The evolution of the children's and youth epistolary genre: from the period of perestroika to the digital age

The article is devoted to the problem of studying the transformation of the life worlds of children and youth using epistolary sources of the period of perestroika in the USSR. The relevance of the article is dictated by the insufficiency of scientific developments based on letters from children and youth as a subject of research. Attention is focused on the consideration of the epistolary genre as an attribute of the everyday life of a Soviet schoolboy. The author of the article analyzes children's texts stored in his own collection - letters from peers from socialist countries (GDR, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania). Socio-psychological portraits of children from different countries, their interests, values, described and experienced events are presented. As an example of children's diplomacy, the biographies and quotations of children's letters by Samantha Smith and Katya Lycheva, who played a significant role in shaping the worldview and value orientations of the perestroika generation, are given.