Reading music kids

World Musical culture would be incomplete without such a iconic current, as rock. Cult bands and musicians, legendary albums and songs, styles, festivals, fans, record companies, music media - all this is described briefly but succinctly in the encyclopedia. The publication covers the period from 1950s to early 21st century.

Book chips:

• Bright, stylish design with concise articles and infographics.
• Written with skill and love, which inspires confidence in the author.
• Folding poster with a chronology of the development of styles, performers and musical media.

For whom? Good for the first acquaintance with the rock of children and teenagers, and as a gift to a music lover.

Edition features: 48 pages, offset printing.

Discover jazz together with your children: get to know the movement in general, famous jazzmen and their instruments. The encyclopedia is written in a clear and interesting language. The book is not overflowing with information, but it allows you to feel the very essence of jazz, and this is much more important!

Chips of the book:

• Dictionary "What is what and who is who" in jazz.
• A disc with jazz melodies will allow you to immediately "illustrate" what you have read.
• Interactive with the reader: children are invited to reason, answer questions about what they have read and heard.

For whom? According to the author, "it is for children and the younger generation - so that they immediately start listening to jazz from the very best that has been done in this genre."

Edition features: 96 pages, offset printing.

Even more interesting musical tasks are waiting for the child in the exciting online course from Umnaziah called “Composers and classical music”. Even those children who were not at all interested in the classics, after it they will be able to distinguish the works of one composer from another, learn interesting facts about music and its creators. And at the end - a final test to consolidate knowledge and a valuable certificate for your child's portfolio!

Developing the horizons of children aged 6-13

In just a couple of months, your child will master the basic topics of erudition: from famous Russian artists to great civilizations, objects of architecture and scientific discoveries

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Music, dance, drawing and reading for noble children

Original taken from duchesselisa in Music, dancing, drawing and reading for children of the nobility

As for the Russian language, after mastering the initial literacy, it was usually given almost no attention, believing that "it will sweeten itself." In the aristocratic environment, Russian was considered one of the secondary ones, similar to Swedish or Polish, which you can know, but, due to the limited use, it is not necessary. In fact, it was only possible to communicate with servants on it, and this did not require much eloquence.
A. M. Turgenev testified: "I knew a crowd of princes Trubetskoy, Dolgoruky, Obolensky, Khovansky, Volkonsky, Meshchersky ... who could not write even two lines in Russian." Many owned a very limited vocabulary, not going beyond narrow everyday topics, used common language forms (such as "nadys", "eftot", "nadot", etc.) and found it difficult to freely conduct a conversation.
Those who were brought up abroad often returned to Russia, completely unable to speak Russian. Prince D.V. Golitsyn, who had been governor-general of Moscow for about 20 years, lived abroad until the age of eighteen and at first hardly spoke Russian. Subsequently, he learned, but spoke Russian, although quite correctly, but with a noticeable accent, like a foreigner.
Prince P. A. Vyazemsky recalled about his father that he, "like almost all people of his time, spoke more French. Zhukovsky, who was brought into our house by Karamzin, told me that he was always surprised by speed, dexterity and the ease with which, in conversation, my father translated into Russian thoughts and phrases that, apparently, were formed in his head in French.
Many of the Decembrists did not know Russian at all or almost. So, MP Bestuzhev-Ryumin during the investigation, sitting in the Peter and Paul Fortress, was forced, answering interrogation points, to leaf through the French-Russian lexicon for hours in order to correctly translate his testimony, which he composed in French. M. S. Lunin hardly spoke Russian. The brothers Muravyov-Apostles, who were brought up in France, knew the language rather poorly - of them, Matvey Ivanovich subsequently, in Siberia, by ear and thanks to reading Russian books, mastered the language quite well, and Sergei, due to his early death, did not have time, even hesitated to write in Russian. Russian, etc.

The situation of French-speaking people in 1812 looked almost tragicomic, when in the diaries and correspondence of the Russian nobility "the greatest hatred for the French was expressed in the purest French."
Poor knowledge of the Russian language was also facilitated by the fact that throughout the entire 18th and early 19th centuries it was constantly changing, generally recognized grammatical norms were practically unknown, and grammar textbooks were almost absent.
Many, following M. A. Dmitriev, could say: "They did not teach me Russian grammar, but there was no one to teach: no one even knew the spelling."
In general, they learned their native language mainly by copying copybooks and memorizing a few Russian poems - about the same as foreign ones. And in most cases, they did not think about spelling. Even Princess E. R. Dashkova, the president of two Academies and the author of articles in the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, signed her last name "Dashkava".

The impetus for mastering the Russian language was the educational policy and personal example of Nicholas I. As they said, the very next day after his accession, the emperor, going out in the morning to the courtiers, loudly greeted them in Russian, saying: "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen" .
Since his predecessor, Alexander I, always greeted in French, the most perceptive of the courtiers immediately felt that new times were coming. And so it turned out. From that time on, Nicholas spoke in French only with diplomats and ladies and was very annoyed if a subject could not keep up the conversation in Russian. And to write - letters to his sons and business papers - Nikolai also began to write in Russian, since he had good teachers and he did it quite competently. As a result, in a matter of months, the French language disappeared from Russian office work (with the exception of the diplomatic department), and the courtiers and the nobility of the capital vied with each other to invite teachers to study in Russian.
A. D. Galakhov turned out to be one of these mentors, in demand by the Moscow "light". First, he was invited to the house of Prince P. P. Gagarin. “A young prince of 14 years old,” Galakhov recalled, “already had an excellent command of French, much better than his native language. in the family of the prince and in the circle of his acquaintance, French was almost constantly heard. Thanks to the recommendation of the prince, I soon found lessons in other houses where I faced the same difficulty, that is, the dominance of the French language. However, both the students and their parents. Both liked the way they expressed my method, and the whole merit of this method lay in the clarity of interpretation, and perhaps even in the fact that, knowing French grammar, I often resorted to it to explain Russian grammar. and the fact that I was of the nobility and behaved differently in the lessons than teachers from seminarians, either who did not know French at all, or, with knowledge, frightened their pupils and pupils with a nasty reprimand, which was then paid special attention, appreciating it higher theoretical knowledge, no matter how capital it is ...

At the end of the 1820s, the first two detailed and systematic grammatical manuals in Russia written by N. I. Grech arrived in time: "Practical Russian Grammar" (1827) and "Short Russian Grammar" (1828) - and began to be used as textbooks, Well, literature did the rest. The desire to read Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol soon forced even foreigners to learn Russian.

"Agility in all bodily exercises" and "pleasant arts"

As B. N. Chicherin recalled: “The physical side was not forgotten in our upbringing. Father insisted that we acquire dexterity in all bodily exercises. ten, fifteen miles on horseback. Tenkat (tutor) taught me to swim decently, which was always a great pleasure for me. We began to learn fencing already in Moscow ... Dance classes began at the age of twelve, and this was the only lesson that, especially at first , was a real torment for me ... My father knew that all the dexterity and skill acquired in a hostel, acquired by a person, constitute an advantage for him.
Items that helped a child to become a man of the world, a true representative of his class, were given special attention.

The most suitable age to start learning to dance was considered to be five or six years old. Classes were held from two to four times a week, for several hours, both individually and in a group. Children were taught almost as seriously as professional ballet dancers: they mastered ballet positions, pas (steps) and entrecha (jumps), memorized rather complex figures of ballroom and characteristic dances. Particularly difficult in dancing are the "first position", in which the heels of the legs are connected and the toes are turned so far to the sides that the feet form a perfectly straight line, and also the "fifth position", when the legs are crossed and the feet are placed one against the other, so that the toe one foot touches the heel of the other.

For many children, especially boys, dancing was a heavy burden.
BN Chicherin recalled what a punishment for him - already a teenager - these lessons were. He was painfully embarrassed about his dance costume, "girly" shoes with bows, the need to take dance poses in public and jump. “I wanted to be a serious young man, I spent whole days delving into books, and they dressed me in a jacket and shoes and forced me to dance. I could not digest this ... Dressing for dancing became a tragic event, each step of which required violence against myself.”
Chicherin studied so-so (although later he considered that the constant breaking of himself in dance lessons was good for his character) and subsequently suffered somewhat from this. “Over time, moving in the big Moscow world, I saw that my parents were quite right in insisting that we learn this very natural exercise in youth meetings, and even regretted that, under the influence of childish prejudices, I never wanted to learn him okay."

At the dance lessons, they mastered the entire classical and fashionable dance repertoire. They taught to dance "Hungarian", and "bolero", and "kachucha", and "in Tyrolean", and "in gypsy", and "a la Greek", and various other "manners", because in addition to fashionable pairs dances, the program of balls (especially on the occasion of home holidays) necessarily included solo performances and small ballets performed by small and large children (this was called a "dance surprise"), including the famous pas de châle (dance with a shawl), in which , as you remember, Katerina Ivanovna shone at Dostoevsky's graduation ball, and pas de couronne (dance with a wreath), and all kinds of tarantellas, "Persian dances", etc.
Russian dances were also very popular. Already in the second half of the 18th century, slightly ennobled ballet dances in the Russian style were staged, necessarily, almost every evening, performed by imperial artists in theatrical "divertissement" - small combined concerts, which traditionally ended in those days. every performance. "In Russian" fashionable French dancers often danced here. Similar "Russian dances", which retained all the traditional movements, but a little "dramatized" dance master, were taught to noble children, and many parents, including very noble ones, willingly demonstrated the talents of their children. So, in Moscow at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, the young Countess Anna Alekseevna Orlova was very famous for her ability to dance in Russian. Many contemporaries recalled how, during balls, her father, Count A. G. Orlov, ordered the musicians to play the Russian song "I walked through the flowers," and Countess Anna received well-deserved admiration for her dancing art. Her dance teacher Balashov, the choreographer of the dance, was usually here, and he also received compliments.
In the provinces, especially among the lower nobility, the main place at every ball was occupied by Russian dances, which were often taught directly from the peasants.
E. I. Stogov recalled the wedding of his relatives in Ruza near Moscow at the beginning of the 19th century: “First they sang a congratulatory song, remembered the names of their uncle and aunt; then a dance song. everyone praised. Aunt, well-dressed, slender, with cheerful eyes, also received general praise. Uncle danced both the trepak and the Cossack, but as he squatted, he only flickered, some of the guests even screamed with delight. The young opened the ball, I remember all the dances ended in kisses. The couples changed for a long time, it seems that everyone was dancing.
In a similar way - both by observing peasant women and by taking lessons from a dance master - Tolstoy's Natasha Rostova could also learn Russian dance. At the time when Tolstoy's novel was written, of course, few of the nobles danced in Russian, but at the time of the book, this was a completely ordinary thing.
Dances were taught mainly by ballet actors - current and retired. In the 1800s, among them were such famous people as Didlo (mentioned by Pushkin), Kolosova, Novitskaya; in the 1830s-1840s - Munaretti, Gyullen-Sor, etc. About the end of the century, Princess L.V. Vasilchikova recalled: "From childhood, my contemporaries and generations older than me took lessons from the old man Troitsky. We lined up at one end hall, and he sat on the other opposite us and, crossing his legs, stroking his whiskers and clapping his hands if we made a mistake, commanded us like soldiers. Woe to the clumsy - then Troitsky mimicked us and humiliated us publicly.
The task of the dance master was to teach not only to dance, but also to freely stay in society, to move easily and naturally. Therefore, much attention was paid to bows and curtseys, the development of a beautiful posture, the position of arms and legs, even a special, "decent in society" facial expression. Here is how it was described in a dance textbook of the early 19th century: “The eyes, which serve as a mirror of our soul, should be modestly open, meaning pleasant gaiety. showing teeth."
In the dance master's classes, they learned to sit down, walk, cross the hall, put on and take off their hats and gloves, get into the carriage, fan themselves with a fan, respectfully take and serve various objects, etc. There were subtleties in all this: for example, good tone did not allow neither when walking, nor when talking, to wave your arms, and the main sign of graceful gait was considered if the soles of the walker were not visible.
Dance masters, on the other hand, quite often arranged so-called children's balls. They were conceived specifically for teenagers aged 13-16, who already knew how to dance tolerably, but had not yet gone out into society due to their infancy. Children's balls, or children's holidays, as they were also called, were organized either in noble families on the occasion of the name day of one of the children, or by famous dance masters in their schools on common holidays - at Christmas, on Maslenitsa, etc.
In addition to teenagers, who were the majority at children's balls, adults also came there, and children had the opportunity to practice dancing and ballroom communication with "real" partners. If the ball was given by the dance master, he invited all his former students to the children's party. Children's balls began and ended earlier than usual congresses, and this made it possible for adults to go directly from there to the theater, and then to the big ball.
Among the Moscow dance masters, the most probably famous, almost a legend, was Pyotr Andreevich Yogel, who came from France and began to teach Moscow children to dance in 1800, and stopped when he was already well over eighty, in the early 1850s years. He was a recognized master of his craft, through whose hands half the city passed. In addition to private lessons, he taught dancing to pupils of the University Noble Boarding School, including V. A. Zhukovsky, A. S. Griboyedov, M. Yu. Lermontov. By the end of Yogel's life, at his children's balls, the great-granddaughters met with their great-grandmothers, since both of them were the master's students. Naturally, when Leo Tolstoy wrote "War and Peace", he could not bypass the figure of Yogel with his attention and gave him his Natasha Rostova as a student.

In turn, the young "ladies" used the children's balls to rehearse adult relationships. Memoirist E. A. Naryshkina, who grew up in the countryside and therefore not very secular, recalled (1850s): "Sometimes we were taken to children's balls ... The girls we met represented a special new type for me. They were elegant and smart like real little ladies, and were able to speak in secular jargon about secular things.
In this respect I was aware of their unconditional superiority over me; I felt that I would never have spoken to them about what filled my head and my heart, so my role with them was rather passive.
If dances were taught to children of the nobility back in the time of Peter the Great, then the fashion for music lessons came later. In any case, S. A. Tuchkov remarked: “I never heard from the old people that any of the noble people in the reign of Peter I, Catherine I and even Anna was engaged in music: it seems that this custom has been made since the time of Peter III because he himself loved to play the violin and knew music, and then, perhaps, in imitation of Frederick II, whom he recklessly revered.
In the second half of the 18th century, music became one of those "pleasant arts" that diversify the leisure of a secular person, and it was included in the list of compulsory subjects for study.

Girls were taught to play the piano or harp, boys were also taught the piano, violin or flute. The number and duration of music lessons could vary - from two lessons a week for boys, who considered music less necessary, to daily classes for girls, for whom playing a musical instrument was not only a way to subsequently "please" a spouse, but also a means of attracting secular attention. Therefore, as it was often recalled, music lessons from the age of seven became at first "a cross carried out of humility, then a torture to which they obeyed in the name of discipline."
Most of the girls practiced music every day for three or four hours: an hour lesson before lunch, after-dinner learning of the set and after tea an hour to play solo or four hands with their sister.
Technique, speed, and the ability to briskly play pieces and memorize these pieces without error, "for which one passage had to be hammered out for half an hour," were valued most of all in the game. The presence of abilities and even an ear for music was considered not the main thing (“after all, it’s not you, but you should be listened to”). Well, thanks to the excessive "musical duty" absolutely everyone was taught to play. At that time, it was generally believed that there was no such art that could not be learned. Except that it didn’t always work out with singing: few people agreed to listen to voiceless singing.

Musical mentor could be your own yard musician or a European celebrity - A. Henselt, J. Field and others, who taught many talented offspring of the capital's nobility.
MI Glinka, like later PI Tchaikovsky, was initially taught music by their governesses.
M. I. Glinka recalled: “Although music, i.e., playing the piano and reading music, we were taught mechanically, but I quickly managed to do it. Varvara Fedorovna (governess) was cunning at inventions. somehow disassemble the notes and hit the keys, now she ordered to attach the board to the piano over the keys so that it was possible to play, but it was impossible to see the hands and the key, and from the very beginning I got used to playing, despite the fingers.
E. A. Sushkova was taught music by her aunt, and here the results were less impressive. “At first she taught me the names of the keys. Then she somehow explained the notes, not saying that there are quarters, eighths, white, without explaining what a pause, treble, bass, tone are, and she showed everything from her hands and somehow she interpreted that "re" on the middle octave is written like this, on the lower octave - it always ended with her favorite phrase: "All this will come by itself, just take it apart more, and you will get used to reading notes like a book. " Without having the slightest idea about theory music, I had never seen or worked on scales, but they directly planted me for the plays of Steinbelt and Field ... Unfortunately for me, I was addicted to music, I studied it for four hours a day, but I must admit that no one ever recognized that I was drumming, something so familiar was heard, but out of hand ugly.

Of all the "pleasant arts", drawing was given the least attention, unless the child was so carried away that he begged for additional lessons. Usually one or two years, one lesson a week, was enough for the child to learn how to use a pencil and watercolor brush and master the skills of copying from "originals" - that is, exemplary lithographs or drawings made by professional artists - and the basics of composition. If more serious training was required, as was the case with M. I. Glinka, who passionately wanted to learn how to draw in childhood, then the child was seated for "drawing from the eyes, noses, ears, etc., demanding unaccountable mechanical imitation."
In some noble families, in the second half of the 18th century, they began to teach children and crafts. At the origins of this tradition was Emperor Peter, who, as you know, mastered almost thirty crafts in his life, including the ability to remove teeth. Peter was especially fond of working on a lathe, which occupied his hands and unloaded his head, and greatly contributed to raising the prestige of this occupation. Some of Peter's associates imitated him, and their own turners, one might say, came into fashion, especially since some other European sovereigns were also fond of similar "pure" crafts, for example, the unfortunate Louis XVI, who ended his days on the guillotine, who liked to tinker with all kinds of mechanics, assembled and repaired locks, clocks, etc. Catherine the Great knew how to cut stones and, at her leisure, successfully copied antique cameos; Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Paul I, like Peter, loved to sharpen things made of wood and bone on a lathe and often gave her husband her own products (he died clinging to the turned balusters that adorned the desk she presented).
That's why the Russian nobles taught their children the "royal" turning art (as we remember, the old prince Bolkonsky also liked to relax at the lathe in "War and Peace"), watchmaking and bookbinding. At the end of the 18th century, this fashion received additional nourishment: to the ordeals of the French aristocrats expelled from their country by the revolution, the most far-sighted Russian parents took care to teach their children to do at least something useful with their hands, so that in which case they would not die of hunger

In general, it can be said that the education of the nobility was noticeably improved. The number of subjects taught was reduced: the random was cut off, the necessary was added. Languages ​​ceased to be a means of showing off and became an instrument of knowledge; humanitarian subjects were filled with life specifics, grasping grew into erudition - all this served to form a truly refined personality, an aristocracy not only in blood, but also in spirit.

What to read?

No upbringing and education is possible without extensive and systematic reading; it forms the thinking of a person, his worldview, contributes to the development of self-consciousness. For a long time, the influence of reading on Russian noble education was hampered by two circumstances: the lack of habit and the absence of the books themselves. Until the second half of the 18th century, and in the provinces even before the 19th century, in a rare house one could find some kind of book, and then mainly of a spiritual content - the Psalter or the Saints, or Engalychev’s medical manual or some kind of calendar, like in Onegin’s uncles:
And the calendar of the eighth year:
An old man, having many things to do,
He did not look at other books.
Most of the nobles did not read anything at all; others thought that too diligent reading of books, including the Bible, could drive a person crazy. Even in aristocratic families, until the time of Elizabeth Petrovna, there were almost no home libraries.

Gradually, however, things got off the ground. Already A. T. Bolotov read quite a lot - everything that came to hand. He especially remembered "The Adventures of Telemachus" in Russian translation. “Through it I received the concept of mythology, of ancient wars and customs, of the Trojan War…,” he recalled. “In a word, this book served as the first stone laid in the foundation of my future learning, there were so few Russian books that not only libraries, but not the slightest collections were anywhere in the houses.
Due to the paucity of book collections, children for a long time grabbed literally everything they could reach, and all these were books for adults: classics in the language spoken in the family, a few translations into Russian, works by Russian authors.
A lot of different testimonies have been preserved about what exactly fell into the hands of children (and the first books read are best remembered).

Ya. P. Polonsky, who was brought up at the beginning of the 19th century, also in the provinces (his parents did not know French and spoke Russian in the family), recalled: “When I was over seven years old, I already knew how to read and write and I read everything that came to hand, and all the old, sometimes very old books came to my hand, in leather bindings with dried bugs between the pages: editions of the time of Catherine - Plavilshchikov's comedies, and especially the memorable "Mermaid" - a magical performance with transformations and verses. Here, if I'm not mistaken, is the beginning of one verse:
Men in the world
Like flies cling to us,
Having in the subject,
To deceive us.
Sometimes there were also new, for that time, publications, such as "Memorable Russia" (with pictures), and the then "Picturesque Review". The first verses I read already encouraged me to imitate them. Most often, poems by Karamzin and Prince Dolgorukov came across in the publications of that time.

I had an excellent memory for poetry, for eight or nine years I already knew by heart the best fables of Krylov, all the fairy tales of Dmitriev, the monologues from the comedies of Knyaznin and some of the tragedies of Ozerov. I read poems aloud, and to whom? To my nanny and all the illiterate household, who, as it seemed to me then, listened to me with great pleasure, even gasped with pleasure!0391 AP Butenev read Bogdanovich's Darling, poems by Sumarokov, Lomonosov and Karamzin, the first volume of Leveque's History of Russia translated from French, and Fenelon's novel Telemachus.
D. N. Sverbeev, at the age of nine or eleven, mastered everything that he found in his father’s small library: Russian poets of the 18th century, historical works, Karamzin’s “Letters from a Russian Traveler” and the “Moscow Journal” published by him, “And My Trifles” I. I. Dmitriev, the mystical writings of Jacob Bem, John Masson, Eckartshausen, fashionable in 1810–1820, the book of Jung Stilling, known in Russian translation as "Threats of Light Easters" and "Zion Collection" by A. F. Labzin.
The same unsystematic reading continued much later. If a child was seized by a passion for reading, he was ready to grab any text in a binder, if only to satisfy this passion.

For a long time, neither parents nor tutors interfered in the relationship of a child with a book, unless they found that reading interferes with the child's lessons, and then they locked the books (from under which young book lovers still found ways to get them). It was not until the second third of the 19th century that parents came to the conclusion that adults should control their children's reading and that before allowing a child to take a book, they should definitely read it themselves. Especially many restrictions arose in adolescence, when all literature that was even slightly questionable in relation to morality, mainly French novels, was banned.

It must be said that many of the adults who were brought up in their time on non-children's literature did not understand this system of prohibitions. So, I. I. Dmitriev wrote: “Reading novels had no harmful effect on my morality. I even dare to say that they were for me an antidote against everything low and vicious. The Adventures of Cleveland, The Adventures of Marquis G. elevated my soul I have always been captivated by good examples and willingly wished to follow them. M. K. Tsebrikova found that even books that were incomprehensible to children did not bring "anything but benefit. The incomprehensible aroused a thirst to understand; poorly understood was understood correctly after a few times; children learned to correct their mistakes." In addition, "children generally understand much more than their educators imagine."
In many families from Russian literature, Pushkin was considered inconvenient for teenage reading for a long time. Ya. P. Polonsky testified: “Pushkin in those distant years was considered a poet not quite decent. Young people were not given his poems into their hands. But the forbidden fruit seemed more expensive, as if justifying Pushkin’s own poems: Heaven is not heaven for us.
Many hand-written poems by Pushkin went through the hands of high school students. So, not in print, but in hand-written notebooks, for the first time I managed to read both "Count Nulin" and "Eugene Onegin".
According to the story of Prince S. M. Volkonsky, his grandfather, the Decembrist S. G. Volkonsky, "when his son, a fifteen-year-old boy, wanted to read "Eugene Onegin", marked with a pencil on the side all the verses that he considered subject to censorship exclusion; can you imagine how easy it was to skip a line with the lightness of Pushkin's verse. Other contemporaries also recalled a similar practice - sticking or smearing Pushkin's lines with ink. Completely "rehabilitated" "Eugene Onegin" only in the second half of the XIX century.
Actually, children's literature was born in the second half of the 18th century, at a time when moralists and educators spoke more and more loudly about childhood - not only as a time of life, but also as a special stage in the formation of a person. Since then, gradually comes the understanding that a child is not an inferior adult (weaker physically and mentally, not formed bodily and incapable of reproduction), but a child, with his own level of worldview, abilities, rudiments of character, etc., that children it is difficult to read "big" books and one has to write specifically for them, so that it is both short and entertaining, and even written in simple language, without long scholarly words - and books appeared that were intended specifically for children's understanding.
The authors of the first such books were mainly teachers - German, and then English. The very first was the German Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746–1818). In the early 1770s, he published a little book called "Children's Library". It was a collection of songs and stories, fables and skits, intended for reading by both very young and grown-up children.
The success with the readers was so great that Campe soon published a second book, followed by a third, and so on, so that a little later the "Children's Library" really turned into a whole library, consisting of two dozen plump volumes. There were not only stories, poems and moralizing conversations, but also detailed descriptions of numerous journeys, glorifying the power of the human spirit and reasonable Divine predestination.
Almost immediately, in 1776, a Russian translation of Campe appeared under the title "A new kind of toy, or Amusing and moralizing tales for the use of the smallest children." This book was the beginning of children's literature in Russia.
Soon a whole library of children's reading - translations of the future children's classics: "Don Quixote", "Robinson Crusoe", etc. and the magazine "Children's Reading for the Heart and Mind" (1785–1789 - was created by N. I. Novikov. "' "Children's Reading" was perhaps the best book of all published for children in Russia, - later recalled M.A. Dmitriev. - I remember with what pleasure even adult children read it. Moskovsky Vedomosti "".

After the first translated children's books, it was time for the writings of our own Russian authors.
Alexander Semyonovich Shishkov (1754–1841) became one of the first children's poets. An outstanding statesman and public figure, admiral, minister of education and president of the Russian Academy, Shishkov was also a gifted poet. True, he was embarrassed to publish his poems for children in a separate book and "hid" them on the pages of the next translation of Campe's Children's Library, modestly writing in the preface: "This book is partly a translation, partly an imitation of the works of Mr. Campe."
It soon became clear that Shishkov was shy in vain. It was his poems that readers first noticed, thanks to them his book gained great fame and was in every educated family. And, starting to read, the children very quickly memorized the poems of Alexander Semenovich, for example, these:
We have all the joys,
Small children.
Toys and laughter,
And many things.

Pretty soon, by the beginning of the 19th century, children's literature began to be published in different countries, and English was considered the best.

In the 19th century, talking about literature and book novelties became an obligatory topic of secular communication not only in the capitals, but also in the provinces. Now all worthy books were diligently read by society ladies and young people and then discussed in a decent manner. More mature men, due to lack of time, did not always have time to follow the literature, but they also tried to "correspond". So, Emperor Alexander I, who valued the reputation of an amiable secular person, used the retellings of his wife, Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna. During joint dinners, she told him about worthy novelties, reported her own opinion, and Alexander was fully equipped to maintain an easy conversation.

Characters who read little or thoughtlessly often became a laughingstock. The Moscow beauty Princess Urusova, impeccable in everything except her intellect, once became famous for answering the question of a ballroom cavalier: "What are you reading now?" - she murmured: "A pink little book. And my sister - a blue one."

It can be said that by the middle of the 19th century, both the traditions and the circle of children's reading were fully formed. In addition to children's books for different ages, there are Russian and world classics, books about travel, about animals, and historical works.
B. N. Chicherin recalled that his first introduction to literature occurred at the age of four, when his father, gathering around the table in the evenings of all the household, read aloud to them Krylov's fables, as well as other poems - Yazykov, Karamzin, Dmitriev, excerpts from " Boris Godunov" by Pushkin et al. dealing with them." The circle of children's reading included Nekrasov with his "Grandfather Mazai" and "General Toptygin", and "The Life of Animals" by Brem, and the books of Jules Verne, Fenimore Cooper, Mine Reed, and Alexandre Dumas, previously forbidden for teenagers - but everyone read this not only little nobles, but also every literate child from any cultured family.

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