{"id":96,"date":"2020-07-06T19:22:57","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T19:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/soviet\/?post_type=book&p=96"},"modified":"2021-04-30T01:38:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-30T01:38:44","slug":"two-brothers","status":"publish","type":"book","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/book\/two-brothers\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Brothers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>was published in 1925 by the state-owned Raduga publishing house in Moscow and depicts many of the prevalent cultural phenomena of the early Soviet state. The book was authored by Mikhail Andreev, a Soviet ethnographer, author, and educator. He initially taught at the Hudjand parochial school, and later became more interested in research and ethnographic studies; his first academic works were published in the 1890s. He traveled throughout Central Asia as a researcher, and temporarily assumed diplomatic roles on behalf of the state. Andreev began teaching permanently in 1947 at the Institute of History, Language, and Literature at the Academy of Sciences and made many contributions to the Soviet academic landscape. Though most of his works were intellectual, Andreev published several children\u2019s books in the 1920s, taking inspiration from traditional folklore while also emphasizing the ideology of the new Soviet state. <\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>was illustrated by Vladislav Tvardovsky, a Soviet animator and director who is best known for his animated films. <\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>is a story of two brothers, Radio and Electric Current, who both contribute to the technological advancement of the Soviet state. Each page of the book describes a new type of technology to be celebrated. Each image shows a new unique technology, such as radio cables, rocket ships, or electric trollies. The book concludes with a tribute to the two anthropomorphized brothers, who make all technological progress possible. The publication of <\/span>Dva Brata<\/span><\/i> came during an evolutionary period for the Soviet Union, and its contents reflect the widespread cultural and political changes that were occurring in 1925.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>includes many of the features that were common to children\u2019s literature of the time period. Soviet children\u2019s literature was employed as an educational tool for children and often embodied the ideology of the state and reflected significant elements of Soviet culture. Children\u2019s literature of the 1920s often included depictions of the Civil War, rapid technological advancement, animals and nature, and more general tales of socialist heroes. Science fiction emerged as a popular genre in Soviet children\u2019s literature, and it was common for books to feature depictions of exciting machines such as planes and telegraphs, instead of more traditional religious or folkloric elements. Many published works sought to inspire helpfulness and appreciation for labor in children, in accordance with the values of communism and the state.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>itself is not a complex story, and the pages list important technologies in rhyming verses. The images offer distinct depictions of pieces of new technology and follow no particular order. Each image could be taken on its own, without necessary context from the previous section. Instead of a more formal plot, the story instead acts as a celebration of individual and unrelated technologies, motivating children to pursue industry and innovation in their adult lives. It also includes an element of fantasy, as some of the machines portrayed were not yet created and instead represent aspirations for the utopian future. Although the plot is relatively simplistic, the book addresses an overwhelming number of cultural and political phenomena of the 1920s.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most obvious theme of the book is technology, which reflects a wider cultural obsession with industry and development. <\/span>Dva Brata<\/span><\/i> was published in the midst of Lenin\u2019s ambitious electrification campaign and the transformation of many elements of Soviet culture. The GOELRO plan, an early Soviet electrification scheme, was meant to unite the city and the countryside and revitalize the nation.\u00a0 There was a wide scale effort to expand technological networks and bolster communication, transportation, and quality of life. In addition to the sweeping boost in infrastructure, electrification became a cultural and political phenomenon, and was integral for the validation of the Soviet state. Soviet leadership understood the propagandistic merit of electrification, and the massive technological progress of the 1920s became ingrained in the culture of the state. Communism became synonymous with technological advancement.<\/span><\/p>\n

In line with the general enthusiasm for technological progress in the 1920s, there was also an enthusiasm for space travel, although the space race had not yet become an integral part of social and political life. By 1903, rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovskii had theorized with solid mathematical grounding that space travel was possible. His work later became a cultural obsession that was exacerbated by the general fixation on futuristic utopias and the advent of modern technology. Russian Cosmism, a movement that examined the transformation of the relationship between humanity and the universe, was popularized by the scientific developments of the early 20<\/span>th<\/span> century. Soviet citizens also organized cosmic societies, which were not state-sponsored, but helped cultivate the public\u2019s opinion of the purpose of technology. Space enthusiasts saw exploration of the cosmos as the final pillar of technological advancement. <\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>explores this sensation through depictions of space travel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The technological progress of the early 20th century was coupled with a wide-scale cultural transformation, which included the elimination of the deeply ingrained influence of the Russian Orthodox Church. The early Soviet state looked to the nation\u2019s religious institutions with animosity and worked to eradicate the influence of the Church through anti-religious campaigns and legislation. Physical churches were seen as counterrevolutionary holdouts and presented an immediate threat to the young socialist state. It was common to see churches desecrated in many major cities, but ultimately many Moscow and Leningrad churches were not demolished. Many of these buildings were repurposed to fit the needs of the state, often undergoing many exterior changes so that they were no longer reminiscent of religious practice. <\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>takes on this cultural phenomenon directly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>also showcases Soviet depictions of foreign nations, which were more unsophisticated in the early 20<\/span>th<\/span> century. The Soviets vehemently objected to American racism, and Soviet authorities used propaganda to promote the notion of Soviet racial equality, which was also meant to directly target the failures of the United States. Pro-Soviet propaganda could be supplemented with images of violent American lynchings in the interest of proving that the Soviet Union was the pinnacle of racial equality. However, early Soviet artwork demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of race and racism in the USSR. Propaganda sometimes included racist caricatures in the early Soviet period. It was not uncommon for depictions of Africans or Black Americans to include large red lips, black skin, and overexaggerated features, very similar to the American minstrel caricature. <\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>provides an example of such characterizations of foreigners and the use of minstrelsy in Soviet illustration.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Dva Brata <\/span><\/i>explores a wide range of Soviet cultural events in the 1920s through a rhyming story of two brothers, the Radio and the Electric Current. The book exemplifies common tropes of Soviet children\u2019s literature, such as fantasy and technological development, while also being highly indicative of the extensive Soviet cultural landscape. It pays tribute to the feats of modern technology, inspiring an appreciation for the state and its industrial progress in Soviet children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Georgia Nabors, Katie Heinzer, & Cole Sandvold<\/span><\/p>\n

SLA 221 (2021)<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Banerjee, Anindita. \u201cElectricity: Science Fiction and Modernity in Early Twentieth-Century Russia.\u201d <\/span>Science Fiction Studies, <\/span><\/i>Vol. 30, No. 1, 2003, pp. 49-71.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bociurkiw, Bohdan R. \u201cChurch and State in the Soviet Union.\u201d <\/span>International Journal, <\/span><\/i>Vol. 14, No. 3, 1959, pp. 182-189.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coopersmith, Jonathan. <\/span>The Electrification of Russia, 1880-1926. <\/span><\/i>Ithaca, Cornell University Press.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dobrenko, Evgeny. \u201cThe Entire Real World of Children\u201d: The School Tale and \u201cOur Happy Childhood.\u201d <\/span>The Slavic and East European Journal, <\/span><\/i>Vol. 49, No. 2, 2005, pp. 225-248.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dunphy, Alexander M. <\/span>Black and White and Red All Over: Communist Editorial Cartoons in the 1920s and the Issue of Race. <\/span><\/i>MA Thesis, Columbia University, 2016.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelly, Catriona. <\/span>Socialist Churches. <\/span><\/i>Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kojevnikov, Alexei. <\/span>Into the Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture. <\/span><\/i>University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roman, Meredith, \u201cRacism in a \u201cRaceless\u201d Society: The Soviet Press and Representations of American Racial Violence in Stalingrad in 1930.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRussian Animation in Letters and Figures: Tvardovsky, Vladislav S.\u201d Animator.ru. Accessed April 23, 2021. https:\/\/animator.ru\/db\/?ver=eng&p=show_person&pid=2932.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Siddiqi, Asif A. \u201cUtopians, Mystics, and the Popular Culture of Revolutionary Russia.\u201d <\/span>Orisis, <\/span><\/i>Vol. 23, No. 2, 2008, pp. 260-288.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sayankov, Saynak. <\/span>M.S. Andreev in Historical Perspective: Review of Tadzhiki doliny Huf. <\/span><\/i>2009. University of Central Asia. Phd Dissertation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dva Brata was published in 1925 by the state-owned Raduga publishing house in Moscow and depicts many of the prevalent cultural phenomena of the early Soviet state. The book was authored by Mikhail Andreev, a Soviet ethnographer, author, and educator. He initially taught at the Hudjand parochial school, and later became more interested in research […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","publisher":[20],"bookauthor":[75],"artist":[71],"class_list":["post-96","book","type-book","status-publish","hentry","publisher-raduga","bookauthor-andreev-mikhail","artist-tvardovskii-v-vladislav"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/book"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/book"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"bookauthor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bookauthor?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/soviet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}