Barto Agnia Lvovna. 02/17/1906 - 04/01/1981 Russian Soviet children's poetess, writer, film screenwriter Agnia Lvovna Barto was born in Moscow on February 17, 1906 in an educated Jewish family. She received a good home education, led by her father. Agnia studied at a choreographic school and was going to become a ballerina. She loved to dance. A. Barto began writing poetry in early childhood, in the first grades of the gymnasium. The most strict connoisseur of A. Barto's first poems was her father Lev Nikolaevich Volokhov, a veterinarian. With the help of serious books, without a primer, Agnia’s father taught her the alphabet, and she began to read on her own. Her father watched her closely and taught her how to write poetry “correctly.” But Agnia Lvovna was attracted by something else at that time - music, ballet. She dreamed of becoming a dancer; she loved to dance. That’s why I went to study at a choreographic school, but even there I continued to write poetry. Several years passed, and Agniya Lvovna realized that poetry was more important to her. And in 1925 (she was only 19 years old at the time!) her first book, “The Chinese Little Wang Li and the Thief Bear,” was published. The readers really liked the poems. A conversation with Mayakovsky about how children need new poetry, what role it can play in raising children, helped her finally make a choice. Agnia's youth fell on the years of revolution and civil war. But somehow she managed to live in her own world, where ballet and poetry writing coexisted peacefully. Agnia Lvovna's first husband was the poet Pavel Barto. Together they wrote three poems - “Roaring Girl”, “Dirty Girl” and “Counting Table”. They had a son, Egar (Garik), and after 6 years they divorced. In the spring of 1945, Garik died tragically at the age of 18 (he was hit by a truck while riding a bicycle). With her second husband, Andrei Shcheglyaev, Agnia lived for almost half a century of great love and mutual understanding. From the memoirs of their daughter Tatyana: “Mom was the main helmsman in the house, everything was done with her knowledge. On the other hand, they took care of her and tried to create working conditions - she didn’t bake pies, didn’t stand in lines, but was, of course, the mistress of the house . Our nanny Domna Ivanovna lived with us all her life, who came to the house back in 1925, when my older brother Garik was born. Fame came to her quite quickly, but did not add courage to her - Agnia was very shy. She adored Mayakovsky, but after meeting she did not dare to speak to him. Having dared to read her poem to Chukovsky, Barto attributed the authorship to a five-year-old boy. Perhaps it was precisely because of her shyness that Agnia Barto had no enemies. She died on April 1, 1981. Agnia Barto once said: “Almost every person has moments in life when he does more than he can.” In her case, it wasn’t just a minute—she lived her whole life this way. Agnia Barto was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Agnia Lvovna Barto
story about life and work
Agnia Lvovna was born in Moscow on February 17, 1906. There she studied and grew up. Her father, Lev Nikolaevich Volov, was a veterinarian, and they always had many different animals in the house. My father's favorite writer was Leo Tolstoy. And as A. Barto recalls, her father taught her to read from his books. He also loved to read and knew by heart all the fables of I.A. Krylov. Everyone has a dream in childhood - Agnia dreamed of becoming an organ grinder: walking around the courtyards, turning the handle of the organ grinder, so that people attracted by the music would lean out of all the windows. She began writing poetry in early childhood - in the first grades of the gymnasium. And she wrote, as befits poets, mainly about love: about gentlemen and “pink marquises.” The main critic of the young poetess was, of course, her father.
But Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, the People's Commissar (Minister) of Culture, advised Agnia Lvovovna to take up literature seriously. He came to the graduation concert at the choreographic school where A.L. Barto studied. At the concert, she danced to Chopin's music and read her poem, "Funeral March." And Lunacharsky looked at her performance and smiled. A few days later, he invited the young ballerina to his People’s Commissariat for Education and said that, listening to her poem, he realized that A.L. will definitely write - and write funny poems.
When A. Barto first came to Gosizdat with her poems, she was sent to the children's literature department. This surprised and discouraged her, because she wanted to be a serious adult poet. But meetings and conversations with famous writers V. Mayakovsky and M. Gorky finally convinced her that children's literature is a serious matter and becoming a children's poet is not easy. Agnia Lvovovna began visiting schools and kindergartens, listening to the conversations of children on the streets and in courtyards. Once she heard the words of a little girl who was watching the house being moved near the Stone Bridge: “Mom, can you now drive straight into the forest in this house?” This is how the poem “The House Moved” appeared.
The wonderful children's writer K. Chukovsky highly praised her cycle of poems "Toys". A S.Ya. Marshak said: “Work, not everyone succeeded right away. Young Antosha Chakhonte did not immediately become Chekhov.” And the poetess worked, communicated with the guys, and such wonderful poems came out, for example, “Resentment” and “In the Theater”
During the Great Patriotic War, Agnia Lvovovna lived in Sverdlovsk, published war poems and articles. As a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1942, she visited the Western Front. But she always wanted to write about young heroes: especially about teenagers who worked in factories, replacing their fathers who went to the front. On the advice of Pavel Bazhov, the poetess went to the factory as an apprentice and acquired the specialty of a 2nd category turner. This is how the poem “My Student” was written, in which she talks about this with humor.
At the very end of the war, before Victory Day, a great misfortune occurred in the family of A.L. Barto - her son Garik died. Coming from the institute, he went for a bike ride and was hit by a car. The poems left the house. Agnia Lvovovna began visiting orphanages where orphans lived - victims of the war. There she again became convinced of how much children care about poetry. She read her poems to them and saw how the children began to smile. This is how a new book of poems “Zvenigorod” (1947) appeared - a book about children from orphanages and about the people who care for them. It so happened that in 1954 this book fell into the hands of a woman whose 8-year-old daughter Nina was lost during the war. The mother considered her dead, but after reading the poem, she began to hope that her daughter was alive and that someone had taken care of her all these years. Agnia Lvovovna handed over this letter to a special organization where people worked who selflessly and successfully searched for missing people. After 8 months, Nina was found. A newspaper article was published about this incident. And then Agnia Lvovna began to receive letters from different people: “Help me find my son, daughter, mother!” what was to be done? For an official search, accurate data is needed. And often, a child who is lost as a small child does not know them or does not remember them. Such children were given a different surname, a new name, and the medical commission established an approximate age. And Agnia Lvovovna came up with the following thought: could her childhood memory help in her search? A child is observant, he sees and remembers what he sees for life. The main thing was to select the most unique childhood memories. This idea was tested using the Mayak radio station. Since 1965, on the 13th of every month, A. Barto hosted the program “Find a Person.” Here's an example - the poetess talks about Nelya Neizvestnaya, reads out her memories: “Night, the rumble of airplanes. I remember a woman, she has a baby in one hand, a heavy bag with things in the other. We are running somewhere, I’m holding on to my skirt, and "There are two boys nearby. One of them is called Roman." Three hours after the transmission, a telegram arrived: “Nelya Neizvestnaya is our daughter, we have been looking for her for 22 years.” A.L. Barto hosted this program for almost 9 years. It was possible to reunite 927 families. In 1969, she wrote the book “Find a Person,” which told the stories of people who had lost and found each other. She dedicated this book and work on the radio to the blessed memory of her son Garik.
When Agnia Barto's daughter Tatyana had a son, Volodya, he became Agnia Lvovna's most desired and beloved grandson. It was about him that the poetess created a whole cycle of poems: “Vovka is a kind soul.” Listen to two poems from this cycle: “How Vovka became an older brother” and “How Vovka became an adult.”
A.L. Barto also wrote scripts for children’s films “The Elephant and the String” and “The Foundling.” Everyone loves to watch these films: both adults and children.
A.L. Barto visited many countries around the world and met children everywhere. Having once visited Bulgaria, in a small town she met a girl, Petrina, who really wanted to correspond with the guys from Moscow. Barto told Moscow children about this and gave Petrina’s address. Within 10 days, the Bulgarian schoolgirl received more than 3,000 letters. On the first day, 24 letters arrived and the girl answered all of them. But the next day another 750 letters arrived. Soon the post office called and said that they were inundated with letters for Petrina and could not work normally. The Bulgarian children organized a cleanup day: they collected letters and distributed them to all the children so that they could answer them. Thus began a friendly correspondence between the Soviet and Bulgarian guys.
A. Barto died on April 1, 1981. One of the small planets that revolves around the Earth is named after her. She left behind one and a half million books in 86 languages, wonderful poems that you remember from childhood, which you will read to your children: “Toys”, “Little Brother”, “Once I Broke Glass”, “Vovka is a Kind Soul”, “We with Tamara", "Everyone is learning", "Zvenigorod", "For flowers in the winter forest" and others.
Poetess.
Born on February 4 (17 N.S.) in Moscow in the family of a veterinarian. She received a good home education, led by her father. She studied at the gymnasium, where she began writing poetry. At the same time, she studied at the choreographic school, where A. Lunacharsky came for graduation tests and, after listening to Barto’s poems, advised her to continue writing.
In 1925, books of poems for children were published: “The Chinese Little Wang Li”, “The Thief Bear”. A conversation with Mayakovsky about how children need fundamentally new poetry, what role it can play in the education of a future citizen, finally determined the choice of subject matter for Barto’s poetry. She regularly published collections of poems: “Brothers” (1928), “On the contrary boy” (1934), “Toys” (1936), “Bullfinch” (1939).
In 1937, Barto was a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, which was held in Spain. There she saw with her own eyes what fascism was (congress meetings were held in the besieged, burning Madrid). During World War II, Barto often spoke on the radio in Moscow and Sverdlovsk, wrote war poems, articles, and essays. In 1942 she was a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda on the Western Front.
In the post-war years she visited Bulgaria, Iceland, Japan, England and other countries.
In 1940 and 1950 new collections were published: “First-grader”, “Zvenigorod”, “Funny Poems”, “Poems for Children”. During these same years, she worked on scripts for children's films "The Foundling", "The Elephant and the String", and "Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character".
In 1958 she wrote a large cycle of satirical poems for children “Leshenka, Leshenka”, “Grandfather’s Granddaughter”, etc.
In 1969 the documentary book “Find a Person” was published, in 1976 the book “Notes of a Children's Poet” was published.
A. Barto died in 1981 in Moscow.
“The bull walks, sways, sighs as he goes...” the name of the author of these lines is familiar to everyone. One of the most famous children's poets, Agnia Barto, has become a favorite author for many generations of children. But few people know the details of her biography. For example, that she experienced a personal tragedy, but did not despair. Or how she helped meet thousands of people who lost each other during the war.
February 1906. Maslenitsa balls were held in Moscow and Lent began. The Russian Empire was on the eve of changes: the creation of the first State Duma, the implementation of Stolypin’s agrarian reform; Hopes for a solution to the “Jewish question” have not yet faded in society. Changes were also expected in the family of veterinarian Lev Nikolaevich Volov: the birth of a daughter. Lev Nikolaevich had every reason to hope that his daughter would live in another, new Russia. These hopes came true, but not in the way one could imagine. There were a little more than ten years left before the revolution.
Agnia Barto did not like to remember her childhood. Primary education at home, the French language, ceremonial dinners with pineapple for dessert - all these signs of bourgeois life did not decorate the biography of the Soviet writer. Therefore, Agniya Lvovna left the most meager memories of those years: a nanny from the village, the fear of a thunderstorm, the sounds of a barrel organ under the window. The Volov family led a life typical of intellectuals of that time: moderate opposition to the authorities and a completely wealthy home. The opposition was expressed in the fact that Lev Nikolaevich was extremely fond of the writer Tolstoy and taught his daughter to read from his children's books. His wife Maria Ilyinichna, a slightly capricious and lazy woman, was in charge of the household. Judging by fragmentary memories, Agnia always loved her father more. She wrote about her mother: “I remember that my mother, if she had to do something uninteresting to her, often repeated: “Well, I’ll do it the day after tomorrow.” It seemed to her that the day after tomorrow was still far away. I have a to-do list for the day after tomorrow.”
Lev Nikolaevich, a fan of art, saw his daughter’s future in ballet. Agnia diligently practiced dancing, but did not show much talent in this activity. The early manifested creative energy was directed into a different direction - poetry. She became interested in poetry, following her school friends. Ten-year-old girls then were all fans of the young Akhmatova, and Agnia’s first poetic experiments were full of “gray-eyed kings,” “swarthy youths,” and “hands clenched under a veil.”
Agnia Volova's youth fell on the years of revolution and civil war. But somehow she managed to live in her own world, where ballet and poetry writing coexisted peacefully. However, the older Agnia became, the clearer it was that she would not become either a great ballerina or “the second Akhmatova.” Before her final tests at the school, she was worried: after all, after them she had to start a career in ballet. People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky was present at the exams. After the examination performances, the students showed a concert program. He diligently watched the tests and became animated during the performance of the concert numbers. When the young black-eyed beauty with pathos read poetry of her own composition entitled “Funeral March,” Lunacharsky could hardly restrain his laughter. A few days later, he invited the student to People’s Commissariat of Pros and said that she was born to write funny poetry. Many years later, Agnia Barto said with irony that the beginning of her writing career was rather insulting. Of course, in your youth it is very disappointing when, instead of tragic talent, they only notice your abilities as a comedian.
How did Lunacharsky manage to discern in Agnia Barto the makings of a children's poet behind a rather mediocre poetic imitation? Or is the whole point that the topic of creating Soviet literature for children has been repeatedly discussed in the government? In this case, the invitation to the People's Commissariat of Education was not a tribute to the abilities of the young poetess, but rather a “government order.” But be that as it may, in 1925, nineteen-year-old Agnia Barto published her first book, “The Chinese Little Wang Li.” The corridors of power, where Lunacharsky, by his own will, decided to make a children's poetess out of a pretty dancer, led her to the world she dreamed of as a high school student: having started to publish, Agnia got the opportunity to communicate with the poets of the Silver Age.
Fame came to her quite quickly, but did not add courage to her Agnia was very shy. She adored Mayakovsky, but when she met him, she did not dare to speak. Having dared to read her poem to Chukovsky, Barto attributed the authorship to a five-year-old boy. She later recalled about her conversation with Gorky that she was “terribly worried.” Perhaps it was precisely because of her shyness that Agnia Barto had no enemies. She never tried to appear smarter than she was, did not get involved in literary squabbles, and was well aware that she had a lot to learn. The "Silver Age" instilled in her the most important trait for a children's writer: endless respect for the word. Barto's perfectionism drove more than one person crazy: once, while going to a book congress in Brazil, she endlessly reworked the Russian text of the report, despite the fact that it was to be read in English. Receiving new versions of the text over and over again, the translator finally promised that he would never work with Barto again, even if she were a genius three times over.
In the mid-thirties, Agnia Lvovna received the love of readers and became the object of criticism from colleagues. Barto never spoke about this directly, but there is every reason to believe that most of the openly abusive articles appeared in the press not without the participation of the famous poet and translator Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak. At first, Marshak treated Barto patronizingly. However, his attempts to “instruct and teach” Agnia failed miserably. Once, driven to white heat by his nagging, Barto said: “You know, Samuil Yakovlevich, in our children’s literature there is Marshak and the marchers. I cannot be a Marshak, and I don’t want to be a marcher.” After this, her relationship with the master deteriorated for many years.
Her career as a children's writer did not prevent Agnia from pursuing a stormy personal life. In her early youth, she married the poet Pavel Barto, gave birth to a son, Garik, and at twenty-nine years old she left her husband for the man who became the main love of her life. Perhaps the first marriage did not work out because she was too hasty in getting married, or maybe it was Agnia’s professional success, which Pavel Barto could not and did not want to survive. Be that as it may, Agnia retained the surname Barto, but spent the rest of her life with the energy scientist Shcheglyaev, with whom she gave birth to her second child, daughter Tatyana. Andrei Vladimirovich was one of the most authoritative Soviet experts on steam and gas turbines. He was the dean of the power engineering faculty of Moscow Power Engineering Institute, and he was called “the most handsome dean of the Soviet Union.” Writers, musicians, and actors often visited her and Barto’s house; Agnia Lvovna’s non-conflict nature attracted a variety of people. She was close friends with Faina Ranevskaya and Rina Zelena, and in 1940, just before the war, she wrote the script for the comedy “Foundling”. In addition, Barto traveled a lot as part of Soviet delegations. In 1937 she visited Spain. There was already a war going on there, Barto saw ruins of houses and orphaned children. A conversation with a Spanish woman made a particularly gloomy impression on her, who, showing a photograph of her son, covered his face with her finger, explaining that the boy’s head had been torn off by a shell. “How to describe the feelings of a mother who has outlived her child?” Agnia Lvovna wrote then to one of her friends. A few years later, she received the answer to this terrible question.
Agnia Barto knew that war with Germany was inevitable. At the end of the thirties, she traveled to this “neat, clean, almost toy-like country,” heard Nazi slogans, saw pretty blond girls in dresses “decorated” with swastikas. To her, who sincerely believed in the universal brotherhood of, if not adults, then at least children, all this was wild and scary. But the war itself was not too harsh on her. She did not separate from her husband even during the evacuation: Shcheglyaev, who by that time had become a prominent energy worker, was sent to the Urals. Agnia Lvovna had friends living in those parts who invited her to stay with them. So the family settled in Sverdlovsk. The Urals seemed to be distrustful, closed and stern people. Barto had a chance to meet Pavel Bazhov, who completely confirmed her first impression of the local residents. During the war, Sverdlovsk teenagers worked at defense factories instead of adults who went to the front. They were wary of the evacuees. But Agnia Barto needed to communicate with children; she drew inspiration and stories from them. In order to be able to communicate more with them, Barto, on the advice of Bazhov, received the profession of a second-class turner. Standing at the lathe, she proved that she was “also a person.” In 1942, Barto made her last attempt to become an “adult writer.” Or rather, a front-line correspondent. Nothing came of this attempt, and Barto returned to Sverdlovsk. She understood that the whole country lived according to the laws of war, but still she was very homesick for Moscow.
Barto returned to the capital in 1944, and almost immediately life returned to normal. In the apartment opposite the Tretyakov Gallery, the housekeeper Domasha was again doing housework. Friends were returning from evacuation, son Garik and daughter Tatyana began studying again. Everyone was looking forward to the end of the war. On May 4, 1945, Garik returned home earlier than usual. Home was late with lunch, the day was sunny, and the boy decided to ride a bicycle. Agnia Lvovna did not object. It seemed that nothing bad could happen to a fifteen-year-old teenager in a quiet Lavrushinsky lane. But Garik’s bicycle collided with a truck coming around the corner. The boy fell onto the asphalt, hitting his temple on the sidewalk curb. Death came instantly. Barto’s friend Evgenia Taratura recalls that Agniya Lvovna completely retreated into herself these days. She didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't talk. The Victory Day did not exist for her. Garik was an affectionate, charming, handsome boy, capable of music and exact sciences. Did Barto remember the Spanish woman who lost her son? Was she tormented by a feeling of guilt for her frequent departures, for the fact that Garik sometimes lacked her attention?
Be that as it may, after the death of her son, Agnia Lvovna turned all her mother’s love to her daughter Tatyana. But she didn’t work less; quite the contrary. In 1947, she published the poem "Zvenigorod" - a story about children who lost their parents during the war. This poem was destined for a special fate. Poems for children turned Agnia Barto into “the face of Soviet children’s books,” an influential writer, a favorite of the entire Soviet Union. But “Zvenigorod” made her a national heroine and returned some semblance of peace of mind. This can be called an accident or a miracle. Agnia Barto wrote the poem after visiting a real orphanage in the town of Zvenigorod near Moscow. In the text, as usual, she used her conversations with children. After the book was published, she received a letter from a lonely woman who lost her eight-year-old daughter during the war. The fragments of childhood memories included in the poem seemed familiar to the woman. She hoped that Barto communicated with her daughter, who disappeared during the war. And so it turned out: mother and daughter met ten years later. In 1965, the Mayak radio station began broadcasting the program “Looking for a Man.” Searching for missing people using the media was not the invention of Agnia Barto; such a practice existed in many countries. The uniqueness of the Soviet analogue was that the search was based on childhood memories. “A child is observant, he sees sharply, accurately and often remembers what he sees for the rest of his life,” wrote Barto. “Can’t childhood memory help in the search? Can’t parents recognize their adult son or daughter from their childhood memories?” Agnia Barto devoted nine years of her life to this work. She managed to unite almost a thousand families destroyed by the war.
In her own life, everything was going well: her husband was moving up the career ladder, her daughter Tatyana got married and gave birth to a son, Vladimir. It was about him that Barto wrote the poem “Vovka is a kind soul.” Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev was never jealous of her fame, and he was greatly amused by the fact that in some circles he was known not as the largest specialist in steam turbines in the USSR, but as the father of “Our Tanya”, the one that dropped into the river ball (Barto wrote these poems for her daughter). Barto continued to travel a lot around the world, even visiting the USA. Agnia Lvovna was the “face” of any delegation: she knew how to behave in society, spoke several languages, dressed beautifully and danced beautifully. In Moscow there was absolutely no one to dance with; Barto’s social circle consisted of writers and her husband’s colleagues and scientists. Therefore, Agniya Lvovna tried not to miss a single dance technique. Once, while in Brazil, Barto, as part of the Soviet delegation, was invited to a reception with the owner of Machete, the most popular Brazilian magazine. The head of the Soviet delegation, Sergei Mikhalkov, was already waiting for her in the hotel lobby when KGB officers reported that a “vicious anti-Soviet article” had been published in Macheta the day before. Naturally, there could be no talk of any reception. They said that Mikhalkov could not forget the upset face and words of Agnia Barto, who came out of the elevator in an evening dress and with a fan, for a long time.
In Moscow, Barto often received guests. It must be said that the writer rarely did housework. She generally maintained the way of life that had been familiar to her since childhood: the housekeeper completely freed her from household chores; the children had a nanny and a driver. Barto loved to play tennis and would organize a trip to capitalist Paris to buy a pack of drawing paper she liked. But at the same time, she never had a secretary, or even a work office - only an apartment on Lavrushinsky Lane and an attic at the dacha in Novo-Daryino, where there was an old card table and books were piled in stacks. But the doors of her house were always open for guests. She gathered MPEI students, academicians, aspiring poets and famous actors around the same table. She was non-confrontational, loved practical jokes and did not tolerate arrogance and snobbery. One day she arranged a dinner, set the table, and attached a sign to each dish: “Black caviar for academicians,” “Red caviar for corresponding members,” “Crabs and sprats for doctors of science,” “Cheese and ham for candidates.” ", "Vinaigrette for laboratory assistants and students." They say that the laboratory assistants and students were sincerely amused by this joke, but the academicians did not have enough of a sense of humor; some of them were then seriously offended by Agnia Lvovna.
In 1970, her husband, Andrei Vladimirovich, died. He spent the last few months in the hospital, Agniya Lvovna stayed with him. After the first heart attack, she was afraid for his heart, but the doctors said that Shcheglyaev had cancer. It seemed that she had returned to distant forty-five: her most precious thing was again taken away from her.
She survived her husband by eleven years. All this time she did not stop working: she wrote two books of memoirs, more than a hundred poems. She did not become less energetic, she just began to fear loneliness. I spent hours talking to my friends on the phone and tried to see my daughter and grandchildren more often. She still didn’t like to remember her past. She was also silent about the fact that for decades she had been helping the families of repressed acquaintances: she obtained scarce medicines, found good doctors; about the fact that, using her connections, she had been “getting” apartments for many years, sometimes for complete strangers.
She died on April 1, 1981. After the autopsy, the doctors were shocked: the vessels turned out to be so weak that it was not clear how the blood had been flowing into the heart for the last ten years. Agnia Barto once said: “Almost every person has moments in life when he does more than he can.” In her case, it was not a minute; she lived her whole life this way.
Agnia Lvovna Barto (1906-1981) - famous Soviet poetess, author of many plays, poems, and film scripts. She was born in the Russian capital of Moscow, in the family of a practicing veterinarian Lev Nikolaevich Volkov, who was an example of kindness and intelligence for the future writer. He instilled in his daughter a love of books and gave her the right upbringing.
Barto tried to write her first poems in the elementary grades of the gymnasium, and then at the choreographic school. In her youth, she loved to dance and dreamed of becoming a famous ballerina. One of the first poems was noticed by the current People's Commissar of Education Lukacharsky L.V., he advised writing humorous poems for a children's audience. Agnia set to work with enthusiasm. She honed her poetic style, relying on the work of Mayakovsky, Marshak and other famous poets who use satirical techniques in their work.
In 1925, the writer’s first book was published, including poems “Chinese Little Wang Li” and “Teddy Bear.” A. Barto's poems are written in a humorous style and are easy to remember. To create them, the poetess sometimes used non-standard rhymes. The author seems to be talking to a child without an edifying tone.
Barto's poetic creativity flourished at the end of the 30s. In 1936, the most popular collection of poems, “Toys,” was published. This work has won the love of children of several generations. In 1940, Barto took part in creating the script for the film “Foundling”; this year the play “Dima and Vava” (a comedy in three acts) came out from her pen.
During the difficult war years for the Soviet people, Barto was a front-line correspondent and spoke on the radio. After being evacuated to the city of Sverdlovsk, she mastered a profession that was new to her and needed in those years - turning.
After the war, the poetess continued to work on creating poems for children. In total, about 150 books were published. But the work of these years is no longer as popular as the author’s earlier works. Barto devotes a cycle of poems to the problems of adolescents growing up, which was a little-known topic in the poetic world.
Barto also becomes the organizer of the important project “Find a Person”. Its essence is to help reunite people separated by war. Thanks to the program of the same name on radio "Mayak" it was possible to give the joy of meeting a huge number of people. Some parents were found using the childhood memories of a child lost during the war. Later, Barto’s story “Find a Person” was published, which was based on cases of searching for people.
The collection “Translations from Children’s”, which includes translations of poems by children of different nationalities, is interesting and unusual according to the author’s idea. The book entitled “Notes of a Children's Poet” is of great cultural value. In it, Barto seems to share his vast poetic experience. This book includes the best and most famous works of the author.
Agnia Barto's contribution to the development of Russian culture is invaluable. She always defended the interests of children, emphasized the importance of their problems and respected the individuality of each little person.
en.wikipedia.org
Biography
Getel Leibovna Volova) was born on February 4, 1906 in Moscow into a Jewish family of a veterinarian, and studied at a ballet school. Agnia Lvovna's first husband was the poet Pavel Barto. Together with him, she wrote three poems - “Roaring Girl”, “Dirty Girl” and “Counting Table”. In 1927, their son Garik was born. Soon after his birth, the couple divorced. In the spring of 1945, Garik died tragically at the age of 18. While riding his bicycle, he was hit by a truck. Agnia Lvovna’s second husband was the Soviet thermal power engineer, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Andrei Shcheglyaev, with whom they lived for almost 50 years. From this marriage they had a daughter, Tatyana Shcheglyaeva.
The prose book “Find a Person” (1968), about the search for the families of children lost during the Great Patriotic War, shows a love for children and an understanding of child psychology.
The book “Notes of a Children's Poet” (1976).
A. L. Barto died on April 1, 1981. She was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery (site No. 3).
Awards and prizes
* Stalin Prize, second degree (1950)
* Lenin Prize (1972)
* The order of Lenin
* Order of the October Revolution
* two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor
* Order of the Badge of Honor
* Order of the Smile
* International Gold Medal named after Leo Tolstoy “For merits in creating works for children and youth” (posthumously).
The name of Agnia Barto was given to one of the minor planets (2279 Barto), located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, as well as one of the craters on Venus.
Style
Most of Agnia Barto's poems are written for children - preschoolers or primary schoolchildren. The style is very easy, the poems are easy to read and memorize for children. Wolfgang Kazak calls them “primitively rhymed.” The author seems to be talking to the child in simple everyday language, without lyrical digressions or descriptions - but in rhyme. And the conversation is with young readers, as if the author were their age. Barto’s poems are always on a modern theme, she seems to be telling a story that recently happened, and her aesthetics are characterized by calling characters by name: “Tamara and I,” “Who doesn’t know Lyubochka,” “Our Tanya is crying bitterly,” “Leshenka, Lyoshenka, do favor” - it seems that we are talking about the well-known Leshenka and Tanya, who have such shortcomings, and not at all about child readers.
Sources
* Kazak V. Lexikon of Russian literature of the 20th century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917. - M.: RIK "Culture", 1996. - 492 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8
Notes
1 http://www.bartofamily.org/page51.html
Biography
Her father was a veterinarian. Under his leadership in her childhood, Barto received a good home upbringing and education. Then Agnia went to study at the gymnasium. There she began to write her first poems.
In parallel with her studies at the gymnasium, Barto also studied at the choreographic school. Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, who once came there for his graduation tests, listened to the poems of the young poetess and recommended that she continue to study poetry.
In 1925, Barto's first works, children's books of poems "The Thief Bear" and "The Little Chinese Wang Li", were published. A major role in the literary work of Agnia Barto was played by her meeting with Vladimir Mayakovsky. The poet spoke about the enormous role of poetry in the education of the future citizen of the country, about the importance of this work for the poet.
In 1928, a collection of poems by Agnia Barto “Brothers” was published, in 1934 “The Boy on the Other Side” appeared, and two years later “Toys” was published.
In 1937, Agnia Barto was sent as a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, held in Spain. At that time, hostilities were taking place there; the work of the congress was carried out in besieged Madrid. Agnia Barto saw with her own eyes what fascism is and what destructive consequences it has for humanity.
In 1939, the poetess published another children's collection of poems - "Bullfinch".
Soon the Great Patriotic War began, Agnia Barto continued to work, wrote military essays, articles, poems, and often spoke on the radio.
In 1942, Barto worked on the Western Front as a correspondent for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. In the post-war years, new collections of Agnia Barto were published, such as “Funny Poems”, “Zvenigorod”, “Poems for Children”, “First-Grader”. At the same time, Barto was working on scripts for children's feature films "Elephant and String", "Foundling", "Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character".
In the post-war years, Agnia Barto traveled a lot around the world; she visited Iceland, England, Japan, Bulgaria and many other countries.
In 1958, Agnia Barto wrote a large cycle of children's satirical poems, such as "Grandfather's Granddaughter", "Leshenka, Leshenka" and others.
In 1969, Agniya Lvovna wrote a prose book, “Find a Person.” In 1976, Barto's book "Notes of a Children's Poet" was published. In 1981, Agnia Lvovna Barto passed away.
Biography
Born on February 4 (17 N.S.) in Moscow in the family of a veterinarian. She received a good home education, led by her father. She studied at the gymnasium, where she began writing poetry. At the same time, she studied at the choreographic school, where A. Lunacharsky came for graduation tests and, after listening to Barto’s poems, advised her to continue writing.
In 1925, books of poems for children were published - “The Chinese Little Wang Li”, “The Thief Bear”. A conversation with Mayakovsky about how children need fundamentally new poetry, what role it can play in the education of a future citizen, finally determined the choice of subject matter for Barto’s poetry. She regularly published collections of poems: “Brothers” (1928), “On the contrary boy” (1934), “Toys” (1936), “Bullfinch” (1939).
In 1937, Barto was a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, which was held in Spain. There she saw with her own eyes what fascism was (congress meetings were held in the besieged, burning Madrid). During World War II, Barto often spoke on the radio in Moscow and Sverdlovsk, wrote war poems, articles, and essays. In 1942 she was a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda on the Western Front.
In the post-war years she visited Bulgaria, Iceland, Japan, England and other countries.
In 1940 - 1950, new collections were published: “First-grader”, “Zvenigorod”, “Funny Poems”, “Poems for Children”. During these same years, she worked on scripts for children's films "The Foundling", "The Elephant and the String", and "Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character".
In 1958 she wrote a large cycle of satirical poems for children “Leshenka, Leshenka”, “Grandfather’s Granddaughter”, etc.
In 1969 the documentary book “Find a Person” was published, in 1976 the book “Notes of a Children's Poet” was published.
A. Barto died in 1981 in Moscow.
“The bull walks, sways, sighs as he goes...” - the name of the author of these lines is familiar to everyone. One of the most famous children's poets, Agnia Barto, has become a favorite author for many generations of children. But few people know the details of her biography. For example, that she experienced a personal tragedy, but did not despair. Or how she helped meet thousands of people who lost each other during the war.
February 1906. Maslenitsa balls were held in Moscow and Lent began. The Russian Empire was on the eve of changes: the creation of the first State Duma, the implementation of Stolypin’s agrarian reform; Hopes for a solution to the “Jewish question” have not yet faded in society. Changes were also expected in the family of veterinarian Lev Nikolaevich Volov: the birth of a daughter. Lev Nikolaevich had every reason to hope that his daughter would live in another, new Russia. These hopes came true, but not in the way one could imagine. There were a little more than ten years left before the revolution.
Agnia Barto did not like to remember her childhood. Primary education at home, the French language, ceremonial dinners with pineapple for dessert - all these signs of bourgeois life did not decorate the biography of the Soviet writer. Therefore, Agniya Lvovna left the most meager memories of those years: a nanny from the village, the fear of a thunderstorm, the sounds of a barrel organ under the window. The Volov family led a life typical of intellectuals of that time: moderate opposition to the authorities and a completely wealthy home. The opposition was expressed in the fact that Lev Nikolaevich was extremely fond of the writer Tolstoy and taught his daughter to read from his children's books. His wife Maria Ilyinichna, a slightly capricious and lazy woman, was in charge of the household. Judging by fragmentary memories, Agnia always loved her father more. She wrote about her mother: “I remember that my mother, if she had to do something uninteresting to her, often repeated: “Well, I’ll do it the day after tomorrow.” It seemed to her that the day after tomorrow was still far away. I have a to-do list for the day after tomorrow.”
Lev Nikolaevich, a fan of art, saw his daughter’s future in ballet. Agnia diligently practiced dancing, but did not show much talent in this activity. The early manifested creative energy was directed into another direction - poetry. She became interested in poetry, following her school friends. Ten-year-old girls then were all fans of the young Akhmatova, and Agnia’s first poetic experiments were full of “gray-eyed kings,” “swarthy youths,” and “hands clenched under a veil.”
Agnia Volova's youth fell on the years of revolution and civil war. But somehow she managed to live in her own world, where ballet and poetry writing coexisted peacefully. However, the older Agnia became, the clearer it was that she would not become either a great ballerina or “the second Akhmatova.” Before her final tests at the school, she was worried: after all, after them she had to start a career in ballet. People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky was present at the exams. After the examination performances, the students showed a concert program. He diligently watched the tests and became animated during the performance of the concert numbers. When the young black-eyed beauty with pathos read poetry of her own composition entitled “Funeral March,” Lunacharsky could hardly restrain his laughter. A few days later, he invited the student to People’s Commissariat of Pros and said that she was born to write funny poetry. Many years later, Agnia Barto said with irony that the beginning of her writing career was rather insulting. Of course, in your youth it is very disappointing when, instead of tragic talent, they only notice your abilities as a comedian.
How did Lunacharsky manage to discern in Agnia Barto the makings of a children's poet behind a rather mediocre poetic imitation? Or is the whole point that the topic of creating Soviet literature for children has been repeatedly discussed in the government? In this case, the invitation to the People's Commissariat of Education was not a tribute to the abilities of the young poetess, but rather a “government order.” But be that as it may, in 1925, nineteen-year-old Agnia Barto published her first book - “Chinese Wang Li”. The corridors of power, where Lunacharsky, by his own will, decided to make a children's poetess out of a pretty dancer, led her to the world she dreamed of as a high school student: having started to publish, Agnia got the opportunity to communicate with the poets of the Silver Age.
Fame came to her quite quickly, but did not add courage to her - Agnia was very shy. She adored Mayakovsky, but when she met him, she did not dare to speak. Having dared to read her poem to Chukovsky, Barto attributed the authorship to a five-year-old boy. She later recalled about her conversation with Gorky that she was “terribly worried.” Perhaps it was precisely because of her shyness that Agnia Barto had no enemies. She never tried to appear smarter than she was, did not get involved in literary squabbles, and was well aware that she had a lot to learn. The "Silver Age" instilled in her the most important trait for a children's writer: endless respect for the word. Barto's perfectionism drove more than one person crazy: once, while going to a book congress in Brazil, she endlessly reworked the Russian text of the report, despite the fact that it was to be read in English. Receiving new versions of the text over and over again, the translator finally promised that he would never work with Barto again, even if she were a genius three times over.
In the mid-thirties, Agnia Lvovna received the love of readers and became the object of criticism from colleagues. Barto never spoke about this directly, but there is every reason to believe that most of the openly abusive articles appeared in the press not without the participation of the famous poet and translator Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak. At first, Marshak treated Barto patronizingly. However, his attempts to “instruct and teach” Agnia failed miserably. Once, driven to white heat by his nagging, Barto said: “You know, Samuil Yakovlevich, in our children’s literature there is Marshak and the marchers. I can’t be a Marshak, and I don’t want to be a marcher.” After this, her relationship with the master deteriorated for many years.
Her career as a children's writer did not prevent Agnia from pursuing a stormy personal life. In her early youth, she married the poet Pavel Barto, gave birth to a son, Garik, and at twenty-nine years old she left her husband for the man who became the main love of her life. Perhaps the first marriage did not work out because she was too hasty in getting married, or maybe it was Agnia’s professional success, which Pavel Barto could not and did not want to survive. Be that as it may, Agnia retained the surname Barto, but spent the rest of her life with the energy scientist Shcheglyaev, with whom she gave birth to her second child, daughter Tatyana. Andrei Vladimirovich was one of the most authoritative Soviet experts on steam and gas turbines. He was the dean of the power engineering faculty of Moscow Power Engineering Institute, and he was called “the most handsome dean of the Soviet Union.” Writers, musicians, and actors often visited their house with Barto - Agnia Lvovna’s non-conflict character attracted a variety of people. She was close friends with Faina Ranevskaya and Rina Zelena, and in 1940, just before the war, she wrote the script for the comedy “Foundling”. In addition, Barto traveled a lot as part of Soviet delegations. In 1937 she visited Spain. There was already a war going on there, Barto saw ruins of houses and orphaned children. A conversation with a Spanish woman made a particularly gloomy impression on her, who, showing a photograph of her son, covered his face with her finger - explaining that the boy’s head had been blown off by a shell. “How to describe the feelings of a mother who has outlived her child?” - Agnia Lvovna wrote then to one of her friends. A few years later, she received the answer to this terrible question.
Agnia Barto knew that war with Germany was inevitable. At the end of the thirties, she traveled to this “neat, clean, almost toy-like country,” heard Nazi slogans, saw pretty blond girls in dresses “decorated” with swastikas. To her, who sincerely believed in the universal brotherhood of, if not adults, then at least children, all this was wild and scary. But the war itself was not too harsh on her. She did not separate from her husband even during the evacuation: Shcheglyaev, who by that time had become a prominent energy worker, was sent to the Urals. Agnia Lvovna had friends living in those parts who invited her to stay with them. So the family settled in Sverdlovsk. The Urals seemed to be distrustful, closed and stern people. Barto had a chance to meet Pavel Bazhov, who completely confirmed her first impression of the local residents. During the war, Sverdlovsk teenagers worked at defense factories instead of adults who went to the front. They were wary of the evacuees. But Agnia Barto needed to communicate with children - she drew inspiration and stories from them. In order to be able to communicate more with them, Barto, on the advice of Bazhov, received the profession of a second-class turner. Standing at the lathe, she proved that she was “also a person.” In 1942, Barto made her last attempt to become an “adult writer.” Or rather, a front-line correspondent. Nothing came of this attempt, and Barto returned to Sverdlovsk. She understood that the whole country lived according to the laws of war, but still she was very homesick for Moscow.
Barto returned to the capital in 1944, and almost immediately life returned to normal. In the apartment opposite the Tretyakov Gallery, the housekeeper Domasha was again doing housework. Friends were returning from evacuation, son Garik and daughter Tatyana began studying again. Everyone was looking forward to the end of the war. On May 4, 1945, Garik returned home earlier than usual. Home was late with lunch, the day was sunny, and the boy decided to ride a bicycle. Agnia Lvovna did not object. It seemed that nothing bad could happen to a fifteen-year-old teenager in a quiet Lavrushinsky lane. But Garik’s bicycle collided with a truck coming around the corner. The boy fell onto the asphalt, hitting his temple on the sidewalk curb. Death came instantly. Barto’s friend Evgenia Taratura recalls that Agniya Lvovna completely retreated into herself these days. She didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't talk. The Victory Day did not exist for her. Garik was an affectionate, charming, handsome boy, capable of music and exact sciences. Did Barto remember the Spanish woman who lost her son? Was she tormented by a feeling of guilt for her frequent departures, for the fact that Garik sometimes lacked her attention?
Be that as it may, after the death of her son, Agnia Lvovna turned all her mother’s love to her daughter Tatyana. But she didn’t work less - quite the contrary. In 1947, she published the poem "Zvenigorod" - a story about children who lost their parents during the war. This poem was destined for a special fate. Poems for children turned Agnia Barto into “the face of Soviet children’s books,” an influential writer, a favorite of the entire Soviet Union. But “Zvenigorod” made her a national heroine and returned some semblance of peace of mind. This can be called an accident or a miracle. Agnia Barto wrote the poem after visiting a real orphanage in the town of Zvenigorod near Moscow. In the text, as usual, she used her conversations with children. After the book was published, she received a letter from a lonely woman who lost her eight-year-old daughter during the war. The fragments of childhood memories included in the poem seemed familiar to the woman. She hoped that Barto communicated with her daughter, who disappeared during the war. And so it turned out: mother and daughter met ten years later. In 1965, the Mayak radio station began broadcasting the program “Looking for a Man.” Searching for missing people using the media was not the invention of Agnia Barto - this practice existed in many countries. The uniqueness of the Soviet analogue was that the search was based on childhood memories. “A child is observant, he sees sharply, accurately and often remembers what he sees for the rest of his life,” wrote Barto. “Can’t childhood memory help in the search? Can’t parents recognize their adult son or daughter from their childhood memories?” Agnia Barto devoted nine years of her life to this work. She managed to unite almost a thousand families destroyed by the war.
In her own life, everything was going well: her husband was moving up the career ladder, her daughter Tatyana got married and gave birth to a son, Vladimir. It was about him that Barto wrote the poem “Vovka is a kind soul.” Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev was never jealous of her fame, and he was greatly amused by the fact that in some circles he was known not as the largest specialist in steam turbines in the USSR, but as the father of “Our Tanya”, the one that dropped into the river ball (Barto wrote these poems for her daughter). Barto continued to travel a lot around the world, even visiting the USA. Agnia Lvovna was the “face” of any delegation: she knew how to behave in society, spoke several languages, dressed beautifully and danced beautifully. In Moscow there was absolutely no one to dance with - Barto's social circle consisted of writers and her husband's colleagues - scientists. Therefore, Agniya Lvovna tried not to miss a single dance technique. Once, while in Brazil, Barto, as part of the Soviet delegation, was invited to a reception with the owner of Machete, the most popular Brazilian magazine. The head of the Soviet delegation, Sergei Mikhalkov, was already waiting for her in the hotel lobby when KGB officers reported that a “vicious anti-Soviet article” had been published in Macheta the day before. Naturally, there could be no talk of any reception. They said that Mikhalkov could not forget the upset face and words of Agnia Barto, who came out of the elevator in an evening dress and with a fan, for a long time.
In Moscow, Barto often received guests. It must be said that the writer rarely did housework. She generally maintained the way of life that had been familiar to her since childhood: the housekeeper completely freed her from household chores; the children had a nanny and a driver. Barto loved to play tennis and would organize a trip to capitalist Paris to buy a pack of drawing paper she liked. But at the same time, she never had a secretary, or even a work office - only an apartment in Lavrushinsky Lane and an attic at the dacha in Novo-Daryino, where there was an old card table and books were piled in stacks. But the doors of her house were always open for guests. She gathered MPEI students, academicians, aspiring poets and famous actors around the same table. She was non-confrontational, loved practical jokes and did not tolerate arrogance and snobbery. One day she arranged a dinner, set the table, and attached a sign to each dish: “Black caviar - for academicians”, “Red caviar - for corresponding members”, “Crabs and sprats - for doctors of science”, “Cheese and ham - for candidates ", "Vinaigrette - for laboratory assistants and students." They say that the laboratory assistants and students were sincerely amused by this joke, but the academicians did not have enough of a sense of humor - some of them were then seriously offended by Agnia Lvovna.
In 1970, her husband, Andrei Vladimirovich, died. He spent the last few months in the hospital, Agniya Lvovna stayed with him. After the first heart attack, she was afraid for his heart, but the doctors said that Shcheglyaev had cancer. It seemed that she had returned to distant forty-five: her most precious thing was again taken away from her.
She survived her husband by eleven years. All this time she did not stop working: she wrote two books of memoirs, more than a hundred poems. She did not become less energetic, she just began to fear loneliness. I spent hours talking to my friends on the phone and tried to see my daughter and grandchildren more often. She still didn’t like to remember her past. She was also silent about the fact that for decades she had been helping the families of repressed acquaintances: she obtained scarce medicines, found good doctors; about the fact that, using her connections, she “broke” apartments for many years, sometimes for people completely unknown to her.
She died on April 1, 1981. After the autopsy, the doctors were shocked: the vessels turned out to be so weak that it was not clear how the blood had been flowing into the heart for the last ten years. Agnia Barto once said: “Almost every person has moments in life when he does more than he can.” In her case, it was not a minute - she lived her whole life this way.
Biography
Agnia Lvovna Barto was born on February 4, 1906 in Moscow in the family of a veterinarian. As a child, she had many hobbies. She studied music and graduated from a choreographic school. Once, after final exams, at one of the evenings, she read her own poem for the first time, which was heard by the People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky. He liked the poem and, as if foretelling the fate of the future poetess, he said that the girl would write funny poems for children. This meeting forever remained the most vivid impression for Agnia Lvovna.
Her father, Lev Nikolaevich Volov, did a lot to develop Barto’s literary abilities. He himself loved poetry very much, knew almost all of Krylov’s fables by heart, but most importantly, he constantly gave books to his daughter.
In 1925, Barto had already begun publishing her poems. “The Roaring Girl” and “The Dirty Girl” were published, then “The Chinese Little Wang Li” and “The Thief Bear.” Agnia Lvovna addressed her creativity to the youngest readers (from four to eight years old). You can’t even call them readers. Rather, they were grateful listeners who really liked these poems and remembered them well.
In the following years, Barto released the collections “Brothers” (1928) and “The Boy on the contrary” (1934). Barto’s poetry has always been distinguished by its attention to the world of a child, to his imagination and thinking. Other children's pistaels played a major role in her work - K.I. Chukovsky and S.Ya. Marshak, who helped her with advice and followed her work.
In 1937, Barto visited Spain, and since then a new theme for her began to be present in her work - a patriotic one. During these same years, she began writing scripts for children's films, which were successfully screened in cinemas (there was no television yet). We still enjoy watching the wonderful film “Foundling” about a little girl who went out into the street alone and “got lost.” Barto constructed the script in such a way that she was able to show their lives, characters and worldviews through the prism of the girl’s meetings with different people. Some episodes of the film are imbued with extraordinary lyricism, some with satire and humor. The success of the film was greatly facilitated by such comediennes as Faina Ranevskaya and Rina Zelenaya, who also starred in other films based on scripts by A.L. Barto ("The Elephant and the String", "Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character", "Ten Thousand Boys").
Since the beginning of the war, Barto tried several times to get to the front, but her husband, a power engineer, was sent to Sverdlovsk. Barto returned to Moscow in 1942 and was then sent as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda to the Western Front. At this time, she published her patriotic poems, articles and essays in newspapers
In the sixties, Barto, in addition to children's poems, created several humorous and satirical works, which were published in the books "Who is considered happy?" (1962) and "What's the Matter with Him?" (1966). During these same years, she worked in an orphanage for orphans. It was here that her poem "Zvenigorod" was born. These years were the most productive in the life of the poetess. She began hosting the radio program “Find a Person.” With its help, many people who lost their loved ones during the Great Patriotic War were able to find them or find out about their fate. While working on the radio, Barto heard many stories from ordinary people about the mark the war left on their lives, and based on the stories she wrote the book “Find a Man,” which was published in 1968.
1972 brought her the Lenin Prize. At the same time, Barto became a member of the International Association of Children's Writers and a laureate of the Andersen Medal; she traveled extensively around the country holding a children's drawing competition.
Agnia Lvovna died in 1981.
