Revisiting the Historical Trend of Educational Stratification in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

This article investigates the perceived image of English-language children's literature in Soviet Russia. Framed by Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Bourdieu's philosophy of action, the discussion takes into account the ideological constraints of the practice of translation and the manipulation of texts. Several factors involved in creating the perceived character of a body of literature are identified, such as the requirements of socialist realism, publishing practices in the Soviet Union, the tradition of free translation and accessibility in the translation of children's literature. This study explores these factors and, with reference to selected examples, illustrates how the political and sociological climate of translation in the Soviet Union influenced the translation practices and the field of translated children's literature, creating a particular image of English-language children's literature in (Soviet) Russia.

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‘A Country Beyond the Pleasure Principle’: Alexander Luria, Death Drive and Dialectic in Soviet Russia, 1917–1930

Psychoanalysis and History ◽

10.3366/pah.2016.0187 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 155-182 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hannah Proctor

Keyword(s):

Social Transformation ◽

Psychological Research ◽

October Revolution ◽

Death Drive ◽

Pleasure Principle ◽

Research Findings ◽

Lev Vygotsky ◽

Soviet Russia

Alexander Luria played a prominent role in the psychoanalytic community that flourished briefly in Soviet Russia in the decade following the 1917 October Revolution. In 1925 he co-wrote an introduction to Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle with Lev Vygotsky, which argued that the conservatism of the instincts that Freud described might be overcome through the kind of radical social transformation then taking place in Russia. In attempting to bypass the backward looking aspects of Freud's theory, however, Luria and Vygotsky also did away with the tension between Eros and the death drive; precisely the element of Freud's essay they praised for being ‘dialectical’. This article theoretically unpicks Luria and Vygotsky's critique of psychoanalysis. It concludes by considering their optimistic ideological argument against the death drive with Luria's contemporaneous psychological research findings, proposing that Freud's ostensibly conservative theory may not have been as antithetical to revolutionary goals as Luria and Vygotsky assumed.

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