PARENTING AND IMAGES OF CHILDREN IN A. P. SUMAROKOV’S PARABLES

Abstract

Pedagogical and philosophical treatises by Western European scholars made their way to Russia in the 1760s via Russian translations and drew the attention of the Russian society to childhood as an important formative stage of the human self. According to the Russian writers, the fable, as a genre targeting people of all ages, acquired a major educational potential at the time. Re-working the fables by the Ancient and Western European authors who used children for their characters, Sumarokov replanted the events into the domestic soil, modifi ed the images of children, added emotional interpretation. In the fables based on his own stories, Sumarokov described the behavior, feelings and emotions of children in various situations, their search for self-affirmation and attempts to stand up for themselves in critical situations. The stories are permeated by the author’s spirit and empathy. Sumarokov’s literary work contributed to the awareness of the specific nature of childhood, its inherent value, and to the emergence of child-oriented and child-depicting fi ction in Russia.