Exhibition

THE CENTURY OF THE CHILD IN CROATIA

Childhood and Schooling in the 20th Century

 


 

Organizer

Croatian School Museum, Trg Republike Hrvatske 4, 10000 Zagreb www.hsmuzej.hr

 

On the Behalf of the Organizer

Štefka Batinić

 

Conception of the exhibition

Štefka Batinić

Sonja Gaćina Škalamera

Elizabeta Serdar

 

Selection of materials and catalog descriptions

Lea Bakić

Štefka Batinić

Sonja Gaćina Škalamera

Kristina Gverić

Branka Manin

Jelena Miholić Madunović

Sanja Nekić

Elizabeta Serdar

 

Visual Design of the Exhibition

Bachrach & Krištofić

 

Collaborator on the exhibition set-up

Luka Drobac

 

Technical setup

Vedran Girlandović

Jasna Čagalj

Marin Kovačević

 

Technical associate

Fredy Fijačko

 

Educational Programme

Ivana Dumbović Žužić

Ivona Marić

 

Marketing

Marijana Bračić

 

The exhibition and catalogue were financed by the City Office for Culture and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

Sponsor: KRAŠ Food Industry

 

From December 21 2019 to March 22, 2020

 

 

In the 20th century, Croatia was part of several commonwealths and political systems that largely determined its overall development and significantly affected its culture of living, including the culture of growing up. For example, an 80-year old man living in the 1990s was born in one country (Austro-Hungary), grew up and was educated in another (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes / Yugoslavia), spent part of his youth in a third country (Independent State of Croatia), reached his mature age in a fourth country (second Yugoslavia), only to spend his twilight years in a fifth country – the independent Croatia. The differences between his childhood in the early 1920s and the childhoods of his grandchildren and in particular his great grandchildren does merely lie in different historical and political contexts, but also in different views of the child in the early and in the late 20th century.

The dynamic 20th century was an age of extremes with its turbulent and torn years, great wars and dark times, with its scientific and technological achievements, with its dreams of creating a new man and a better future, and was also the century of the child, where old perceptions of the child were dissolved and new ones emerged. The “old” pedagogy emphasized the child’s inferiority and the new one highlights its potentials. The process of gradually departing from the educators’ image of the child as a recipient of educational activities from competent adults in favor of a romantic image of the child and respect for childhood as a special development phase. The romantic perspective of the child does not see upbringing and education as mere cultivation and disciplining of the child but primarily as an opportunity for its free development and active learning.

The Century of the Child in Croatia – Childhood and Schooling in the 20th Century exhibition and catalog were designed to present basic different aspects of childhood and schooling and the child culture in the 20th century in general. The parental home and upbringing shape the child’s fundamental image of itself. However, the parents are by no means the only ones that raise the child, even in its early age. As society developed, more and more children became included in organized forms of early education. At the beginning of the century, the number of children attending kindergartens was insignificant, whereas in 1962 around 5% of all preschoolers attended them and this figure reached 40% by the end of the century. The real “step out into the public life” occurred for the child when it started school. Despite an abundance of criticism of the school as an institution in the 20th century - from killing students’ souls to devouring childhood and youth – its function has remained steady, not inclined to quick changes and, in its essence, not favoring the child.

As a form of socialization but also a way of socially impacting the education of young generations and a form of indoctrination, various children’s organizations operated during the 20th century – Red Cross Youth and Adriatic Guard Youth in the 1920s and 1930s, the Ustasha Foundation during the Independent State of Croatia, and the Union of Pioneers during the socialist era from mid-1940s to late 1980s. The pioneer organization, including all school children aged between 7 and 14 years old, was the most massive one.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, typical children’s culture developed, promoted not only by catalogs of furniture, clothing and toy manufacturers but also children’s books, especially picture books. Showing illustrations from foreign picture books (German, French, English, Dutch…), Croatian picture books provided to their young readers idyllic images of family life and children’s world. In the new, post-World War 1 social and pedagogical reality, the attitude toward the child changed and paradigms of reforming pedagogy also affected the substance of the child’s daily life. Fun in the Small World, as offered in the early 20th century, also changed and was faced with competition in new media. As children’s writers and editors of childes’ magazines, teachers are still dominant creators of educationally desirable children’s entertainment, but it was, as early as the 1930s, exposed to serious threats from popular media – film, comic books and trivial literature. The children became recipients and promoters of products and activities in the sphere of popular culture and leisure.

In the first half of the 20th century, great differences were found between the childhood in an urban family and childhood in a rural one. In the former one, children normally received proper upbringing and the child had its own room as a place for playing and learning but were also taught good manners. In the latter one, the child was still perceived as a miniature version of an adult, for whom leisure and play were not appropriate.

Being a child during the socialist era did not revolve around being a pioneer, which is a frequent association with and the subject of a series of research into the childhood in socialism. School shows, read scarf and white (blue) cap, sandwiches and sodas during the admission ceremony may be remarkable moments in the life of a 7-year-old but were not the main substance of their childhood. Having one’s own little room of children’s corner in cramped socialist apartments, traveling to the seaside with your parents, collective summer holidays, Maja picture books, Vjeverica publishers, World around Us encyclopedia, picture albums Animal Kingdom, Lone Wolf and Snowbound Train films, dodge ball and elastic jumping games, Bunny and Stream and When Little Hands Come Together children’s songs… these are only some of the memories of childhood carried from the second half of the 20th century.

In the century of the child, as it was announced by Ellen Key in her eponymous 1900 bestseller, the child and childhood became exposed to increased interest. Former taboos were uncovered and examined, such as child neglect and abuse. In the 20th century, the protection of vulnerable children in Croatia gradually developed from occasional charity campaigns to systematic care provided by appropriate institutions and services. Child’s rights are governed by international documents (Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child /1924/, UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child /1959/ and Convention on the Rights of the Child /1989.). The 20th century was also marked by wars, in which numerous children perished.

We still speak of childhood from a time distance, so we consciously or unconsciously shape events and experiences from our childhoods as needed at a given time or to satisfy a specific personal need, attaching to them more or less importance in our lives. Our view of our childhood experiences and events also shapes us as adults.

Life in the 20th century changed rapidly. Changes included the physical spaces of growing up, political and social systems and expectations from children and their duties but did not include the primordial needs of children. Children found place to play – on a sunny meadow, in a city park, on a playground or in the street, they completed their memory books and lexicons, and collected different pictures, badges, postal stamps and many other random things. They lived their lives to the extent and in the way permitted by adults.

Datum objave: 10.10.2024.