Kuka tarvitsee ketä? Lasten ja aikuisten välinen suhde Vladislav Krapivinin monimutkaisissa maailmoissa

Who Needs Whom? The Relationship between Children and Adults in Vladislav Krapivin’s Complicated Worlds The article discusses how the structure of the worlds in Vladislav Krapivin’s children’s fantasy novels written in the 1980s and early 1990s is connected to the central theme of the works, the complicated relationship between children and adults. The novel Deti sinego amingo (1981) is based on a two-world structure that supports a description of a binary relationship: children are seen as essentially good and adults as their oppressors. Krapivin’s pentalogy V glubine Velikogo Kristalla (1988–91) is situated in a complex multiverse described as a crystal: every facet of the crystal is a complete world of its own. Likewise, the relationships between adult and child characters in the series are complicated. Children are often seen from the viewpoint of adult characters, and children and adults are presented as mutually dependent on each other. The article also investigates the audience of Krapivin’s novels. Despite their status as children’s literature, the texts address a dual audience consisting of both children and adults. The texts are seen in the context of Soviet perestroika literature. In the spirit of perestroika, also children’s authors were able to write about topics that were not accepted before and thus it was possible for Krapivin to discuss the problematic relations between children and adults.