ABSTRACT
In 2003, the patriarch of children's literature, Sergei Mikhalkov, turned ninety years old. The numerous articles about and interviews with the jubilar shared two undertones: the fascination with Mikhalkov's longevity (creative as well as biological) and the puzzlement at his self-righteousness, his categorical refusal to admit to any gray areas in his seventy-year-long writing career. In the wake of the festivities, a Radio Liberty program titled “Mikhalkov as a Symbol” 1 attempted to open up a discussion by providing an open-ended title. That Mikhalkov's work deserves such efforts is beyond doubt for his work is emblematic of the Soviet literary canon. On the one hand, the overdetermination of literature by the empire-building project instituted a near-classicist system of model texts and genres. On the other hand, children's literature as writing for a specific age group morphed into a model for didactic middle-brow literature for everyone. The conflation of diverse stylistic registers and target audiences within the work of a children's author mirrors the Soviet culture's penchant for eclectic totality.
