Childhood in the memoirs of Russian female historians of the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries

The present paper studies ego-documents of Russian female historians written in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th centuries, with a focus on the works of N.I. Gagen-Thorn, E.V. Gutnova, M.M. Levis, V.N. Kharuzina, S.V. Zhitomirskaya, E.N. Shchepkina, and N.D. Flittner. How do these authors, in their childhood descriptions, discuss their professional choices? By producing ego-documents, the female historians wanted to preserve their memory of childhood events in the form of a new historical source. In so doing they followed the principles that they also adhered to when wri- ting historical essays. At the same time their texts are very subjective: each reflects the respective researcher's personal experiences. Each text is unique, and there are few overlaps with the memoirs of other female historians of their time, or with those of younger colleagues. In many ways, the women were influenced by authors of the Russian memoirist tradition; they often adhered to self-censorship (even when there was no clear ideological pressure from society). As a result, the narrative about childhood turned into a narrative about the prerequisites for the self-identification of women as scientists. Memories became a form of self-representation, and this conditioned the selective nature of childhood narratives; later success in the profession was projected back onto childhood memories. The childhood narratives of Russian female historians differ from texts of their male colleagues: women preferred to describe their impressions with references to material artifacts and to everyday rituals, writing carefully about their emotional experiences. One of the most important subjects in these womens memoirs and diaries was when they for the first time experienced the gender conflict in their lives: when they understood that their scholarly ambition runs against the common attitudes about gender attitudes that they had internalized in early childhood.

What counts and matters in early childhood: Narratives of interests and outcomes

Evidence of outcomes of the early years is highly dependent on what is considered as an outcome, the curriculum and relationships children experience, and the research designs and methods used to ascertain the value of early childhood education. This article reports from an original study in New Zealand that used narrative inquiry to interview young adults about their interests as children, ways these interests were stimulated and responded to, and the trajectory and outcomes of the interest in their lives-to-date. The findings suggest that interests provided sources of motivation, achievement, enjoyment and satisfaction in their lives, sustained the participants during difficult times, and led to a range of outcomes. This article argues that the evidence base for early childhood education needs to incorporate a broader view of what counts as outcomes and considers children’s interests thoughtfully as part of what matters. It also needs to include qualitative methodologies in studies seeking evidence of outcomes to enable the richness of human life experience and the social and cultural contexts of children’s upbringings to be captured.

Childhood in context of history

The paper focuses on the problem of a childhood immersed in history based on Serhiy Zhadan’s “Boarding School” (“Internat”) and V. Rafeienko’s “Long Days” (“Dovhi dni”), with references to the memories of those who took part in the revolution of dignity collected by Natalia Huk. In traditional literary texts, the image of childhood was typically utopian. In the analyzed works, the presented world of a child is often not perfect. We rather deal with the category of exile from paradise, and often from the area of child naivety. The young protagonist is forced to confront an alien, brutal world. According to Foucault, “his-tory is a discourse of power”. In these works, the political games and temptation to dominate the world are the phenomena that cause consequences having an impact on the youngest ones. So what is childhood like in the texts covering war and revolution? The authors use child memories as a kind of background against which they can show the present day of their protagonists. It may be an important point of reference, something that accompanies the person until the old age. Childhood narratives are the element that writers use for constructing images of the future, they are a component of internal metanarration guiding the protagonists in the world. In retrospect, the characters begin to perceive childhood as accumulated experiences of various interaction types, the knowledge that even years later shapes their perception of the world. Besides, it brings them closer to the people with whom some kind of memories may be shared. It creates a community. The experience of childhood is shaped by a narrative common to the group regarding it as a norm. In opposition to the oficial history, the authors put the protagonists’ memory first, which is a kind of compass helping them to orient themselves in the ever-changing and not always understandable reality.

A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Childhood Narratives and the Construction of Gender Identity: A Sociocultural Perspective

This paper recognizes various concepts about gender identity in early childhood narratives by analyzing memories and stories expressed by men and women participating in this study. Such analyses assert the fact that cultural norms’ influence on gender identity is a very complex process. Linguistic ethnography (LE) researchers have always considered language as a starting point that leads to the study of the interactions between cultural, social norms, and language. This paper is placing a noticeable emphasis on detailed analyses of recorded data of interactions as primary source for displaying and constructing gender identities via social norms differences or similarities. This study emphasizes the effect of cultural differences and how they are placed at the center of other social processes involving gender identities and cultural outcome through daily interactions. Knowledge of the concept of social reality across different fields will eventually lead to key answers of questions about how this reality is constructed, reproduced, and manifested in various social, historical, political, and socio-economic settings. This paper manifests the definition of LE which is a field that is recognized by combining both ethnography and linguistic characteristics, where ethnography lies within the researcher’s attempt to analyze communicative practices within the social norms of a particular community. Through participants’ voices, events and views, their gender identity is perceived and constructed.

Postmodern Children and The Cement Garden of Ian McEwan

Postmodern childhood narratives often explore disturbing themes, break social conventions and taboos. In order to comment on this kind of representation, this study will introduce Ian McEwan’s controversial novel The Cement Garden (1978), the story of four children who, in the middle of a particularly hot summer, find themselves orphaned. The novel narrated by fourteen-year-old Jack explores such themes as sexuality, incest, death, the struggles of coming of age, isolation, gender roles and parent-child relationships.

THE PEASANT WORLD IN THE PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SHORT STORIES BY IVAN KASATKIN

The article examines the pre-revolutionary small prose of Ivan Kasatkin. It explores the social and moral dimensions of his stories, the individual features of his depiction of the life of Kostroma peasants in the turbulent years before the Russian Revolution of 1917. Ivan Kasatkin, a peasant born himself, offers an unprejudiced, realistic view of Kostroma fellas at the time, of their complex and contradictory world in all its entirety. In his opinion, the inertness and cruelty of male peasants has social roots, as this is the period when a fella is forced to live the life of a destitute, deprived of basic human rights and utterly humiliated. In this way, Ivan Kasatkin follows in the footsteps of his predecessors, known as Democrat-Writers, such as Nikolai Uspensky, Vasily Sleptsov, Alexander Levitov, as well as his contemporaries, such as Ivan Bunin. At the same time, he makes his own unique contribution to the artistic study of the plight of peasants. He believes, for example, in the feasibility of revolutionary rejuvenescence of life, he believes in peasant happiness. Above all, socially acute stipulations of change are manifest in his childhood narratives. The article focuses on the compositional features of the stories, namely, the use of the road motif, the use of contrast in the portrayal of people and nature, the use of symbolic imagery of forest and the Unzha River. The author argues that Ivan Kasatkin’s artistic approach, his poetics, enable him to convey the intensely poignant and morose atmosphere of living in rural central Russia on the eve of the Revolution, while pointing out the instinctive yearning of male peasants for the new, invigorating beginnings of life.

Aging in Place: Changing Socio-ecology and the Power of Kinship on Smith Island, Maryland

This article examines how the people known as Smith Islanders interact with their environment over the life-course. The purpose of the study is to contribute to a better understanding of aging in a small, rural, coastal community which changes are environmentally driven. To address the aging process in changing environments in this essay, I explore the relationship between the place, sense of self, and knowledge. Because the majority of people on the island today are in late life, the main threads in the fabric of this ethnographic narrative weave themselves into stories about aging experiences. I focus on males’ experiences, their traditional knowledge, and the role of kinship over their life-courses. The life history narratives of a Smith Island waterman known as Eddie Boy, discusses two elements present in both his childhood narratives and his late adulthood: work and kinship. I show how changing socio-ecology has altered the potential for intergenerational relations, which older islanders cherish, and how such changes in late life pose a new aging dilemma for current Smith Islanders.