The image of the capital as a metaphor for national identity: russian alphabet and primers of 1900-1925
A primer can be considered as a means of political and social indoctrination of a child. However, complex and abstract ideas (for example, an idea of national identity) should be presented in it in the form of symbols a child can understand, including visual ones. One solution to this task was used in the Russian alphabets and primers of the early 20th centuries: the images of the capital city represented the national idea.The article analyzes Russian primers and basal readers published in 1900-1925 in the capital and provincial cities by state and private publishers (N>140). 23 textbooks contained the images of the capital city (its architecture, markets and shops, city transport, street lighting, genre scenes, etc.).The textbooks has texts and figures with both Russian capital cities - Moscow and St. Petersburg. However, in most cases, it is Moscow that is presented as a symbol of national identity. The image of the capital in the Russian primers of the period under review represented the following characteristics of the nation: vast territory (Moscow is the heart of the Russian land); centralized state power (“the tsar and the tsarina live in the capital”); state-supported religion (Moscow Orthodox churches in the illustrations); economic development (the capital is the center of trade, industry, transport communications); community of culture and language (architectural objects, poetic texts about the capital city, etc.). These characteristics were present in the ABCs and primers published in Russia before and after the socialist revolution of 1917. They remained in school textbooks until about 1923-1925. Later the idea of a “united socialist nation” replaced them. The main features were not the ethnic and cultural ones, but the economic and social (class) signs of a community of people.