Primer - the beginning of the beginning. The primer is the first book for first-graders. Almost every Soviet boy and girl began the difficult path of knowledge with this book. A primer is a book that was the first to give Soviet children education, love for the Motherland, and loved ones. Maybe that's why, in order not to forget our first textbook, we, first-graders, were photographed with the primer on the desk or in our hands. A lot of people have photos like this. Years later, I came across this book by accident. Looking through the primer, I shed a tear from the surging nostalgia. Seeing illustrations remembered from childhood in a textbook, associations with which they are associated emerge in memory. On this page, I read a poem about mittens to the whole class in syllables, and looking at the picture of cheerful children rolling down the hill, I wanted to finish the classes as soon as possible and run to the frozen pond to ride down the huge hill. Maybe you, after viewing the primer, will have some memories of childhood and school years.

In the Land of the Soviets, education was at a very high level and at the same time (it's hard to believe it now) free of charge. Every Soviet student knew that by focusing only on their own knowledge, one could enter a higher educational institution without a bribe or a "hairy" hand. Therefore, many children aspired to graduate from school with a "red" diploma. And where did the education of the student begin? Of course, from him - with " primer»!

Now almost all children are sent to school from the age of six. At the same time, teachers require that the child already knows how to read fluently and owns an account. Now kids are simply forced to grow up early, and not because their childhood is devoid of balloons and toys, but because children's serene carefreeness ends exactly at the age of five, when “gloomy” study at preparatory courses begins ... But this was not the case in the Union: and less lessons were given, and there was enough time for sports and yard games. I remember that we went to the first grade from the age of seven or eight, while not being able to read and count. And we were given fewer lessons than now. For example, my first-grader, after serving seven years at school! lessons, brings home "mountains" of homework in writing, math, science, English, labor...

Here I am grumbling, probably because even honey seemed sweeter in childhood. Until now, with a joyful feeling, I remember my first call, the first teacher Lidia Ivanovna, how she, standing at the blackboard, held the “Primer” in her hands and solemnly said: “this is the most important book in your life, with it you will begin your journey to world of knowledge... Thinking like this, I was clearing the bookshelves for my first-grader's new books and in the very corner I found, do not believe it, "The Primer"! Hello old friend! I open the first page ... oh yes Lidia Ivanovna ... she borrowed her speech from there, she just forgot to add that “thanks to the Primer, you will learn how to write your first words“ mother ”,“ Motherland ”and“ Lenin ”!”. And somewhere else, from the depths of memory, a memory emerges that there was such a tradition: all first-graders were seated at a desk with the “Primer” in their hands for a photo. Probably, every Soviet schoolchild had such a photograph, which was then proudly signed on the reverse side “September 1, 1969. Vania". Do you remember the joke: “mom washed the frame, and the frame washed mom”? So, it turns out that the sentence “mother washed the frame” was only in the “Primer” of 1959. And, returning to my schoolboy son, in Zhukova's modern "Primer" he has the phrase "Vova washes the frame." It is clear where the legs grow from?

In general, it became interesting to me, but how many “Primers” were published in the Union, who was the author? Come on, old friend of my Red Banner childhood, tell me your secrets. Officially, in the Land of Soviets, the "Primer" "was born" in 1937, under the authorship of the honored teacher Nikolai Golovin. The people immediately "joked" at his expense: the whole country taught the children according to Golovin's "Primer". Then, this edition was revised and supplemented with new examples, copybooks, pictures from folk tales about "Gingerbread Man", "Ryaba Hen", "Turnip" and so on. Moreover, only pictures were given in order to develop the child's oral speech (he had to, looking at the textbook, recite the given fairy tale by heart). I remember how we told the tale "About the Goldfish" with the whole class, in a chain, each one sentence. The story came out a little funny and not always believable. Moreover, it was quite easy for the children to navigate in the "Primer": vowels were indicated by a red rectangle, consonants - by green. There were also socially useful images: here a girl is watering flowers, and here she is taking her grandmother across the road. There was necessarily a page with a portrait of Lenin and a description of how he takes care of children (no matter how much I looked through the first textbooks, I never found a portrait of Stalin). There was always a section “about the motherland”: a picture with a map of the Union and images of children in national costumes.

So, "The Primer" was published in Moscow, in the publishing house "Enlightenment". The editorial board treated the illustrations of the book very responsibly. The expert commission looked through the drawings of the "Primer" in detail: they should not have been unnecessarily overloaded with details. They should have a positive educational and brightly expressive character, because it was believed that the child's psyche is very vulnerable and has figurative, rather than logical thinking. Therefore, it is not surprising that experienced, even well-known artists were involved in painting the Primer, for example, Ezhkova V., Bogdanov V., Nikulina T. The Primer was published in 1943, 1945, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1959, 1962, 1967, 1970, 1983, 1987. As a rule, each issue of the textbook was created by a team of authors. However, the most famous in this area were: Golovin N. ("Primer" 1937-44), Voskresenskaya A. ("Primer" 1952, 9th edition and "Primer" 1959 16th edition), Arkhangelskaya N. (1967 and 1970 5th edition), Svadkovsky I. (1962 10th edition), Gorbushina A. (1983 23rd edition), Goretsky V. 1987 (7th edition). It makes me want to say “thank you” with love! for this first book in my life and for the yellowed photo of that curly-haired first-grader of 1970, who smiles so proudly in an embrace with her Primer. And we all know where the Motherland begins!

Download "Primer"

Download Soviet textbook

To study! To study! And learn again!

V.I.Lenin

Approved by the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR

© " Penlightenment" Moscow 1987

Format: PDF, File size: 5.35MB

Today you start your journey to a wonderful, extraordinary country - the Land of Knowledge! You will learn to read and write, for the first time you will write the most dear and close words for all of us: mother. Motherland, .

The school will help you become a literate and hardworking citizen of our great Motherland - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

We congratulate you on the beginning of your studies and give you the first school book - Primer. Take care of him! It will open the door to the world of new, interesting books for you. From it you will learn how great and beautiful our Motherland is, how much the Soviet people do so that there will always be peace on the whole Earth! ..

Be diligent and hardworking.

Good luck, dear friend!

Download textbook USSR - Primer 1987

Cm. Textbook excerpt...

Pilots in flight - Those who are in the sky At work!

Those who are at the stoves - No hot work!

Tractor driver -

Glory in the field

And your job is at school.

Your work is also in sight.

Honest work!

Goats and wolf.

There lived a goat. She had seven children. She made herself a hut in the forest. Every day the goat went to the forest for food. She will leave herself, and tells the children to lock themselves tightly and tightly and not open the doors to anyone ...

When the dog approaches the swamp, the lapwing flies off the nest and lures the dog along with it. He runs in front of the dog itself. The dog rushes after him, wants to catch. And the lapwing leads the dog away from its nest.

Publications in the Literature section

Primer in the service of educational program

On October 10, 1918, a decree “On the introduction of a new spelling” was signed, which excluded the letters Ѣ, Ѳ, I from the alphabet, canceled the spelling of Ъ at the end of words - and generally brought Russian spelling to the form in which we know it today. "Kultura.RF" tells about the main post-revolutionary primers of different years.

"ABC" by Vladimir Konashevich, 1918

Alphabet of Vladimir Konashevich (cover). Petersburg, publishing house of the Partnership R. Golike and A. Vilborg. 1918

Alphabet of Vladimir Konashevich. Petersburg, publishing house of the Partnership R. Golike and A. Vilborg. 1918

The illustrated "ABC" by the Soviet artist Vladimir Konashevich became one of the first manuals of the new spelling (without the letter "yat"). The idea for the book was born during the artist's correspondence with his family, stuck in the Urals, cut off from the Soviet Republic by Kolchak's army. “Dad wrote letters to mom, and sent me pictures for each letter of the alphabet- recalled Konashevich's daughter Olga Chaiko. - I was already four years old, and, obviously, he believed that it was time to already know the letters.. Later, on the advice of acquaintances, Konashevich decided to publish these drawings - and in 1918 the ABC was published. It included 36 watercolor pictures. The objects and phenomena in the "ABC" were very different, from animals and plants to vehicles and toys. They were depicted simply, without perspective distortions, since Vladimir Konashevich believed that "a child should understand the picture at first sight."

Vladimir Mayakovsky. Soviet alphabet (cover). Moscow, 1919

Vladimir Mayakovsky. Soviet alphabet. Moscow, 1919

“An intellectual does not like risk. / And red in moderation, like a radish "- and so on from "A" to "Z". This topical alphabet was published for the first time in 1919, and Vladimir Mayakovsky was the author of not only its epigrams, but also caricature illustrations for each of the letters of the alphabet.

The main audience of this primer was the Red Army soldiers, whom Mayakovsky wanted to accustom to the poetic language with the help of such a satirical publication. “There were such witticisms that were not very suitable for the salon, but which went very well for the trenches” he recalled. Mayakovsky personally colored about five thousand copies of the alphabet, printed in the empty Stroganov printing house, when the Central Printing Press refused to publish the book to the poet. Later, Mayakovsky transferred many of the couplets from the Soviet Alphabet to the iconic ROSTA Windows.

"Down with illiteracy", 1920

Dora Elkina. Down with illiteracy! (Primer for adults). Moscow, Out-of-school department of MONO, 1920

Dora Elkina. Down with illiteracy! (Primer for adults). Moscow, Out-of-school department of MONO, 1920

Under this title, in 1919-1920, the first editions of the Soviet primer for adults were published, developed by Dora Elkina and a team of co-authors. These manuals taught the basics of reading and writing on the basis of political slogans: for example, students had to read the phrases "Advice of the people's alarm", "We bring freedom to the world" and the famous palindrome "We are not slaves, slaves are not us" in syllables. Bright propaganda posters and scenes from the life of the proletariat served as illustrations of the first Soviet alphabets.

A few years later, the Down with Illiteracy society was created, the purpose of which was to eliminate mass illiteracy. His work was supervised by major statesmen: Mikhail Kalinin, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Anatoly Lunacharsky. Under the leadership of the society, not only textbooks were published, but also cultural and educational magazines, such as Kultpokhod and Let's Increase Literacy. According to historians, over the 13 years of its existence, the Down with Illiteracy society has trained about 5 million Soviet citizens.

Primer "Pioneer", 1925

Ivan Sverchkov. Pioneer. Children's primer (cover and title page). Leningrad, GIZ, 1925

Ivan Sverchkov. Pioneer. Children's primer. Leningrad, GIZ, 1925

The purpose of this manual was to teach schoolchildren not only the basics of literacy, but also the structure of the world around them and Soviet life. "Pioneer" told young readers about life in cities and villages, about various proletarian professions, about domestic and wild animals, about measuring length, weight and time with the help of illustrations in an engraving style. Of course, the ideological component was also strong in the book. One of the main images of the primer was the October Revolution and Vladimir Lenin: many poems of the primer were dedicated to them.

And childhood itself in the young Soviet country "Pioneer" was inextricably linked with the concept of "ours": gardens, schools, camps and even a revolution were portrayed in common.

"Primer" by Nikolai Golovin, 1937

Nikolay Golovin. Primer (cover). Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1937

Nikolay Golovin. Primer. Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1937

"Children were taught by the whole country / According to Golovin's primer", - they said in the Soviet Union, and not without exaggeration. Perhaps there was no school in the late 1930s - early 1940s where this textbook, compiled by the honored teacher of the RSFSR Nikolai Golovin, was not read. The material in the book ranged from simple to complex: from reading by syllables to writing, from short stories about ordinary children's activities to poems dedicated to Lenin and Stalin, with obvious political overtones.

A distinctive feature of the "Primer" were illustrations, to which the editorial board made special demands. The images were bright, positive, and simple, without being overloaded with details, and also had a very clear didactic and educative tone, showing readers patterns of correct behavior.

"Primer" by Alexandra Voskresenskaya, 1944

Alexandra Resurrection. Primer (cover). Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1956

Alexandra Resurrection. Primer. Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1956

The Primer, authored by the methodologist and teacher of the Russian language Alexandra Voskresenskaya, was one of the most successful textbooks for elementary school: it was reprinted twenty times. The secret of the primer's success was a successful combination of tasks for the development of memory, imagination and training in writing and reading skills. The material in the manual became more complicated smoothly and gradually: from a combination of sounds to syllables, from them to short words, small phrases, and so on. The main motive for the illustrations in the book was a measured and happy village life (initially, according to Voskresenskaya's "Primer", they studied in rural schools).

Alexandra Voskresenskaya also paid special attention to preparing for the education of preschoolers and created the famous “alphabet with a stork” for teaching children in the family.

"Primer" by Sergei Redozubov, 1945

Sergei Redozubov. Primer (cover). Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1946

Sergei Redozubov. Primer (cover). Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1956

Sergei Redozubov. Primer. Moscow, Uchpedgiz, 1950

The post-war primer was illustrated with scenes of peaceful work and leisure: young pioneers were portrayed for extracurricular reading, games, sports and cleaning. Describing these pictures and relying on auxiliary ones, the students learned to come up with short stories for each lesson. Near the end of the Primer were poems and stories to read, including reworked Russian folk tales. True, the manual was difficult for children: it did not always follow the gradual complication of phrases and texts for parsing, and each page was overloaded with columns of words with the same or similar syllables.

Vseslav Goretsky. Primer. Moscow, publishing house "Enlightenment", 1993

Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences Vseslav Goretsky built his primer not according to the alphabet, but according to the frequency of the use of letters in speech and writing: they opened the book with “a” and “o”, and closed it with “b” and “b”. It was also the first primer that was released along with copybooks and didactic material.

A feature of the "Primer" was its game form. Travel to the "country of knowledge" together with the students was shared by popular characters: Pinocchio, Dunno and Murzilka, and the tasks were often funny riddles and rebuses. The book also contained many easy-to-memorize poems, including those by Alexander Pushkin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Korney Chukovsky, and Samuil Marshak.

Goretsky's Primer turned out to be so popular and loved by children that it continued to be published and republished for 30 years, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But in this note, we will not talk about me, but about the era of the school 80s. Surprisingly, I have since left ABC and Primer.
Primer- mine (albeit without the front cover), and ABC- brother (the book is very well preserved).

I am very glad that I have preserved these copies, I am pleased to show them to today's children and compare them with books of the present. Well, in this report, I will show them to all of you and I think that it will be especially pleasant to look at them for those who studied in the 80s .., because not everyone has such books left.

1. Get to know, " Primer» edition of 1982, with which I went to first grade, and « ABC” edition of 1987, my brother attended the 1st grade with her.

2. Let's immediately look at the reverse side of the books, surprisingly, if the Primer cost 45 kopecks, then the ABC only 30 kopecks. It turns out that there was not inflation, but noticeable deflation! Or is it saving on design, as the fruit of "perestroika"? :-)

3. We open the book, here it is, the ABC ... are all the letters familiar? 😁

5. His image in school books was unobtrusive and pleasant, a real comrade.

6. Let's look through these books, as we studied then. First my Primer...

7. Stress, syllables, right there and road signs and instructions.

8. Working professions, and of course we do not forget what a beautiful country we live in.

9. At the end of the Primer - Leonid Ilyich.

10. Now the ABC: the books are similar in content, but slightly different in design.

11. We look at the pictures and remember our childhood...

12. On "X", of course, bread!

13. And of course about the dream .. as a teenager, I thought that humanity would soon fly to other planets! That's a worthy goal for Earthlings ;-)

14. This was not in my primer, in the ABC of my brother, at the end they taught the anthem!
Which country was destroyed... the current EU is a laughing matter for chickens.

The primer said goodbye with this poem:

You learn these letters.
There are more than three dozen of them
And for you they are the keys
To all good books.

Don't forget to take it on the road
Magic bunch of keys.
In any story you will find a way
You will enter any fairy tale.

Read books about animals
Plants and cars.
You will visit the seas
And on gray peaks.

Find an example of courage
In your favorite book.
You will see the whole USSR,
All the land from this tower.

You have wonderful lands
Will open the way from "A" to "Z"!

It is a pity that in the modern world, a number of Russian words are replaced by slang and anglicisms. And the benefit is that some continue to read not only chat rooms on the Internet.