Children, childhoods and kindergartens in communist Czechoslovakia: untold narratives of the early years

Abstract

There is a complexity to the early years and childhoods in communist Czechoslovakia. On the surface, childhoods and early years education can be perceived as homogenous and monolithic. However, close examination reveals not only a multiplicity of childhoods, but also cracks in the ideological governance that positions these childhoods as happy and political, and in the early years centres as spaces of education, care and preparation of children for future ideological productivity to serve the system. In this sense, the ‘socialist child’ was a young citizen identified with the ideals of communism/socialism. This article focuses on the formation of childhoods and the production of child subjects in Czechoslovakia under communist governance. The analysis looks particularly at how early years¹ institutions were perceived through the lens of children’s literature, and how through the archival documents and magazines distributed for and about children in kindergarten, a particular image of a ‘socialist child’ was conceptualised in early years centres.

Keywords:

• Early childhood
• socialism
• children’s literature
• philosophy of childhood
• Czechoslovakia

Notes

1. For more detail on Wild Thyme and Little Bee, and the methodological approach in archives, see Tesar 2013 and 2015.