From Stage to Page and Back Again: Remediating Petrushka in Early Soviet Children's Culture

MEGHANNE BARKER

doi:10.1111/russ.12318

From Stage to Page and Back Again: Remediating Petrushka in Early Soviet Children's Culture

The Russian Review ◽

10.1111/russ.12318 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 80 (3) ◽

pp. 375-401

Author(s):

MEGHANNE BARKER

Keyword(s):

Children's Culture

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The Alluring Nature of Children's Culture: Fairy Tales, the Carnival and the World Wide Web

International Research in Children s Literature ◽

10.3366/ircl.2015.0166 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 169-184

Author(s):

Željka Flegar

Keyword(s):

Children's Literature ◽

Fairy Tales ◽

Fairy Tale ◽

Mikhail Bakhtin ◽

Children’S Literature ◽

Social Construct ◽

Time Out ◽

The Social ◽

Children's Culture ◽

Language And Ideology

This article discusses the implied ‘vulgarity’ and playfulness of children's literature within the broader concept of the carnivalesque as defined by Mikhail Bakhtin in Rabelais and His World (1965) and further contextualised by John Stephens in Language and Ideology in Children's Fiction (1992). Carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales are examined by situating them within Cristina Bacchilega's contemporary construct of the ‘fairy-tale web’, focusing on the arenas of parody and intertextuality for the purpose of detecting crucial changes in children's culture in relation to the social construct and ideology of adulthood from the Golden Age of children's literature onward. The analysis is primarily concerned with Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes (1982) and J. K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007/2008) as representative examples of the historically conditioned empowerment of the child consumer. Marked by ambivalent laughter, mockery and the degradation of ‘high culture’, the interrogative, subversive and ‘time out’ nature of the carnivalesque adaptations of fairy tales reveals the striking allure of contemporary children's culture, which not only accommodates children's needs and preferences, but also is evidently desirable to everybody.

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