A new model of a "significant adult" in the intrafamily relationships (based on modern Russian prose for children and young adults)

This paper focuses on the interpretation of the image of a "significant adult" in modern Russian prose for children and young adults aimed at expanding the artistic concept of childhood in Russian literature, the universal features of which are manifested in texts for both children and adults. The research is based on modern prose texts short-listed in 2014-2016 for the "Kniguru" Literary Award, one of the most reputable Russian contests held to encourage children's writers who describe modern life and in their works look for positive solutions to psychological, moral, and social issues. This interdisciplinary research employs the comparative and sociological analysis, drawing on A.V. Petrovsky's concept of a three-factor model of a "significant other" that includes referentiality (recognition of the significant other's right to make responsible decisions), attractions (emotional attitudes toward a significant other, strong feelings of sympathy or antipathy for another) and power. The authors argue that the models of adult-child relationships traditional for children's literature (like European "novel of formation", "happy childhood", "stolen childhood") with authoritative adults being on the periphery of the narrative and appearing at a critical moment as "deus ex machine" are no longer relevant. Children and adults change their places within the family and social hierarchy, so adults become dependent on children. With dependent parents, grandparent can take on a constitutive role in the narrative, but only when they combine life experience with youth nonconformism and enthusiasm, thus becoming "in-fantilised" as well. The less conservative the older generation is, the more likely they become significant for their children. The analysis of the adult-child relationship patterns featured by modern Russian children's fiction demonstrates the loss of a priori recognition of the parent's authority. The power as a component of influence is practically reduced. However, losing one of the three factors of Petrovsky's significant other model - power - the adult enhances the other two: attraction and referentiality (ability to be the role model). Referentiality, in its turn, ceases to be independent to directly depend on the adult's ability to become closer to the child. Thus, modern young adult fiction reveals the absence of an "ideal adult" and the unique autonomy of the child protagonist, which reflects a fundamentally new model of child-parent relationship in modern literature for children and young adults.

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