https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9349-8933
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ABSTRACT
This paper investigates toys and their consumer spaces as a part of the history of early Soviet childhood in Ukraine. Particular consideration is paid to the influence of communist ideology on determining a toy's role in children's upbringing. The study highlights the various spaces established in Ukraine for children's collective consumption and the material world of play, such as the children's branch of the central department store and the Palace of Pioneers. However, it has been shown that the low purchasing power of households and the underdevelopment of light industry made hand-made play items an inseparable element of children's material culture, as well as an important part of children's everyday consumption practices. In the 1930s, the growing tensions inside Soviet society, Europe, and around the world caused the militarization of childhood and raised the role of war toys.
Acknowledgements
This article was finalized at the University of Alberta, where I had the opportunity to teach courses on Soviet consumption and childhood (2019–2020) and, thanks to Jelena Pohosjan and Mariya Mayerchyk, was involved in an exhibition project on the prairie children of the 1930s. I am also grateful to Insa Fooken for her assistance with the earlier version of this text. A draft of the article was discussed at the Seminar of Economic History Initiative (Ukrainian Catholic University). I would like to thank the organizer, Volodymyr Kulikov, and the participants for their valuable comments. The stimulating suggestions of two anonymous reviewers helped me to clarify and rethink the raised ideas. Any errors or omissions are my own.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
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Iryna Skubii
Iryna Skubii is working on a doctoral project at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, and is affiliated with the Petro Vasylenko Kharkiv National Technical University of Agriculture. She is the author of the monograph Trade in Kharkiv in the Years of NEP (1921–1929): Economy and Everyday Life (2017). Her scientific interests include the social and economic history of Soviet Ukraine, consumption and material culture, and survival under famine.