My statement of intent for the research I must do, is find out the effects of propaganda on Soviet children, specifically through cartoons.
Wish List:
- What effect did this show or other Soviet children’s shows have on you growing up?
- Did you have political views skewed one way or another as a child?
- What lessons did the shows teach the children?
- Could the Children, now as adults, remember any symbols in the show and interpret what was the hidden message?
- Were there purposeful hidden messages in the show/shows on record?
The sources I will need to find will be first-hand or primary source accounts from people who grew up within the Soviet Union or heavily exposed to Soviet cartoons. This can be found from articles by journalists who write about life in the Soviet Union and how they grew up to let the world know how it was and by historians who write papers on the nature of Soviet propaganda and ideals. I would incorporate the rhetoric other interpret in the cartoons into my own analysis and educated inferences on what the rhetoric could have been to strengthen my claims about certain aspects of the show being propaganda in a way. To search I would use the Baruch Library databases and choose one that fit my need for history and propaganda works with key words like “Soviet Childhood” and “Soviet Propaganda”, etc. The titles and abstracts have mostly enough to tell if what I need is in the articles however, I would skim a few to make sure.