Valentina S. Sergeeva – Candidate of Philological Studies, Senior Researcher at the Literary Theory Department, Gorky Institute of the World Literature RAS; ORCID: 0000-0003-4693-7723
The transition of historical and cultural heritage to children is an important problem of any national literature; authors have to place accents appropriately, choose key events and describe cultural constants. G.A. Henty creates the image of a young Briton which remains unchanged for centuries; this succession, indeed, made the British Empire so powerful. R. Kipling and W. Mayne focus on the historical and legendary past making the symbolically significant locations a starting point of their stories. R. Jefferies’ characters draw on the books shaping a circle of reading of a “typical English boy”; stories about historical persons, ancient heroes and travelers contribute to self-building. T. Pratchett refers to the Victorian age as a generally understandable cultural background and, in his cycle about Tiffany, writes a local text in Kipling’s traditions referring to the theme of the memory, homeland, ancestral customs. J. Rowling reconstructs, in the genre of fantasy, certain rules of a “school story” that were offered to the readers since T. Hughes’s novel. D. Walliams, while laughing at stereotypes, paints nevertheless a familiar picture of the “little Britain”.
children’s literature; English literature; memory; history; historical prose; fantasy.