Swedish Proletarians towards Freedom: Ideals of Participation as Propaganda in the Communist Children’s Press of the 1920s
Alfred Andersson witnessed as a young boy the social and economic downside of Swedish class society during the mid-1920s. He was one of capitalism’s victims, doomed to a life of hard labour under unequal conditions. But Alfred refused to remain a victim: he fought back by organizing himself. This is, of course, if you believe his testimony in a two-piece letter published in the Swedish communist children’s periodical The Young Comrade (Den unge kamraten) in the beginning of 1924. In the letter he describes why he became a communist and how he successfully organized a local revolutionary children’s club.1 His is a model letter in the radical paper that targeted children between the ages of nine and 14. Young Alfred’s story touches upon several themes promoted by the editors. For instance, he doesn’t stay silent or accept things as they are. Rather he depicts himself in the position of an opponent to the current societal regime. In that position he opposes, for example, the inherited poverty that is most likely to make his a hard life as it had done his father’s. Furthermore, he opposes bourgeois children’s organizations such as the Scout movement or the Christian Sunday school. He turns to communism, therefore, as a way of liberating himself from oppression. From the editors’ point of view, his letter served as an inspirational didactic example depicting the need for class struggle.
Worker Correspondents: Between Journalism and Literature
AAAiile journalism is often seen as the antithesis of literature, the two enjoyed a close and productive relationship in the Soviet Union in the decade following the Revolution.1 The influence of the Bolshevik press was key to Red victory in the Civil War, and much of Bolshevik journalism's power stemmed from its application of literary methods to factual genres and harnessing of literary talents such as Vladimir Mayakovsky.2 Early Soviet journalism's innovative emphasis upon the presentation of factual material for political persuasion rather than information was the inspiration for remarkable 1920s cultural forms such as Dziga Vertov's revolutionary newsreel and the ubiquitous newspaper feuilleton.3 Yet this groundbreaking approach to propaganda was not the most unusual feature of 1920s Soviet newspapers. This honor belongs to journalists' active solicitation of readers' letters leading to "a volume of mail probably unprecedented in world history."4 By 1922 such letter-writing had been christened the movement of "worker correspondents" (rabochii korrespondent, or rabkor). For writers Mikhail Bulgakov and Mikhail Zoshchenko the torrent of correspondence furnished source material for stories of disputes in restaurants,
The Importance of St Margaret’s Church in The Book of Margery Kempe: A Sacred Place and an Exemplary Parishioner
This article argues that Margery Kempe is presented as an exemplary parishioner and a supporter of her parish church in The Book of Margery Kempe. It begins by demonstrating that St Margaret’s church and King’s Lynn are placed at the centre of the Book’s mapping of Christian holy places and then analyses the two miracles that take place at St Margaret’s (the stone and beam in chapter 9 and the fire in chapter 67) as evidence of the church’s sanctity and its importance in Margery Kempe’s spiritual life. The article examines three interrelated characteristics of the church (the material, sacred, and communal) in relation to Margery’s identity as a lay woman and in the context of Middle English pastoral care literature. The article concludes that Margery’s role in the miracles and her behaviour in St Margaret’s church demonstrate that the Book presents an ideal church supported by an exemplary parishioner as an inspiration to its readers.