The Eileen Wallace Children’s Literature Collection is pleased to announce its 2012 Fellowship Lecture, “Banning Magic: The Fairy Tale Under Lenin and Stalin” to be presented by Dr. Megan Swift, Associate Professor, University of Victoria.
The fairy tale was a highly contested genre under Lenin and Stalin, becoming so embattled over the course of the 1920s and 30s that school children conducted trials of Cinderella, Father Frost (the Russian Santa Claus) and other folk and fairytale figures accused of being ‘anti-Soviet elements.’ This lecture will explore the attempt to ban magical content in children’s literature after the Russian Revolution of 1917. A selection of books used in Dr. Swift’s research will be on display outside the collection.
Please join us in the Wallace Collection (Room 413, Harriet Irving Library) on Tuesday, November 13th at 1:00pm.
Dr. Swift is an Associate Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Victoria and the 2012 Wallace Research Fellow. She specializes in modernist literature, art and culture and is currently working on a book called Fairytale Nation: Illustrated Children’s Literature Under Lenin and Stalin, 1917-53.