The School Canon as a Battlefield

The fierce controversy that has flared up in Russia regarding the composition of the school canon (SC), which is a list of literary works that students are required to study in literature classes, as well as the very need for such a list in the first place has a long history, which goes back to the time of the first scholastic readers from the middle of the nineteenth century. One of the most acute issues that has been raised during these debates relates to what degree the instructor and possibly the students themselves should participate in the creation of such lists, and how the interests and developmental characteristics of children and adolescents should be reflected in the academic curricula. The need to factor in their concerns had been practically forgotten during the late Soviet period. The SC that was used in the final years of high school totally consisted of works that were written during a different historical period and were originally intended for an adult readership, and these works made up a significant part of the