tradition will disappear from everyday culture and from illustrations.

All the attributes of the post-war era are collected in a black-and-white screensaver for the "Diary of Kolya Sinitsin" (ed. Detgiz books, 1950) with V.I. Ladyagin's picture, where the main character begins to write his summer diary in a room with all the attributes of everyday life in the middle of the XX century ? Viennese chairs, a sofa with a high back and a large heavy desk with side tables.

On the contrary, in the publication "About a blue basin, a grater and a needle and thread" by E.A. Zhukovskaya, in the design of T.A. Eremin (Detgiz, 1960), a residential space of the transition period is depicted, in which there are signs of a communal and separate apartment. By the beginning of the second post-war decade, such a phenomenon as plumbing had become entrenched in the household space of a Soviet citizen, but washing small children in a basin on a stool from a jug ("Let's get acquainted!", "Tales of Little Masha") remains a habit. The book "About the Blue Basin" shows a rare piece of bathroom interior from the middle of the century — a shower. Yu.I. Pimenov's "A Good Day" by S.Ya. Marshak (1941) depicts an interior with a recognizable snake battery.

Since 1956, specialized furniture exhibitions have been held in the USSR aimed at organizing the life of a Soviet person in the conditions of mass construction of standard residential buildings ^[12]. The old furniture did not fit, "because it was produced and sold as headsets for rooms with traditional, strictly defined functions: dining room, living room, study," and the new furniture was "suitable for the layouts of small-sized apartments in standard houses" ^{[13, p. 65]}. Almost every exhibition was accompanied by an album catalog of the presented items and furniture sets.

Immediately after the specialized furniture exhibitions, new models appear in the illustrations for the children's book. These are individual items first. For example, large sofas with a high wooden back are replaced by soft sofas with foam rubber (E.Ya. Ilyina "Katya had a birthday" with fig. P. Aseev (Detgiz, 1963)). This is "cabinet furniture, of a universally collapsible design, assembled from unified elements" ^{[14, p. 237]}, which do not form a single furniture composition according to the designers' idea. But there are publications where the artist strives to fully show the entire furniture set in different rooms ("The Boy grew up" from the picture by T.A. Eremin (Detgiz, 1962)).

Illustrator N. Bolshakova in the publication of A.L. Barto "Mashenka" (Detgiz, 1963) collects a small set of two sofa beds with thin chipboard sides, puts a high rectangular floor mirror and a small bedside table next to it. The interior is decorated with ceramic vases with dried flowers and a wall-mounted metal planter typical for this time. There is a set of children's furniture in yellow and blue colors, a wooden bed on rubber wheels, as well as a game set of furniture for a doll, consisting of a crib, a table, a chair with a round base and a multifunctional shelving. It is necessary to note the peculiarities of the stylistics of the drawing, which convey texture and colored ornaments on objects. They are becoming an important component in the organization of the interiors of new houses. A separate chapter is devoted to them in the review of the exhibition by N.D. Sobolevsky ^[13].

 By J. Baudrillard's reality moves away from the typical bourgeois interior, which is patriarchal in nature and fixated on two locations, when a person's life ceases to be limited only to the dining room and bedroom. In this case, "all the furniture here, different in its functions, but rigidly integrated into the system, tends to two central objects — a sideboard or a bed" ^{[15, p. 21]}. In the illustration of the late 1950s and 1960s, new types of furniture products appeared

A.K. Dezhurko in his article on furniture exhibitions writes: "These exhibitions played a key role in the "aesthetic turn" from classicism to modernism, which occurred at that time in Soviet architecture, applied arts and, in particular, in furniture design" ^{[12, p. 67]} The same words can be addressed aside book art, which quickly adopted these trends. It can be assumed that illustrators could use these exhibition albums in their work.

In the edition of M. Krsmanovich "Rainbow houses: A story about seven days and seven colors" (in short. retelling with Serb. G. Lukina and S. Mogilevskaya (Detgiz, 1959)) illustrator T.A. Eremina draws a light armchair with wooden curved armrests and narrow legs. Nearby, as an integral attribute, there is a floor lamp with a high paper lampshade of a truncated cone shape.

By 1958, three types of upholstered chairs were being manufactured in the Soviet Union: for sitting, relaxing and an armchair-bed. They met with a device that allows the backrest to be fixed at any angle, with a wooden frame and a skeleton made of nickel-plated metal pipes. In the specialized literature it was pointed out that "the artistic design of the front surfaces is of great importance <...> carving, inlay, etc. are used" ^{[16, p. 581]}.

In "The Boy grew Up" by L. Galina (1962) and N.D. Berezina "Annushka" (Detgiz, 1962), T.A. Eremina depicted an armchair with bent handles. In its shape, it is very similar to the Czech armchair with bent armrests and a backrest at a large angle from the factory of Eaton Sobeslav (designer Jaroslav Smidek). This model is most often found in illustrations of the 1960s. For this period, it is typical to depict furniture made of bent-sawn parts (this term is used in catalogues of specialized exhibitions of this period) as a "completely new method of furniture production" according to the catalog "New Furniture" (1958) ^[16]. For example, coffee tables with thin legs and a triangular tabletop appear (A.A. Kardashova with fig. N.I. Zeitlin "Our doctor (Detgiz, 1962); "Where are you from?" fig. T.A. Eremin (1964)). Such a model is found in the kit K58-116 of the Central Design Bureau of the Moscow City Council of Agriculture ^[14]. The same model is presented in the interior of the one-room apartment "Moskovsky" of the Central Design Bureau under the USSR State Construction Committee (1960). Art and everyday life ^[13].

In the publication "A Strange Gate" by E. Permyak with fig. P. Aseeva (Children's literature, 1962) and "The Boy grew up" (1962), etc. there are chairs with a trapezoidal king made of veneer (the upper connecting bar between the legs of tables, chairs), developed by the Central Design Bureau of the Ministry of Paper and Woodworking Industry of the RSFSR. Illustrator P. Aseev has a whole set of similar chairs painted in a thin book by E.Ya. Ilyin "Katya had a birthday" (1963). Children are happy to sit at a large table, on which a crystal vase on a leg with fruits is an integral part of the life of this time, but rarely depicted in illustrations.

Chairs attracted the attention of artists no less, probably, as an object that is in direct contact with the hero. If the stool is most often found in a single cube-shaped structure (as an exception, in separate drawings with a round base and two or three details and finished with "hiding" colors, as they wrote then), then the chairs have a variety of designs and outlines. In "Lemele is in Charge" (fig. E.A. Meshkov, 1969), two types are drawn, and in the publication of A.L. Barto "Your Holiday" (State Publishing House of Fiction, 1948), illustrator A. Bray showed a Viennese chair, a chair with a solid wooden back, a stool and two sets of children's toy furniture included in everyday life a Soviet child.

In general, this edition contains the most typical markers of the late 1950s and early 1960s. - bookshelves, not a closet, but an old carbonite lamp, an iron flat grater and a box of pencils, enameled dishes - a cone—shaped tall teapot, green pots and large kettles with a recognizable curly spout, similar to analogues from copper.

In the editions of the 1960s, the aesthetics of the times of the "thaw" is openly felt. The illustrated way of life includes new things. Increasingly, artists do not depict individual objects interacting with the characters, or small plot compositions (typical for the 1940s and 50s), there is a tendency to depict the interior as a whole. Parallels can be drawn with projects and photographs of typical interiors of small-sized apartments of this period. 2-3 large objects of the apartment space are introduced, which play an organizational function.

An example is the publications designed by M.S. Belomlinsky. In the following decades, artists began to detail compositions even more and include numerous objects in the interiors of Soviet apartments. In the publication of A.A. Kardashov's "Prickly Brothers" from the picture of M.I. Belomlinsky (Malysh, 1966) — an example of an image of a typical interior of the second half of the 1960s.

In the "Living Hat" by N.N. Nosov (Detgiz, 1962), the artist I.M. Semenov primarily paints what surrounds the residents of a large apartment in Stalinka, which has a soft large sofa with armrest cushions, a bedside table with a lamp with a high fabric shade, a dining table. Separate parts of the kitchen are visible with a gas stove, a round electric stove with an open spiral and a copper kettle like Faberge teapots from the First World War. In the work of I.M. Semenov, different epochs have united.

Another popular piece of furniture connecting different eras is a nickel?plated metal bed on wheels or less often without them for adults (S.Ya. Marshak with fig. V.M. Konashevich "That's how absent-minded (Detgiz, 1953). In the story illustrations about small children, it is complemented by a side metal mesh or a cotton cord mesh. It was attached to rods or pipes for the safety of the child (E.A. Blaginina "That's what a mother is" with fig. A.F. Bill (Ed. and f-ka det. Detgiz books, 1949), A.L. Barto with the picture of T.A. Eremina "The Younger Brother" (Detgiz, 1954), A.L. Barto "Masha" with the picture of M.I. Belsky (Detgiz, 1956)). In the publication by N.D. Berezina "Annushka" (Detgiz, 1962), the same T.A. Eremina depicts the waking main character on a wooden bed of a similar design. In G.A. Mazurin's "My Friend and I" by S.V. Mikhalkov (Children's Literature, 1965), the bed already appears with solid chipboard panels.

 T.A. Eremina in "Younger Brother" (1954), "Masha" by A.L. Barto with illustrations by M.I. Belsky (1956) and N. Bolshakova (1963) and in other publications, painted an interesting object – a children's transformer chair or a wheelchair, which was used for feeding (high version assembly) and as a chair with a table (low assembly option) and is made of lacquered beech. For a thin color picture book, the illustrator creates full-fledged genre compositions. In them, objects are inscribed into the space of everyday life. In the catalog of the Permanent Pavilion of the best samples of consumer goods of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce (1958) ^[16]. It is indicated that it refers to a small headset for preschoolers produced by Leningrad Factory No. 3 and Moscow Factory No. 7. It was created according to the projects of students of the Moscow Higher School of Art and Industry (B. Stroganov).

Central heating often becomes the center of the visual narrative of the 1960s, although the writers do not mention it in the text. Sometimes it is more important for an artist to show the subject itself as a phenomenon of time (A. Kardashova "Where are you from?" (Children's Literature, 1964) with the picture of T.A. Eremin, "Moidodyr" with the picture of Yu.N. Uzbyakova (1957)).

Updating the visual language in illustrations of works of the Early Soviet period

Publications of Soviet children's literature of the 1920s and 1930s with new illustrations are another interesting body of this study. In the works that have already become classics of Soviet literature, the artists included new markers of modernity, actualized visual images for the reader. The changes are more often related to clothing and urban space, but new household items are also being introduced.

Published for the first time in the Pioneer magazine (1935, No. 7), the poem "Uncle Stepa" by S.V. Mikhalkov was repeatedly republished in the middle of the 20th century in the design of various illustrators. D.A. Dubinsky (Detgiz, 1953) transfers history to a new time, depicts a sofa with a very high back, with cushions and green upholstery, on which Uncle Stepa sleeps and does not fit. At the Riga publishing house Latgosizdat (1951), the artist V. Kovalev sits in an upholstered armchair of square dimensions and dresses surrounded by a tall mirror and a bookshelf of very strict geometric shapes, reminiscent of chipboard furniture of the 1960s.

In K.I. Chukovsky's "Moidodyr", first published in 1921, there are many objects of everyday life. A.M. Kanevsky (State Publishing House of Children's Literature, 1963) still flies an iron on coals and a heavy cast-iron iron. The nickel-plated bed on wheels remains unchanged, but V.G. Suteev in the 1965 edition of the same "Children's Literature" draws an eclectic iron with a socket next to an iron on coals. Yu.N. Uzbyakova (Detgiz, 1957) has only electric and cast-iron irons.

The artist V.M. Konashevich turned three times to the design of S.Ya. Marshak's work "That's how absent-minded". In the third edition (Detgiz, 1953), he completely revised the style and figurative interpretation of the illustrations, paying more attention to everyday objects. For household items, it is difficult to say what period of time they belong to. Only clothes retain the signs of the fashion of the 1950s.

Illustrator E.A. Meshkov in L.M. Kvitko's book "Lemele runs the Place" (1969), written in the pre-war period, transfers the actions to the 1960s. Mom's dress and hairstyle, pieces of furniture (stools already have a round base), a refrigerator and other visual markers speak about the everyday culture of the mid-twentieth century. The same approach is used by G.A. Mazurin in S.V. Mikhalkov's book "My Friend and I" (Children's Literature, 1965), although the year of creation of the work is 1936.

Technical achievements of the era

Among the achievements of technology in the post-war period in the children's book, the pre-revolutionary Singer sewing machine with an openwork table remains unchanged and often found (Z.N. Alexandrovna "In our apartment", with fig. E.A. Afanasyeva (Ed. and f-ka det. Detgiz books, 1949), O.B. Rusanov's "Sisters" with ill. B. Kovalenko (Detgiz, 1953)).

The 1950s were characterized by the appearance of new types of lighting devices. Of the table lamps, two types become the main ones. A working carbolite desk lamp with a characteristic arc-shaped handle and the ability to change its position has become a symbol of the era and is associated with the desk of a party worker. In Kolya Sinitsin's Diary (Detgiz, 1950), she appears as an element of composition and as part of the interior in the screensavers and insets. In the collection of A.L. Barto "Flashlight", repeatedly reprinted since 1958 in ed. "Detgiz" (Children's literature), this device still occupies its place of honor on a large heavy table in the illustration by T.A. Eremina. In her drawing for the "Sink", one can guess the features of a rarely depicted living room table lamp made of marble with a spherical glass shade. This model is more common in photographs of library interiors.

A living room table lamp made of metal with decorative inserts, which has "not only a utilitarian value, but also a decorative one (for decorating rooms)" ^{[17, volume 4, p. 933]} often appears in black-and-white illustrations, but it is very difficult to determine the exact model of the lamp, since there were many options, and artists often simplified and generalized the image. Interestingly, in the edition of A.L. Barto's "Grandfather's Granddaughter" (1954) with an illustration by A.M. Kanevsky, a metal model with decorative inserts is depicted on the cover, and on the page of the book there is a table lamp with a trapezoidal fabric shade, similar to the lamp from the illustration by Yu. Uzbekova in "Moidodyr" by K. Chukovsky (Detgiz, 1957).

A brass chandelier made in the GDR (German Democratic Republic) with 3 and 5 open glass horns appears in the apartment space of the 1960s (V.Y. Dragunsky "Green Leopards" (Detsky Mir, 1963, fig. N. Kononov; N.N. Nosov "Dreamers" with fig. I.M. Semenova (Children's literature, 1964)). The spacious interior of the room in the image of A.M. Kanevsky in the publication of A.L. Barto "What's wrong with him?" (Children's literature, 1966) is decorated with a 5-horn chandelier with an additional lamp in the center.

G.A. Mazurin draws a floor lamp for the work "My Friend and I" by S.V. Mikhalkov (Children's Literature, 1965), which can be called a visual reflection of the "thaw" style. In its shape and arched leg, it is similar to the famous floor lamp bar. This type of lamp is now most often found in antique shops and online platforms selling old items. But in the shape of the lampshade, this interior item looks more like a floor lamp from the K58-115 set of the Central Design Bureau for Furniture of the Leningrad State Economic Council ^[16].

Of the major achievements of the era, the most depicted object of everyday culture was the radio receiver. In A.L. Barto "I live in Moscow" (Ed. and f-ka det. Detgiz books, 1949) with the illustration of A.M. Ermolaev, one of the poems is dedicated to this device, the poet repeatedly repeats his image on the pages of the book without reference to a specific model. But more often in the texts of the publications of the 1950s, radio is not mentioned yet, but in the illustrations the artists pay attention to technical innovations, for example, to a compact device that can be put on a shelf in the kitchen. Already in the edition by E.M. Emden "The School Year of Marina Petrova" with fig. N.I. Kalita (Detgiz, 1952), this device is barely included in the composition of the sheet, and A.L. Barto moved into the "House" with fig. K.P. Rotova (1939) the radio is taken out and is the center of the title page. It has large dimensions and two elements with a radio fabric.

Radio is gradually becoming an integral part of the daily life of a Soviet citizen (T.A. Yeremenina "The Younger Brother"; K.I. Chukovsky "Moidodyr" with ill Yu.N. Uzbyakova (Detgiz, 1957)). The models are difficult to identify, but lamp radios of the Riga State Electrotechnical Plant "VEF" are more often depicted. In A.L. Barto's edition "The House has moved" from V. Goryaev's illustration (Pravda, 1956), a 1955 model "Tourist" is drawn.

Television is almost not found in illustrations even in the 1960s. For the 1950s, this subject is an exceptional phenomenon. In B.V. Zahoder's book "On the Back Desk" (Detgiz, 1955), illustrator V.N. Losin included a KVN TV with a large lens in the room space. It is surrounded by a "green" lamp, a paperweight and the armrests-cushions of a sofa with a large back are visible - typical details of the Soviet interior of the mid-20th century.

V.V. Andrievich and I.L. Bruni anticipate future trends in the design of the book in the publication "Motley Pages" by A.L. Barto and R. Zelenaya (Detgiz, 1958). There is a separate story dedicated to the TV. Artists use the technique of photo collage and depict a family watching TV, but they do not draw the innovation of the time in detail, but only mark it with a silhouette. In "The Little Chess Player" by E. Kan ("Physical Education and Sports, 1959), I. Borisov shows a specific model of a TV set ? "Record", produced at the Elektrosignal plant (Voronezh) since the early 1950s.

In V. Zheleznikov's thin book "Blue Katya" from the picture by P.N. Pinkisevich (Children's Literature, 1970) about the heroine's move to a new apartment after her mother's marriage, the main attention on one of the turns is given to a TV on the legs of the Rubin factory with buttons located at the top.

Like a TV, a camera is also a luxury. He can be found on rare pages of books, for example, in the main character "Motley Pages" (1958). Also, the exception looks in a small illustration by G. Posin to N.N. Nosov "Vitya Maleev at school and at home" (Detgiz, 1953) the Soviet "magic lantern", that is, a special device for magnifying and projecting images.

It is almost impossible to find an image of a refrigerator on the pages of children's books, this is a rare thing in Soviet kitchens even in the 1960s. In the book by L.M. Kvitko, a famous Soviet writer of the first half of the 20th century, who wrote a lot in Yiddish, "Lemele is in charge" (Children's Literature, 1969) with illustrations by E.A. Meshkov, the hero is already in the kitchen in a separate apartment, from the window of which new buildings can be seen. The center of attention in the illustration was the refrigerator "ZIS-Moscow" with a rounded shape and a vertical lever handle, manufactured since 1951.

Artifacts of Soviet reality

The visual boundaries of everyday life in the children's illustrated book of the late 1940s and 1950s were determined by furniture, kitchen items, large-sized appliances (the first refrigerators and televisions, various brands of radios). The depiction of personal belongings and small interior items with a decorative function is more typical for the illustration of the 1960s. But there are exceptions.

In T.A. Eremina's "Younger Brother" by A.L. Barto (1954), the poem "Cap", the main character, the elder sister Svetlana, sews a cap for her brother against the background of a chest of drawers with 4 drawers and flat horizontal hanging handles. There is a large oval table mirror on it, a vase with flowers of the same shape, and a bottle of perfume. The furniture also includes a stool typical of the era and a small high chair with a flat back. The composition is completed in the foreground by large tailor's scissors.

Hygiene products appear in illustrations from the personal belongings of a Soviet citizen, which are rarely depicted by artists. In Moidodyr (1965), V.G. Suteev depicts on the title page a toothpaste that appeared in the USSR in 1950.

An interesting improvised still life by Yu. Pimenov in the "Good Day" by S.Ya. Marshak (1941), consisting of a tall enameled blue teapot, a wicker deep plate for homemade baking, porcelain cups on saucers and a small scarlet cup next to it, a glass bottle of dairy products with a lid and a tall glass in which there are red carnations.  This is a rare example of such an artist's attention to interior items in children's books.

In the illustrations of the 1940s and 1960s, a group of small objects can be distinguished that make everyday life convenient. A bright and unchangeable marker of Soviet culture was a detachable calendar: small in size (the author's book by V.G. Suteev "The Christmas Tree" (Soviet Russia, (1963)) and, characteristic of the 1940s and 1950s, large-format with a special illustrated wall mount (A.L. Barto "Your Holiday" (State Publishing House of Fiction, 1948) with fig. A. Bray)).

A pen and a porcelain inkwell in the form of a truncated pyramid are a mandatory subject in illustrations for works about schoolchildren ("Motley Pages" (1958). In the drawing for the poem "The Clock is Striking" by Irina Snegova's book of the same name (Moscow: Detsky Mir, 1962), you can see a round alarm clock in 1953 of the 2nd Slava Watch factory (Moscow) with a characteristic round bell at the top and small legs. The other three watch devices are difficult to attribute. Suppose one of them is a collective image of a large wall clock with a bell of the Yantar company and the Oryol Watch Factory with a large (uncharacteristic due to its size) glass door, while the other is a table clock of the Stalinist Empire era from some university apartment with side panels and an additional hole under the dial.

Another frequently encountered object in the illustrations of the 1940s and 1950s, not mentioned in the text, is a cube-shaped bird cage with an upper attachment for hanging. In the following decade, it became less popular, and it is very rarely found in illustrated publications (Krsmanovich M. "Rainbow Houses: A story about seven days and seven colors", ill. T.A. Eremina (1959); S.V. Mikhalkov with ill. G.A. Mazurin "My friend and I" (Children's literature, 1965). Next to the popularity and function in the daily life of a child, we will put a rectangular glass aquarium (O.B. Rusanova "Sisters" with fig. B. Kovalenko (Detgiz, 1953)).

During the period of mass resettlement of Soviet people from communal apartments to separate apartments, the suitcase becomes an important marker of the era. P.N. Pinkisevich in the illustrations of V.K. Zheleznikov's work "Blue Katya" (1970) depicts a suitcase made of fiber, durable pressed cardboard, and with metal corners for safety, but leaves more familiar bales in canvas covers, tied with a belt.

Of the kitchen items of the late 1940s and 1950s, rectangular copper kettles with a characteristic flat handle, resembling a Faberge teapot from the time of the First World War, are familiar things. In later editions, enameled teapots with a round bottom appear. You will not find kerosene lamps and kerosene stoves at all, but gas stoves are becoming an integral part of Soviet kitchens. You can also find electric tiles with open spirals and beautiful curved legs ("The Living Hat" with I.M. Semenov (1962), E.V. Serova "The Sun in the House" with O.B. Bogaevskaya (Children's Literature, 1963).

Since the late 1950s, metal dishes with an enameled coating have appeared next to copper kettles, and a cast-iron duck coop (Ya. Akim "Neumeika" (Detgiz, 1955)). A large number of tableware is an indicator of the prosperity of a Soviet person when it stands in stacks or on a set table (i.e. Kan "The Little Chess Player" ("Physical Culture and Sports, 1959) with ill. I. Borisov; S.Ya. Marshak "A good day" with ill. Yu.I. Pimenov (Detizdat of the Komsomol Central Committee, 1941)).

The child's world is in his personal belongings

A significant part of the subjects is related to the daily world of the child. First of all, these are plush and wooden toys, later plastic constructors for different ages. A recognizable toy of the era is a horse on a base with wheels. Interestingly, in the editions of the 1950s, it has a large size that allows a child to try on the role of a rider. In the illustrations of the late 1950s and 1960s, the toy becomes small and on a string. In "Neumeika" (Detgiz, 1955) by Y. Akim, the artist A. Bubnova, in addition to a horse on wheels, presents a green truck, a bundle, a multicolored pyramid, soldiers from the usual toys.

The world of toys in the children's book of the 1940s and 1960s is widely represented. A teddy bear and a bunny, a bundle, a multicolored pyramid are still vivid examples of the daily life of a child of this period. In "The Giant" by S.Ya. Marshak (Detgiz, 1950), V.V. Lebedev draws in great detail and conveys the texture of the materials of the favorite toys of a Soviet child in the middle of the XX century. He is supported by V.M. Konashevich in the collection of poems "Toys" (according to the edition of ed. "Children's Literature", 1964). The same edition contains familiar illustrations by T.A. Eremina for "The Younger Brother" and other poems. In them, the author draws toy furniture for children, green metal and wicker strollers for dolls, a small folding chair.

In the edition by E.A. Blaginina "That's what a Mother is" with A.F. Bill (1949), a small crib or individual objects in S.Ya. Marshak's "Mustachioed Striped" with V.V. Lebedev (Detgiz, 1955) and in "Masha and her Friends" by A.L. Barto (Detgiz, 1956) they are replaced by whole sets (Yu. Sinitsyn "The Master Miracle Worker" with fig. P.P. Aseeva (Children's Literature, 1965), A.L. Barto "Mashenka" with fig. N. Bolshakova (1963). It can be argued that since the second half of the 1950s, as in everyday culture, the illustration includes toy furniture for children.

Images of baby strollers often appear on the pages of the publications under study. In the already mentioned book "The Younger Brother", illustrator T.A. Eremina (1954) depicts two popular models of the so-called low-slung strollers at that time. One of them was shaped like a box and was slightly raised from the floor. The "Trade Dictionary" (Volume III, 1957) contains a similar model, but for twins.

The second model in the illustration by T.A. Eremina is the DK-3 stroller. She was one of the desired purchases for young families of that time. Because of its special appearance, it was informally called "Victory" and "Rocket". This type of stroller was brought from the GDR and adapted for the Soviet consumer. The Dubna Machine-Building Plant (DMZ) or in the vernacular "box", a closed military enterprise, plant No. 256 (mailbox No. 6) in the village of Ivankovo (in the future Dubna) was engaged in production.

The DC-type stroller had a movable backrest with a change in the angle of inclination, a warm envelope, and a sun shield. The DK-3 model received an industrial scale of a more simplified design without the above characteristics, but it was equipped with removable skids for use in winter on snow. It was insulated with batting, equipped with a hood and a fastening apron ^{[17, volume 3, pp. 938-940]}. The same model existed in a toy version. The wheels were hidden inside a rounded body that barely rose from the ground, unlike the rectangular cradle of the second model. The strollers were made of steel and duralumin pipes and had a streamlined shape.

In addition to the DK-3 model, illustrator G.A. Mazurin in A.L. Barto's book "Vovka is a kind soul" (Children's Literature, 1962) depicted strollers of the OZID type and with a table. They had shock-absorbing devices that ensure smooth running, and an adjustable tilt level. The publication also features a tricycle for older children with an enlarged front wheel. It is a rare vehicle of that time in an illustrated book.

Conclusion. The subject world in children's book illustration – the experience of classification

Significant changes took place in the artistic design of children's books in the second half of the 1940s and 1960s, due to a change in artistic styles, the revival of the color illustrated book and the publishing infrastructure as a whole. Significant improvements in print quality and the revival of a large-format book with color illustrations in the 1960s allowed artists to create a more diverse world of Soviet everyday life, in which the color and decor of surrounding objects began to play an important role.

In addition, book illustrations have expanded the possibilities for representing new markers of everyday life – new interior design, art industry products, and technical innovations. The study of these markers today allows us to imagine how the lifestyle and material environment of a Soviet person of the post–war twenties changed - both an adult and a child.

Thus, the changes that occurred in Soviet everyday culture over the two post-war decades, associated with the relocation of citizens from communal apartments to separate apartments, are clearly visible in the illustrative graphics of the designated period. This expansion of the external world around the hero - the illustrator artist refers not only to the small space around the person, to that small area that can be called personal, but there is a transition to the image of one living room completely and several rooms of a separate apartment (hallway, sometimes even a child's private room).

The study of the corpus of books makes it possible to identify the main groups of depicted objects, the totality of which gives grounds to speak about the preliminary classification of elements of everyday culture in the illustration of children's publications.

In the children's illustrated book, the objects of everyday culture are more often furniture (bed, sofas, stool and chairs), lamps (chandelier and table lamp, later – floor lamp), basic household items (metal kettles, basins, plates).

Small household items are of little interest to artists at first. So, for example, if it is necessary to show the hero at a desk, then illustrators are limited to the image of a desk clock or an inkwell. By the 1960s, there was a clear tendency to detail everyday life. Vases, table mirrors, books, scissors or personal hygiene items, and other necessary items in the house began to appear more on the pages of children's books.

At the end of the 1950s, objects stylistically associated with a new historical period appeared in the children's book - the era of the thaw (light and sophisticated furniture, Czech chandeliers), and technical achievements of the Soviet industry (vacuum cleaner, TV, radio, etc.). Immediately after the specialized exhibitions devoted to interior design in the USSR 1957-1958., and the release of illustrated catalogs with furniture sets, new interiors appear on the pages of children's books. Individual elements of sets are more common, but complete sets are also found.

Thus, general changes in the cultural order (economic structure, urban population growth, new practices of organizing routine and recreational practices) determined their reflection in publications for children, the plot of which was associated with the description of certain events in the life of the young hero. The objects selected by the illustrators quite fully reflect the changes in home space, personal belongings and novelties in the field of Soviet technical aesthetics and design.