What to read from published in the USSR. What did Soviet schoolchildren read?

Date of: 20.11.2023

A short historical excursion filled with nostalgia and sentimentality

Everyone has probably heard the proud phrase “ The USSR is the most reading country" I think this is not a figure of speech of official propaganda. And so it was.

Early 80s
There were not yet dozens of 24-hour TV channels. There was no Internet, mass computerization, consoles or video games. But people have always been people and then they also wanted entertainment.

It was possible to go to the cinema, fortunately it was cheap and accessible. There were cinemas in every district of the city and even in village clubs. Aesthetes could go to the theater. However, the main way to get spiritual food and have fun was still reading.

We read everything, everything, everywhere. They actively exchanged books with each other. Particularly rare and interesting ones were lent to read “ till tomorrow", enjoying reading at night. There were queues in the libraries for the most interesting books. It wasn't bad to befriend the librarian so that he could hold the rare items for you. The rarest books, by the way, were not allowed to be taken out of libraries; they could only be read in the reading room.

There were bookstores in the smallest towns. Another thing is that the shelves were filled mainly with classics of Marxism-Leninism, dull industrial novels and other unreadable garbage. Explanatory books were scattered on the day of delivery, especially since they cost a penny. It was good to have a familiar salesperson in a bookstore (as, indeed, in any other store).

Another method of acquiring interesting books was purchasing by subscription. Typically, complete works of classics and thematic series (science fiction, adventure, detective stories) were sold this way. In this case, volumes were sent one by one by mail, as they were published. Subscriptions were most often distributed at workplaces, and there were queues and cronyism.

There was another method to purchase a popular, fashionable novel - hand over waste paper and exchange a special coupon for the coveted book. Greenpeace would approve.

Since good books were often " deficit", there were people who " got them» them only for this reason. Rarities, never read, gathered dust in the bookcases of such citizens only for prestige, to the envy of friends and neighbors. In this case, the book shortage was also an investment and a bargaining chip, no worse than crystal, carpets or foreign alcohol.

In those distant times, people were so drawn to reading that samizdat brochures made from typewritten sheets were also popular. Politics, of course, the forbidden fruit is sweet and all that, but it was not only Solzhenitsyn with dissidents, but also " ethnoscience», « Urine therapy», « Starvation"and all sorts of esoteric game.

The 80s were the heyday of thick literary magazines. A fashionable novel in the form of a book might not be enough for everyone, and magazines like “ Youth" or " Roman newspapers” were published in millions of copies. Again, subscriptions, exchanges, loans and filings in libraries.

Perestroika
With the advent of " perestroika" And " publicity“The passion for reading among Soviet people has not decreased, perhaps even increased. The quality of reading has changed. They began to read more journalism, the magazine " Ogonyok” began to overtake thick magazines in popularity. First, they began to penetrate into magazines, then into book publications. forgotten names", emigrants, then obvious anti-Sovietism. Those who were less interested in politics, but wanted pure entertainment, received foreign detective stories and foreign science fiction, in ever-increasing quantities.

At the end of the 80s, a new phenomenon appeared in the book trade - “ cooperative publications" The real business has begun. Cooperatives usually existed on the basis of state publishing houses, producing more popular products, but, as a rule, of worse performance. There are more books, but their quality has become worse. There is a suspicion that most of the " cooperative» books were published by pirate method.

In a bookstore you could see the following picture: deserted rows of shelves filled with Soviet publications, with prices ranging from 10-50 kopecks, and a separate tray at the cash register with a crowd of people. On the tray there are skinny brochures - detective stories, erotica, " Sex culture», « 20 poses of the Kama Sutra», « The Secret Art of the Ninja», « Karate tutorial"and other hellish trash. The paper is thin, gray, newsprint. The font is small, the printing is smeared, the illustrations, if any, are clumsy. But the prices are 3-5 rubles. The most important thing, as the unforgettable Bogdan Titomir put it at about the same time, but on a slightly different occasion - people are eating!

In general, the 80s were marked by reading and books. At the very end of the decade, television was still the same, movie theaters also stayed afloat and enjoyed success, although video stores appeared, but they did not make a difference. The book still remained the main entertainment and the main spiritual food of the Soviet people.

Traditionally, the main result of studying literature at school is considered to be the mastery of books included in the so-called national literary canon. Whose names and works should be there? Each writer has his own lobby in academic and pedagogical circles; the same authors who during their lifetime claim to be classics can personally take part in the struggle for the right to appear in a textbook. Even the concept of a “school canon” arose - this is also a list, hierarchically organized and derived from the national literary canon. But if a large national canon is formed by the very mechanisms of culture, then the list of compulsory reading for schoolchildren is compiled differently. Thus, the selection of a specific work for the school canon, in addition to its generally recognized artistic and cultural-historical value, is influenced by:

the age of the reader, that is, to whom it is addressed (the school canon is divided into reading groups - academic classes);
the clarity of the embodiment in it of literary or social phenomena that are studied at school (at the same time, average, straightforward works can be much more convenient than masterpieces);
educational potential (how the values, ideas, even its artistic features contained in the text can have a beneficial effect on the student’s consciousness).

In the USSR, the school canon strived for immutability and at the same time was constantly changing. Literature programs of different years - 1921, 1938, 1960 and 1984 - reflected all the changes taking place in the country, as well as processes in literature itself and the education system.

Attention to the student and the absence of strict regulations

War communism gradually ended and the NEP era began. The new government considered education one of the priority areas of its activity, but the crisis that began after the revolution did not allow a radical restructuring of the pre-revolutionary education system. The regulation “On the Unified Labor School of the RSFSR,” which guaranteed everyone the right to free, joint, non-class and secular education, was issued back in October 1918, and only in 1921 the first stabilized program appeared. It was made for a nine-year school, but due to the lack of money in the country for education and general devastation, education had to be reduced to seven years and divided into two stages: the third and fourth years of the second stage correspond to the last two graduating classes of the school.

Program composition
The list of books basically repeats the pre-revolutionary gymnasium programs

Number of hours
Not regulated

III year of the second stage 3rd year 2nd stage

Oral poetry: lyrics, antiquities, fairy tales, spiritual poems
Ancient Russian writing: “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “The Tale of Juliania Lazarevskaya”; stories about Ersha Ershovich, about Misfortune-Grief, about Savva Grudtsyn, about Frol Skobeev
Mikhail Lomonosov. Lyrics
Denis Fonvizin. "Undergrown"
Gavrila Derzhavin. “Felitsa”, “God”, “Monument”, “Eugene. Life Zvanskaya"
Nikolai Karamzin. “Poor Lisa,” “What does the author need?”
Vasily Zhukovsky. "Theon and Aeschines", "Camoens", "Svetlana", "The Unspeakable"
Alexander Pushkin. Lyrics, poems, “Eugene Onegin”, “Boris Godunov”, “The Miserly Knight”, “Mozart and Salieri”, “Belkin’s Tales”
Mikhail Lermontov. Lyrics, “Mtsyri”, “Demon”, “Hero of Our Time”, “Song about the Merchant Kalashnikov”
Nikolay Gogol. “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, “Taras Bulba”, “Old World Landowners”, “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich”, “Overcoat”, “Portrait”, “Inspector General”, “Dead Souls”
Alexey Koltsov, Evgeny Baratynsky, Fyodor Tyutchev, Afanasy Fet, Nikolay Nekrasov. Selected Lyric Poems

IV year of the second stage 4th year 2nd stage

Alexander Herzen. “The Past and Thoughts” (excerpts)
Ivan Turgenev. “Notes of a Hunter”, “Rudin”, “Noble Nest”, “On the Eve”, “Fathers and Sons”, “New”, “Prose Poems”
Ivan Goncharov. "Oblomov"
Alexander Ostrovsky. “We’ll count our own people” or “Poverty is not a vice”, “Profitable place”, “Thunderstorm”, “Snow Maiden”
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. Fairy tales (three or four at the teacher’s choice), “Poshekhon Antiquity”
Fedor Dostoevsky. "Poor People", "The Brothers Karamazov" or "Crime and Punishment"
Lev Tolstoy. “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”, “War and Peace”, “Hadji Murat”, “Confession”, “Alyosha Gorshok”
Gleb Uspensky. “Morals of Rasteryaeva Street”, “Power of the Earth”
Vsevolod Garshin. "Artists", "Red Flower"
Vladimir Korolenko. “Makar’s Dream”, “The Blind Musician”, “The River Is Playing”, “The Forest is Noisy”
Anton Chekhov. “Steppe”, “Men”, “The Cherry Orchard”
Maksim Gorky. “Chelkash”, “Song about the Falcon”, “Former People”, “Song about the Petrel”, “At the Depth”, “Mother”, “Childhood”
Leonid Andreev. “Once upon a time,” “Silence,” “Human Life”
Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok. Selected Poems
Peasant and proletarian poets of our time

In 1921, the State Academic Council of the People's Commissariat for Education presented the first stable list after the confusion of post-revolutionary lists in the “Programs for the I and II stages of the seven-year unified labor school.” The work on creating a program in literature was led by literary critic and linguist Pavel Sakulin, and it clearly shows the ideas discussed in the pedagogical environment shortly before the revolution, in particular in 1916-1917 at the First All-Russian Congress of Russian Language Teachers and literature. Sakulin reproduced in his program many of the principles formulated at this congress: variability in teaching (four program options instead of one with four corresponding lists of works), attention to the interests and needs of not only teachers, but also students. The program was based mainly on Russian literary classics of the 19th century, while the literature of previous centuries, as well as the nascent Soviet literature, occupied a rather modest place in it.

Literature lesson at the school at the Krasny Bogatyr plant. Early 1930s Getty Images

The task of overcoming this list in its entirety was not set—for the compilers of the program, the students’ emotional perception and independent comprehension of what they read were much more important.

“Students’ attention, of course, is always fixed on the text of the works themselves. Classes are conducted using the inductive method. Let students first learn about Rudin and Lavretsky, and then about the philosophical sentiments of the Russian intelligentsia, about Slavophilism and Westernism; Let them first get used to the image of Bazarov, and then hear about the thinking realists of the sixties. Even the writer’s biography should not precede students’ direct acquaintance with the works. In a second-level school there is no opportunity to strive for an exhaustive study of historical and literary trends. If necessary, let the teacher exclude from the list proposed below certain works, even of this or that writer. Once again: non multa, sed multum “Many, but not much” is a Latin proverb meaning “many in meaning, not in quantity.”. And most importantly, the works of art themselves are in the center.” Programs for the I and II stages of the seven-year unified labor school. M., 1921..

Literary education, closely related to the pre-revolutionary one, could hardly suit the ideologists of the party state, in which literature, along with other types of art, should serve the propaganda of the ruling ideology. In addition, the program initially had a limited scope of distribution - both because there were few second-level schools in the country (most of the first-level graduates joined the ranks of the proletariat or peasantry), and because many regions had their own educational programs. Within a few years, it lost the power of a regulatory document, remaining a monument to Russian humanitarian and pedagogical thought.

The teacher and the textbook are the only sources of knowledge

Between the programs of 1921 and 1938 there lies the same gulf as between the revolution and the last pre-war years. The bold searches of the 1920s in various fields of science, culture and education gradually faded away. Now the task of science, culture and education has become the construction of a super-industrial and militarized totalitarian state. As a result of purges and political repression, the composition of those who led changes in education and culture changed dramatically.

Program composition
80% Russian classics, 20% Soviet literature

Number of hours
474 (since 1949 - 452)

8th grade

Oral folk poetry (folklore)
Russian epics
"The Tale of Igor's Campaign"
Mikhail Lomonosov. “Ode on the day of the accession to the throne of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna”, “Conversation with Anacreon”
Gavrila Derzhavin. "Felitsa", "Invitation to Dinner", "Monument"
Denis Fonvizin. "Undergrown"
Alexander Radishchev. “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (excerpts)
Nikolai Karamzin. "Poor Lisa"
Vasily Zhukovsky. “Svetlana”, “Theon and Aeschines”, “The Forest King”, “Sea”, “I used to be a young muse...”
Kondraty Ryleev. “To a temporary worker”, “Citizen”, “Oh, I’m sick of…”
Alexander Griboyedov. "Woe from Wit"
Alexander Pushkin. Lyrics, odes, “Gypsies”, “Eugene Onegin”
Vissarion Belinsky. "Works of Alexander Pushkin"
George Gordon Byron. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (excerpts)
Mikhail Lermontov. Lyrics, "Hero of Our Time"

9th grade

Nikolay Gogol. "Dead Souls", vol. 1
Vissarion Belinsky. “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls,” letter to Gogol, July 3, 1847
Alexander Herzen. "Past and Thoughts"
Ivan Goncharov. "Oblomov"
Alexander Ostrovsky. "Storm"
Ivan Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons"
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. "Messrs. Golovlevs"
Lev Tolstoy. "Anna Karenina"
Vladimir Lenin. “Leo Tolstoy as a mirror of the Russian revolution”, “L. N. Tolstoy and the modern labor movement", "L. N. Tolstoy and his era"

10th grade

Anton Chekhov. "Gooseberry", "Cherry Orchard"
Maksim Gorky. “Old Woman Izergil”, “Konovalov”, “At the Bottom”, “The Artamonov Case”
Vladimir Lenin about Maxim Gorky
Vyacheslav Molotov. "In memory of A. M. Gorky"
Alexander Serafimovich. "Iron Stream"
Alexander Fadeev. "Devastation"
Vladimir Mayakovsky. Poems
Songs of the peoples of the USSR

By 1923-1925, literature as a subject disappeared from the curriculum, dissolving into social studies. Now literary works were used as illustrations for the study of socio-political processes and phenomena in order to educate the younger generation in the communist spirit. However, in the second half of the 1920s, literature returned to the grid of subjects - significantly updated. For the next fifteen years, the program will be polished, adding works of Soviet literature.

By 1927, the GUS released a set of stabilized programs, that is, unchanged for the next four years. The teacher has less and less rights to replace some works with others. More and more attention is being paid to “social ideologies” - primarily revolutionary ideas and their reflection in the literature of the past and present. Half of the ninth, graduating class of the nine-year school was devoted to young Soviet literature, which had just celebrated its tenth anniversary: next to Gorky, Blok and Mayakovsky the names of Konstantin Fedin, Vladimir Lidin, Leonid Leonov, Alexander Neverov, Lydia Seifullina, Vsevolod Ivanov, Fyodor Gladkov, Alexander Malyshkin, Dmitry Furmanov, Alexander Fadeev, most of whom are known today only to the older generation and specialists. The program outlined in detail how to interpret and from what angle to consider this or that work, referring to Marxist criticism for the correct opinion.

In 1931, a draft of another stabilized program, even more ideologically verified, was prepared. However, the thirties themselves, with their upheavals and constant rush, the purge of elites and the restructuring of all the principles on which both the state and society rested, did not allow the programs to settle: during this time, as many as three generations of school textbooks were replaced. Stability came only in 1938-1939, when a program was finally prepared, which lasted without any special changes until the Khrushchev thaw, and in its core - until today. The approval of this program was accompanied by the suppression of any attempts to experiment with the organization of the educational process: after the experiments with the introduction of the American method, which were recognized as unsuccessful, when the teacher had not so much to give new knowledge as to organize the independent activities of students in obtaining and applying it in practice, the system returned to the traditional classroom form, known since pre-revolutionary times, where the teacher and textbook are the main sources of knowledge. Consolidation of this knowledge was carried out using a textbook - the same for all students. The textbook had to be read and taken down, and the knowledge gained should be reproduced as closely as possible to the text. The program strictly regulated even the number of hours allocated to a particular topic, and this time did not involve detailed work with the text, but the acquisition, memorization and reproduction of ready-made knowledge about the text without much reflection on what was read. The most important importance in the program was attached to memorizing works of art and their fragments, the list of which was also strictly defined.

At a meeting on the teaching of literature in high school, on March 2, 1940, the famous educator and literature teacher Semyon Gurevich expressed great concerns about the new approach:

“First of all, one big problem we have in teaching literature is that teaching has become a stencil... The stencil is incredible. If you throw out the last name and start talking about Pushkin, Gogol, Goncharov, Nekrasov, etc., then they are all people’s people, they are all good and humane. The word “defacement” of literature, coined by someone, has occupied the same place in the teaching of literature as these sociological definitions occupied several years ago... If a few years ago children left school with the opinion that Nekrasov - this is a repentant nobleman, Tolstoy is a philosophizing liberal, etc., then now all writers are such amazing people, with crystalline characters, with wonderful works, who only dreamed of a social revolution.”

At the end of the 1930s, the general list of the literature course coincided by more than two-thirds with the list of 1921 According to the calculations of the German researcher Erna Malygina.. They were still based on the works of Russian classics, but the main task of these works was rethought: they were ordered to tell about the “leaden abominations of life” under tsarism and the maturation of revolutionary sentiments in society. Young Soviet literature told about what these sentiments led to and what the successes were in building a new state of workers and peasants.

Literature lesson in 5th grade. At the blackboard — future Young Guard member Oleg Koshevoy. Ukrainian SSR, Rzhishchev, January 1941 TASS photo chronicle

The selection of works was determined not only by their unconditional artistic merits, but also by their ability to fit into the logic of the Soviet concept of literary development of the New and Contemporary times, reflecting the country’s progressive movement towards revolution, the construction of socialism and communism. In 1934, school education became ten years and the historical and literary course took three years instead of two. The works of folklore, Russian and Soviet literature faced another important educational task - to provide examples of genuine heroism, combat or labor, which young readers could look up to.

“To show the greatness of Russian classical literature, which educated many generations of revolutionary fighters, the enormous fundamental difference and moral and political height of Soviet literature, to teach students to understand the main stages of literary development without simplification, without schematism - this is the historical and literary task of the course in grades VIII-X high school." From the secondary school literature program for grades VIII-X, 1938.

Reducing hours and expanding the list: the collapse of hopes for updating the subject

After the devastation of the war and the first post-war years, there came a time of harsh ideological pressure and campaigns: entire branches of science became objects of repression, facts were distorted for the sake of ideology (for example, the superiority of Russian science and its primacy in most branches of scientific knowledge and technology was extolled). Under these conditions, the teacher turned into a conductor of the official line in education, and the school became a place where the student was subjected to ideological pressure. Humanities education is increasingly losing its humanistic character. The death of Stalin in 1953 and the subsequent thaw were accompanied by hope for changes in the country, including in the field of education. It seemed that the school would pay attention to the student and his interests, and the teacher would receive more freedom in organizing the educational process and selecting educational material.

Number of hours
429

8th grade

"The Tale of Igor's Campaign"
Denis Fonvizin. "Undergrown"
Alexander Radishchev. “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (selected chapters)
Alexander Griboyedov. "Woe from Wit"
Alexander Pushkin. Lyrics, "Gypsies", "Eugene Onegin", "The Captain's Daughter"
Mikhail Lermontov. Lyrics, "Mtsyri", "Hero of Our Time"
Nikolay Gogol. “The Inspector General”, “Dead Souls”, vol. 1

9th grade

Ivan Goncharov. "Oblomov" (selected chapters)
Alexander Ostrovsky. "Storm"
Ivan Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons"
Nikolai Chernyshevsky. "What to do?" (selected chapters)
Nikolay Nekrasov. Lyrics, “Who lives well in Rus'”
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. “The Tale of How One Man Fed Two Generals”, “Horse”, “The Wise Minnow”
Lev Tolstoy. "War and Peace"
William Shakespeare. "Hamlet"
Johann Wolfgang Goethe. "Faust", part 1

10th grade

Maksim Gorky. “Old Woman Izergil”, “At the Bottom”, “Mother”, “V. I. Lenin" (abbreviated)
Vladimir Mayakovsky. “Left March”, “The Satisfied”, “To Comrade Nette - the Ship and the Man”, “Poems about the Soviet Passport”, “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, “Good!”, introduction to the poem “At the top of my voice”
Nikolai Ostrovsky. "As the Steel Was Tempered"
Mikhail Sholokhov. "Virgin Soil Upturned"
Alexander Fadeev. "Young guard"

As already mentioned, the Soviet school canon that had developed by the end of the 1930s subsequently changed little. There was still no place in it for the “dubious” Dostoevsky and Yesenin, the melodramatic “Anna Karenina” with its “family thought” was replaced by the patriotic “War and Peace” with its “people’s thought” during the war years, and the modernist the currents of the turn of the century were squeezed into six hours at the very end of the ninth grade. The tenth, graduation, class was completely devoted to Soviet literature.

Schoolgirls in the Pushkin Museum-Reserve “Boldino”. 1965 Zhiganov Nikolay / TASS Photo Chronicle

During this period, the quadriga of Russian classics was determined, imprinted on the pediments of typical five-story school buildings of the 1950s: two great poets - the Russian pre-revolutionary genius Pushkin and the Soviet Mayakovsky - and two great prose writers - the pre-revolutionary Leo Tolstoy and the Soviet Gorky At one time, instead of Tolstoy, Lomonosov was sculpted on the pediments, but his figure violated the geometric harmony of the quadrangular pyramid of the school canon, crowned by the first authors of his era (two poets - two prose writers, two pre-revolutionary - two Soviet authors).. The compilers of the program devoted especially a lot of time to the study of Pushkin: in 1938 - 25 hours, in 1949 - already 37. The rest of the classics had to have their hours cut, since they simply did not fit into the ever-expanding time, primarily due to Soviet classics, school canon.

It was possible to talk not only about updating the composition of the school canon, but also about approaches to its formation and content, as well as the principles of organizing literary education in general, only in the second half of the 1950s, when it became clear that the country has set a course for some softening of the ideological regime. A publication for teachers, the magazine “Literature at School,” published transcripts of discussions of the draft new program in literature, as well as letters from ordinary teachers, school and university methodologists and librarians. There have been proposals to study twentieth-century literature not just for one year, but for the last two years, or to include it in the course for grades 8-10. There were even brave souls who argued that War and Peace should be studied in full: according to teachers, most of their students were unable to master the text.

Literature lesson in 10th grade. A student reads a poem by Alexander Blok. Leningrad, 1980 Belinsky Yuri / TASS Photo Chronicle

However, the long-awaited program, released in 1960, was a big disappointment for everyone who was hoping for change. A larger volume had to be squeezed into an even smaller number of hours - the creators of the program suggested that teachers solve the problem themselves and somehow manage to complete everything prescribed without compromising the depth of comprehension.

Neither the study of some works in an abbreviated form, nor the reduction of hours on foreign literature helped. In the study of literature, the principles of systematicity and historicism were proclaimed: the living literary process fit into the Leninist concept of “three stages of the revolutionary liberation movement in Russia” The periodization of the pre-revolutionary literary process in post-war programs and textbooks was based on the three stages of the revolutionary liberation movement in Russia, highlighted by Lenin in the article “In Memory of Herzen” (1912). The noble, razno-chinsky and proletarian stages in the history of literature corresponded to the first and second halves of the 19th century and the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. After this, the history of Russian literature ended, giving way to Soviet literature.. The material was still simply required to be memorized as presented by the teacher and/or textbook.

“It is necessary to warn teachers against an overly detailed analysis of a work, as well as against simplified interpretations of literary phenomena, as a result of which the study of fiction may lose its figurative and emotional essence.” From the high school program for the 1960/61 academic year.

Educating feelings instead of ideology

After the thaw, the whole country lined up for the shortage - and not only for Yugoslav boots or domestic televisions, but also for good literature, shelves with which it became fashionable to decorate the interiors of apartments. The flourishing of the book market, including the underground, mass cinema, Soviet literary and illustrated magazines, television, and for some, became serious competition for the dull Soviet school subject “literature”, which could only be saved individual ascetics and teachers. Ideology is being replaced in school literature by the education of feelings: their spiritual qualities in heroes begin to be especially valued, and poetry in works.

Program composition
The list is gradually expanding, on the one hand, due to previously not recommended works of Russian classics (Dostoevsky), on the other, due to works of Soviet literature of recent years, which should have been read independently, followed by discussion in class.

Number of hours
340

8th grade

"The Tale of Igor's Campaign"
Jean-Baptiste Moliere. "A tradesman among the nobility"
Alexander Griboyedov. "Woe from Wit"
Alexander Pushkin. “To Chaadaev” (“Love, hope, quiet glory...”), “To the sea”, “I remember a wonderful moment...”, “Prophet”, “Autumn”, “On the hills of Georgia”, “I loved you...”, “Again I visited...”, “I erected a monument to myself...”, “Eugene Onegin”
George Gordon Byron. "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (Cantos I and II), "My Soul Is Gloomy"
Mikhail Lermontov. “Death of a Poet”, “Poet”, “Duma”, “How often, surrounded by a motley crowd...”, “I go out alone on the road”, “Motherland”, “Hero of our time”
Nikolay Gogol. "Dead Souls"
Vissarion Belinsky. Literary critical activity

Anatoly Aleksin. “Meanwhile, somewhere...”, “In the rear as in the rear”
Chingiz Aitmatov. "Jamila", "The First Teacher"
Vasil Bykov. "Alpine Ballad", "Until Dawn"
Oles Gonchar. "Man and Weapon"
Savva Dangulov. "Trail"
Nodar Dumbadze. "I see the sun"
Maksud Ibragimbekov. “For everything good - death!”
“The names are verified. Poems of soldiers who died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War"
Vadim Kozhevnikov. "Towards the Dawn"
Maria Prilezhaeva. “An Amazing Year”, “Three Weeks of Peace”
Johan Smuul. "Ice Book"
Vladislav Titov. "To Spite All Deaths"
Mikhail Dudin, Mikhail Lukonin, Sergei Orlov. Selected Poems

9th grade

Alexander Ostrovsky. "Storm"
Nikolai Dobrolyubov. "A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom"
Ivan Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons"
Nikolai Chernyshevsky. "What to do?"
Nikolay Nekrasov. “Poet and Citizen” (excerpt), “In Memory of Dobrolyubov”, “Elegy” (“Let changing fashion tell us...”), “Who Lives Well in Rus'”
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. "The Wise Minnow", "The Wild Landowner"
Fedor Dostoevsky. "Crime and Punishment"
Lev Tolstoy. "War and Peace"
Anton Chekhov. “Ionych”, “The Cherry Orchard”
William Shakespeare. Hamlet (review)
Johann Wolfgang Goethe. "Faust": "Prologue in Heaven", scene 2 - "At the City Gate", scenes 3 and 4 - "Faust's Study", scene 12 - "Garden", scene 19 - "Night. Street in front of Gretchen's house", scene 25 - "Prison"; Faust's last monologue from Part II (review)
Honore de Balzac. "Gobsek"

For discussions on Soviet literature

Ales Adamovich. "Partisans"
Sergey Antonov. "Alenka", "Rains"
Mukhtar Auezov. "Abai"
Vasil Bykov. "Obelisk"
Boris Vasiliev. “And the dawns here are quiet...”
Ion Druta. "Steppe Ballads"
Afanasy Koptelov. “Big Beginning”, “The Flame Will Kindle”
Vilis Latsis. "To a new shore"
Valentin Rasputin. "French lessons"
Robert Rozhdestvensky. "Requiem", "Letter to the 20th Century"
Konstantin Simonov. "The Living and the Dead"
Konstantin Fedin. “First Joys”, “An Extraordinary Summer”
Vasily Shukshin. Selected stories

10th grade

Maksim Gorky. “Old Woman Izergil”, “At the Bottom”, “Mother”, “V. I. Lenin"
Alexander Blok. “Stranger”, “Factory”, “Oh, spring without end and without edge...”, “Russia”, “About valor, about exploits, about glory...”, “On the railway”, “Twelve”
Sergey Yesenin. “Soviet Rus'”, “Letter to Mother”, “Uncomfortable liquid moonlight...”, “Bless every work, good luck!”, “To Kachalov’s dog”, “The feather grass is sleeping. Dear plain...", "I'm walking through the valley. On the back of the cap...", "The golden grove dissuaded me...", "I don’t regret, I don’t call, I don’t cry..."
Vladimir Mayakovsky. “Left March”, “Seated”, “About rubbish”, “Black and White”, “To Comrade Netta - the ship and the man”, “Letter to Comrade Kostrov from Paris about the essence of love”, “Conversation with the financial inspector about poetry”, “Poems about the Soviet passport", "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", "Good!", "At the top of my voice" (first introduction to the poem)
Alexander Fadeev. "Devastation"
Nikolai Ostrovsky. "As the Steel Was Tempered"
Mikhail Sholokhov. "Virgin Soil Upturned", "The Fate of Man"
Alexander Tvardovsky. “I was killed near Rzhev”, “Two forges”, “On the Angara” (from the poem “Beyond the distance - the distance”)

Schoolchildren write an essay for the final exam. June 1, 1984 Kavashkin Boris / TASS Photo Chronicle

The number of hours allocated to literature in grades 8-10 continues to decline: in 1970 it was only 350 hours, in 1976 and for the next four decades - 340. The school curriculum is mainly replenished with works that are especially are close to conservatives: in place of Saltykov-Shchedrin’s novel “The Golovlevs,” which was too critical of the traditional way of life, in the early 1970s the program included the novel “Crime and Punishment,” which contrasts the rebellion against existing order, the idea of personal salvation. Next to the “urbanist” Mayakovsky stands the “peasant” Yesenin. The block is mainly represented by poems about the Motherland. "Mosfilm", "KinoPoisk"

Still from Sergei Solovyov’s film “The Station Agent”. 1972"Mosfilm", Kinomania.ru

Still from Vyacheslav Nikiforov’s film “The Noble Robber Vladimir Dubrovsky.” 1988"Belarusfilm", "KinoKopilka"

Still from Eldar Ryazanov’s film “Cruel Romance.” 1984"Mosfilm", "KinoPoisk"

In the 1960-70s, films were made based on many works of the school canon, which immediately gained wide popularity: they solved the problems of both non-reading and adaptation of complex or historically distant meanings of classical works to their perception by the broad masses, shifting the emphasis from ideological issues to the plot, the feelings of the characters and their fates. The idea that classics is universal is becoming more and more firmly established: it seems to combine the accessibility of mass literature with the highly artistic quality of timeless masterpieces (in contrast to unrealistic works, especially “modernist” ones, addressed mainly to individual groups "aesthetes").

“Classical literature is literature that has reached the highest degree of perfection and has stood the test of time, retaining the significance of an immortal creative example for all subsequent writers.” S. M. Florinsky. Russian literature. Textbook for 8th grade of secondary school. M., 1970.

Works about the revolution, the Civil War and collectivization are included in abbreviated or overview study (four hours on “How the Steel Was Tempered”) or in extracurricular reading The concept of extracurricular reading existed in gymnasiums, but in the 1930s it began to be regulated: it was proposed to choose from approved lists., the volume of which is increasing. But more and more works are about the Great Patriotic War: eight hours, previously allotted for studying Sholokhov’s “Virgin Soil Upturned,” are now divided between this epic and the story “The Fate of a Man.” The literature of recent decades is read at home independently, after which one of four topics is discussed in class: the October Revolution, the Great Patriotic War, the image of Lenin, the image of our contemporary in the works of modern authors. Of the 30 prose works by Soviet writers offered for discussion in grades 8-9, ten books are devoted to wartime, three to the revolution and the Civil War, five to the life and work of Lenin. Nine of the 24 writers represent the national literature of the USSR. However, the very appearance of the section “For conversations on Soviet literature” became a sign of the approach of new times in domestic education, including literary education: from a lecture followed by a survey, a lesson at least sometimes turns into a conversation; at least some variability appears in the mandatory list, albeit only in the selection of works of the current literary process. And yet, despite these concessions, literary education of the late Soviet era offered a falsified, ideologically and censorship-mangled history of Russian literature, in which there was no place for much. The authors of the 1976 program, the text of which migrated almost unchanged to the 1984 program, did not hide this:

“One of the most important tasks of the teacher is to show students what unites Soviet literature with the advanced heritage of the past, how it continues and develops the best traditions of classical literature, and at the same time to reveal the qualitatively new character of the literature of socialist realism, which is a step forward in artistic development of humanity, the class basis of its universal communist ideal, the diversity and aesthetic richness of Soviet literature.”

Tenth graders before a Russian literature lesson. Kazakh SSR, 1989 Pavsky Alexander / TASS Photo Chronicle

In just a few years, another state will emerge in place of the USSR, and in place of the bloated mandatory list, an even more voluminous advisory state, finally, again, as in the early 1920s, entrusting the teacher with the right to choose from the proposed list. names and works, taking into account the interests and level of students. But this will be the history of the post-Soviet school canon, no less dramatic, in which the parent community, the teaching community, and even the country’s top leadership will take an active part.

Children's literature. Remember what we read as children? Wonderful colorful books. We went to the library to get them or borrowed them from friends and acquaintances.
But it was almost impossible to buy Volkov or Bulychev, Stevenson or Dumas. But there were always ways to read the book you wanted
I remember that I learned to read quite early. Already in the senior group of kindergarten, people constantly ran up to me with requests to read. And he was enrolled in the library as a preschooler. Let's remember the books we read in childhood. I won’t remember about little books and the like - I read an incredible number of them. Here I will remember those publications that were “more serious”
This is what my first board book looked like
“The Adventures of Pinocchio” with wonderful illustrations by Leonid Viktorovich Vladimirsky. She was literally read to death

Here is another “picture book” that I really liked. Unfortunately, there was no such thing at home, but there was one in kindergarten, where I read it aloud to my classmates

But at home there was “The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends”

True, only the first book. Therefore the second part

And the most brilliant third one, I borrowed from friends to read

I really liked Chukovsky. "Aibolit" could be borrowed from the library

And this one, “Miracle Tree,” was at home

But, of course, my favorite books in childhood were from the “Wizard of the Emerald City” series.

And only with illustrations by Vladimirsky

Since then, I simply don’t accept publications with other illustrations, although there are quite good ones (I’ve been meaning to make a post for a long time about various illustrations by Volkov)

These books were hard to get even in the library

Therefore, I had to read them not in order, but “whatever I could get”

Some, therefore, I read already quite late

And this is what the very first edition of this tale looked like

What else do you remember...

I remember being very fascinated by the “Muff, Low Boot and Mossy Beard” I borrowed from the library.

We can’t forget the fairy tales about Br’er Fox and Br’er Rabbit

There were a lot of fairy tales. But my favorite fairy tale is “The Little Humpbacked Horse” by Ershov

I really liked Hottabych

And they were completely delighted with “Solnyshkin’s Voyages”

It was impossible to ignore “The Adventures of Captain Vrungel” (although I liked the cartoon more than the book)

Barankin

But I once found this book at school, when I was on duty in the canteen. And he couldn’t tear himself away from her. When the owner came, it was such a pity to give it away without finishing it

I really liked “Two Captains” by Kaverin

And Rybakov's trilogy

Funny adventures of Vasya Kurolesov

Well, this is a classic of children's literature, also well read

Moreover, I liked the adventures of Huck Finn even more than the first book.

I haven’t given this children’s detective story to the library for a long time - it was written very interestingly

And of course it's fantastic

Bulychev's two favorite books. After they gave them to me at the library for science fiction, I became really hooked.

But I liked the movie about Electronics more. But I still read the book

But the most delight in children's fiction came from Krapivin's books

Later there was Belyaev

and Obruchev

Invisible Man

But we didn’t just read science fiction. There was also wonderful adventure literature. Jules Verne

Daniel Defoe

Alexandr Duma

Jack London

Robert Stevenson

Conan Doyle

I also had my most favorite childhood book.

Once again I remembered that the first book I read when I was still in kindergarten was “Uncle Fyodor, the Dog and the Cat” by Uspensky, the same one on which the cartoon “Three from Prostokvashino” was later made. And then I suddenly remembered that there was another book by Uspensky, which I read in deep childhood - the Guarantee Men, probably forgotten by many. And I was also surprised to discover on Wikipedia that those same Russian “Fixies” that modern children stare at are the modern “reincarnation” of “guarantee men”.

“Warranty People” is a fairy-tale story by Eduard Uspensky about little people who live inside devices and mechanisms and repair them during the warranty period. First published in the Pioneer magazine in 1974 (No. 1, pp. 64-75 and No. 2, pp. 44-55) with illustrations by E. Shabelnik. In 1975 it was published as a separate edition with drawings by G. Kalinovsky. There is also a dramatic version of the text for puppet theaters.
In the 2010s, the plot of the story was used as the basis for the animated series “The Fixies,” and Eduard Uspensky released a continuation of the story called “The Guarantee Men Are Returning.”

In the world in which the story takes place, very small warranty men live next to people - craftsmen who monitor the operation of all kinds of devices during the period when the warranty is valid. Warranty men are sent from factories along with the devices, and after the warranty period expires, they return to their factory to go to work on a new device. “Warranty workers,” as they call themselves, live directly inside devices (watches, car engines, refrigerators, etc.) and lead lives unnoticed by people, repairing minor breakdowns. Only a few people know about their existence.
A refrigerator is delivered to the Smirnovs’ ordinary Moscow apartment, with which a “guarantee” named Kholodilin also arrives. He immediately meets Ivan Ivanovich Bure, the “guarantee” of the cuckoo clock. The watch's warranty has expired, but the factory where it was made is long gone, and Bure, like a true master, has been left to look after it for almost sixty years. Also in the apartment are the warranty Vacuum Cleaner from the Uralets vacuum cleaner and News of the Day from the radio.
The next day, the inhabitants of the apartment - dad, mom and little girl Tanya - go to the dacha in Dorokhovo, where they take the rented refrigerator and radio. Vacuum cleaner and Bure with the cuckoo Masha go for company with Kholodilin and News of the Day. However, at the dacha they immediately encounter difficulties. Firstly, the local mice declare war on them because they consider themselves the owners of the country house. And soon they capture Bure and put him in a cage. And secondly, at night, the girl Tanya, who is not completely asleep, notices the guarantee workers with flashlights. And although her mother convinces her that she dreamed it, Tanya decides to catch the little men and play with them at all costs.
Having captured the scout mice, the guards feed them sausage, so that they do not want to leave captivity - in the army of the mouse king, the soldiers are kept from hand to mouth. When the rest of the mice find out about this, they begin to walk around with slogans: “We don’t want to fight, but we want to surrender, because sausages are tastier than shells!” and “Down with gunpowder, long live cottage cheese!” And although the king calls for war, there are more of those who prefer peace and sausage. The guarantees manage to free Bure and at night, after Tanya’s birthday, leave home. Having reached the highway, they leave a special sign, and in one of the cars passing by, the guarantee Ressorych makes sure that the car stops. Bure with Masha and the mouse Vasya, who has joined them, return to the Smirnovs’ apartment, and the rest of the guarantee workers head to their factories for new assignments.

Soviet childhood... Cursed and glorified, Soviet childhood - each generation has its own. So we, representatives of the 70s and early 80s, had our own childhood, leaving as memories the remnants of a common upbringing.

All of us, Soviet guys, regardless of nationality, were raised on the same values. This happened not only thanks to our parents - the entire surrounding reality instilled in us the “necessary” concepts of what is good and what is bad.

My toys don't make noise...

In our infancy we were influenced by the educational theories of the American Doctor Spock, assimilated by our mothers mixed with excerpts from articles in the Encyclopedia of Household Economics. It is to these sources of information that we owe the fact that we were dipped in a bath in diapers, given water while breastfeeding, and by the age of one year we were potty trained. From early childhood, rattles, tumblers and other toys taught us to see beauty in simple forms and dim colors.

The dolls with whom we played at being daughters and mothers—simple Soviet and GDR beauties with closing eyes—taught us unconditional love for “children,” regardless of their external and other qualities. The plastic crocodile Gena, who was impossible to play with because his yellow eyes were constantly falling out, instilled in us tolerance for other people's shortcomings. A pedal Moskvich for 25 rubles, which smelled like a real car and reached speeds of up to 8 km/h, and, as a rule, did not belong to us, instilled in us the ability to cope with the destructive feeling of envy.

Man is a collective being

In kindergarten we went through the preliminary stage of the formation of a Soviet person. Here the teachers, who shoveled semolina porridge with large spoons into small children's mouths, taught us to respect brute force - but almost all Soviet children learned to eat through “I can’t”!

Exemplary punishments for children who had misbehaved (for example, not having time to go to the potty) inspired us that discipline is more valuable than human dignity.

Of course, this was not the case everywhere! Among the teachers there were truly kind women; with them, a warm atmosphere reigned in the groups, and their charges learned from an early age to love social life. It was easier for good teachers to teach children to love the immortal leader of the world proletariat, whom most met here in the garden. We were read stories about Lenin, we learned poems about him, for example, these:

We always remember Lenin
And we think about him.
We are his birthday
We consider it the best day!

Then we went to school. The first person we met there was again V.I. Lenin, or rather, his statue in the form of a bust. “School is serious!” – as if he reminded us with his stern gaze. We opened the primer - and on the first page we saw the preface: “You will learn to read and write, for the first time you will write the words that are dearest and closest to all of us: mother, Motherland, Lenin...”. The name of the leader organically entered our consciousness, we wanted to be Octoberists, we liked to wear stars with a portrait of Vladimir Ilyich, in which he was “small, with a curly head.” And then we were accepted into the pioneers.

It's scary to think, but we took an oath. In front of our comrades, we solemnly promised to “ardently love our Motherland, live, study and fight, as the great Lenin bequeathed, as the Communist Party teaches.” We shouted, “Always ready!” without even thinking about what exactly we were being called to be prepared for. We wore red ties, the excellent students were carefully ironed, and the poor students and hooligans were disrespectfully wrinkled. We had pioneer meetings where someone was always reprimanded for something, bringing them to tears. Our duty was to help struggling students, take care of veterans, and collect waste paper and scrap metal. We took part in subbotniks, cleaned the classroom and cafeteria according to a schedule, learned how to run a household and “hold a hammer in our hands” during labor lessons, or even worked on collective farms, because it was labor that was supposed to forge communists out of us.

Work must be alternated with rest: the Communist Party took care of this too. Most of us spent the summer months in pioneer camps, vouchers to which were given to our parents at their place of work. Most often these were camps in the nearest suburbs. Only children of employees of large enterprises had the good fortune to relax on the Black Sea or Azov coasts. The most famous pioneer camp, of course, was “Artek”, where everything was “the very best”. Sometimes tickets to it went to excellent students and winners of Olympiads. In the Pioneer camps, we woke up to the sound of a bugle, did morning exercises, walked in formation, sang the Pioneer anthem “Raise with fires, blue nights...”, and fell in love, of course.

And then there was the Komsomol, whose ranks many representatives of our generation never had time to join. True, the Komsomol organization was open only to the most worthy young personalities. The Komsomol badge on the chest meant the final parting with childhood.

Everything in a person should be perfect

The Soviet weaving and clothing industry has done a lot for our education. From an early age we were dressed in coats and fur coats, in which it was difficult to move our arms. Leggings tucked into felt boots always hurt, but they taught us to put up with the inconvenience. My tights always slipped and wrinkled at my knees. Particularly neat girls pulled them up at every break, while the rest walked as they were. School uniforms for girls were made of pure wool. Many did not like it for the composition of the fabric and for the combination of colors, inherited from the pre-revolutionary gymnasium uniform, but still it had a peculiar charm.

Collars and cuffs had to be altered almost every day, and this taught our mothers, and then ourselves, to quickly cope with a needle and thread. The dark blue uniform for boys was made of some immortal semi-synthetic fabric. What tests did the Soviet boys subject her to! They did not look very elegant in it, but there was an element of education in it: in a man, appearance is not the main thing.

Time for business, time for fun

It was not customary for self-respecting Soviet schoolchildren to idle around. Many of us studied at music and art schools, and were seriously involved in sports. Nevertheless, there was always enough time for games and children's entertainment. The happiest hours of our childhood passed in the yard. Here we played “Cossacks-robbers”, “war games”, where some were “ours” and others were “fascists”, ball games - “Square”, “Dodgeball”, “Edible-Inedible” and others.

Overall, we were quite athletic and resilient. Soviet girls could spend hours jumping in a rubber band, and boys could do bungee jumping, or practice on horizontal bars and uneven bars. Boys of a hooligan type also had less harmless entertainment - they shot with slingshots, made homemade “bombs” and threw plastic bags of water from windows. But, probably, the most popular “yard” activity for boys was playing “knives”.

About our daily bread

We were very independent compared to our own children. At the age of 7-8, going on mother’s errand for bread, milk or kvass was something we took for granted. Among other things, sometimes we were assigned to hand over glass containers, after which many of us had some pocket change. What could it be spent on? Of course, for soda from a completely unhygienic machine or for ice cream. The choice of the latter was small: ice cream for 48 kopecks, milk in a waffle cup and fruit in a paper cup, popsicle, “Lakomka” and a briquette on waffles. Soviet ice cream was incredibly tasty!

Of particular value to us was chewing gum, which, like many other things, was a scarce product. Before the fall of the Iron Curtain, this was our Soviet gum - strawberry, mint or coffee. Imported chewing gum with inserts appeared a little later.

About spiritual food

It is customary to call Soviet times unspiritual, but we, Soviet children, did not feel this. On the contrary, we grew up on literature, cinema, music, inspired by the talent of authors and their concern for our moral education. Of course, we are not talking about opportunistic works, of which there were also many, but about those that were created with genuine love for children. These are cartoons about Winnie the Pooh, Carlson and Mowgli, the cult “Hedgehog in the Fog”, the wonderful “Mitten” and the unforgettable “Kuzya the Brownie”, the films “The Adventures of Buratino”, “The Adventures of Electronics”, “Guest from the Future”, “Scarecrow” and many other. We were also raised by deep, thought-provoking films for adults, because Soviet children were not subject to age restrictions.

The magazines “Murzilka”, “Funny Pictures”, “Pioneer”, “Young Naturalist” and “Young Technician” were published for us. We loved to read! Our minds were dominated by the heroes of the stories of V. Krapivin, V. Kataev, V. Oseva, and strange characters from the poems of D. Kharms and Y. Moritz. We listened to amazingly interesting musical performances about Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, about Alice in Wonderland, about Pippi Longstocking, in which we recognized the voices of the most popular actors and musicians. Perhaps, the efforts of all these people filled our Soviet childhood with happiness. It was thanks to them that we believed in goodness and justice, and this is worth a lot.

The scientific study of mass reading in the USSR began in 1963. A study of a group of urban workers aged 16–28 years using a questionnaire survey and taking into account the demand for subscriptions to public libraries in 52 cities of 24 regions, territories and autonomous republics of the RSFSR showed that young people predominantly read Soviet writers. Social, historical, and science fiction novels (M. Sholokhov, L. Leonov, G. Nikolaeva, A. Tolstoy, A. Belyaev, etc.) enjoyed recognition. Among my favorite writers are V. Aksenov, G. Baklanov, V. Kozhevnikov, P. Nilin, A. Rekemchuk, V. Soloukhin, Yu. Nagibin. There was a high demand for adventures and science fiction by A. Belyaev, I. Efremov, A. Kazantsev, G. Martynov; works about the fate and labor affairs of peers - “Colleagues” by V. Aksenov, “The Cause You Serve”, “My Dear Man” by Y. German, “I’m Going into a Storm” by D. Granin, “Continuation of the Legend” by A. Kuznetsov, “ Young and green”, “Summer vacation time” by A. Rekemchuk, “Tales of mountains and steppes” by Ch. Aitmatov, “Girls”. B. Bedny, “Meet Baluev” by V. Kozhevnikov.
In 1963–1966 State Library named after. Lenina studied the reading interests of leading social and professional categories of the population: “workers and engineers”, “residents of the Soviet village”, “rural high school students”, “teachers of science, mathematics, literature”, “high school students of the city”, “student youth”. The collection of material was carried out on the basis of a questionnaire and by analyzing reader forms in 33 regions of the RSFSR and 8 union republics.
In the “workers and engineers” group, the following were in greatest demand: M. Sholokhov, V. Latsis, M. Gorky, K. Simonov, A. Fadeev, A. Tolstoy, N. Ostrovsky, K. Paustovsky. Also “The Living and the Dead” and “Soldiers Are Not Born” by K. Simonov, “Brest Fortress” by S. Smirnov, novels by Y. German, “They Fought for the Motherland” by M. Sholokhov, “The Battle on the Way” by G. Nikolaeva, “Otherwise “It’s not worth living” by V. Ketlinskaya, “The Tale of Life” by K. Paustovsky. Sometimes “The Razor’s Edge” by I. Efremov and “Judge us, people” by A. Andreev were mentioned. The most read magazine was “Yunost”, followed by “Neva”.
Residents of Soviet villages were most interested in reading books about the Great Patriotic War. In second place were books on the topics of love, marriage, and raising children. The most popular are M. Sholokhov, K. Simonov, N. Ostrovsky, A. Fadeev, M. Gorky. My favorite works: “Quiet Don” and “Virgin Soil Upturned” by M. Sholokhov, “Shield and Sword” by V. Kozhevnikov, “The Living and the Dead” by K. Simonov. Of the detective stories, we only read “The Motley Case” by A. Adamov. Few rural readers turned to literary and artistic magazines. By the way, there were very few magazines in the collections of rural libraries. The reading interests of rural high school students were somewhat different. Favorite works: “How the Steel Was Tempered” by N. Ostrovsky, “I’m Going into the Storm” by D. Granin, “Virgin Soil Upturned” by M. Sholokhov, “The Young Guard” by A. Fadeev, “Heart in the Palm” by I. Shamyakin.
Among teachers of natural science and mathematics, the most popular novels are the novels of Yu. German and “The Shield and Sword” by V. Kozhevnikov. Few people read literary magazines, even Yunost - only 16% of respondents. For language teachers, significant modern Soviet writers were K. Simonov, M. Sholokhov, Yu. German. The most interesting of those read in 1965–1966. works were: novels by Y. German, “Soldiers Are Not Born” by K. Simonov, “Shield and Sword” by V. Kozhevnikov. Many of the works of 1965 that aroused public interest and controversy in the press (V. Makanin, Y. German “I am responsible for everything”, V. Semin, V. Tendryakov, S. Krutilin, etc.) were familiar to only a few. The main content of the reading consisted of works published and discussed several years ago: “Goodbye, boys” by B. Balter, “The Battle on the Way” by G. Nikolaeva, “Judge us, people” by A. Andreev, “The continuation of the legend” by A. Kuznetsov, “After the wedding” by D. Granin and others.
Urban high school students (20 cities of the USSR) regularly read the magazine “Youth” - 31%, “Young Guard” - 33%. Favorite authors were M. Sholokhov, K. Simonov, M. Gorky, A. Fadeev, D. Granin, N. Ostrovsky, A. Tolstoy, A. Belyaev, Yu. German, K. Paustovsky. We read B. Balter, Ch. Aitmatov, V. Aksenov, V. Panova, A. Belyaev, A. Tolstoy, Strugatsky. The detective stories of L. Sheinin, A. Adamov and others were very often mentioned. The books attracted young people with their heroes.
Soviet students named their favorite works the novels of K. Simonov and Y. German, “I'm Going into the Storm” and “The Seekers” by D. Granin. The most popular writers: Sholokhov, Latsis, Gorky, Aitmatov, Paustovsky, N. Ostrovsky, Fadeev, Gonchar. “Colleagues” by V. Aksenov, “Goodbye, boys” by B. Balter, and “Courage” by V. Ketlinskaya were in great demand. Students of technical universities were of particular interest in science fiction (A. Belyaev, I. Efremov, Strugatskys). Students are active readers of literary magazines, most of all Yunost and Neva.

(From the article by G.P. Sidorova “Soviet mass literature of the 1960–1980s: reader preferences”. The entire article can be downloaded in pdf format).

For many decades, the communists cynically mocked the people, forcing them to read good literature. But the long-awaited hour of freedom has struck:

http://www.afisha.ru/article/8605/

The Book Chamber of Russia published data for 2010, and the “List of the most published authors in fiction” is as follows:
Dontsova D.A. - 5459.5 thousand copies
Shilova Yu.V. - 3995.1
Doyle A.K. - 1907.2
Ustinova T.V. - 1850.3
Polyakova T.V. - 1729.3
Marinina A.B. - 1674.6
Dumas A. - 1549.5
Mayer S. - 1458.0
Akunin B. - 1432.0
Vilmont E.N. - 1017.9
...

At the same time, as they suggest from VIF:
http://vif2ne.ru/nvk/forum/archive/2014/2014468.htm

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