The Reflection of Child Psychology in Kazakh Literature Through Artistic Prose:

Based on B. Sokpakbayev’s «Journey to Childhood» and A. Yelgezek’s «The Unlived Childhood»

Abstract

This article explores a unique method of understanding child psychology – the analysis of biographical works of prominent individuals in artistic literature. This method was proposed by renowned pedagogue-psychologist P.F. Kapterev and gained wide application in child psychology and pedagogy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Turning to such analysis serves a dual purpose: on the one hand, it aims to search for authentic and valuable insights into the world of childhood and to find objective research methods; on the other hand, it reflects writers’ efforts to deeply explore a new type of literary character – the child – and their subtle emotional development. Kapterev substantiates the convenience, possibilities, goals, and objectives of this cognitive method from the standpoint of studying the course of psychological development in childhood. He views this process as an interactive system of internal factors (hereditary predispositions, personal experience and activity, self-education) and external influences (living conditions, social and physical environment, family upbringing, and school education). This research adheres to the principles of comprehensiveness, integrity, and individualization. According to Kapterev, this method does not replace theoretical research in child psychology; instead, it significantly complements and verifies them. It provides a visual representation of personality formation, determines the significance of specific influences, and enables the formulation of new issues. Through the analysis of literary works, Kapterev outlines a general picture of mental development in preschool age, the formation features of personality traits and artistic abilities in childhood, the psychological characteristics of various child types, and the conditions for their emergence. For researchers in the early 20th century, the central issue was the analysis of the wide gallery of child types in literature – identifying age-specific and individual traits of a child’s personality, not only based on hereditary factors but, above all, as a result of the decisive influence of interactions between the world of children and adults.