Books for childern’s leisure time in the Russian empire between the mid-19th and the early 20th centuries

The paper concerns original and translated collections of games and activities and self-study guides published for children in the Russian Empire between the mid-19th and the early 20th centuries. The degree of the emphasis on the impact of the described games and activities on children’s development, the balance between child-centred and adult-centred texts, and ways of altering the texts, were influenced by authors’ personalities, their professions and experience. In this regard attention is also paid to the authors’ approaches to compilation and the ways in which they used their books to present their views on child development. The paper defines the main themes of these books, and their common and particular features