REPRESENTATION OF ANIMAL WORLD IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: HISTORICAL AND EDUCATIONAL DIGRESSION

Abstract

The purpose of the article is a historical excursion into the depiction of the living world in educational literature for children with the aim of forming a compassionate attitude towards animals, primarily those surrounding the child, which he meets every day. The following methods were used to achieve the goal: search and bibliographic, – for systematization and classification of the source base in synchronic and diachronic dimensions; analysis, synthesis, generalization, abstraction to distinguish stories and fairy tales about animals from the general context of children’s literature; problem-comparative method, which made it possible to characterize various texts devoted to the depiction of the animal world; biographical, personified to clarify the contribution of individual thinkers and educators to the consideration of the issue of human-animal relationships. As a result of the research, it was found that the literature for children of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, first of all, in the person of K. Ushinskyi, she introduced them to the world of animals, instilled mercy towards them. The text of the article highlights the trends in literature about animals that developed during the Ukrainian revolution (1917–1921). Despite the shortness and brevity of this period, it influenced the subsequent strategy of the general literary and publishing process, contributed to Ukrainization, Ukrainian national revival. The personalized, personal approach of children’s writers to the issues of fostering a compassionate attitude towards animals is defined and revealed; it was found out that he is characterized by dialogism, focus on communication with children through emotional, moral and ethical principles. The contribution of Ukrainian children’s writers (N. Zabila, O. Ivanenko, O. Kopylenko, P. Panch, M. Prygara, M. Trublaini, etc.) and teachers (B. Grinchenko, V. Sukhomlynskyi, K. Ushinskyi) to the artistic – figurative, emotional and ethical familiarization of children with the world of animals, which formed a good, humane attitude towards it. The article analyzes the stories, fairy tales, essays of children’s writers, emphasizes the emotional and valuable, aesthetic content of texts about animals. Special attention is paid to educational literature for children – textbooks, the content of which is considered as the quintessence of adults’ ideas about how children should interact with animals and treat them. It is emphasized that modern humanitarian literature, including educational and methodological literature, got rid of the ideological and party-class context as mandatory, necessary for any narratives and at the same time became open to the whole world with its achievements, problems and challenges. Conclusions. As a result of the analysis, we come to the general conclusion that the considered problem, although it was not in the center of attention, had its own coordinate system (literature for children – educational literature), which filled the content of general ideas through an artistic and cognitive worldview context. It was found out that it was children’s literature that enabled the emergence and spread of ideas about careful and responsible treatment of animals, first among adults, and then among children. A general conclusion is made about the prospects of spreading these ideas: through fiction for children, as well as educational literature as a specific branch of children’s literature.