A tireless fighter against fairytale (criticism of children's literature in writings by N. Krupskaya)

This article aims at understanding the contradictory rile played by N. Krupskaya as a critic of children's literature. I analyze her participation in the formation of the new paradigm for evaluation of children's literature. A special attention is payed to the ways in which her writings were used in later conceptualizations of Soviet children's literature. I argue that using her name allowed authors of textbooks on children's literature and of prefaces to the editions of her work to legitimize mutually exclusive treatments of one or the other phenomenon in children's literature.