The October Revolution in 1917 profoundly shocked the cultural ecosystem. The new authorities recast notions of freedom, of the arts, and of the public. Links between and among audiences at different levels that had thrived in the prerevolutionary cultural market were dismantled. Over time the government imposed strictures on culture requiring alignment with political directives. By 1934, the official policy of Socialist Realism was mandatory and compliance enforced by rewards and terror. The early years of revolutionary ferment yielded aesthetic innovation of the highest order, yet the mounting pressures took their toll on creativity. Writers, artists, and performers responded variously. Some took cover in works employing irony and in the (somewhat) safer terrain of children’s literature. By seeding children’s literature with values counter to those practiced by Soviet officialdom, selected writers and artists spread counter-values to a new generation. They worked with the guile of the fox, the flight of the firebird, and, perhaps, the recklessness of the Fool. By keeping alive Russian stories of wise Fools, sentient animals, and magical powers, their creators carried forward folkloric traditions barred from the reigning Socialist Realism. In doing so, they protected limited public space for artistic innovation.

Irony refers to a use of language in which the actual import of words is different from their literal meaning, or in which a work carries multiple messages. The culture of reading and viewing on the eve of the Revolution and in the 1920s incorporated reading for multiple meanings due to the traditional practice of reading aloud in groups. Listeners who commented, questioned, and discussed among themselves automatically gave works layers of meaning. When the Bolsheviks shocked this universe with an onslaught of ideological works, readers sought and found irony. For example, from the outset, it was clear that the Bolsheviks espoused with great seriousness the “science” of “scientific socialism” and the routinely heroic “Soviet man.” Each of these received masterful ironic treatment by Ilf and Petrov, Zoshchenko, Bulgakov, and others. Works for children, too, took on layers of ironic interpretation. Not even music escaped. Shostakovich wrote his “film opera” of Marshak’s poem Silly Little Mouse in part as an ironic retort to Pravda’s earlier criticism of his work. Skill with irony gave creators and audiences channels of communication and outlets in parallel to those officially sanctioned; in short, a supply of fresh air to counter creative suffocation.

In the dark hours of the 1930s, authors and illustrators drew succor from the compassion in folklore. Goodness is closely allied with Foolishness in Russian folklore; each derives from an amalgam of innocence and kindness. In tale after tale, hapless heroes selflessly help troubled creatures and later reap multiples of the assistance rendered. Authors and illustrators sought sanctuary in this unrealistic parallel world, revisiting and updating tales of talking animals, exotic times and places, and Fools whose wishes are granted. The hidden meanings – their potent messages about the good, the bad, and the wily – slipped under the censors’ radar, reaching adult readers as well as children. Successive new editions of Petr Ershov’s Little Humpbacked Horse (1834) reached wide Soviet audiences. Andrei Platonov developed a remarkable collection of fairytales in the 1940s, while his teenaged son was imprisoned in the GULAG. Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter protected the wolf from hunters. Kornei Chukovsky created a ménage of friendly animals and a kindly Russian Dr. Dolittle to tend them. Daniil Kharms penned a tale of inclusion and tolerance in 1929, as Stalin’s hold on the arts tightened. These and other works countered the cruelty and cynicism of Socialist Realism.