Exhibitions of Japanese children’s drawings in the USSR: Depicting Japan, showing the world

The article is devoted to the history of exhibitions of Japanese children’s drawings in the Soviet Union in 1920s – 1980s, as well as to the critical interpretation and perception by the Soviet audience of the artistic works of Japanese children. The importance of such events can be seen not only in the artistic value of the exposition material, but also in the influence of the expositions on the image of Japan in mass consciousness.

The material is devoted to key exhibition projects related to the presentation of Japanese children’s art, in particular, the “Exhibition of Children’s Books and Children’s Art of Japan” in 1928, as well as a series of international exhibitions “I See the World,” held in the USSR since the late 1960s. The greatest attention is paid to the peculiarities of Soviet art criticism towards Japanese children’s drawing in the pre-war and post-war period, as well as the influence of Soviet ideology on the interpretation of children’s art from Japan.

The author comes to the conclusion that the approach to the exhibitions was characterized by ideological indoctrination, as well as certain stereotypes about Japan, which created a request for exoticization of the creative products of the Japanese children. During the initial period of the Russian-Japanese cultural ties, despite the controversial nature of the Soviet art criticism of Japanese children’s drawings, the exhibition had substantial importance for the cultural ties of the two countries. In the post-war period, not only mono- national exhibitions, but also large projects involving multiple countries drew attention to various creative works of Japanese children. Since the early 1990s, the past importance of such exhibitions as an important element of cultural exchange receded, which is also true for the present times, despite the episodic exhibition projects of this sort in various regions of Russia. The “propaganda” component of children’s drawings faded. It is, however, regrettable that such exhibitions stopped attracting public attention due to the lack of interest of the media to these initiatives, as well as of systematic study of the works of Japanese children from the point of view of art studies and psychology.

The article is based on documents, many of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, from the following archives: the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg.

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