Nikolajeva, Maria 1952–

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Nikolajeva, Maria 1952–

(Maria Skott)

PERSONAL:

Born May 16, 1952, in Moscow, USSR (now Russia); immigrated to Sweden, 1981; naturalized Swedish citizen; daughter of Alexej (a composer) and Natalia (an art critic) Nikolajeva; married Staffan Skott (a writer), 1981; children: Sergej Nikolajev, Julia, Anton. Ethnicity: "Russian." Education: Moscow Linguistic University, M.A., 1974; Stockholm University, Ph.D., 1988; Film Research Institute, Moscow, USSR, graduate study.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Farsta, Sweden. Office—Department of Literature and the History of Ideas, Stockholm University, S-10691 Stockholm, Sweden; fax: _468-15-5874. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Film Research Institute, Moscow, USSR (now Russia), junior researcher, 1975-81; Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, part-time teacher, 1985-94, full-time researcher, 1991-94, senior lecturer, 1994-95, associate professor, 1995-99, professor of comparative literature, 1999—, member of executive board of the Center for the Study of Childhood Culture, 1999-2001. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, visiting professor, 1993; Åbo Akademi University, associate professor, 1997—, Donner visiting chair, 1998-99; San Diego State University, visiting professor, 1999-2001; University of Worcester, honorary professor, 2006. Swedish Institute for Children's Books, member of executive board, 1999—; Nordic Network for Children's Literature, coordinator, 2001-06; member of juries for literary awards. Member of editorial board, Selma Lagerlöf Society, 1989-2005; the journal Barnboken, 2006—; and various encyclopedias.

MEMBER:

International Research Society for Children's Literature (member of executive board, 1991-93; president, 1993-97), Children's Literature Association of North America (member of International Committee, 1998-2004), Swedish Writers' Union, Selma Lagerlöf Society (member of executive board, 1988-2005), Swedish Semiotic Society (founding board member, 1991-95).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Scholarships from Karl and Betty Warburg Memorial Foundation, 1988, and Stina and Erik Lundberg Foundation, Swedish Academy, 1989; Swedish Writers' Foundation scholarships, 1989, 1991, 1994; Swedish Institute for Cultural Relations grants, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999; British Council scholarship, Magnus Bergvall Foundation scholarship, and grant from National Council for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, all 1991; Wallenberg Memorial Foundation scholarships, 1991, 1995; Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation grant, 1991-94; Nordic Ministers' Council scholarship, 1992; Ingmar Prize, Ingmar Festival Foundation, 1992, for outstanding work on Selma Lagerlöf; Fulbright Grant/Hildeman Award in Scandinavian Studies, 1992; National Council for Higher Education grant, 1996; research fellowship, International Youth Library, Munich, Germany, 1997; Swedish Foundation for Internationalization of Education and Research scholarship, 1998; Nordic Scholar Award, University of Edinburgh, 1998; International Brothers Grimm Award, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Den förlorade tiden (juvenile fantasy anthology; title means "The Lost Time"), Natur och kultur (Stockholm, Sweden), 1985.

Masjas ryska kokbok (title means "Masha's Russian Cookbook"), Tiden (Stockholm, Sweden), 1986.

(Under name Maria Skott) Var är solen? (picture book; title means "Where Is the Sun?"), illustrated by Vladimir Galatsky, Carlsen (Stockholm, Sweden), 1987.

The Magic Code: The Use of Magical Patterns in Fantasy for Children, Almqvist & Wiksell International (Stockholm, Sweden), 1988.

(Under name Maria Skott) Vem sa det först? (picture book; title means "Who Said It First?"), illustrated by Vladimir Galatsky, Carlsen (Stockholm, Sweden), 1989.

Selma Lagerlöf ur ryskt perspektiv (title means "Selma Lagerlöf from a Russian Horizon"), Selma Lagerlöf Society (Stockholm, Sweden), 1991.

(Editor) Modern litteraturteori och metod i barnlitteraturforskningen (title means "Modern Literary Theory and Method in Children's Literature Research"), Centre for the Study of Childhood Culture (Stockholm, Sweden), 1992.

Nedräkningen (young adult novel; title means "Final Countdown"), Rabén & Sjögren (Stockholm, Sweden), 1994.

Det finns inga kungar (young adult novel; title means "There Is No Such Thing as Kings"), Rabén & Sjögren (Stockholm, Sweden), 1994.

(Editor) Voices from Far Away: Current Trends in International Children's Literature Research, Centre for the Study of Childhood Culture (Stockholm, Sweden), 1995.

(Editor) Aspects and Issues in the History of Children's Literature, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 1995.

(Editor) Återkommande mönster i Selma Lagerlöfs författarskap (title means "Recurrent Patterns in Selma Lagerlöf's Works"), Selma Lagerlöf Society (Stockholm, Sweden), 1995.

Children's Literature Comes of Age: Toward a New Aesthetic, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1996.

Introduction to the Theory of Children's Literature, Tallinn University Press (Tallinn, Estonia), 1996, 2nd enlarged edition, 1997.

När Sverige erövrade Ryssland. En studie i kulturernas samspel (title means "When Sweden Conquered Russia: A Study in the Interaction of Cultures"), Symposion (Stockholm, Sweden), 1996.

Barnbokens byggklossar (title means "The Building Blocks of Children's Fiction"), Studentliterature (Lund, Sweden), 1998.

(With Ulla Bergstrand) Läckergommarnas kungarike. Matens funktion i barnlitteraaturen (title means "The Realm of Gourmands: The Function of Food in Children's Literature"), Centre for the Study of Childhood Culture (Stockholm, Sweden), 1999.

From Mythic to Linear: Time in Children's Literature, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 2000.

Bilderbokens pusselbitar (title means "The Jigsaw Puzzle Pieces of Picturebooks"), Studentlitteratur (Lund, Sweden), 2000.

(With Carole Scott) How Picturebooks Work, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 2001.

(Senior editor) Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 2002.

Aesthetic Approaches to Children's Literature: An Introduction, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 2005.

(Editor, with Sandra Beckett, and contributor) Beyond Babar: The European Tradition in Children's Literature, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 2006.

General editor, "IRSCL Publication Series," Greenwood Publishing, 1993-97. Editor of international column, Children's Literature Association Quarterly, 2001—. Contributor to periodicals, including Detskaya literatura, Phaedrus, Opsis Kalopsis, Marvels & Tales, Vår Lösen, Canadian Children's Literature, and Rubinaitis.

SIDELIGHTS:

Maria Nikolajeva once commented: "I started writing when I was five and have never stopped. By the time I was out of high school, I had written several novels, hundreds of short stories, a dozen plays, tons of poetry, and two or three autobiographies. I guess they were all pretty awful; however, the need to express myself by means of language was trained in these childhood exercises.

"I grew up in a totalitarian state, where writing and publishing were governed by the regime. I had examples in front of my eyes of people who paid with their freedom for their written word: sent to labor camps, exiled abroad, and deprived of their human rights. Writing was therefore a privilege and responsibility. Even though my first attempts at fiction were immature and naïve, they were far from the prescribed norms of social realism. I never thought about trying to publish anything, because I could not adjust my writing to these norms. But I went on writing, and I made my living as a translator of fiction, which is second best to writing your own. Translating is also an excellent way to train your writing skills.

"When I moved to Sweden, married to a Swedish writer and journalist at the age of twenty-nine, I changed country, culture, and language. Every writer who lives outside his or her native tongue has presumably experienced this sense of total paralysis when you realize your linguistic inadequacy, not being able to express your ideas with the subtlety you are used to in your own language. Several European immigrants in the United States became great picture book authors, supposedly because they could express themselves visually rather than verbally. But, as many of my colleagues also can testify, after a long period of struggle, and if you are persistent enough, a new kind of liberation comes. When you start writing in a foreign language, you approach it with fresh eyes; you see figures of speech where the native speakers do not see them any more; you appreciate the beauty and richness of your new language; you are prepared to play and experiment with it in a way native speakers are inhibited to do.

"I write fiction in Swedish, and I write scholarly books primarily in English. In scholarly books, by the way, experimenting with language is restricted. I write fiction because I think I have something important to say, knowledge or insight to share with my readers, and a good story to tell. I write for young audiences because they have so far no prejudices, no preconceived opinions; they meet the world with open senses. When I talk to my readers in schools, I notice that my messages, well hidden inside adventurous plots, get across. My first novel, Nedräkningen, is about a young orphan boy in Russia, growing up underprivileged materially and spiritually. I collected material for this novel when I was engaged in charity work for children's homes and prisons in my former country. Before I wrote the novel, I held dozens of lectures and published several feature articles in newspapers. But it is only in fiction form, when all my experience got focused on one concrete human fate, that I made an impact. So great is the power of literature. And in writing for children, we actually can make a difference for the younger generation.

"Being both a writer and a critic of children's literature makes me feel like the two-faced Janus: the writer looks forward, the critic scrutinizes her own, as well as others' work in retrospect. As a critic, I see as my foremost task to approach the eternal mystery of literary craft: in what way are the books we intuitively recognize as great different from those we feel are mediocre or bad? As mediators of literature—teachers, librarians, parents—we owe our children the very best. But who knows what is best?"

Nikolajeva, a Swedish writer of Russian origin, is best known to the English-speaking world as the author of several challenging works of scholarship in the field of children's literature. She is credited with being an outstanding scholar among researchers who treat children's literature as a legitimate type of literature, capable of bearing the scrutiny of contemporary critical theory. Her award-winning book, The Magic Code: The Use of Magical Patterns in Fantasy for Children, based on her doctoral dissertation, for example, uses semiotic and structuralist criticism to analyze hundreds of children's fantasy books written in English between 1900 and 1980. Nikolajeva begins by defining her use of the term "fantasy" and differentiating works of fantasy from related works such as fairy tales and science fiction. After introducing her terminology, she describes five different categories of fantasy themes, "the magic law," "the magic space," "the magic time," "the magic passage," and "the magic impact," and lists works that use each theme and variations of the theme. This organization makes it easy for a researcher to look up a particular fantasy motif and find a list of works in which this motif plays a part, noted Teya Rosenberg in Canadian Children's Literature. Nancy Huse, writing in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, also found the book a useful resource, and cited The Magic Code for its "clear language, familiar examples, unequivocal categories, and genuine zest for children's fantasy." Nikolajeva organizes nearly a century of literature in the book, and "the overall effect is impressive," noted Huse.

Nikolajeva again relies upon the terminology of semiotics in Children's Literature Comes of Age: Toward a New Aesthetic. Here she proposes to treat children's literature as literature and takes an international, rather than nationalistic, approach to the topic. The author divides the development of children's literature as a separate entity into four stages, which Carole H. Carpenter summarized in Canadian Children's Literature as follows: "(1) adaptation of existing adult literature and of folklore for children, (2) didactic, educational stories written directly for children, (3) establishment of children's literature as a literary system with different genres and modes, and (4) polyphonic, or multivoiced children's literature." Subsequent chapters deal with the topics of intertextuality and metanarrative in children's literature. Like Nikolajeva's earlier English-language critics, Carpenter found the author's study a challenge not least because English is not Nikolajeva's first language. Furthermore, according to Carpenter, the author has a tendency toward broad generalizations about the nature of several national children's literatures that are easily refuted by specialists in those fields, unfortunately casting doubt on some of Nikolajeva's other assertions in "what is in many respects a ground-breaking analysis." Carpenter nonetheless concluded: "Still, her study is an impressive and valuable piece of scholarship."

The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature addresses Nikolajeva's concern that many of the people who talk about "characterization"—from students and teachers to critics and scholars—do not really understand the term or the way authors use the process of characterization to develop three-dimensional figures in their fiction. In her typical scholarly fashion, Nikolajeva cites multiple examples of characterization in children's literature, using some of the samples to illustrate the problems that misunderstanding can generate, especially in literature for younger readers. Her conclusion, according to School Library Journal contributor Connie C. Rockman, is that "character" can only be understood within the context of the larger literary structure, alongside other elements such as plot, setting, and theme.

In Beyond Babar: The European Tradition in Children's Literature, Nikolajeva and coeditor Sandra L. Beckett collect essays about classics that were created originally for non-English-speaking children—a topic rarely addressed in depth by scholars of juvenile literature. Though the book was recommended for parents and teachers alike, Beyond Babar is typically described as scholarly in tone and deemed suitable for college-level library collections. Contributors to the collection cover children's classics from many countries—Scandinavian, Germanic, and East European, as well as the more familiar stories from France and Italy. One of the topics that Nikolajeva discusses in her own essay is the challenge of translation into English; she is particularly critical of translations of the Pippi Longstocking books of Astrid Lundgren. This essay, wrote Margaret A. Chang in her School Library Journal assessment, "is alone worth the price" of the book.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Ariel, January, 1997, Jean Perrot, review of Children's Literature Comes of Age: Toward a New Aesthetic, pp. 209-220.

Bookbird, March, 1993, Jan Hansson, review of Modern litteraturteori och metod i barnlitteraturforskningen, p. 34; summer, 1995, review of Aspects and Issues in the History of Children's Literature, p. 64.

Canadian Children's Literature (annual), 1990, Teya Rosenberg, review of The Magic Code: The Use of Magical Patterns in Fantasy for Children, pp. 130-132; 1999, Carole H. Carpenter, review of Children's Literature Comes of Age, pp. 111-114.

Children's Literature Association Quarterly, winter, 1989, Nancy Huse, review of The Magic Code, pp. 205-206; fall, 2000, Kathleen E. Nowitski, review of From Mythic to Linear: Time in Children's Literature, pp. 174-175.

Internet Bookwatch, February, 2007, review of Beyond Babar: The European Tradition in Children's Literature.

Reference and Research Book News, February, 2007, review of Beyond Babar.

School Library Journal, September, 2002, Connie C. Rockman, review of The Rhetoric of Character in Children's Literature, p. 259; January, 2006, Amy S. Pattee, review of Aesthetic Approaches to Children's Literature: An Introduction, p. 176; February, 2007, Margaret A. Chang, review of Beyond Babar, p. 152.