Readings from a Stalinist textbook for 7th Graders

Copyright © 2000 by Hugo S. Cunningham
File added 001127
Last minor change 20021207

Editor's Introduction

Title Page

(Actual Russian title info)
Ob"yasnenie russkoj azbuki vospolzuemoj zdes'

(English translation)
English: Uchebnik Anglijskogo Yazyka dlya 7-go Klassa Semiletnej i Srednej Shkoly (izdanie tret'e) English: A Textbook of the English Language for the 7th Grade in 7-year and Secondary Schools (third edition)
Utverzhdeno Ministerstvom prosveshcheniya RSFSR, Confirmed by the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR
Gosudarstvennoe Uchebno-Pedagogichecheskoe Izdatel'stvo Ministerstvo Prosveshcheniya RSFSR
Moskva, 1951.
State Textbook and Pedagogical Publishers of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR
Moscow, 1951.

List of Readings

page #titleremark
7 Study as Lenin studied!
12Summer Holidays
14Who Is Speaking? School avoidance might be OK in capitalist countries, but not elsewhere.
17 The Sun and the Wind non-political Aesop fable
19 The Sun, the Frost, and the Wind (Part 1) non-political Russian fable
21Plans for Sunday
25 The Sun, the Frost, the Wind, (Part 2)
26 Autumn
30 Our Country, the USSR
32 With His Own Hands Children discuss the Five-Year Plan
34 The Blind Toy-Maker (Part 1) Crushing poverty in capitalist England
37 Tom, the Little Chimney Sweep More poverty in capitalist England
The somewhat backward author Charles Kingsley benefits from progressive editing.
39 The Blind Toy-Maker (Part 2)
42 The Arrow and the Song non-political poem by H.W. Longfellow
45 Alexander Matrosov a hero of the Great Patriotic War
48 Winter
53 White and Black (Part 1) Racist oppression in the US South
56 Eliza Runs Away with Harry (Part 1) Slavery in the US South (from Uncle Tom's Cabin)
58 White and Black (Part 2) Racist oppression in the US South
60 Eliza Runs Away with Harry (Part 2) Slavery in the US South (from Uncle Tom's Cabin)
63 Have You Been to Moscow
67 Soviet National Anthem Aleksandrov-Mikhalkov "Hymn of the Soviet Union"
69 A Visit (Part 1) By a Soviet child to a friend
72 A Visit (Part 2) By a Soviet child to a friend
76 About Books
79 Spring
82 My Aunt Lena Crushing poverty of immigrants in the USA
85 Androcles and the Lion Non-political fable
88 The Fisherman and the Little Fish Non-political fable
90 The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing Be vigilant, Comrades!
92 The Farmer and the Stork Be vigilant, Comrades!
95 Exploring
99Summer
102 The Nightingale Fiction: A boy-hero in the Great Patriotic War


Other References

McGill University library hosted a display of early Soviet children's literature in 1998. http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/russian/
The website apparently does not have actual text from the books, but the descriptions may be worth a look.


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