Every child in the USSR knew the poems of Agnia Barto (1906-1981). Her books were printed in millions of copies. This amazing woman devoted her entire life to children. It can be said without exaggeration that the works of Agnia Barto are familiar to all children who have just learned to speak. Many generations have grown up reading poems about crying Tanya and a bear with a torn paw, and the old film “The Foundling” continues to touch the hearts of modern viewers. The style of her poems, written for preschoolers and primary schoolchildren, is very easy; the poems are not difficult for children to read and memorize. Wolfgang Kazak called 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 he conducts a conversation with little 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 loudly”, “Leshenka, Lyoshenka, do favor” - it seems that we are talking about well-known Lyoshenka and Tanya, who have such shortcomings, and not at all about child readers. Paying tribute to the large number of wonderful children's poets, one cannot but agree that Agnia Barto occupies a special place in the golden fund of literature.
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| with that same bear? |
More than anything else, Hanna loved poetry and dancing. She recalled about her childhood: “The first impression of my childhood was the high voice of a barrel organ outside the window. For a long time I dreamed of walking around the courtyards and turning the handle of the organ, so that people attracted by the music would look out of all the windows.” She studied at the gymnasium, where, as was customary in intelligent families, she studied French and German. Under the influence of Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Mayakovsky, she began to write poetic epigrams and sketches - first in a decadent style, and after meeting the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky, which she valued very highly throughout her subsequent life, she imitated his style for some time. But Ganna was best at humorous poems, which she read to her family and friends. At the same time, she studied at a ballet school. Then she entered the Moscow Choreographic School, after graduating from which in 1924 she joined the ballet troupe, where she worked for about a year. But the troupe emigrated. Agnia’s father was against her leaving, and she remained in Moscow...
She became a writer thanks to a curiosity. Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky was present at the school’s graduation tests, where the young ballerina read her humorous poem “Funeral March” from the stage. A few days later, he invited her to the People's Commissariat for Education and expressed confidence that Barto was born to write funny poetry. In 1925, Barto was sent to the children's editorial office at Gosizdat. Agnia Lvovna set to work with enthusiasm and soon brought her first poems to Gosizdat. In 1925, her first poems, “Chinese Little Wang Li” and “The Thief Bear,” were published. They were followed by “The First of May” (1926), “Brothers” (1928), after the publication of which Korney Chukovsky noted Barto’s extraordinary talent as a children’s poet. 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.” She adored Mayakovsky, but when she met him, she did not dare to speak. Fame came to her quite quickly, but did not add courage to her - Agnia was very shy. 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...
However, later, during the Stalin era, when Chukovsky’s children’s poems were subjected to severe persecution, initiated by Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, despite the fact that Stalin himself repeatedly quoted “The Cockroach,” inadequate criticism came from Agnia Barto (and from Sergei Mikhalkov too) . Among party critics and editors, the term “Chukovism” even arose. Although other sources say that she did not completely poison Chukovsky, but simply did not refuse to sign some kind of collective paper. In addition, Barto was also seen harassing Marshak. “Barto came to the editorial office and saw proofs of Marshak’s new poems on the table. And he said: “Yes, I can write such poems every day!” To which the editor replied: “I beg you, write them at least every other day...” Here you go quiet!
By this time, Agnia was already married to the children's poet and ornithologist Pavel Nikolayevich Barto, a distant descendant of Scottish emigrants, and with whom she co-authored three poems - “The Roaring Girl,” “The Dirty Girl,” and “The Counting Table.” In 1927, their son Edgar (Igor) was born. Agnia Barto worked hard and fruitfully, and, despite accusations of primitive rhymes and lack of ideological consistency (especially the beautiful mischievous poem “Grubby Girl”), her poems were very popular with readers, and her books were published in millions of copies. Perhaps this was the reason that the marriage of the two poets lasted only 6 years. 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. At the age of 29, Agnia Barto left her husband for a man who became the main love of her life - one of the most authoritative Soviet specialists in steam and gas turbines, dean of the EMF (power engineering faculty) of MPEI (Moscow Energy Institute), thermal physicist Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev, later a member -correspondent of the USSR Academy of Sciences and winner of the Stalin Prizes. Regarding the married couple Andrei Vladimirovich, who was called “the most beautiful dean of the USSR,” and Agnia Lvovna at the EMF, they jokingly asked: “What is three laureates in one bed?” The answer was: “Shcheglyaev and Barto” (the first was twice a winner of the Stalin Prize, the second - once, in 1950, for the collection “Poems for Children” (1949)). This talented young scientist purposefully and patiently courted the pretty poetess. At first glance, these were two completely different people: the “lyricist” and the “physicist”. Creative, sublime Agnia and heat energy Andrey. But in reality, an extremely harmonious union of two loving hearts was created. According to family members and close friends of Barto, in the almost 50 years that Agnia and Andrei lived together, they never quarreled. Writers, musicians, and actors often visited their house - Agnia Lvovna’s non-conflict character attracted a variety of people. This marriage produced a daughter, Tatyana (1933), now a candidate of technical sciences, who became the heroine of the famous poem about a girl who dropped a ball into the river.
“Mom was the main helmsman in the house, everything was done with her knowledge,” recalls Barto’s daughter, Tatyana Andreevna. “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, of course, she was the mistress of the house. Our nanny Domna Ivanovna lived with us all her life, and she came to the house back in 1925, when my older brother Garik was born. She was a very dear person to us - and a hostess in a different, executive sense. Mom always took her into account. For example, she could ask: “Well, how am I dressed?” And the nanny would say: “Yes, that’s possible” or: “That’s a strange thing to do.”
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.
After the publication of a series of poetic miniatures for little ones “Toys” (1936), “Bullfinch” (1939) and other children’s poems, Barto became one of the most famous and beloved children’s poets by readers, her works were published in huge editions and were included in anthologies. The rhythm, rhymes, images and plots of these poems turned out to be close and understandable to millions of children. Agnia Lvovna received the love of readers and became the object of criticism. Barto recalled: “Toys” was subjected to harsh verbal criticism for its overly complex rhymes. I especially liked the lines:
They dropped Mishka on the floor,
They tore off the bear's paw.
I still won’t leave him -
Because he's good.
The minutes of the meeting at which these poems were discussed say: “...The rhymes need to be changed, they are difficult for a children’s poem.”
Agnia Barto wrote the scripts for the films “Foundling” (1939, together with actress Rina Zelena), “Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character” (1953), “10,000 Boys” (1961, together with I. Okada), as well as for the Ukrainian film “True Comrade” "(1936, dir. L. Bodik, A. Okunchikov) and others. Together with Rina Zelena, Barto also wrote the play “Dima and Vava” (1940). Her poem “The Rope” was taken by director I. Fraz as the basis for the concept of the film “The Elephant and the Rope” (1945).
Agnia Barto knew that war with Germany was inevitable. In the late 1930s, she traveled to this “neat, clean, almost toy-like country,” heard Nazi slogans, and 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.
In 1937 she visited Spain as a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, which was held in Spain, the sessions of which took place in the besieged, burning Madrid. There was a war going on, and Barto saw ruins of houses and orphaned children. She always had a lot of determination: she saw the target - and forward, without swaying or retreating: once, just before the bombing, she went to buy castanets. The sky howls, the walls of the store bounce, and the writer makes a purchase! But the castanets are real, Spanish - for Agnia, who danced beautifully, this was an important souvenir. Alexei Tolstoy later asked Barto sarcastically: had she bought a fan in that store to fan herself during the next raids? But 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 to one of her friends then. A few years later, she received the answer to this terrible question...
During the war, Shcheglyaev, who by that time had become a prominent power engineer, was sent to the Urals, to Krasnogorsk to ensure its uninterrupted operation - the plants worked for the war. Agnia Lvovna had friends in those parts who invited her to stay with them. So the family - son, daughter with nanny Domna Ivanovna - settled in Sverdlovsk. In Sverdlovsk, Agnia Barto was settled on 8 March Street in the so-called House of Old Bolsheviks. It was built in 1932 specifically for the party elite. Some apartments exceeded one hundred square meters in area, and a dining room, laundry, club and kindergarten were available to VIP residents. During the Great Patriotic War, important party workers and celebrities evacuated to the Urals began to move here en masse.
The son studied at a flight school near Sverdlovsk, the daughter went to school. At this time, Agnia Lvovna writes about herself: “During the Great Patriotic War, I spoke a lot on the radio in Moscow and Sverdlovsk. She published war poems, articles, and essays in newspapers. In 1943, she was on the Western Front as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. But I never stopped thinking about my main, young hero. During the war, I really wanted to write about Ural teenagers who worked at the machines at defense factories, but for a long time I could not master the topic. Pavel Petrovich Bazhov [famous revolutionary storyteller, "Ural Tales"] advised me, in order to better understand the interests of artisans and, most importantly, their psychology, to acquire a specialty with them, for example, a turner. Six months later I received a discharge, really. The lowest. But I got closer to the topic that worried me (“A student is coming,” 1943).” She mastered turning and even received a second grade, and Agniya Lvovna donated the bonus she received during the war to build a tank. In February 1943, Shcheglyaev was recalled from Krasnogorsk to Moscow and allowed to travel with his family. They returned, and Agniya Lvovna again began to seek a trip to the front. Here's what she wrote about it: “It wasn’t easy to get permission from the PUR. I turned to Fadeev for help.
- I understand your desire, but how can I explain the purpose of your trip? - he asked. - They will tell me: - she writes for children.
- And tell me that you can’t write about war for children without seeing anything with your own eyes. And then... they send readers to the front with funny stories. Who knows, maybe my poems will come in handy? Soldiers will remember their children, and those who are younger will remember their childhood.”
A travel order was received, but Agniya Lvovna worked in the active army for 22 days.
In 1944, the poetess returned to Moscow. 4 days before the long-awaited Victory, on May 5, 1945, a tragedy occurred in the poetess’s family - her son Igor, while riding a bicycle, was hit by a truck in Lavrushinsky Lane (Moscow). Agnia Lvovna’s friend Evgenia Aleksandrovna Taratuta recalled that Agnia Lvovna completely retreated into herself these days. She didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't talk...
In 1947, an unexpected poem in Barto’s work, “Zvenigorod,” was published, idyllically depicting the life of children in an orphanage. Of course, the content of the poem conveyed the real atmosphere of orphanages in a rather idealized way, but this work had an unexpected response. A woman who spent eight years searching for her daughter Nina, who disappeared during the war, wrote to Barto that she now felt better because she hoped that the girl ended up in a good orphanage. Although the letter did not contain any requests for help, the poetess contacted the appropriate services, and after two years of searching, Nina was found. The magazine "Ogonyok" published an essay about this event, and Agnia Lvovna began to receive many letters from people who had lost relatives during the war, although there was not always enough data for searching. Agnia Lvovna wrote: “What was to be done? Should we transfer these letters to special organizations? But for an official search, accurate data is needed. But what if they are not there, if the child was lost when he was small and couldn’t say where and when he was born, couldn’t even say his last name?! Such children were given new surnames, and the doctor determined their age. How can a mother find a child who has long since become an adult if his last name has been changed? And how can an adult find his family if he doesn’t know who he is and where he comes from? But people do not calm down, they look for parents, sisters, brothers for years, they believe that they will find them. The following thought occurred to me: could childhood memory help in the search? A child is observant, he sees sharply, accurately and remembers what he sees for life. It is only important to select those main and always somewhat unique childhood impressions that would help relatives recognize the lost child.” For example, a woman who was lost during the war as a child remembered that she lived in Leningrad and that the name of the street began with “o”, and next to the house there was a bathhouse and a store. Barto's team searched for such a street without success. They found an old bath attendant who knew all the Leningrad baths. As a result, by method of elimination, they found out that there was a bathhouse on Serdobolskaya Street - the “o” in the name of the girl was remembered... In another case, parents who lost their four-month-old daughter during the war only remembered that the child had a mole on his shoulder that looked like a rose . Naturally, they did not know the name under which their daughter lived after the war. But the only clue worked: residents of a Ukrainian village called the program and reported that one of their neighbors had a mole that looked like a rose...
Agnia Lvovna’s hopes for the power of childhood memories were justified. Through the “Find a Person” program, which she hosted once a month for nine years (1964-1973) on Mayak radio, reading excerpts from letters describing individual signs or fragmentary memories of lost people, she managed to reunite 927 families separated by the war. The first book of prose by the writer is called “Find a Person.” Barto wrote her first book of prose about this work - the story “Find a Person” (published in 1968), and in 1973 director Mikhail Bogin made the film “Looking for a Person” based on this book.
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| the same autograph |
For her writing and social activities, Agnia Barto was repeatedly awarded orders and medals. Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1972) - for the book of poems “For Flowers in the Winter Forest” (1970) (Prize for works for children). For many years, Barto headed the Association of Children's Literature and Art Workers and was a member of the international Andersen jury. Numerous trips to different countries (Bulgaria, England, Japan...) led her to the idea of the richness of the inner world of a child of any nationality. This idea was confirmed by the poetic collection “Translations from Children” (1976), the release of which was timed to coincide with the Sofia Writers’ Forum, dedicated to the role of literary artists in the practical implementation of the Helsinki Agreements. This collection contains free translations of poems written by children from different countries: the main purpose of the collection is to proclaim humanistic values that are important for children all over the world. In 1976 she was awarded the International Prize. Andersen. Her poems have been translated into many languages of the world.
Other awards:
- The order of Lenin
- Order of the October Revolution
- two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor
- Order of the Badge of Honor
- Medal "For rescuing drowning people"
- medal "Miner's Glory" 1st degree (from the miners of Karaganda)
- Order of the Smile
- International Gold Medal named after Leo Tolstoy “For merits in creating works for children and youth” (posthumously).
Agnia Lvovna loved her grandchildren Vladimir and Natalya very much, dedicated poems to them, and taught them to dance. She remained active for a long time, traveled a lot around the country, played tennis and danced on her 75th birthday. Agnia Barto died on April 1, 1981, having not recovered from a heart attack, and barely having time to rejoice at the birth of her great-granddaughter Asya. 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 wasn’t just a minute—she lived her whole life this way. The poetess is buried at the Novodevichy cemetery (site No. 3). The name Agnia Barto was given to the small planet (2279) Barto, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, as well as to one of the craters on Venus.
Barto's creative heritage is diverse - from propaganda poems written for some Soviet holiday to heartfelt lyrical sketches. Barto’s works are often openly didactic: her passion for aphoristically expressed morality is known, crowning the poem: “But, following fashion,//Don’t mutilate yourself”; “And if you need payment,//Then the action is worthless”; “Remember the simple truth: / /If the girls are friendly. / /“Five girls about the sixth” // You shouldn’t gossip like that,” etc. In many of Barto’s works, child psychology is depicted subtly and with gentle humor. Such is the poem “The Bullfinch” (1938), the hero of which, shocked by the beauty of the bullfinch and trying to become “good” so that his parents would agree to buy him a bird, painfully experiences this need (“And I answered with sadness:!! - I am always like this now”). Having become the happy owner of a bullfinch, the hero sighs with relief: “So, we can fight again. //Tomorrow morning in the yard.” In the poem “I have grown up” (1944), a girl who has become a schoolgirl and asserts her “adulthood” still retains a touching attachment to old toys. All of Barto's work is imbued with the conviction of the right of childhood - as a special world - to a certain independence from the world of adults. Barto's poetry, which always directly responded to the demands of the time, is unequal: reflecting the contradictions of the era, it contains both weak, opportunistic works and genuine masterpieces that retain their charm to this day.
On the Internet, Agnia Barto is credited with the poem “Circus,” allegedly written in 1957. This poem was copied by many bloggers in 2010. In fact, the verse was written in 2009 by the poet Mikhail Yudovsky. Here we can draw parallels with the poem “Volodin Portrait”, actually written by Agnia Barto in 1957.
We're going to the circus today!
In the arena again today
With a trained Bear
Tamer Uncle Vova.
The circus goes numb with delight.
I want to laugh, holding on to my dad,
But the Bear does not dare to growl,
Just sucks a funny paw,
He takes himself by the scruff of the neck,
It is important to bow to the children.
How funny it is at the circus
With Uncle Vova and the Bear!
Volodin portrait
The squad is sitting by the fire.
You didn’t recognize Volodya?
He sat down in the first row.
Runners standing in the photo
With numbers on the chest.
Someone familiar is ahead -
This is Vova in front.
Volodya was filmed weeding,
And at the holiday, on the Christmas tree,
And on a boat by the river,
And at the chessboard.
It was filmed with a hero pilot!
We'll open another magazine
He stands among the swimmers.
Who is he after all?
What does he do?
Because he is filming!
A. Barto, 1957
In our time, the poems of Agnia Barto have received a “second life”, in particular in the illustrations of Vladimir Kamaev:
as well as in “New Russian Parodies” by Evgeniy Borisovich Koryukin:
Ball Our Tanya cries loudly: | Our Tanya howled again: I dropped the hairdryer in the jacuzzi. It hisses strangely underwater - Get into the bath, Tanyusha! |
bear Dropped the teddy bear on the floor | They dropped Mishka on the floor, He was an adult - he didn’t cry. Mikhail lay down specifically: Bros invested in the cops. |
Goby The bull is walking, swaying, | There's a bull coming - a scary face, Trouble struck again. Oh, damn, yesterday's arrow It didn't work out again. |
Elephant Time to sleep! The bull fell asleep | After drinking, the bulls sleep, Their mobile calls stopped. Mishka is also fast asleep, It's just a bummer for me with sleep. I'm a security guard - I don't sleep well... And I always dream about a woman. |
Bunny The owner abandoned the bunny - | The owner kicked out the “bunny”: He did not sleep with the owner "Bunny". You doomed "Bunny", damn it, Be homeless without registration. |
horse I love my horse | I love my chick so much Even if your hair is like a broom... On March 8th, fig. I'll give her a wig. |
Truck No, we shouldn't have decided | No, we shouldn't have decided Lyokh, sleeping in the car, What if I burn you to the ground - The car was cool! |
Kid I have a little goat, | If only a little goat could live with me, Why is my roommate a goat? I'll give him a green buck, - If only he would go to hell! I should sew it in the garden - I want to live with a young man! |
Ship Tarpaulin, | Baseball cap on the tower Bottle in hand I'm sailing on a yacht Along a clear river. And the girls are heard A cry from the shore: - Take it at least for the stolnik We're in bulk, man! |
Airplane We'll build the plane ourselves | We'll buy the plane ourselves We no longer need sleighs, A lot of money in your pocket... We are with you, oligarchs! |
Checkbox Burning in the sun | It was red, I remember checkbox, Yes Borya Yeltsin He was burned! |
Modern non-children's poems
I. Technical progress
Objections to progress have always amounted to accusations of immorality.
Bernard Show
Rubber Zina
Bought in a store
Rubber Zina
They brought it to the apartment.
The purchase was taken out
Inflated with a pump -
This same Zina
There was an inflatable valve.
It was like a real one
Talking toy
And in the sense of belongings
Everything about it was okay:
Like melons were titi
(Sorry for comparisons!),
Elastic also
And they smelled like mignonette;
And in the right place of risk,
Two lunar half-disks
You were clearly promised
Fire and heat of passion.
And, by the way, Zina,
Like a sultry girl
I could, sorry
Depict orgasm:
Moaned and sobbed,
And she turned up the heat,
And even kissed
By God, I'm not lying!
They gave Zina Styopa,
Big Klutz,
Because the beauties
Had no success.
Stepan served in the mentura,
And even an obvious fool
It didn’t come to my head
To please Stepan.
And here there is no market
(Just a “thing” – a couple!)
Will replace the capricious floor
Inflatable sample!
Another thing that was appreciated by the ment:
The doll was never seen
Provide you with a surprise -
Venus, for example;
I didn't ask for gifts
And I didn’t wear fur coats,
Recognized rivals -
At least put them next to each other!
And the main thing is that mothers-in-law
No relics observed:
Zinulenka without mom
They were born.
There was only one thing bad:
Zinulya is incompetent
In terms of culinary
And he had a reputation as a cook;
I didn’t know naval borscht,
But in carnal pleasures
Her, as they say,
At least eat it with a spoon!
And, however, in the technical age
Us soon cute
Some scientist
Ersatz will invent;
It will have everything you need
For a married girl,
In addition, it will also be able
Wash, cook, wash.
Will not give birth to children,
But there won’t be enough of us:
They will clone us
From night to dawn...
Who's interested here?
And time-savvy,
Of course, he will ask for the address -
Where can I buy all this?
I will tell everyone without hiding:
While all this is just stories,
But guys everything will be soon
They will know that address.
II. Metamorphoses
Our Tanya cries loudly:
Lost - no, not the ball -
And a business card to the fellow,
The local mafia to my father.
Godfather assigned her
Arrive at your office by eight
But the devil, damn it,
I thought completely differently.
What’s unfortunate: even more so for her
Don't be in secret rooms,
And in Versace outfits
Don't show off at the table
Don't go to restaurants -
New life to drink wine,
And then, in a drunken stupor,
Fall deeper and deeper to the bottom.
How, beautiful, not ashamed
To shed such tears!..
The boss will find it - it’s so obvious! –
Very soon your address...
III. Prodigies
It was in the evening
There was nothing to do...
And a bunch of kids
About six years old, or maybe five,
Excommunicated from books
I was going to chat
About the various objects there -
At least about ancestors, for example...
It was summer outside
Red like a pioneer:
The sun was going down like a ball,
Nimble swifts in the sky
With the skill of a polygamist
They made turns...
In a word, everything was in place
To revelations for children;
Much has been said or little has been said
But I came to the yard
This babble seems to be childish,
Somewhere even funny,
Only the Soviet spirit was visible
In every story there is a mischievous...
Kolya was the first to speak:
“If it were my will,
First of all, I decided
Twist ropes from veins
Those who deprive us of our childhood,
And without false coquetry
All, with one noose,
Sent to heaven by the unearthly..."
Here Vova seemed to assent:
“I’m putting a noose on everyone – what’s wrong?..
I know a more radical way
I am for the execution of all channels:
Buy a lot of chewing gum
Chew and stuff your mouth
To all the nasty politicians,
Who is half-drunk with zeal
He paints us an earthly paradise...
Whoever dies - to hell with you!..
There’s no point in beating up grandma,
And caulk our brains!..”
Vlad intervened (oh, and the doc!):
“Oh, guys, how cruel
There will be this and that revenge!..
I have another one:
Uncles, aunts of all the bad ones
We will send to the Moon!..”
That's how Vlad is!.. I'm stunned!..
I was puzzled!.. Well, well!..
The guys thought:
Where can I get a ship like this?
So that all the inveterate liars
Send on an unearthly journey?..
Look how many of them have accumulated:
They're all liars - no matter what!
Svetka was fussing here:
“It’s June now,
If we make a fuss,
And don't waste your time,
That dream can come true
On the eve of October...
And now - closer to the body,
As de Maupassant joked,
We will close this topic -
The rocket will be launched!
For this all you need
We have about five billions..."
They unanimously supported Svetka:
“UNESCO can give them!..”
...It was in the evening
There was nothing to do
And childish fantasy
Flooded like a river...
This is not bullshit
My dear bourgeois!..
IV. Goat and vine for Grandson Feda
From one nostril to the nose
I will bring a goat into the world,
I'll milk the goat -
Give milk to relatives.
And in the other nostril, a goat,
The vine grows for you:
You will pluck leaves -
One two three four five…
The goat ate them all -
The vine became bare...
We won’t grieve with a goat -
We'll get new ones tomorrow...
© Copyright: Anatoly Beshentsev, 2014 Certificate of publication No. 214061900739
Of course, Tanya and her ball got the most of it:
* * *
Our Tanya is crying loudly
Days and nights to fly by:
Tanya's husband drowned in the river -
So he howls like a coyote.
Doesn't whine, but moans quietly,
He who does not see - he who does not see:
The husband is shit - shit doesn’t drown,
Hush, Tanya, don't cry...
Taniad
Our Tanya is crying loudly,
She dropped a ball into the river.
Tanya, don’t shed tears,
Dive in and catch up!
Our Tanya is drowning in the river -
Jumped for the ball.
Rings float on the water
A round little ball.
Our Tanya is crying loudly,
She dropped Masha into the river.
Hush, Tanechka, don't cry,
Crying won't help Masha.
Our Tanya at the factory
Spends all holidays.
So, Tanya, would you like a ball?
Have a look at the factory!
Our Tanya early in the morning
I turned two blanks.
- Here, boss, look:
There are three of us dummies!
Our Tanya barks loudly
He often lifts his leg.
Hush, Tanechka, don't bark!
Call the paramedics!
Our Tanya snores loudly
Woke up mom and dad!
Hush, Tanya, don't snore!
Sleep with your head in the pillow!
Our Tanya is very loud
She sent Romka far away.
That's enough, Roma, don't be silly,
If they sent you, then go!
Our Tanya cries loudly:
Tanya was abandoned by a burning macho.
Hush, Tanechka, don't cry,
There are so many of them, these guys.
Our Tanya calls the cat,
Pokes the cat's nose into the pile,
Because this cat
She made us a little naughty.
Our Tanya is torturing the cat,
The cat meows pitifully.
Hush, little kitty, don't cry,
Otherwise you’ll catch the ball!
A Khachik comes to see our Tanya,
Moldovan, Armenian.
Don't be alarmed, this means -
Tanya is doing repairs.
Our Tanya is crying loudly.
Tanya got pregnant, that means.
Don't cry and don't fuss,
Go and have an ultrasound.
Our Tanya timidly hides
The body is fat in the rocks.
Okay, Tanya, don't hide,
Everyone can still see you.
Our Tanya is crying loudly.
The female doctor is puzzled:
- Explain to me, don’t cry:
How did the ball end up here?
Our Tanya at the apartment
Dropped the weights on the floor.
And today our neighbor
Eats lime for lunch.
Our Tanya is waiting for a soldier,
Her candidate for groom.
That's enough, Tanya, don't wait,
Marry your neighbor!
Our Tanya is crying bitterly
Crying, crying, crying, crying.
A stream of tears per meter around
Tanya peels bitter onions.
Our Tanya laughs and jumps.
No, not our Tanya, that is.
Ours should roar,
Apparently this is not her.
© 2007 "Red Burda"
How could famous poets say about this grief?
ANDREY KROTKOV
Horace:
Tatyana sobs loudly, her grief is inconsolable;
Tears stream down from the pink-flamed cheeks;
She indulged in girlish games in the garden carefree -
The mischievous woman could not hold the ball in her thin fingers;
A frisky horse jumped out and rushed down the slope,
He slipped off the edge of the cliff and fell into a stormy foam stream.
Dear maiden, do not cry, your loss can be healed;
There is a command for the slaves to bring fresh water;
They are persistent, they are brave, they are accustomed to any kind of work -
They will boldly swim, and the ball will return to you.
Alexander Blok:
Tatyana sobs inconsolably,
And a tear, like blood, is hot;
She got a heartbreak
From a ball falling into a river.
Now he sighs intermittently, now he groans,
Remembering the past game.
Do not worry. Your ball won't sink -
We'll get it tonight.
Vladimir Mayakovsky:
In this world
Nothing
Not forever,
And now
Swear or cry:
Straight from the shore
Fell into the river
Tanya girls
Ball.
Tears are flowing
From Tanya's eyes.
Do not Cry!
Do not be
A whiny maiden!
Let's go get some water -
And we'll get the ball.
Left!
Left!
Left!
Ivan Krylov:
A certain girl named Tatyana,
Fair in mind and without blemish in body,
In the village the days are spent,
I couldn’t imagine spending time without a ball.
Either he will give in with his foot, or he will push with his hand,
And, having played with him, he doesn’t even half hear.
The Lord did not save us, there was a disaster -
The playful ball fell into the abyss of water.
Unhappy Tatyana sobs and sheds tears;
And the water carrier Kuzma is the one who is always half drunk -
Kartuz pulled off
And taco rivers:
“Yes, that’s enough, young lady! This misfortune is not grief.
Here I’ll harness Sivka, and soon I’ll get some water
I'll run at a gallop.
My hook is sharp, my bucket is spacious -
From the river I skillfully and quickly
I'll get the ball."
Moral: simple water carriers are not so simple.
He who knows a lot about water calms tears.
***
NATALIA FEDORENKO
Robert Burns:
Tanya lost her ball..
What will you take from her?
Tanya kissed Johnny..
Is this a lie?
Tanyusha has sadness in her heart:
Can't get the ball...
There will be someone at the river again
Kiss Johnny..
***
ARKADY EIDMAN
Boris Pasternak:
The ball bounced on the wave,
Her ramming.
On the shore, on an old stump
Tanya was crying.
Drown the ball? And in a nightmare,
No, I didn't want to!
And therefore on this stump
She roared...
But the ball is not a miss and not a sucker,
There will be no drowning.
Is the parodist good or bad?
The people will judge...
Bulat Okudzhava:
A ball is playing in the river. Plays and frolics.
He is full of thoughts and strength, he is round and he is rosy.
And there, on the shore, the girls burst into tears,
The chorus of grieving Tatianas sobs in unison...
The ball doesn't care, it swims like a fish
Or maybe like a dolphin, or maybe like... a ball.
He shouts to Tatyana: “If only we could add more smiles!”
But a friendly cry comes in response from the shore...
***
IRINA KAMENSKAYA
Yunna Moritz:
Tanya walked along the canal,
Tatyanka has a new ball.
The music played quietly
On Ordynka, on Polyanka.
The ball goes into the water. Didn't catch up.
Tears slide down your cheeks.
The music played quietly
On Polyanka, on Ordynka.
Mom wiped away her tears
Stupid little Tatyanka.
The music played quietly
On Ordynka, on Polyanka
***
ILYA TSEITLIN
Alexander Tvardovsky:
River, far bank right,
The ball floated away from the left.
Where can I find the government, right?
Who would return the ball?
After all, without a ball the girl
On Russian shores
It's no good hanging around
Without a toy, it's a mess!
Tanya whines, drinks vodka,
Look, a fighter with a ball! Not a dream!
It was Andryusha Krotkov,
It was, of course, him!
Poetically hot
And as powerful as a tram!
Tanya forgot her ball,
Give Tanya some lyrics!
Arseny Tarkovsky:
Those were drops of burning tears,
Almost silent, bitter crying.
By chance, cooler
The ball rolled into the abyss of water.
An unhealed wound...
To the sound of the water draining
I often see Tatyana
And there are her traces by the river...
Bulat Okudzhava:
In the yard, where every evening
Tanka was playing with a ball,
The line of grandmas rustled like husks,
Black Angel – Valka Perchik,
She ran the booth
And they called her Baba Yaga!
And wherever I go
(Nowadays, however, I eat more)
On business or otherwise, for a walk.
Everything seems to me that
Valka runs on the trail,
And he tries to take the ball away.
Let him be shabby and bald,
Tired, overly fat,
I will never return to the yard.
Still, brothers, it’s my fault,
Without jokes, I'm terribly bored,
So I’m glad to joke sometimes!
***
TAIL
Afanasy Fet:
In a rush of heating mains, the only one rolled down
Tannin's beloved ball.
Everything was stunned by the not childishly warlike
Cry.
Was this a simple goodbye?
Nobody understood Tanya.
What should the techies get as punishment?
What?
The ball will not sink and the devil will not be baptized,
Walk along the heating main -
The hole in the pipe will soon open again!
Wait!
Igor Severyanin:
In a jaguar cape,
Violet from grief,
Tatiana is crying at sea,
Oh, Tanya, don’t cry!
Our friend the rubber ball
Doesn't see this grief
It's great to be empty inside
And the river is not an executioner.
***
BELKA (guest from Hochmodrom)
Sergey Yesenin:
Tanyusha was good, there was no more beautiful woman in the village,
Red frilly on white sundress at the hem.
Tanya walks behind the fences by the ravine in the evening,
And he kicks the ball with his foot - he loves a strange game.
A guy came out and bowed his curly head:
“Allow me, soul Tatyana, to kick him too?”
She turned pale like a shroud, cold like dew.
Her braid developed like a snake-killer.
"Oh, blue-eyed guy, no offense, I'll say
I kicked him, but now I can’t find him.”
“Don’t be sad, my Tanyusha, apparently the ball has sunk,
If you love me, I will immediately dive for him."
Alexander Pushkin:
Tatiana, dear Tatiana!
With you now I shed tears:
The river is deep and foggy,
Your wonderful toy
I accidentally dropped it from a bridge...
Oh, how you loved this ball!
You cry bitterly and call...
Do not Cry! You will find your ball
He won't drown in a stormy river,
After all, the ball is not a stone, not a log,
He won't sink to the bottom,
Its seething stream drives
Flows through the meadow, through the forest
To the dam of a nearby hydroelectric power station.
Mikhail Lermontov:
The lonely ball turns white
In the fog of a blue river -
Ran away from Tanya, not far away,
Left my native shore...
The waves are playing, the wind is whistling,
And Tanya cries and screams,
She is stubbornly looking for her ball,
He runs after him along the shore.
Below him is a stream of lighter azure,
Above him is a golden ray of sun...
And he, the rebellious one, asks for a storm,
As if there is peace in the storms!
Nikolay Nekrasov:
Tanya cried as she dropped the ball,
She sobbed bitterly, drooping without strength,
She washed her cheeks with burning tears.
A ball on a slope by a playful greyhound
I rolled into the river, and the river babbles,
He twirls the toy, doesn’t want to put it back
Give the ball to the cute little girl.
There would be trouble. May my mother console me
Poor Tanya: “Well, that’s enough shouting!
We need to rock Arinushka in the unsteady state,
We need to pull carrots in the garden,
Stop prancing around free
Throwing the ball, splashing your hands!”
Women, rinsing clothes on the river,
They saw the ball floating on the waves,
And they stopped rinsing involuntarily.
- Look, the empty toy doesn’t sink!
- Look how it floats. It’s unlikely to stick here,
Will the current wash towards the ferry?
- We must tell the carrier Prov,
What if he catches you... Oh, women, it's time!
I hear the redhead mooing near the yard!
So this is Tanyushin's laughing day
A gloomy shadow hid the losses.
Tannins full of life on the cheeks
Sad faded, covered with tears,
The young soul was burned with sadness.
The ball floated away, which means childhood is over.
Margarita Shulman
In the style of D. Sukharev.
I was a little boy, and in those years more than once
I listened to Tanya’s story about the missing ball,
How he fell and floated down the river for show
Multi-colored rubber ball.
And the soul painted pictures in melancholy:
How I am waiting for Tanya on the river with the ball,
And the rubber friend sleeps with a wave on his cheek,
Well, Tanya is crying loudly in the distance.
Since then I have been realizing my dream:
Tanya's ball floated away, and I sing a song,
I publish poems, I save royalties,
And I’m incredibly happy with fate!
Voluptuous poison - Tannin motley ringing ball -
And the toy, and the feeder, and the loss...
There was a powerful, very mournful cry about you.
Even though I myself don’t believe in this grief (Tanya, darling, forgive me!)...
In the style of R. Rozhdestvensky.
I'll get up before dawn today,
I'll look for Tanya's ball in the closet.
Something happened to my memory:
I can't find it in my hat.
I'll go out to the river with her,
I'll look around the entire shore.
Where is your ball, my otter,
It's worth that kind of money!
And Tatyana roars with bitterness,
Points his finger at the bushes by the river.
Apparently the ball sank and did not surface last night,
Either a thunderstorm or the ball was carried away by strangers.
In the style of V. Korostylev, V. Lifshits.
Ah, Tanya, Tanya, Tanechka,
Her case was like this:
Our Tanya played
Over the fast river.
And the ball is red and blue
Jumped along the shore
Pay attention to Tanya
Nobody paid any attention.
Can't be!
Imagine this!
Nobody paid any attention.
But then the storm frowned,
And ripples all over the river,
Thunderclaps are menacing,
Lightning in the distance.
And Tanya became scared,
And no one around...
And the ball slipped out of my hands
And run on water!
And here again above the river
The crying doesn't stop:
Tanya is sad about the past
And he remembers the ball.
Elastic, blue-red,
There's no trace of him...
Ah, Tanya, Tanya, Tanya
There is no worse loss.
Can't be!
Imagine this!
There is no worse loss.
In the style of S. Yesenin.
You are my obedient ball, you are a playful ball,
Why are you lying, swaying, on a playful wave?
Or what did you see, or are you so bored?
Tanya is crying loudly, you don’t notice.
And you threaten the local hooligans from there,
Like a forbidden buoy, like Tanya’s watchman.
Oh, and I myself looked askance today,
Instead of a fast river, I fell into the reeds.
There I met Tanya, in inconsolable crying,
He consoled me in his arms, I couldn’t do otherwise...
He seemed experienced and strict to himself,
Not drunk at all, not even wretched.
And, having lost modesty, having become stupefied,
I drowned that little blue, striped ball...
Mayakovsky "Proletarian Tears"
A spherical product made of red rubber, cast,
A simple Soviet ball, for children,
In the middle of the river it froze like a monolith.
Above him on the bridge he is sobbing uncontrollably loudly, frantically,
Just eight years old, a simple girl Tanya,
In the future, the mother of a communist.
Daughter of a hero of labor, artist, metallurgist and proletarian
Your own rubber sports equipment
Lost in the river's muddy glow.
Use the sleeve of your quilted jacket to wipe away your nurses,
You are shedding tears in vain, Tatyana.
Spit on the ball that disappeared in the belly of the river.
Soon the scarlet dawn will break out over the world!
Night. Street. River. Fall.
Uncontrollable prolonged crying,
The young creature is shocked,
Suddenly lost not just a ball...
The soul ached and suffered,
While carrying the toy into the distance.
Night. Icy ripples of the channel.
Tatiana. Tears. Bridge. Sadness.
Omar Khayyam
And these days, even laugh, or even cry,
You will see Tanya's ball on the river.
Let them say - I'm blind, I won't judge -
A blind person sees further than those who can see.
Petrarch
There was a day on which, according to the Creator of the universe
Grieving, the sun darkened - a bitter cry
On the river bank. floating ball
And the maiden face - I became their prisoner!
Did I guess that in the dispute between light and shadow
Chance will bring us together - an angel and an executioner,
That the tender arrows of love are hot fire
And cold-hearted at the same time?
Still, Cupid achieved his goal -
Limp next to her and unarmed,
I adore her pleading look.
I’ll get the ball, oh happiness - it’s nearby,
And we, wiping away the tears from our pearly eyes,
Let's go with you, dear, to the altar.
A child's cry is heard near the river:
Half a mile from this event,
Quite a wet, dirty ball
Nailed to the willows. Well-groomed and satisfying
A rook looks at the misadventure from a branch.
If only the Almighty would give me more agility...
What's left for me to do, cry with Tanya too?
Child, I know God will help you!
D. Prigov
If, say, in a local river you see a children's ball
And you will hear a nasty cry, I would even say a howl,
Don't touch him, buddy, he's not money or netsuke -
Just a girl's toy, well, that means it's not yours.
But when no crying is heard and her face is not seen,
And along the river, as before, the poor ball floats,
Don't doubt it anymore, he's completely, completely nobody's,
It might come in handy tomorrow - take it and hide it.
Ya. Smelyakov
Along the small houses beckons
Cool, midsummer, stream.
Good girl Tanya,
Shielding yourself from the sun's rays
With a hand stained with silt,
Drops tears into the grass.
The luminary suffers with her,
Sadness of the blue skies.
Reflecting in the stream water,
The boy is in a hurry to help.
The girl, I guess, is not a stranger -
Factory... Let it not be known,
Reader, but this is a sign
(Anyone in the village will tell you):
To the ball saved by the answer
There will be girlish love.
Folk. Ditty
My darling is hot
Use your brains better:
If you don't get the ball,
There's no way you'll get it at night.
Japanese version. Haiku
Tanya-chan lost her face
Crying about the ball rolling into the pond.
Pull yourself together, daughter of a samurai.
and my favorite:
Our Tanya is crying loudly.
She dropped a ball into the river.
Tanya cry louder -
The damn ball floats away.
Life goes over the edge
At least lie down and die.
In the morning at Tatiana's school
I had a headache or something.
And he and his friend Ira
We drank a little beer.
After the fifth glass
The director found them.
Tanya got angry about something
And since I was
In a state of susceptibility -
Then she sent her off with obscenities.
The headmistress got wound up
In general, the fight began.
Well, somehow drunk there,
Tatyana's nose was broken.
The point is not that the eye is blackened -
Her heart hurts.
Tanya without warning
The guy left on Sunday.
How can you not hang yourself here?
In the fourth month.
Everything would be fine
If only I knew from whom.
Later Tanya walked home
She carried the ball in front of her.
There were few failures.
Dropped a ball into the river...
Agnia Lvovna Barto was born in Moscow on February 17, 1906. According to some reports, at birth the girl’s name was Getel Leibovna Volova. Agnia was born into an educated family of Jewish origin. Her father was Lev Nikolaevich Volov, a veterinarian, and Maria Ilyinichna Volova (nee Bloch), who after the birth of her daughter took up housekeeping.
The girl's father was very fond of Krylov's fables and since childhood his daughter regularly read them to her at night. He taught his little daughter to read from a book. Agnia’s father was very fond of the works of the classic of Russian literature, so for his first birthday he gave his daughter a book entitled “How Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy Lives and Works.”
Even in early childhood, Agnia began writing poetry. As the poetess herself later admitted, in the first grades of the gymnasium she paid tribute to love themes: she covered more than one page with naive poetic stories about “marquises and pages in love.” However, the girl quickly got tired of writing poems about languid beauties and their ardent lovers, and gradually such poems in her notebooks were replaced by bold epigrams for her friends and teachers.
Like all children from intelligent families of those times, Barto studied German and French and went to a prestigious gymnasium. In addition, she entered the choreographic school, intending to become a ballerina. At the same time, the financial situation of the Jewish family, and even in the conditions of the October Revolution, left much to be desired. Therefore, at the age of 15, Agnia forged documents, increasing her age by a year, and became a salesperson in the Clothes store (its employees were given herring heads from which they could cook soup).
Creative career
One day, the People's Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, visited the choreographic school where Agnia Barto studied. He came to the graduation tests of the school students and, among other things, heard how the young poetess, to the accompaniment of music, read out a very impressive poem of her own composition, “Funeral March.” Although the work was by no means humorous, Lunacharsky could hardly restrain himself from laughing and confidently declared that the girl would write beautiful, cheerful and joyful poetry.
In 1924, Agniya Lvovna completed her studies at the choreographic school and successfully entered the ballet troupe. However, she still failed to build a successful career on stage: the troupe emigrated, and Agnia’s father did not agree to let her leave Moscow.
The poetess brought her first works to Gosizdat in 1925. “The Thief Bear” and “Chinese Little Wang Li” were liked by the publishing house, and the poems were published. This was followed by collections of poems “Toys”, “Brothers”, “Boy on the contrary”, “Bullfinch”, “Chatterbox” and many others.
The works of the young poetess quickly ensured her great popularity among Soviet readers. She was not a fan of fables, but created humorous and satirical images and ridiculed human shortcomings. Her poems were read not as boring lectures, but as funny teases, and thanks to this they were much closer to children than the works of many other children's poets of the early 20th century.
At the same time, Agnia Lvovna always remained a very modest and shy person. So, she was crazy about him, but at the first meeting with him she didn’t even dare to open her mouth. However, later a conversation about children's poetry between Barto and Mayakovsky did take place, and Agnia learned a lot from it for her future work. And when I listened to one of Agnia’s poems, she stated that it was written by a five-year-old boy. The conversation with her was no less exciting for the writer.
Both in her youth and in her more mature years, Agnia Lvovna was distinguished by a kind of linguistic perfectionism. One day she went to a book congress that was held in Brazil. She had to give a report, translated into English. However, Barto repeatedly changed the text of the Russian version of her speech, which almost drove the translator crazy.
During the war years, Agnia Barto and her family were evacuated to Sverdlovsk. She spoke a lot on the radio and published war articles, essays and poems in newspapers. In the 1940s, she came up with the idea of a work about young teenagers who work tirelessly in defense factories at numerous machines. To master the topic, she even mastered the profession of a turner, and in 1943 she wrote the long-awaited work “The Apprentice Is Coming.”
Post-war period
After the war, the poetess very often visited orphanages, talked with orphans, read her poems, and even patronized some orphanages. In 1947, Agnia Barto published one of her most psychologically difficult works - the poem “Zvenigorod”, dedicated to numerous children whose parents were taken away by the war.
After the publication of “Zvenigorod,” a woman from Karaganda, who lost her daughter during the war years, wrote to her. She asked Agnia Lvovna to help find her. The poetess took the letter to an organization that was looking for people, and a miracle happened: mother and daughter found each other after several years of separation. This case was written about in the press, and soon Barto began to receive numerous letters from children and parents eager to find each other.
The poetess took on a job that no one else could do. In her radio program “Find a Person,” children talked about their fragmentary memories from the times when they still lived with their parents. Barto read excerpts from letters, and listeners helped her: as a result, a huge number of people found their relatives thanks to Agnia Lvovna.
Naturally, the poetess did not forget about creativity, and continued to write books for the little ones. Her poems for children “Grandfather and Granddaughter”, “Leshenka, Leshenka”, “Bear and Uncle Vova”, “First-grader”, “Vova the Good Soul” and many others were published in large editions and read with pleasure by children all over the country.
In addition, the films “Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character” and “The Elephant and the String” were shot based on Agnia’s scripts. The poetess’s short filmography also includes the film “Foundling,” for which Barto helped write the script.
Personal life
Agnia Lvovna’s first husband was the poet Pavel Barto, whose surname the poetess subsequently bore throughout her life. This marriage, concluded in the youth of both poets, lasted less than ten years.
Pavel and Agnia had a son, Edgar, who died at the age of 18 in an accident.
The second husband of the writer was Andrei Shcheglyaev, with whom she lived in happiness and love until 1970, when Andrei Vladimirovich died due to cancer.
In this marriage, a daughter, Tatyana, was born, who later became a candidate of technical sciences.
Death
Agnia Barto died on April 1, 1981, the cause of death was heart problems. After the autopsy, the doctors were amazed that the poetess lived a fairly long life despite the fact that she had extremely weak blood vessels.
Many admirers of Agnia’s work subsequently recalled her phrase “Almost every person has moments in life when he does more than he can” - and noted that for Barto such moments stretched into whole years.
Barto Agnia Lvovna (1906 ─1981) – Soviet poetess and writer, composed works for children, wrote scripts for films, and worked as a radio presenter.
Childhood
Agnia Barto (nee Volova) was born on February 17, 1906.
Her parents were educated Jewish people. Dad, Lev Nikolaevich Volov, worked as a veterinarian. Mom, Maria Ilyinichna Volova (maiden name Bloch), ran the household and raised her daughter. The parents met and got married in the Baltic city of Kovno.
Agnia's uncle, Blokh's mother's brother Grigory Ilyich, was a famous phthisiatrician and otolaryngologist, director of the Yalta Clinic of the Institute of Tuberculosis. He was fond of writing children's educational poems, and perhaps his niece took after his uncle.
Agnia was born in Moscow, where she spent her childhood and youth. She always remembered her father with special warmth. Lev Nikolaevich loved his profession as a veterinarian too much; he often had to go to Siberia on duty. But when he was at home and spent cozy evenings with his daughter, he read to her the works of his beloved I. A. Krylov; he knew almost all of his fables by heart.
The father loved literature and instilled this love in his daughter Agnia from an early age. I took a book by L.N. Tolstoy with a larger font, showed my daughter the letters, and taught her to read. He especially admired this writer and constantly re-read all his works. And the first serious gift from the father to his daughter was the book “How Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy lived and worked.”
The poetess later recalled her mother as a lazy and capricious woman. If the mother had to do things that were not interesting to her, then she always put them off until the day after tomorrow; it seemed to her that this was still very far away.
Agnia Barto’s entire childhood was spent as befitted a wealthy, intelligent family in those days, with a nanny who came from the village; ─ a governess who spoke French; lunches with pineapple dessert on Sundays.
Education
Agnia received her primary education at home, led by her father; he adored art and dreamed of his daughter becoming a famous ballerina. She diligently practiced dancing for a long time, but did not show any special talent in this matter.
But the girl began writing poetry from an early age. While studying at the gymnasium, Agnia and her friends were fond of Akhmatova’s poetry and tried to write themselves. But not everyone succeeded. But Agnia did it well, and not bad at that. Nevertheless, she did not give up ballet classes; she studied at both the gymnasium and the ballet school.
Dad was the first to listen and criticize Agnia. Here he showed all his severity, demanding that his daughter express herself correctly and observe poetic meters. And the young talent, as if on purpose, constantly changed the size in the lines; her father called this stubbornness on her part. But many years later, it is precisely the change in size that will become a distinctive feature of Agnia Barto’s poetic works.
The revolution and civil war did not particularly affect the life of the young girl; she continued to live in her world of poetry and ballet. Later someone will say about Barto: “She came to literature on pointe shoes”.
After high school, Agnia entered the choreographic school, which she graduated in 1924. She was hungry, and at the age of fifteen, along with her studies, the girl had to get a job in the Clothing store. Workers were given herring heads, and they could be used to make soup.
Before the final exams, she was especially worried, because after them she had to start a career in the world of ballet, and besides, the People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky himself came to the exam. The program consisted of final exams and a concert prepared by school students. The People's Commissar watched all the exam performances and stayed for the concert.
And then a young, beautiful, black-eyed girl came on stage and read her own humorous poems called “Funeral March.” At the same time, she was accompanied by a pianist, and Agnia herself took tragic, but at the same time funny poses. Lunacharsky liked the poems, he could barely contain his laughter, and after a while Agnia was asked to go to the People's Commissariat for Education. Lunacharsky met with her and stated that the girl was created to write funny poems. It was at that moment that such words seemed offensive to her, because at a young age you dream of writing about love, and not being known as a comic poet.
Therefore, the young, tall and graceful girl got a job at the Moscow theater, where she worked in a ballet troupe for about a year.
Creative path
However, Lunacharsky turned out to be right: somehow he managed to discern the makings of a great poet in the young ballerina.
And already in 1925, Agnia Barto’s first book, “The Little Chinese Wang Li,” was published, followed by a collection of poems, “The Thief Bear.” She was only 19 years old when she found herself in the world she dreamed of as a young schoolgirl - the world of Silver Age poetry.
Agnia quickly became popular, but this fact did not add courage to her; she was extremely shy. Barto adored Mayakovsky’s work, but when she had the chance to meet the poet, she never found the courage to approach him and start a conversation. And when she decided to read her poem to Korney Chukovsky, she said that the author was a five-year-old boy. Perhaps it was shyness that helped Barto live his life without enemies. She never pretended to be smarter than she actually was, never got involved in literary squabbles, and was always aware that she still had a lot to learn in life.
Children's poems seemed to flow from her like a river, collections came out one after another:
- "Boy on the contrary";
- "Toys";
- "Brothers";
- "Bullfinch".
In 1947, her poem “Zvenigorod” was published, where Agniya Lvovna talked about children who lost their parents during the war. The poetess visited an orphanage in the Moscow region, talked with children who told her about how they lived before the war, who their parents were. All these childhood memories resulted in a poem that had a special purpose.
When the whole country had already read the poem “Zvenigorod”, Agnia Lvovna received a letter from a woman who had lost her daughter at the beginning of the war. Some fragments depicted in the poem from children's stories seemed familiar to the woman, and she began to hope that Agnia Barto communicated with her daughter in that orphanage. In fact, this is what happened: mother and daughter met after 10 years of separation thanks to the poem “Zvenigorod”.
Soviet magazines and newspapers wrote about this story, and Agnia Barto began receiving letters from people who had lost their relatives during the war. This is how the idea of the program “Find a Person” was born, which Agnia Barto hosted for 9 years on the Mayak radio station.
Agnia Barto is the only children's poetess who speaks with her poems to children in their native language, as if she were the same age. Her style is very easy. And it’s not for nothing that “Our Tanya is crying loudly,” “The bull is walking, rocking,” “They dropped the bear on the floor” are present in the life of every child, like the first steps and words, like the first teacher and the school bell. She is the first writer a child meets, and then, growing up, he certainly introduces her poems to his children and grandchildren.
Barto also wrote scripts for such famous films as:
- "Foundling" (1939);
- "The Elephant and the String" (1945);
- “Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character” (1953);
- "10,000 Boys" (1961).
The work of Agnia Barto was deservedly noted by the government.
In 1950, she received the Stalin Prize for the book “Poems for Children,” and in 1972, for the collection “For Flowers in the Winter Forest,” the Lenin Prize.
War
Barto traveled abroad a lot with Soviet delegations. In 1937, she had a chance to visit Spain, where the war was already going on. A terrible picture appeared before her eyes: destroyed houses and orphaned children. Agnia was especially shocked by a Spanish woman who wanted to show her a photo of her son, but constantly covered his face with her thumb, explaining that the baby’s head had been torn off by a shell. Agnia then wrote in a letter to her friend: “How and in what words can one describe the feelings of a mother who outlived her child?” And in a few years she will have to answer this terrible question herself...
And at the very end of the 30s she went to Germany, saw with her own eyes this neat, seemingly toy country, blond German girls in dresses with a fascist swastika, heard Nazi slogans and realized that a war between the Germans and the Soviet Union was inevitable.
When the war began, Agnia Barto did not intend to evacuate from Moscow. She wanted to work on the radio and make at least some small contribution to the overall victory over the Nazis.
But her second husband Andrei Vladimirovich was sent to the Urals as a specialist in power plants. He took his family with him - Agnia Barto and two children. From there, the poetess often traveled to the capital, made recordings for the All-Union Radio, and read her children's poems. Here she stayed in her Moscow apartment, and once while she was there, a bomb hit a neighboring house and destroyed it in front of Agnia’s eyes.
She constantly asked to join the active army and by the end of the war she achieved her goal. For one month, Agnia Barto was sent to the front, where she read leaflets with her children's poems to the soldiers. And they, men who had seen the world, who saw blood and death every day before their eyes, listened to the poetess and cried, because her poems reminded them of children.
Personal life
Agnia got married for the first time very early, at the age of 18. She recently experienced grief; her father died. And, perhaps, the first husband to some extent filled the empty niche that had formed in her life.
Pavel Nikolaevich Barto was a writer, and together they composed three works: “The Dirty Girl,” “The Counting Table,” and “The Roaring Girl.”
But the marriage was not for life. In 1927, the Barto couple gave birth to a boy, Edgar, whom they always affectionately called Garik, and six years later Agnia and Pavel divorced. Perhaps this marriage turned out to be too early, or perhaps the reason for the separation was the professional success of the poetess, which Pavel Barto did not want to accept.
She went to a man who turned out to be her soul mate, destined by fate, ─ Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev. He was a fairly well-known power engineer and was one of the best specialists in the USSR on gas and steam turbines. At that time, he worked as a dean at the power engineering faculty of the Moscow Energy Institute. They said about him that he was the most handsome dean in the Soviet Union.
Writers and actors, musicians and directors often gathered in their house. Absolutely non-conflict Agnia literally attracted people of different types of creativity. Among Agnia Barto's close friends were Rina Zelenaya and Faina Ranevskaya.
Agnia and Andrey loved each other very much and lived a happy life; the marriage gave birth to a girl, Tatyana, who is now the main custodian of the poetess’s legacy.
The children Garik and Tanya were raised by the nanny Domna Ivanovna, the same one from the village who once came to Moscow to work and ended up in the Volovs’ house with the little girl Agnia. Until the end of her days, she then lived with Agnia Lvovna and her family, even when the children became adults, she helped run the household and became almost a member of their friendly family (nanny Domna Ivanovna did not have her own husband and children).
On May 4, 1945, Agnia Barto experienced irreparable grief. It was a sunny and bright spring, the whole country was looking forward to victory. Son Garik, a wonderful seventeen-year-old boy, returned from school earlier than usual. Nanny Domna Ivanovna was a little late with lunch, and the boy decided to ride a bicycle. A truck coming around the corner hit Garik, he fell, hit his temple on the curb and died instantly.
My beloved, such a beautiful and affectionate son, incredibly capable in science and music, has passed away. Agnia completely immersed herself in herself; food, sleep, conversations, and indeed the entire world around her ceased to exist for her. Victory Day passed by, which she had been looking forward to very much. Did she remember the Spanish woman in those days, was she able to find words to describe the feelings of a mother who had lost her son?
She devoted her entire subsequent life to her beloved husband, daughter and grandchildren, and, of course, to children, for whom she wrote poetry.
In 1970, doctors diagnosed cancer in her husband Andrei Vladimirovich, again Agnia Barto lost the most valuable thing in life. She lived 11 years longer than her husband and died on April 1, 1981. She was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Daughter Tatyana followed in her father’s footsteps and graduated from the Energy Institute with a PhD in Technical Sciences.
Agnia Barto was born on February 17, 1906 in Moscow in the family of veterinarian Lev Nikolaevich Volov.
In February 1906, Maslenitsa balls were held in Moscow, and Lent began. The Russian Empire was on the eve of change - the creation of the first State Duma and the implementation of Stolypin's agrarian reform were soon to take place; hopes for a solution to the “Jewish question” had not yet faded in society. Changes were also expected in the family of veterinarian Lev Nikolaevich Volov - the parents were expecting the birth of their 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.
Here is what Barto wrote about her childhood: “I was born in Moscow in 1906, I studied and grew up here. Perhaps the first impression of my childhood was the high voice of a barrel organ outside the window. For a long time I dreamed of walking around the courtyards and turning the handle of the organ, so that people, attracted by the music, would look out of all the windows. ...Memories of my father are very dear to me. My father, Lev Nikolaevich Volov, was a veterinarian, was passionate about his work, and in his youth worked in Siberia for several years. And now I hear my father’s voice reading Krylov’s fables to me, little one. He loved Krylov very much and knew almost all of his fables by heart. I remember how my father showed me letters and taught me to read from Leo Tolstoy’s book, with large print. My father admired Tolstoy all his life and reread him endlessly. My relatives joked that, as soon as I was one year old, my father gave me the book “How Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy Lives and Works.” I started writing poems in early childhood; in the first grades of the gymnasium I dedicated them mainly to the “pink marquises” in love. Well, poets are supposed to write about love, and I paid full tribute to this topic when I was eleven years old. True, even then the loving marquises and pages who populated my notebooks were pushed aside by epigrams on teachers and girlfriends.”
Agnia's mother Maria Ilyinichna was the youngest child in an intelligent large family. Her siblings later became engineers, lawyers and doctors. But Maria Ilyinichna did not strive for higher education, although she was a witty and attractive woman.
Agnia was the only child in the family. She studied at the gymnasium, as was customary in intelligent families - she studied French and German. Judging by fragmentary memories, Agnia always loved her father more and considered him very much. He was the main listener and critic of her poems.
Agnia graduated from choreographic school and was going to become a ballerina. She loved to dance. In one of her early poems she has the following lines:
“Just don’t need dull days
The dull tone is monotonous...
Dancing is joy and delight..."
Agnia Lvovna, being a fifteen-year-old girl, added an extra year to her documents in order to get a job at the Clothes store, since at that time there was a shortage of food, and workers received herring heads from which they made soup.
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. People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky came to the final tests of the choreographic school. After the tests, students spoke. Agnia read her long poem “Funeral March” to the music of Chopin. Lunacharsky had difficulty hiding his smile. A few days later, he invited the student to People’s Commissariat of Prospect and said that, listening to the “Funeral March,” he realized that she would definitely write funny poetry. He talked to her for a long time and wrote on a piece of paper what books she should read. In 1924, she graduated from the choreographic school and was accepted into the ballet troupe. But the troupe emigrated. Agnia's father was against her leaving, and she remained in Moscow.
In 1925, she brought her first poems to Gosizdat. 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.
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 poetry - “Brothers” in 1928, “The Boy on the contrary” in 1934, “Toys” in 1930 and “Bullfinch” in 1939.
In the mid-thirties, Agnia Lvovna received the love of readers and became the object of criticism. Barto recalled: “Toys” was subjected to harsh verbal criticism for its overly complex rhymes. I especially liked the lines:
They dropped Mishka on the floor,
They tore off the bear's paw.
I still won’t leave him -
Because he's good.
I have the minutes of the meeting where these verses were discussed. (There were times when children's poems were adopted by the general meeting, by a majority vote!). The protocol says: “...The rhymes need to be changed, they are difficult for a children’s poem.”
In 1937, Barto was a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, which was held in Spain. The congress meetings were held in the besieged, burning Madrid, and there she first encountered fascism.
Events also took place in Agnia’s 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 MPEI (Moscow Energy 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 “The Foundling.” In addition, Barto visited different countries 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. In the late 1930s, she traveled to this “neat, clean, almost toy-like country,” heard Nazi slogans, and 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.
The popularity of Agnia Barto grew rapidly. And not only in the USSR. One example of her international fame is particularly impressive. In Hitler’s Germany, when the Nazis staged terrible auto-da-fe, burning books by unwanted authors, Agnia Barto’s thin book “Brothers” burned on one of these bonfires, along with the volumes of Heine and Schiller.
During the war, Shcheglyaev, who by that time had become a prominent power engineer, was sent to the Urals, to Krasnogorsk to ensure its uninterrupted operation - the plants worked for the war. Agnia Lvovna had friends in those parts who invited her to stay with them. So the family - son, daughter with nanny Domna Ivanovna - settled in Sverdlovsk. The son studied at a flight school near Sverdlovsk, the daughter went to school. At this time, Agnia Lvovna writes about herself: “During the Great Patriotic War, I spoke a lot on the radio in Moscow and Sverdlovsk. She published war poems, articles, and essays in newspapers. In 1943, she was on the Western Front as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. But I never stopped thinking about my main, young hero. During the war, I really wanted to write about Ural teenagers who worked at the machines at defense factories, but for a long time I could not master the topic. Pavel Petrovich Bazhov advised me, in order to better understand the interests of artisans and, most importantly, their psychology, to acquire a specialty with them, for example, a turner. Six months later I received a discharge, really. The lowest. But I got closer to the topic that worried me (“A student is coming,” 1943).”
In February 1943, Shcheglyaev was recalled from Krasnogorsk to Moscow and allowed to travel with his family. They returned, and Agniya Lvovna again began to seek a trip to the front. Here's what she wrote about it: “It wasn’t easy to get permission from the PUR. I turned to Fadeev for help.
I understand your desire, but how can I explain the purpose of your trip? - he asked. - They will tell me: - she writes for children.
And tell me that you can’t write about war for children without seeing anything with your own eyes. And then...they send readers to the front with funny stories. Who knows, maybe my poems will come in handy? Soldiers will remember their children, and those who are younger will remember their childhood.”
A travel order was received, but Agniya Lvovna worked in the active army for 22 days.
On May 4, 1945, Agnia’s son died after he was hit by a car. Agnia Lvovna’s friend Evgenia Aleksandrovna Taratuta recalled that Agnia Lvovna completely retreated into herself these days. She didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't talk.
After the death of her son, Agnia Lvovna turned all her mother’s love to her daughter Tatyana. But she didn’t work less. The war ended, but many orphans remained, and Agniya Lvovna went to orphanages and read poetry there. I communicated with children and teachers, and patronized some houses. In 1947, she published the poem “Zvenigorod” - a story about children who lost relatives 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. After the book was published, she received a letter from a lonely woman from Karaganda, who lost her eight-year-old daughter during the war. After reading “Zvenigorod”, she began to hope that her Ninochka was alive and grew up in a good orphanage, and asked Agnia Lvovna to help find her. Agniya Lvovna handed over her mother’s letter to the organization involved in the search, Nina was found, mother and daughter met. Journalists wrote about this. And then Agnia Lvovna began to receive letters from different people asking her to find their children lost during the war.
Agnia Lvovna wrote: “What was to be done? Should we transfer these letters to special organizations? But for an official search, accurate data is needed. But what if they are not there, if the child was lost when he was small and couldn’t say where and when he was born, couldn’t even say his last name?! Such children were given new surnames, and the doctor determined their age. How can a mother find a child who has long since become an adult if his last name has been changed? And how can an adult find his family if he doesn’t know who he is and where he comes from? But people do not calm down, they look for parents, sisters, brothers for years, they believe that they will find them. The following thought occurred to me: could childhood memory help in the search? A child is observant, he sees sharply, accurately and remembers what he sees for life. It is only important to select those main and always somewhat unique childhood impressions that would help relatives recognize the lost child.”
Agnia Lvovna’s hopes for the power of childhood memories were justified. Radio "Mayak" made it possible for childhood memories to be heard throughout the country. Since 1965, after the first radio broadcast “Find a Person,” letters became her main business and concern. Every day she received 70 - 100 detailed letters (after all, people were afraid to miss any detail in case it turned out to be the key to the search) and in them she tried to find something that both the one who is looking for and the one who is looking for could remember. Sometimes the memories were very scarce: the girl remembered that she lived with her parents near the forest and her dad’s name was Grisha; the boy remembered how he and his brother rode on the “gate with music”... The dog Julbars, his father’s blue tunic and a bag of apples, like a rooster pecked between his eyebrows - that’s all that the military children knew about their former life. This was not enough for official searches, but for Barto it was enough. That’s when vast experience and the “feeling of a child” played a truly amazing role.
A program like “Find a Person” could only be conducted by Barto, a “children’s translator.” She took on things that were beyond the capabilities of the police and the Red Cross.
On the air of Mayak, she read out excerpts from letters she had selected, of which she received more than 40 thousand over nine years. Sometimes people, already desperate after many years of searching, found each other after the first transmission. So, out of ten people whose letters Agnia Lvovna once read, seven were found at once. It was the 13th: Barto, who was neither sentimental nor superstitious, began to consider him lucky. Since then, the programs have been broadcast on the 13th of every month.
– Ordinary listeners, who cared, helped a lot. There was such a case: a woman who got lost as a child remembered that she lived in Leningrad on a street that began with the letter “o” and next to the house there was a bathhouse and a store,” says the writer’s daughter Tatyana Shcheglyaeva. “No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t find such a street!” They found an old bath attendant who knew all the Leningrad baths... And in the end it turned out that this was Serdobolskaya Street - there are a lot of “o”s in it, which the girl remembered. And one day, relatives found a daughter who had been lost when she was four months old - it is clear that she could not have any memories. The mother only said that the child had a mole on his shoulder that looked like a rose. And it helped: residents of a Ukrainian village remembered that one woman had a birthmark like a rose, and she was found and adopted by a local resident at the age of four months during the war.
The Barto family, willingly or unwillingly, was involved in the work. “One day I come home, open the door to my husband’s office - a crying woman is sitting opposite him, and he, pushing his drawings aside, is painfully trying to understand who was lost, where, under what circumstances,” Agniya Lvovna herself recalled. If she went somewhere, her daughter Tatyana recorded everything that happened during her absence. And even nanny Domna Ivanovna, when people came to the house, asked: “Are your memories appropriate? Otherwise, not everything is good.” Such people in the family were called “unfamiliar guests.” They came to Lavrushinsky directly from the train stations, and many happy meetings happened before the eyes of Agnia Lvovna. Over nine years, 927 families have been reunited with its help. Based on the program, Barto wrote the book “Find a Person,” which is absolutely impossible to read without tears.
From the 1940s to the 1950s, her collections “First-Grader,” “Funny Poems,” and “Poems for Children” were published. During these same years, she worked on the scripts for children’s films “The Foundling”, “The Elephant and the String” and “Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character”.
In her own life, everything was going well: her husband worked hard and fruitfully, 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 who “dropped a ball into the river " Barto continued to travel a lot around the world, visiting the USA, Japan, Iceland, and England. As a rule, these were business trips. Agnia Lvovna was the “face” of any delegation: she knew how to behave in society, spoke several languages, dressed beautifully and danced beautifully.
In Brazil, Switzerland, Portugal, Greece, she participated in meetings of the international jury to award the Andersen Medal to the best children's writer and artist. She was a member of this jury from 1970 to 1974
In 1958, Barto wrote a large cycle of satirical poems for children “Leshenka, Leshenka”, “Grandfather’s Granddaughter” and other works. In 1969, her documentary book “Find a Person” was published, in 1976 - the book “Notes of a Children's Poet”.
In 1970, her husband, Andrei Vladimirovich, died. He spent the last few months in the hospital, Agniya Lvovna stayed with him. After his first heart attack, she feared for his heart, but doctors said he 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. She still didn’t like to remember her past. She was also silent about the fact that she had been helping people for decades: placing them in hospitals, getting scarce medicines, finding good doctors. As best I could, I supported the families of repressed friends and found ways to transfer money. She helped with all her heart and with her characteristic energy.
In “Notes of a Children's Poet” in 1976, Agnia Lvovna formulated her poetic and human credo: “Children need the whole range of feelings that give rise to humanity.” Numerous trips to different countries led her to the idea of the richness of the inner world of a child of any nationality. This idea was confirmed by the poetry collection “Translations from Children’s” in 1977, in which Barto translated children’s poems from different languages.
For many years, Barto headed the Association of Literature and Art Workers for Children. Barto's poems have been translated into many languages of the world. Her name was given to one of the Minor Planets.
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 was not a minute - she lived her whole life this way.
In 2011, a documentary film “Agniya Barto. Reading between the lines."
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Text prepared by Andrey Goncharov
Used materials:
A little bit about yourself. Barto A.L. Collected works: In 4 volumes - M.: Khudozh. Lit., 1981 – 1984. T.4. page 396
Agniya Barto. Notes of a children's poet. pp. 152-153 M,: “Soviet Writer”, 1976, 336 pp.
Alla Tyukova, Biography magazine, February 2006
Interview with the daughter of the poetess in the newspaper "Boulevard", February 14, 2006
Interview with Agnia Barto's daughter Tatyana Shcheglyaeva.
- Tatyana Andreevna, were there writers or poets in your family?
No, but there were many doctors, engineers, lawyers... My grandfather - my mother's father Lev Nikolaevich Volov - was a veterinarian. My mother’s uncle owned the Slovati sanatorium in Yalta. He was considered a luminary of medicine and was an outstanding laryngologist. So after the revolution, the new government even allowed him to work in this sanatorium, about which his mother wrote poetic lines in childhood: “In the Slovati sanatorium there are white beds.”
My mother started writing poetry as a child. The main listener and critic of the poems was her father. He wanted her to write “correctly,” strictly observing a certain meter of the poem, and in her lines, as if on purpose, the meter kept changing every now and then (which her father considered stubbornness on her part). Then it turns out that changing meter is one of the distinctive features of Barto's poetry. True, later her poems were criticized for this very reason.
I have the minutes of the meeting at which "Toys" was discussed. Those were the times when even children's poems were accepted at the general meeting! It says: "...The rhymes need to be changed, they are difficult for a children's poem." Particularly appreciated were the famous lines:
They dropped Mishka on the floor,
They tore off Mishka's paw.
I still won't leave him -
Because he's good.
- When did Agnia Barto become a poetess from a home writer of poetry?
Her entry into great literature began with a curiosity: at a graduation party at a choreographic school (her mother was going to become a ballerina), she, to the accompaniment of a pianist, read her poem “Funeral March,” while taking tragic poses. And Lunacharsky, the People’s Commissar for Education, was sitting in the hall and could hardly restrain himself from laughing. A couple of days later, he invited my mother to his place and advised her to seriously study literature for children. Her first book was published in 1925: on the cover it says “Agniya Barto. Chinese Wang-Li.”
- But Agnia Lvovna’s maiden name was Volova. Is "Barto" a pseudonym?
This is the surname of my mother’s first husband, Pavel Barto. My mother got married very early, at the age of 18, immediately after the death of her father. Pavel Nikolaevich Barto was a writer; Together with their mother, they wrote three poems: “The Roaring Girl,” “The Dirty Girl,” and “The Counting Table.” But it was a very short-term marriage: as soon as my brother Garik was born, my mother and Pavel Nikolaevich separated... With my father, Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev, a scientist, a specialist in the field of thermal power engineering (one of the most authoritative Soviet specialists in steam and gas turbines. - Author's note) Mom lived together until the last days of his life. They loved each other, it was a very happy marriage.
From time to time she was chosen for positions in the Writers' Union, but she did not stay there for long because she was an inconvenient person. If her own position coincided with the directive from above, everything went smoothly. But when her opinion was different, she defended her own point of view. The main thing for her was to write and remain herself. She was a very brave person, for example, when her friend Evgenia Taratuta was repressed, her mother and Lev Abramovich Kassil helped her family.
Agnia Barto was a laureate of the Stalin and Lenin Prizes. Did your family receive privileges for these high awards?
I can say that the modern idea that the state used to give out free cars with drivers and dachas right and left is not entirely correct. Mom and Dad drove a car after the war. On one! At an exhibition of captured German cars, they bought a Mercedes, one of the first models with a canvas top: in comparison with it, the Pobeda looked much more respectable. Then my parents got a Volga.
We had a dacha, but it was not state-owned. We built it ourselves. My dad was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, and he was given a plot of land in the academic village. The site was chosen as far away as possible, in the forest, so that nothing would disturb my mother while she was working. But there was a problem: moose were walking around the dacha all the time! And the question arose: is it dangerous or not? Mom read somewhere, it seems, in Science and Life, how to determine whether an elk is dangerous or not. The magazine recommended looking into the eyes of a moose, and if the eyes are red, the moose is dangerous. We laughed and imagined how we would look into the eyes of a moose!
At the dacha we planted lettuce and strawberries. In winter we went skiing. Dad made home movies and often played chess with Rina Zelena’s husband (we were family friends). My mother had no such concept as a “vacation at the dacha”. I remember the celebration of their silver wedding: it was fun, there were a lot of guests... And the next day my mother was already working: it was her need, a condition that saved her from all the hardships of life.
Whenever a new poem was ready, my mother read it to everyone: my brother and I, friends, writers, artists, and even the plumber who came to fix the plumbing. It was important for her to find out what she didn’t like, what needed to be remade, polished. She read her poems over the phone to Lev Kassil and Svetlov. Fadeev, being the secretary of the Writers' Union, at any time, if she called and asked: “Can you listen?”, he answered: “Poems? Come on!”
Also, Sergei Mikhalkov could call his mother in the middle of the night and in response to her sleepy, anxious: “Did something happen?” reply: “It happened: I wrote new poems, now I’ll read them to you!”... Mom was friends with Mikhalkov, but this did not stop them from furiously discussing the fate of children’s literature! By the intensity of passions, we unmistakably determined that mom was talking to Mikhalkov! The tube was really hot!
Mom also talked a lot with Robert Rozhdestvensky. He was a most charming man and very talented. One day he came to us with his wife Alla. They drank tea, then called home, and it turned out that Katya was sick. They jumped up and left immediately. And now Katya is a famous photographer, the same Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya.
-Who else was a frequent guest in your house?
There were always a lot of guests, but most came on business, because my mother rarely celebrated even her own birthdays. Rina Zelenaya often visited: together with her mother they wrote scripts for the films “The Elephant and the Rope” and “The Foundling”. Remember this famous phrase of the heroine Ranevskaya: “Mulya, don’t irritate me!”? The film “Foundling” was being filmed just then, and my mother came up with this phrase especially for Ranevskaya.
I remember one day Faina Georgievna came to our dacha. Mom was not there, and we began to wait for her. They spread a blanket on the grass, and suddenly a frog jumped out from somewhere. Faina Georgievna jumped up and never sat down again. And I didn’t wait for the meeting. Mom then asked me who came, was it a young woman or an elderly one? I replied that I don’t know. When my mother told Ranevskaya this story, she exclaimed: “What a lovely child! She doesn’t even know whether I’m young or old!”
- I heard that Agniya Lvovna was a master of practical jokes, right?
Yes, she often played pranks on her literary colleagues. All my mother’s friends - Samuil Marshak, Lev Kassil, Korney Chukovsky, Rina Zelenaya - were experts and connoisseurs of practical jokes. Irakli Andronikov suffered the most: he almost always fell into the net of a practical joke, although he was an insightful and far from naive person. Once he broadcast a TV show from Alexei Tolstoy’s apartment, showing photographs of celebrities. Mom called him, introduced herself as an employee of the literary editorial office and asked: “Here you are showing a photograph of Ulanova in Swan Lake upside down - is this necessary? Or maybe my TV is faulty? Although it’s still beautiful - she’s dancing and ballet tutu... However, I’m calling for a different reason: we have planned a program in which contemporaries of Leo Tolstoy took part, we would like to invite you to participate... “Do you think that I am the same age as Tolstoy? - Andronikov was perplexed. - Do I really look like this on your TV?! Looks like it really needs fixing!" - "Then write it down in your notebook: prank number one!"
- Is it true that Agnia Barto was a passionate traveler?
Mom traveled a lot and willingly, but, as a rule, all her trips were business trips. On her very first foreign trip to Spain in 1937, my mother went as part of a delegation of Soviet writers to an international congress. From this trip she brought castanets, because of which she even ended up in history. At that time, a civil war was going on in Spain. And then, at one of the stops at a gas station in Valencia, my mother saw a shop on the corner where, among other things, castanets were sold. Real Spanish castanets mean something to a person who enjoys dancing! Mom danced beautifully all her life. While she was talking to the owner and her daughter in the store, a rumble was heard and planes with crosses appeared in the sky - the bombing could start at any minute! And just imagine: a whole bus with Soviet writers stood and waited for Barto, who was buying castanets during the bombing!
In the evening of the same day, Alexey Tolstoy, speaking about the heat in Spain, casually asked his mother if she had bought a fan to fan herself during the next raid?
And in Valencia, for the first time in her life, my mother decided to watch a real Spanish bullfight with her own eyes. With difficulty I got a ticket to the upper stand, in the very sun. The bullfight, according to her story, was an unbearable spectacle: the heat, the sun and the sight of blood made her feel sick. Two men sitting nearby, Spaniards, as she mistakenly believed, said in pure Russian: “This foreigner feels ill!” Barely moving her tongue, mom muttered: “No, I’m from the village...”. The “Spaniards” turned out to be Soviet pilots, they helped my mother down from the stands and escorted her to the hotel. Since then, whenever bullfighting was mentioned, my mother invariably exclaimed: “It’s a terrible sight! It would be better if I didn’t go there.”
- Judging by your stories, she was a desperate person!
This despair and courage was combined in her with an amazing natural shyness. She never forgave herself for once not daring to speak to Mayakovsky, who was the idol of her youth...
You know, whenever my mother was asked about a “turning point in life,” she liked to repeat that in her case there was a “turning point” when she found a forgotten book of Mayakovsky’s poems. Mom (she was a teenager then) read them in one gulp, all in a row, and was so inspired by what she read that she immediately wrote her poem “To Vladimir Mayakovsky” on the back of one page:
... I hit you with my forehead,
Century,
For what you gave
Vladimir.
My mother first saw Mayakovsky at the dacha in Pushkino, from where she went to Akulova Gora to play tennis. And then one day during the game, having already raised her hand with the ball to serve, she froze with her racket raised: Mayakovsky was standing behind the long fence of the nearest dacha. She immediately recognized him from the photograph. It turned out that he lives here. This was the same dacha of Rumyantsev where he wrote the poem “An extraordinary adventure that happened to Vladimir Mayakovsky in the summer at the dacha.”
Mom often went to the tennis court on Akulova Gora and more than once saw Mayakovsky there, walking along the fence and immersed in his thoughts. She desperately wanted to approach him, but she never dared. She even thought of what she would say to him when they met: “You, Vladimir Vladimirovich, don’t need any crow’s horses, you have “the wings of poetry,” but she never uttered this “terrible tirade.”
A few years later, a children's book festival was organized for the first time in Moscow: in Sokolniki, writers were supposed to meet with children. Of the “adult” poets, only Mayakovsky arrived to meet with the children. Mom was lucky enough to ride in the same car with him. Mayakovsky was absorbed in himself and did not speak. And while my mother was thinking about how she could smarterly start a conversation, the trip came to an end. Mom never got over her fear of him and didn’t speak. And she didn’t ask the question that so tormented her then: is it too early for her to try to write poetry for adults?
But my mother was lucky: after speaking to the children in Sokolniki, coming down from the stage, Mayakovsky involuntarily gave the answer to the doubt that tormented her, telling three young poetesses, among whom was my mother: “This is the audience! You have to write for them!”
- Amazing story!
They often happened to mom! I remember she told me how she once returned from her friends’ dacha to Moscow on a commuter train. And at one station Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky entered the carriage! “I wish I could read my lines to him!” - Mom thought. The situation in the carriage seemed unsuitable for her, but the temptation to hear what Chukovsky himself had to say about her poetry was great. And as soon as he settled down on a bench nearby, she asked: “Can I read you a poem? Very short...”. - “Short is good.” And suddenly he said to the whole carriage: “Poetess Barto wants to read her poems to us!” Mom was confused and began to deny: “These are not my poems, but one of a five and a half year old boy...”. The poems were about the Chelyuskinites and Chukovsky liked them so much that he wrote them down in his notebook. A couple of days later, an article by Chukovsky was published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, in which he cited these poems by the “boy” and sincerely praised him.
- Tatyana Andreevna, we all know Agnia Barto, the poetess. What kind of mother was she?
I didn’t bake pies - I was always busy. They tried to protect her from the little things of everyday life. But in all large-scale home events, be it a family celebration or the construction of a summer house, my mother took an active part - she was at the helm. And if, God forbid, one of your loved ones got sick, she was always there.
I studied well, and my parents were not called to school. Mom never went to parent-teacher meetings, sometimes she didn’t even remember what class I was in. She believed that it was wrong to advertise at school the fact that I was the daughter of a famous writer.
- How did your mother react to your decision to become an engineer?
I am not a humanist by nature. Non-engineering options were not even discussed in my case. I graduated from the Energy Institute and worked all my life at the Central Research Institute of Integrated Automation: I am a candidate of technical sciences, I was the head of a laboratory, a leading engineer.
I remember when I was in college, a funny story happened. A professor of home economics from Finland came to us to study the families of Soviet people. She was already in the dormitory, she was in a worker’s family, and she wanted to visit the professor’s family. We chose ours as an example.
Mom did a big cleanup: “whistle everyone upstairs,” as they say. Nanny Domna Ivanovna baked very tasty pies, bought caviar and crabs... But during the “interrogation” we began to fall asleep: the questions were difficult. “How much does a young girl (that is, me. - T. Shch.) spend on outfits in one season?” And we wore dresses for years! Luckily, just before this, my mother bought me two summer dresses, which we immediately began to show off, with difficulty remembering how much they cost.
The professor was especially impressed by the following: the fact is that I loved the institute very much, I studied enthusiastically, without thinking about dinners at home. I usually said: “I had lunch in the dining room, the food there is excellent.” What did it actually look like? "Diaphragm Soup" Can you imagine? From the film that separates the lungs from other organs! But I was young, and “diaphragm soup” suited me quite well. And when the Finnish woman began to admire our table, my mother said seriously: “And my daughter prefers to eat in the student canteen!” The home economics professor was smitten! She decided that something incredible in terms of gastronomy awaited her there. The next day, the professor volunteered to go to the student canteen, where “the food is so wonderful.” A day later, the director of the canteen was fired...
- It’s curious, did Agnia Lvovna dedicated her poems to someone at home?
She dedicated a poem about ruffs to her eldest grandson, my son Vladimir. “We didn’t notice the beetle” - to my daughter Natasha. I’m not sure that the cycle of poems “Vovka the Good Soul” is also a dedication to Vladimir, although this name appears very often in her poems of that time. Mom often read poetry to Volodya and showed him artists’ drawings for her books. They even had serious literary conversations. She also taught Volodya to dance. He danced very well, felt the rhythm, but did not go to the choreographic school: he became a mathematician and found himself in school, becoming a mathematics teacher.
She saw her great-granddaughter Asya only once: the baby was born in January 1981, and on April 1, 1981, her mother passed away... She was very energetic until the end of her life, went on business trips, even in old age played tennis and danced. I remember her dancing on her 75th birthday... And a month later she was taken to the hospital, as they initially thought, with mild poisoning. It turned out to be a heart attack. On the last day of March, my mother seemed to feel better, she asked to be transferred to a room with a telephone: they say, there is so much to do and worries! But the next morning her heart stopped...
(1906-1981) Soviet poetess
The poems of Agnia Barto have entered our consciousness since childhood. Both in kindergarten and in elementary school, they are often the very first appeal to the vast world of fiction. It is no coincidence that the total circulation of Agnia Lvovna Barto’s books exceeded thirty million copies, they were published more than 400 times, translated into all languages of the peoples of Russia and many foreign ones.
And yet, entering the world of great poetry along with such recognized masters as K. Chukovsky and S. Marshak was by no means easy. Agnia Lvovna herself recalls this in her book “Notes of a Children's Poet.” The title of Barto's memoirs is symbolic, since she always considered herself primarily a poet for children.
Agnia Lvovna Barto was born in Moscow, in the family of a veterinarian. At first, like many in childhood, she experienced a number of hobbies - she studied music, studied at a choreographic school. After her final exams, Agnia read her poem for the first time at one of the evenings, and A. Lunacharsky, the then People's Commissar of Education, accidentally heard it; this seriously influenced her future biography. They met, and Lunacharsky, as if foreseeing the girl’s creative future, said that she would write funny poetry. This meeting, which, as it turned out later, determined her fate, was one of the most powerful impressions of her youth.
Perhaps Agnia Lvovna owes her literary gift to her father, Lev Nikolaevich Volov. He loved to read poetry, knew almost all of Krylov's fables by heart and constantly gave books to his daughter. His family even made fun of him because he once gave Agnia the book “How Leo Tolstoy Lives and Works.”
Since 1925, Agnia Barto had already begun publishing her poems. First came “The Roaring Girl” and “The Dirty Girl,” followed by “Chinese Wang Li” and “The Thief Bear.” Her poems were dedicated to small children, about four to eight years old, who listened to them with pleasure because they recognized themselves and their antics in them. These poems made up the first collection, published in 1928 under the title “Brothers”. In 1934, Agnia Barto published a collection of satirical poems for primary schoolchildren, “The Boy in Reverse.”
The main thing in the biography of the poetess has always been knowledge of the child’s world, the peculiarities of his imagination and thinking. She carefully studied what he did, how and what he said. True, Agnia Barto always believed that she not only wrote for children, but at the same time addressed adults.
At first, K. Chukovsky and S. Marshak provided Barto with great help. They answered her letters, gave advice, and in 1933 Chukovsky published a short response about “Toys.” Under the same name, another collection of poems by Agnia Barto was published in 1936.
Chukovsky continued to closely follow the work of the young poetess and some time later called her a “talented lyricist.” At the same time, he invariably demanded from her “more thoughtfulness and rigor of verse.” Agnia Barto was always sensitive to his instructions, although she had to hear other things. As Agnia Lvovna herself recalls, “there were times when children’s poems were adopted by the general meeting, by a majority vote.” At one time, they criticized, for example, the rhyme in her poem “Toys”:
They dropped Mishka on the floor.
They tore off Mishka's paw.
I still won't leave him.
Because he's good.
Critics found it too difficult for children to understand. Nevertheless, Agnia Lvovna stubbornly defended her vision of the children's theme and wrote poems for the little ones the way she herself imagined them. She continued to use complex, playful rhyme.
At the same time, her range of interests gradually expanded. In 1937, Barto went to Spain to attend the Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture. Under the influence of what she saw and heard, a new theme appeared in her work - a patriotic one. Such poems were dictated by the time itself: there was a war in Spain, the world was on the eve of World War II. Therefore, impressions of the wars experienced remained not only in memory.
In the thirties, the biography was marked by a new event; cinema unexpectedly entered the life of the poetess. In 1939, Agnia Barto wrote her first script for the children's film "Foundling", in 1946 she wrote a new one - "The Elephant and the String", and in the fifties - "Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character" and "Ten Thousand Boys". All these films were very popular with children and adults, and many of the little characters’ phrases became catchphrases. However, this is not surprising: after all, Barto’s co-authors were often such brilliant comedic actresses as Rina Zelenaya and Faina Ranevskaya. Agnia Barto remained interested in children's drama throughout her life. In 1975, she wrote the play "In Order of Deception."
With the beginning of the war, Agnia Lvovna Barto tried to get to the front, but had to go to the rear, since her husband, a power engineer, was assigned to Sverdlovsk (present-day Yekaterinburg). She lived there until 1942 and continued to work all this time. Agnia Lvovna begins speaking on the radio, in orphanages, and publishes war poems, articles, and essays in newspapers. She finally made it to the front. After returning to Moscow in the spring of 1942, the poetess was sent to the Western Front as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda.
After the war, she continues to write funny poems for children, creates several satirical and humorous works, which will later be included in her books “Who is considered happy?” (1962) and "What's the matter with him?" (1966). In those same years, Barto had the opportunity to work in an orphanage for orphans, and she wrote the poem “Zvenigorod”.
The sixties occupy a special place not only in the biography of Agnia Barto, but also in the history of the entire country. The poetess begins to host the radio program “Find a Person” and helps many people find their relatives who were lost during the war. About a thousand people found their loved ones thanks to the work and energy of Agniya Lvovna Barto. Based on stories about the search for children lost during the Great Patriotic War, she wrote the book “Find a Person,” which was published in 1968. And in 1972, for her multifaceted activities, Barto became a Lenin Prize laureate.
At the same time, Agnia Lvovna was actively involved in social activities. She becomes a member of the International Association of Children's Writers and a laureate of the Andersen Medal, travels a lot to different countries, and holds an international children's drawing competition.
Agnia Lvovna believed that constant communication with listeners enriched her. After she had the chance to host radio broadcasts, her poems became more lyrical. And this is true: they seem to be addressed to the most intimate feelings and experiences. Their titles are also poetic - “I am growing” (1968), “For flowers in the winter forest” (1970).
Agnia Lvovna Barto herself determined the secret of her creative longevity, which lies in her words: “Poems written for children should be inexhaustibly young.”
Agnia Barto died on April 1, 1981. She was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery (site No. 3).
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