Research Catalog

Stalin's niños : educating Spanish Civil War refugee children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951

Title

Stalin's niños : educating Spanish Civil War refugee children in the Soviet Union, 1937-1951 / Karl D. Qualls.

Author

Qualls, Karl D.

Publication

Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2020]
©2020

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	LA831.8 .Q35 2020	Off-site

Details

Description

xii, 243 pages : illustrations, maps; 24 cm

Summary

"Stalin's Niños examines how the Soviet Union raised and educated nearly 3,000 child refugees of the Spanish Civil War. An analysis of the archival record and numerous letters, oral histories, and memoirs reveals that this little-known story exemplifies the Soviet transformation of children into future builders of communism and illuminates the educational techniques shared with other modern states. Classroom education taught patriotism for the two homelands and the importance of emulating Spanish and Soviet heroes, scientists, soldiers, and artists. Extra-curricular clubs and activities reinforced classroom experiences and helped discipline the mind, body, and behaviors. Adult mentors, like the heroes studied in the classroom, provided models to emulate and became the tangible expression of the ideal Spaniard and Soviet. The Basque and Spanish children thus were transformed into hybrid Hispano-Soviets fully engaged with their native language, culture, and traditions while also imbued with Russian language and culture and Soviet ideals of hard work, comradery, internationalism, and sacrifice for ideals and others. Even during their horrific evacuation to the Soviet interior during World War II, the twenty-two Soviet boarding schools designed specifically for the Spanish refugee children - and better provisioned than those for Soviet children - served these displaced niños for fourteen years and transformed them into Red Army heroes, award-winning Soviet athletes and artists, successful educators and workers, and aids to Fidel Castro in building Cuba after his revolution. Stalin's Niños also sheds new light on the education of non-Russian Soviet and international students and the process of constructing a supranational Soviet identity."--

Subject

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Additional Formats (note)

Issued also in electronic formats.

Contents

1 "Like Reaching Paradise after Being in Hell": The Turbulent Transition from Spain to the USSR p. 16 -- 2 "We, the Spanish, Were like an Island": Boarding Schools and Personnel as Loci and Models of Care and Soviet Values p. 39 -- 3 Obuchenie: Classroom Instruction, Patriotism, and the Instilling of Soviet Values p. 63 -- 4 Vospitanie: Kul'turnost' and Kruzhki as Techniques of Normative Behaviour Training p. 78 -- 5 Becoming Soviet in Traumatic Times: Life in War, 1939-1944 p. 101 -- 6 No Longer Children: Transitioning to Adulthood during War and Reconstruction p. 132.

ISBN

1487522754
9781487522759
9781487503581
148750358X
9781487518295 (canceled/invalid)
9781487518288 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

2020416101

OCLC

on1089967364
1089967364
SCSB-9661010

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library