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Soviet Kindergarten - the First Social Experience
The state system of preschool education in the Soviet State was initiated after the 20th of November of 1917 when the "Declaration on Preschool Education" was issued.
Women were a constant source of inflow of labour during the First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932). During the Second Five-Year Plan (1933-1937) the number of workers grew only by hiring more women. The extensive involvement of women in the workforce required quick action regarding parenting issues. The state had almost entirely taken over the parenting function of the children.
A demographic crisis happened in the middle of the 1930s caused by the falling birth rates. The main task of the state propaganda had become to increase the number of children in the families and to spread the medical knowledge.
A Decree was issued by the Soviet Government on the 27th of June 1936 aiming at helping mothers - increasing the number of women's clinics and children's facilities, construction of new maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens and prohibiting the previously allowed abortion. Kindergartens were opened at the local Councils of People's Deputies, at the working places, institutions and collective farms.
People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR issued a new program and new regulations for kindergartens. These programs included the following topics: social education, physical education, games and arts education. All problems of early childhood education were solved on a scientific basis. Standards were developed for the building and construction, the amount of space, the density of children's groups and the required equipment. Nursery schools for children from 2 months to 7 years were organized along with the kindergartens in 1959. All pre-schools were run by the Ministry of Education and their local authorities.
There were 83,100 kindergartens and nurseries by the end of 1970 where 8,099,700 children were looked after.
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MAY 17 - JUNE 30, 2012
Soviet Kindergarten - the First Social Experience
The exhibition "Soviet Kindergarten - the First Social Experience" is not only a collection of Kindergarten-themed paintings of the Soviet period, but is also our first attempt of an artistic interpretation of our own past experience.
We are about to show some very common and familiar to us stories from our Soviet childhoods as seen and interpreted by different artists. They might not only bring sweet memories back but also help to discover hidden meanings of our grown up existence.
"Love comes in place of the lost purity. Order and justice - instead of the lost love. Ritual signifies the destruction of the foundations. Then confusion comes as a consequence", are the words of Lao Tsi. We would add that growing up is the other consequence which brings us back to our beginnings, to the kindergarten.
We are grateful to Raisa Davydovna Rapoport for providing the photo archive for the exhibition.
We dedicate our exhibition to her, Evgeniya Genrikhovna Gendina and all those who worked in Soviet kindergartens, the people who put all their efforts into bringing to life the idea of a happy childhood.
We also are very grateful to Erlen Danilovich Petrakov for unique photographs from 1929.
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