The World of Childhood

During its existence, the Yakut writing system changed its graphic basis several times and was repeatedly reformed.

There are 4 stages in it's history: Until the early 1920s. - writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet; 1917-1929 - S. A. Novgorodov's writing, based on the Latin alphabet; 1929-1939 - a unified alphabet based on the Latin basis; Since 1939 - writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

In 1917, a Yakut student at Petrograd University, S. A. Novgorodov, compiled the Yakut alphabet based on the international phonetic alphabet.

This alphabet didn't have capital letters, diacritics and punctuation marks, which, according to Novgorodov, should have made the alphabet more convenient for quick writing. Novgorodov's writing had to be strictly phonetic - as it is heard, so it is written. 
In the 1920/21 academic year, this alphabet was officially introduced into school teaching. In 1923, fonts were made for the "original" version of Novgorodov's alphabet and book publishing was transferred to a new font, including children's books.

In the 20-30s of the XX century, a campaign was launched in the USSR to translate the written languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR into the Latin alphabet - Latinization.

Latinization began with languages ​​that used a written language based on the Arabic alphabet, and in 1926, at the first Turkic Congress, a decision was made on the desirability of applying the experience in Latinization in other republics and autonomous regions of the USSR.

In 1931, the "Single Northern Alphabet" was approved on a Latin graphic basis, final adopted at the 1st All-Russian Conference on the Development of Languages ​​and Writing in 1932. At the same time, a project for creating a writing system for 14 literary languages  of the peoples of the North was approved, and work began on republishing existing textbooks and creating new textbooks based on new graphics. ​​

The 30s became a period of significant growth of Yakut children's literature, the appearance of the first major works for children in the genres of prose and poetry. It was facilitated by a number of important organizational measures by the party and government to strengthen literature for children. It was in the 30s that exceptionally great care and attention was paid to questions of children's literature. 

In the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of December 29, 1931 "On the publishing house" Molodaya Gvardiya it was said: "The sharpest Bolshevik weapon on the ideological front - to literature for youth and children". 

Following this Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) in September 1933, the world's first specialized publishing house for children's literature was created, the creation of which made a decisive turn in the development of children's literature throughout the country. In the national republics and regions, special attention has also begun to be paid to the development of children's literature on the ground, issues of publishing books for children in national languages.

Much attention was also paid to translation from Russian into Yakut. Here the central publishing houses (the Educational-Pedagogical Publishing House and the Children's Literature Publishing House - Uchpedgiz and Detizdat) rendered great help, under which a significant number of translated and original works were published. 

Among them, starting in 1936, Uchpedgiz began to publish the series "Library of Yakut Literature for Junior High and Secondary Schools" and the Geographical Series of translated works. Children published about 80 titles of translated works for primary school age. 

Among them are the tales of the peoples of the USSR, Russian tales, tales of foreign writers - H. K. Andersen, V. Gauff, br. Grimm, C. Perrot, R. Kipling, classical works of foreign children's literature - "Gulliver at the Lilliputians" by D. Swift, "The Mysterious Island" by J. Verne, "Gavroche" and "Cosette" by V. Hugo and many others.

In Soviet times, the stories "Cosette" and "Gavroche" were widely known and had a huge success. The stories were presented as excerpts from the novel "Les Miserables" by Victor Hugo, but in fact they were not translations, but transcriptions of episodes of the novel.
The story "Gavroche", published in 1936, was translated into the Yakut language by the writer Georgy Mitrofanovich Vasiliev from the Russian translation by Chatskina Sophia Isaakovna. 

At all times, the enduring role of children's books in shaping the spiritual and intellectual image of future generations was clear.
The children's book, throughout the history of its development, has been the basis of spiritual culture, a means of communication, emotional and mental development of a growing person, and the formation of personality.

The 1920s and 1930s were the "golden age" of Russian children's books, the period of its rapid development and unprecedented experiments with form and content.
During these years, children's literature received strong support from the state, on an unprecedented scale. There was a process of the formation of Soviet children's literature, a radical renewal of the circle of children's reading.

And the illustrations for these children's books themselves need special admiration.

Book illustrations teach to perceive the beautiful, educate in their own way, influence the ability to create. They are very important, since children perceive books in books as images that will later be stored in their memory for many years.

For the Yakut literature of the 1920s-1930s, the time of formation and development of an original national and regional artistic culture, experiments in the field of form and style in general.
The pioneers Elley (1904–1976), K. Urastyrov (1907–1990), S. Vasiliev (1907–1975), A. Abaginsky (1907–1960) and others, based on oral and poetic traditions and creative assimilation of the experience of Russian literature, created your original unique style.

Books in Latin graphics represent one of the most interesting pages in the history of the formation of children's literature in Yakutia. 

These books are still being studied by bibliologists and bibliographers. Books are interesting to readers, interest in them doesn't fade away, but on the contrary, increases.

Despite the significant circulation even by modern standards, many publications have become a bibliographic rarity after decades. And we are glad to present these unique copies in the Electronic Library of the National Library of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).