Over 100 Soviet children’s books, drawn from the remarkable collection of Russian specialist Il’dar Galeyev, trace the spread of cultural and educational innovations from Russia to the capitals of Western modernism in the early decades of the twentieth century.
With contributions by James M. Bradburne, Rene Loewenson, Lisa Hilton, Arthur I. Miller, Clive Britton, John E. Bowlt, Nicoletta Misler, Simon Callow, and Jack Zipes, and enriched by an extensive iconographic apparatus, the volume offers a dual interpretative key: on the one hand, a timely and engaging reflection on the circulation of ideas; on the other, a rich and evocative visual journey through a unique collection of children’s books, bearing witness to a crucial moment in twentieth-century culture.
Through the perspectives of international scholars on key figures and fields of modernity—from the arts to science, from psychoanalysis to music—an interdisciplinary inquiry emerges, inviting readers to reconsider how ideas are born, transformed, and disseminated over time. In an era in which ideas and information travel at dizzying speeds, shaping contemporary events, this book shows how modernity became “viral.”
