Engineers of Soviet Souls: The Problem of Arkadij Gajdar Ann Komaromi

Soviet writers were, as Stalin said, engineers of the soul, and this applied doubly to Soviet children's writers. Children's literature in the Soviet Union received significant attention as the Party tried to find ways to properly educate Soviet children according to the tenets of Socialist Realism and to prepare this new generation to inherit the bright future in store for them. As Lidija Ginzburg and others have noted, however, many established writers turned to children's literature not only out of civic altruism, but also out of self-preservation: children's literature offered a safer, freer venue for their talents. In the works of these authors, readers sometimes found double-voicedness or aesopian criticism: Kornej &Chachek;ukovskij's Tarakani&shachek;&chachek;e is one famous example. Lev Loseff also treated Evgenij &Shachek;varc's Drakon in this vein. Arkadij Gajdar constitutes an original example of a Soviet writer for children. A former Red Army officer, Gajder willingly carried the Soviet struggle off the battlefield and to the writing desk. Aside from war correspondence, he wrote exclusively for children, penning, not without talent, inspiring tales of correct Soviet moral development based on his own biography. In contrast to the traditional view of Gajdar as a model Soviet writer, Marietta &Chachek;udakova explored in detail evidence of double-voicedness in Gajdar's later tale Sud&soft;ba baraban&soft;&shachek;&chachek;ika (The Fate of a Drummer Boy). Indeed, a comparison of the relatively flat Soviet propaganda of an early work like &Shachek;kola with the complexity of Sud&soft;ba baraban&soft;&shachek;&chachek;ika suggests that Gajdar's conception of his responsibility to young readers changed and became more problematic in the context of Party control. In contrast to the underground messages found in &Shachek;varc and &Chachek;ukovskij, which are of an ideological and political nature more easily read by adults, Gajdar's hidden meaning is still directed specifically at children. In several ways,Sud&soft;ba baraban&soft;&shachek;&chachek;ika polemicizes with the ethos of Pavlik Morozov and, arguably, addresses the confusion and alienation felt by children of compromised parents. In this way, Gajdar remained, even as a problematic writer, a writer for Soviet children.