Agnia is a lion's heart. Barto Agnia Lvivna

Agnia Lvovna Barto.

Real name - Getel Leibovna Volova.

Lunacharsky laughed at her "funeral" verses, she ruthlessly played Andronnikov, and was impudent on Marshaka. And, nevertheless, she was considered one of the most diplomatic and kind writers of her time. And she also connected thousands of relatives who had lost each other because of the war, worked as a front-line correspondent, stood at the machine and loved to dance very much. Her name was given to one of the minor planets and one of the craters on Venus.

Aibolit's daughter

Little Getel's house was full of animals. Her father, Leib Volov, worked as a veterinarian. Grateful owners of patients often gave Aibolit canaries. Birdsong is one of Barto's earliest memories. True, she was not particularly frank about her childhood - after all, she did not have to repair roofs like Chukovsky or grow up in a working settlement like Marshak, and the bourgeois past in the USSR was not honored. Nanny, French and pineapples - it was better to hide. So, however, did Isaac Babel. Even the exact place and year of birth of the poetess is in question. According to the birth record in the office of the Kovno city rabbi (JewishGen.org), Getel Volova was born on February 4 (old style) 1901 in Kovno. Parents Abraham-Lev Nakhmanovich Volov and Maria Elyash-Girshevna Bloch. Barto's daughter Tatyana claimed that her mother was born in Moscow in 1907, and made herself a year older in order to receive rations - so most encyclopedias indicate 1906; and lifetime Literary Encyclopedia - 1904.

Agniya Barto remembered her father with great love. Leib Volov personally supervised her education, instilled in her daughter a love for good literature. “And now I hear the voice of my father reading to me, a little one, Krylov’s fables,” Barto wrote in her memoirs. - I remember how my father showed me the letters, taught me to read from a book by Leo Tolstoy, in large print. My father admired the fat man all his life, re-reading him endlessly. My relatives joked that, as soon as I was one year old, my father gave me a book “How Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Lives and Works”. It is not surprising that the girl felt a taste for writing early and began to write poetry. “I dedicated them mainly to the “pink marquises” in love,” Barto recalled.

Uncle Barto was a famous otolaryngologist,

and also wrote children's poems, which later captivated his niece.

In 1924, Barto graduated from the choreographic school

and entered the ballet troupe, where she worked for about a year.

The father mercilessly criticized poetry and dreamed that his daughter would become a famous ballerina. Gitel graduated from the choreographic school. At the graduation party, to the music of Chopin, she read her poem "Funeral March" and danced. Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, People's Commissar of Culture, who was present at the evening, could hardly contain his laughter. A few days later, he invited the young ballerina to his place at the People's Commissariat for Education and offered to become a writer.

No bras or frills

In 1925, collections of poems "Chinese Wang Li" and "The Thief Bear" were published. Barto remembers his teachers Mayakovsky, Marshak, Chukovsky. Relationships were not easy. In one of Barto's notebooks, a satirical poem of those years has been preserved.

Is this Barto's apartment?
That is, like "What"?
I want to know if Barto is alive?
Or has it already been chewed up?
They say she sucked on the MAPP
I put my mom and dad there,
Now she's being chased everywhere.
Tell me when the cremation
I will gladly.

MAPP is the Moscow Association of Writers. In the 1920s and 1930s, writers' organizations in the USSR multiplied, disintegrated and re-created. Writers were discussed and condemned. In 1925, when Barto's poems were only in manuscript, an article appeared in the press in which the aspiring poetess was opposed to Marshak himself, already a famous poet. Barto complained that the article spoiled relations with Marshak for five or six years. Marshak did not like the first editions of Barto. The poetess disagreed. And once she scolded the master: “There is Marshak and undermarshas. I can’t become a marshak, but I don’t want to become a runner!” Nevertheless, Barto constantly re-read her stern critic. She learned from him, as she herself admitted, "the completeness of thought, the integrity of each, even a small poem, the careful selection of words, and most importantly, a lofty, exacting look at poetry."

Perhaps Marshak was too harsh. Barto's daughter Tatyana said that Boris Pasternak accidentally read Barto's poems - the publishing house sent a layout of his works on paper, where children's poems were printed on the reverse side due to economy. He called the poetess and said that she worked with words like a juggler. Every word has its place in her poem. Therefore, verses are remembered very easily, as if by themselves.

Korney Chukovsky liked to listen to Barto, praised the rhymes and then sarcastically threw: "I would be very interested to listen to your unrhymed poems." But later he wrote that “non-rhyming poetry is like a naked woman. It’s easy to be beautiful in clothes of rhymes, but try to dazzle with beauty without any frills, frills, bras and other aids.”

By the way, the relationship between Chukovsky and Marshak was also not simple. Barto recalls the case when she was resting with them in the Uzkoye sanatorium near Moscow. The masters were very considerate to each other, but they walked separately. “I was lucky,” Barto rejoiced, “I could walk with Marshak in the morning, and after dinner with Chukovsky.” One day, the cleaning lady asked Barto if she worked part-time at the zoo. And she explained that Marshak had told her that writers' earnings are fickle, and when there is no work they portray animals in the zoo: Marshak puts on the skin of a tiger, and Chukovsky dresses as a giraffe. The first is paid three hundred rubles, the second - two hundred and fifty. Barto told the story to Chukovsky. He laughed, and then said sadly: “Here, all my life this way: he is three hundred, I am two hundred and fifty” ...

Barto admired the poetry of Mayakovsky and at one time even imitated, was friends with Mikhalkov, Svetlov and Kassil. She even called the latter a literary "ambulance" - he helped come up with names for her books. But, perhaps, her main teachers were children. Agniya Lvovna sat for hours on the playgrounds, tried to get into school classes, even under the guise of an employee of the district - all in order to listen to a lively children's speech. “Translator from children,” she said about herself.

The first husband of Agnia Barto was the poet Pavel Barto.

In 1927 their son Edgar (Igor) was born,

who tragically died at the age of 18.

The second time the writer got married

for the well-known thermal power engineer Andrey Shcheglyaev.

Soon their daughter Tatyana was born.
In the photo: writers Nikolai Nosov and Agniya Barto

cruel jokes

I must say that Barto did not collect other people's jokes, but she herself loved to joke, and also became a "victim" of the prank. She had a peculiar squabble with Irakli Andronnikov, a researcher of Lermontov's life and work. Once, on the eve of the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Yuryevich, Barto called him on the phone. And she introduced herself as a fourth-generation relative of the poet through her aunt. She asked very much to improve living conditions, she mentioned that she kept poems and letters from her ancestor in a chest. Andronnikov immediately wanted to come visit. Barto lamented the late hour in an old woman's voice. “Then tomorrow morning I will be with you,” the scientist burns. “You know ... my sister and I ... tomorrow morning ... they will take you to the bathhouse ... You are after two, please,” and he dictates the address. In the heat of the moment, Irakly Luarsabovich did not immediately realize that this was the house where many Moscow writers lived. “Your name, patronymic? And name, please," he demands. Barto calls himself. “It's cruel,” Andronnikov says. But how did I get caught. Grandiose!

Agniya Barto was one of the most popular and beloved by readers of children's poets.

Her works were published in huge editions, were included in anthologies.

For many years, the poetess headed the Association of Literature and Art for Children,

was a member of the international Andersen jury.

In 1976 she was awarded the International Andersen Prize.

In another story, Barto herself became the victim of a joke. Somehow a group of Moscow writers went to Yerevan to celebrate the millennium of the epic "David of Sasun". On the way, Alexander Fadeev told Barto that she was to give a speech at one of the stations. All night Barto prepared for the meeting. There were a lot of people on the platform, Agnia Lvovna delivered a fiery speech and was very happy with the applause. “They liked it,” Fadeev later said, “but they don’t understand almost a single word in Russian.” Barto was offended: “Why didn’t you warn me about this?” “Because you couldn’t speak sincerely, from the heart, if you didn’t believe that you were understood,” Fadeev answered, laughing.

In 1950 Agnia Barto was awarded

Stalin Prize of the second degree.

12 years later - Lenin Prize

(presentation of the Lenin Prizes in the photo).

In addition to state awards, the poetess was awarded

medal "For the salvation of the drowning."

Castanets under attack

In 1937, Barto became a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture in Spain. The meetings of the congress were held in the besieged burning Madrid. During one of the raids, Barto managed to buy castanets. Alexei Tolstoy ironically: "You should have bought a fan."

During Patriotic War the Barto family was evacuated to Sverdlovsk. There, Agnia Lvovna had to master the profession of a turner, and she watched with interest the teenage drummers. Then she spoke a lot on the radio, wrote military poems, articles, and essays. In 1942 she was a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda on the Western Front. Agnia Lvovna donated the prize received during the war to the construction of a tank. Subsequently, she became the owner of the Stalin and Lenin Prizes and numerous distinctions. In the post-war years, Barto traveled to Bulgaria, Iceland, Japan, England and other countries. Everywhere she communicated with children and translated their poems into Russian.

Barto is the author of the script for the films "Foundling" - it was written jointly with Rina Zelena. True, who owns the famous phrase: “Mulya, don’t make me nervous”, Barto, Zelena or Ranevskaya, remains a mystery. Barto also wrote screenplays for the films The Elephant and the Rope (1945), Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character (1953), 10,000 Boys (1961). The work capacity of the poetess was incredible. The family noted that, even after the biggest holidays and anniversaries, she sat down at the table and wrote, wrote, wrote.

Frame from the film "Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character"

Find a person

After the war, Barto began broadcasting Find a Man on the radio. She read on the air the letters of people who had lost their loved ones. Thousands of letters came to the transfer address. Barto each time weighed whose fate would be decided at that moment. She reflected her experiences, achievements and failures in the book Finding a Man.
"About Nelly with a speaking surname Unknown in orphanage only one entry has survived: “Unknown Nelly. The father is at the front, the mother is unknown,” Barto recalled. That's why they gave the girl a surname - Unknown. She got lost when she was four years old, twenty years later she wants to find her parents. But the girl does not even remember the name of her mother, only the rumble of aircraft remained in her head, a woman with breastfed baby on hands. “We are running somewhere, pushing through the crowd, I am holding on to her skirt, and two boys are running next to me, one of them, it seems, is called Roman,” Barto recalls the child.

Agniya Lvona doubted for a long time whether Nelly's relatives would be able to recognize the girl - after all, this picture is typical of the war years. Decided to give it a try, since it's a short story. And those few minutes on the air reunited the family. The transmission was heard by the girl's parents. A few hours later a telegram came from them from Feodosia: “Nellie is our daughter. The Fershter family.

There were also funny things. Sergey Sh. sent a letter to Barto, in which he asked not to give his last name because of his boyishness and said that he was looking for his older sister, and not only his sister was found, but also his twin brother Grigory, whom Sergey did not remember at all. The unexpected appearance of two adult twins in the family led to jokes. Once Sergei came to the hairdresser, the master cut his hair short. And a few minutes later, overgrown Grigory sat down in the same chair.

Allow me, I just cut your hair! - the master was confused.
- And I'm overgrown again, give me a complaint book, - said Grigory.

During the nine years of the transfer - from 1964 to 1972 - 927 families were reunited.

Over the years of her life, Barto raised more than one generation of children. Her poems and books were published in millions of copies and, surprisingly, they are all relevant to this day. “Our Tanya,” the grandmother begins, “crying loudly,” the granddaughter ends.

Agniya Barto, a children's writer and lover of jokes, died on April 1, 1981. She probably would have appreciated her latest award - six months ago it was decided to award her the title of "Honorary Udmurt" because her poems "have a lot of mysticism, characteristic of the Udmurt worldview." This title is awarded once a year to a person who directly or indirectly had a significant impact on the culture of the country and the republic. Previously, this title was awarded to Gerard Depardieu, Albert Einstein, Yuri Gagarin.

Looking for a man (1973)

Foundling (1939)

When Agnia Barto wrote her famous “Our Tanya is crying loudly, she dropped a ball into the river”, a legend was immediately born that the poem was dedicated to Agnia Lvovna’s daughter, Tanya. In fact, it was written three years before Tatyana's birth. Barto did not refute the pretty version, and the family joked that Agniya Lvovna was first of all the mother of “our Tanya”, who cries and only then the poetess.

There was a fair amount of truth in this joke. The family - a husband and two children - became the core of life for Barto. Professional activity took up a lot of the writer's time, but at home she always stood, as they say, "at the helm" and created a warm, cozy atmosphere in it. Similar to the one in which she herself grew up: Agnia was born into a friendly, believing Moscow family, which encouraged her work from the very first lines written in childhood: “There are white beds in the Slovati sanatorium.” Agnia Lvovna did not allow herself to indulge in memories of her childhood spent in a wealthy family. In the 30s of the last century, one could end up in the camps for such an origin. I had to work hard, the career of the poetess quickly went uphill. The family also grew - first the son Garik was born, then the daughter Tanya.

Agnia Lvovna was an amazing mother, ready for desperate deeds for the sake of her children. The active force of her love once saved the life of one-year-old Tanya. The family then rented a cottage. Tanya fell ill, so much so that the doctor shrugged and, unable to do anything, said to Agnia Lvovna: “Give birth again.” Then Barto invited another doctor. He prescribed a medicine that could only be obtained in Moscow. It was a severe winter, at night, when transport was no longer working. But Agnia Lvovna got ready for the city. And she brought the medicine that saved Tanya.

In 1945, a tragedy occurred in the family of Agnia Lvovna: 18-year-old Garik died. He went for a bike ride and was hit by a car. Barto could not recover from grief. She began to be tormented by constant fear for loved ones. Agnia Lvovna always needed to know where her daughter and husband were, she wanted to be sure that everything was in order with them. And therefore on family council It was decided to always and everyone live under one roof: parents, children, future grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

After the death of his son, all his maternal love Agnia Lvovna pointed to Tanya. However, the writer did not forget about creativity. On the contrary, she doubled the load. Tatyana Andreevna recalled that she was walking down the street with her mother and asked a question. Barto replied: "Wait, I'm writing." The daughter, who did not yet understand that the poet is not a profession, but a way of life, was surprised: “How do you write when you are walking?” Then Tanya no longer asked such questions: she simply, together with her father, energy scientist Andrei Shcheglyaev, tried to protect her mother from everything that could distract her from creativity. The family understood: Barto always works, and did not allow her to deal with the "little things of life."

Agnia Lvovna was really busy to the limit. She broadcast on the radio, starred on television. But, nevertheless, it was she who was considered the head of the house, everything was done only with her knowledge and the daughter did not complain about the inattention of her mother. Tanya, in turn, tried not to upset her mother. She studied well, did not receive any comments, her parents were not even called to school for all ten years of study. By the way, Barto did not like to go to parent meetings. Not because she was not interested in the affairs of her daughter - Agnia Lvovna was embarrassed ... of her fame. And she even forbade Tanya to tell in class that her mother was a famous writer. Only a few closest friends of the girl who visited her knew about this.

When the family decided it was time to have own dacha, Agniya Lvovna with pleasure began to supervise its construction.

Tatyana Shcheglyaeva lived all her life in her parents' apartment. And in memory of her mother, she preserved the whole situation in the form in which Agnia Lvovna created it. Here everything will remain so. Tatyana Andreevna's children will follow this, and, of course, they will not throw out a single old family photograph, not a single notebook. Vladimir and Natalya - Barto's beloved grandchildren - memories of the grandmother of the road just like Tatyana Andreevna about her mother.

Barto Agnia Lvovna (1906 ─1981) - Soviet poetess and writer, composed works for children, wrote scripts for films, worked as a radio presenter.

Childhood

Agnia Barto (nee name Volova) was born on February 17, 1906.
Her parents were educated Jewish people. Dad, Lev Nikolaevich Volov, worked as a veterinarian. Mother, Maria Ilyinichna Volova (maiden name Bloch), led household and raised a daughter. Parents met and got married in the Baltic city of Kovno.

Agnia's uncle, mother's brother Grigory Ilyich Bloch, was a famous phthisiatrician and otolaryngologist, director of the Yalta Clinic of the Tuberculosis Institute. He was fond of writing children's educational poems, perhaps his niece went to his uncle.

Agnia was born in Moscow, where she spent her childhood and adolescence. With special warmth, she always remembered her father. Lev Nikolaevich loved his profession as a veterinarian too much, he often had to leave for Siberia on duty. But when he was at home and spent cozy evenings with his daughter, then 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 with early years. He took a book by L. N. Tolstoy with a larger font, showed his daughter the letters, taught him to read. He especially admired this writer, he constantly re-read all his works. And the first serious gift from the father to his daughter was the book “How Lev Nikolayevich 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 it was still very far away.

Agnia Barto's entire childhood passed, as befitted in those days for a wealthy, intelligent family, 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, her father led it, he loved art and dreamed that his daughter would become a famous ballerina. She was diligently engaged in dancing for a long time, but she did not show any special talent in this matter.

But the girl began to write poetry from an early age. While studying at the gymnasium, Agnia and her girlfriends were fond of Akhmatova's poetry, they themselves tried to write. But not everyone succeeded. And Agnia did well, and not bad. Nevertheless, she did not give up ballet classes, she studied at the gymnasium and at the ballet school.

Papa was the first to listen and criticize Agnia. Here he showed all his severity, demanded that his daughter express herself correctly and observe poetic measurements. And the young talent, as if on purpose, constantly changed size in the lines, her father called this stubbornness on her part. But after many years, it is the change in size that will become a hallmark poetry Agnes Barto.

The revolution and civil war did not particularly affect the life of a 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 the gymnasium, 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. The workers were given herring heads, and from them it was possible to cook soup.

Before graduation, 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 students of the school. The People's Commissar looked through all the examination 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 hardly contain his laughter, and after a while Agnia was asked to go to the People's Commissariat for Education. Lunacharsky met with her and said that the girl was created in order to compose 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 comedian poet.

Therefore, a young, tall and graceful girl got a job in the Moscow theater, where she worked for about a year in a ballet troupe.

creative way

However, Lunacharsky turned out to be right: somehow he managed to see in the young ballerina the makings of a great poet.

And already in 1925, Agnia Barto's first book "Chinese Wang Li" was published, followed by a collection of poems "The Thief Bear". She was only 19 years old when she entered the world that she dreamed of as a young schoolgirl - the world of Silver Age poetry.

Agnia quickly became popular, but this fact did not add her courage in any way, she was extremely shy. Barto adored Mayakovsky's work, but when she had the chance to meet the poet, she never got 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 to live life without having enemies. She never pretended to be a smarter person than she really is, did not get involved in near-literary squabbles, and was always aware that there was still much to be learned 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 Agnia 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, which was destined for a special purpose.

When the whole country was already reading the poem "Zvenigorod", Agnia Lvovna received a letter from a woman who had lost her daughter at the beginning of the war. Some of the fragments depicted in the poem from children's stories seemed familiar to the woman, and she began to hope that in that orphanage Agniya Barto communicated with her daughter. 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 Agniya Barto began to receive 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 Agniya Barto hosted at the Mayak radio station for 9 years.

Agniya Barto is the only children's poetess who, with her poems, speaks to children in their mother tongue like a peer. She has a very easy style. And it’s not for nothing that “Our Tanya is crying loudly”, “A bull is walking, swinging”, “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, she certainly introduces her poems to her children and grandchildren.

Barto also wrote screenplays for such well-known films as:

• "Foundling" (1939);
• "Elephant and Rope" (1945);
• "Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character" (1953);
• "10,000 Boys" (1961).

Creativity Agnia Barto was deservedly noted by the government.

In 1950, for the book Poems for Children, she received the Stalin Prize, 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 happened 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 thumb, explaining this by the fact that the baby's head was blown off by a shell. Agniya then wrote to her friend in a letter: “How and with what words can you 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, as if toy country, blond German girls in dresses with a fascist swastika, heard Nazi slogans and realized that the war of the Germans with the Soviet Union was inevitable.

When the war began, Agniya Barto was not going 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 - Agniya Barto with two children. From there, the poetess often traveled to the capital, made recordings for the All-Union Radio, read her children's poems. Here she stayed in her Moscow apartment, and once while she was in it, a bomb hit the neighboring house and destroyed it in front of Agnia.

She constantly asked to join the active army and by the end of the war she achieved her goal. Agnia Barto was sent to the front for one month, where she read leaflets with her children's poems to the fighters. And they, who had seen the views of men, who had blood and death before their eyes every day, listened to the poetess and cried, because her poems reminded them of children.

Personal life

The first time Agnia got married very early, at the age of 18. Recently she had a grief, her father died. And, perhaps, the first spouse to some extent occupied the empty niche that had formed in her life.

Pavel Nikolayevich Barto was a writer, and together they composed three works: "The Smutty Girl", "The Counting Girl" and "The Ryushka Girl".

But the marriage was not for life. In 1927, the Barto couple had a boy, Edgar, whom they affectionately always 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 soulmate, destined by fate, ─ Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev. He was a fairly well-known power engineer and was one of the the best specialists USSR on gas and steam turbines. At that time, he worked as a dean at the power engineering faculty of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. They said about him that this is the most beautiful dean in the Soviet Union.

Writers and actors, musicians and directors often gathered in their house. Absolutely non-conflict Agnia literally attracted people different kind creativity. Among the close friends of Agnia Barto were Rina Zelyonaya and Faina Ranevskaya.

Agnia and Andrey loved each other very much and lived happy life, a girl Tatyana was born in marriage, who is now the main custodian of the poetess's heritage.

The children of 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 later lived with Agnia Lvovna and her family, even when the children became adults, helped to manage 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 suffered an irreparable grief. It was a sunny and bright spring, the whole country was looking forward to victory. Son Garik, a seventeen-year-old wonderful boy, returned from school earlier than usual. Nanny Domna Ivanovna was a little late with dinner, and the boy decided to ride a bicycle. A truck that drove around the corner hit Garik, he fell, hit his temple on the curb and died instantly.

There was no beloved, such a beautiful and affectionate son, incredibly capable in the sciences and music. Agnia completely immersed herself, for her food, sleep, conversations, and indeed the whole the world. Victory Day passed by her, which she was waiting for very much. Did she remember the Spanish woman in those days, could she find words to describe the feelings of a mother who had lost her son?

She devoted her entire future life to her beloved husband, daughter and grandchildren, and, of course, to the children for whom she wrote poetry.

In 1970, doctors diagnosed an oncological disease in the wife of Andrei Vladimirovich, again Agniya 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, graduated from the Energy Institute, candidate of technical sciences.

Which life path passed Barto Agnia? The biography of the beloved poetess, on whose poems several generations of children grew up, is of interest to both children who know her poems by heart, and parents who raise their children on such familiar lines. The famous “A bull is walking, swinging ...”, “Our Tanya is crying loudly ...”, “They dropped the bear on the floor ...” are associated with the first steps of the baby, the first word “mother”, the first teacher, the first school bell. The style of these favorite lines is very light, the author speaks to the child as if he were a peer, in a language he understands.

Not everyone knows about the personal tragedy of this bright person, about the important life role that Agnia Lvovna Barto took on, whose biography is closely connected with children. In the post-war years, the famous poetess helped thousands of people lost during the war to meet.

Agniya Barto: creativity and biography

For children, Agniya Barto is the very first and favorite writer, whose poems, having matured and created families, they tell their children already. Agnia Lvovna was born in 1906 in the family of Lev Nikolaevich Volov, a veterinarian. The family led a typical for those times way of life of a well-to-do home: with home primary education, French, ceremonial dinners. The father was engaged in education; being a fan of art, he saw his daughter as a famous ballerina, which Agnia did not become. The girl was interested in another direction - poetic, which she became interested in following her gymnasium friends.

In 1925, poems for children were published: “Chinese Wang Li”, “Bear-thief”. Agnia was very shy and, once deciding to read her poem to Chukovsky, she attributed the authorship to a five-year-old boy. The talented girl finally decided on the topic of poetry after a conversation with Vladimir Mayakovsky, in which he spoke about the need for a fundamentally new one capable of playing an important role in educating a future citizen. Agniya Barto believed that her works would bring up highly cultured, patriotic, honest citizens of their country. The biography of Agnia Barto for children is associated with favorite poems; from 1928 to 1939 the poetess wrote such collections of poems: “The Boy is the other way around”, “Brothers”, “Toys”, “Bullfinch”.

The life of the poetess: creative and personal

Agnia Barto's personal life was not boring; quite early, she started a family with the poet Pavel Barto, gave birth to a child - the son of Garik.

The first marriage cracked, perhaps due to youthful haste, or maybe this is due to professional success that Pavel Barto could not come to terms with. At the age of 29, Agnia went to another man - energy scientist Andrei Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev, who became the main love of her life. From him, Agnia gave birth to a daughter, Tatyana. The non-conflict character of Agniya Barto and the authority of the dean of the power engineering faculty of MPEI (“the most beautiful dean Soviet Union”) - Andrey Vladimirovich - they attracted actors, musicians, writers to their house. Agniya Barto was very close friends with Faina Ranevskaya.

Barto Agnia, whose biography is of interest to already matured generations who grew up on their favorite poems, traveled quite a lot as part of delegations from the Soviet Union, and in 1937 participated in the International Congress for the Defense of Culture in Spain. It was there that she saw with her own eyes, because the meetings were held in a burning besieged Madrid, and orphaned children wandered among the destroyed houses. The most difficult impression on Agnia was made by a conversation with a Spaniard, who showed a photograph of her son and covered his head with her finger, explaining in such a way that the boy had been torn off by a shell. How to convey the feelings of a mother who survived her own child? She received an answer to this terrible question a few years later.

Barto Agnia: biography during the war years

Agniya Barto knew about the inevitability of war with Germany. In the late 30s, she visited this clean, tidy country, saw pretty curly girls in dresses decorated with a swastika, heard Nazi slogans sounding on every corner. The war treated the poetess mercifully; even during the evacuation, she was next to her husband, who received a referral to the Urals, namely to Sverdlovsk. According to Agniya Barto, which was soon confirmed by the words of the writer Pavel Bazhov, the Urals were closed, harsh and distrustful people. Sverdlovsk teenagers, having taken the place of adults who had gone to the front, worked at defense factories.

Agnia just needed to communicate with children, from whom she drew stories and inspiration. In order to somehow get closer to them, the poetess mastered the profession of a turner of the 2nd category. Working for lathe, she diligently proved her usefulness to a society that was forcibly placed within the framework of a brutal war. Agnia Lvovna spoke on the radio of Moscow and Sverdlovsk, wrote military articles, essays, and poems. She spent 1942 on the Western Front, as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda. In the postwar years she visited England, Bulgaria, Japan, Iceland and a number of other countries.

The personal tragedy of Agnia Barto

The poetess returned to Moscow in 1944. Life went back to normal, friends returned from evacuation, the children began to study again. Everyone looked forward to the end of the war. May 4, 1945 was a tragic day for Agnia. On this day, a truck that drove around the corner hit 15-year-old Garik, who was riding a bicycle, to death. Victory Day faded for maternal heart, her child was gone. Hardly having survived this tragedy, Agnia turned all her love to her daughter Tatyana, continuing to work hard at creativity.

The 1940s-1950s were marked by the release of new collections by Agnia Barto: "Merry Poems", "First Grader", "Poems for Children", "Zvenigorod". At the same time, the poetess worked on the scripts for children's films "Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character", "Foundling", "Elephant and rope". In 1958, a significant cycle of satirical children's poems "Leshenka, Leshenka", "Grandfather's granddaughter" was written.

Favorite poet of all generations

Barto Agnia, whose biography is interesting to her fans, thanks to her written poems, has become an influential writer, a favorite of the entire Soviet Union, "the face of a Soviet children's book." In 1947, the poem "Zvenigorod" was published, telling about children who lost their parents during the war years. It was written after visiting orphanage in Zvenigorod - a town near Moscow. This poem, which used conversations with children, was destined for a special share. After the release of Zvenigorod, Agnia Lvovna received a letter from a woman who had lost her eight-year-old daughter during the war. Fragments of the memories of the children depicted in the poem seemed familiar to the woman, and she flattered herself with the hope that Agnia was communicating with her missing daughter. So it actually turned out. Native people met after 10 years.

At the Mayak radio station in 1965, the program “Looking for a Person” began to go on the air, hosted by Agniya Barto. The search work was based on childhood memories, which, according to the writer, are so tenacious and sharp that they remain with the child for life. For 9 years of painstaking work, Agnia Barto managed to connect thousands of human destinies.

In her personal life, everything went well: her husband was successfully moving up the career ladder, Agnia became the grandmother of Vladimir's beautiful grandson, for whom she wrote the verse "Vovka is a kind soul." The poetess still traveled around the world, was the face of any delegation, because she knew how to keep herself in society, spoke several languages, danced beautifully and dressed beautifully. The doors of Agnia Barto's house were always open for guests; academicians, aspiring poets, famous actors and MPEI students gathered at the same table.

The last years of Agnia Barto

In 1970, Andrei Vladimirovich, the husband of Agnia Barto, died of cancer, whom she survived for 11 years. All these years, Agnia Lvovna worked tirelessly, wrote 2 books of memoirs, more than a hundred poems. Fearing loneliness, she could talk on the phone with her friends for hours, tried to see her daughter and grandchildren often. She is remembered with gratitude by the families of repressed acquaintances, for whom Agnia Lvovna found good doctors, helped to get scarce medicines, “punched” apartments - even for strangers.

Agnia Barto died in Moscow in 1981, on April 1. Having made an autopsy, the doctors were shocked by the very weak vessels and did not understand how in the last 10 years the blood flowed into the heart of such a bright person. short biography Agnes Barto covers key points her life, difficult and fruitful; we still read her poems, raise children on them, raise grandchildren.

Poetess.

She was born on February 4 (17 n.s.) in Moscow in the family of a veterinarian. She received a good home education, which was led by her father. She studied at the gymnasium, where she began to write poetry. At the same time, she studied at the choreographic school, where A. Lunacharsky came to the graduation tests and, after listening to Barto's poems, advised her to continue writing.

In 1925, books of poems for children were published "Chinese Wang Li", "The Thief Bear". A conversation with Mayakovsky about how children need a fundamentally new poetry, what role it can play in educating a future citizen, finally determined the choice of subject matter for Barto's poetry. She regularly published collections of poems: "Brothers" (1928), "Boy on the contrary" (1934), "Toys" (1936), "Bullfinch" (1939).

In 1937, Barto was a delegate to the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, which was held in Spain. There she saw with her own eyes what fascism was (congress meetings were held in the besieged burning Madrid). During the Patriotic War, Barto often spoke on the radio in Moscow and Sverdlovsk, wrote military poems, articles, and essays. In 1942 she was a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda on the Western Front.

In the post-war years she visited Bulgaria, Iceland, Japan, England and other countries.

In 1940 1950 new collections were published: "First Grader", "Zvenigorod", "Funny Poems", "Poems for Children". In the same years she worked on scripts for children's films "Foundling", "Elephant and Rope", "Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character."

In 1958 she wrote a large cycle of satirical poems for children "Leshenka, Leshenka", "Grandfather's granddaughter", etc.

In 1969 the documentary book "Find a Person" was published, in 1976 - the book "Notes of a Children's Poet".

A. Barto died in 1981 in Moscow.

"A bull is walking, swaying, sighing on the go..." The name of the author of these lines is familiar to everyone. One of the most famous children's poets Agniya Barto has become a favorite author for many generations of children. But few people know the details of her biography. For example, that she experienced a personal tragedy, but did not despair. Or about how she helped meet thousands of people who lost each other during the war.

February 1906. Maslenitsa balls were held in Moscow and the great post. Russian empire was on the eve of change: the creation of the first State Duma, carrying out the agrarian reform of Stolypin; hopes for a solution to the "Jewish question" have not yet died out in society. In the family of the veterinarian Lev Nikolaevich Volov, changes were also expected: the birth of a daughter. Lev Nikolaevich had every reason to hope that his daughter would live in another, new Russia. These hopes came true, but not in the way one might imagine. A little more than ten years remained before the revolution.

Agniya Barto did not like to remember her childhood. home primary education, French, ceremonial dinners with pineapple for dessert all these signs of bourgeois life did not adorn the biography of the Soviet writer. Therefore, Agnia Lvovna left the most meager memories of those years: a nanny from the village, fear of a thunderstorm, the sounds of a hurdy-gurdy under the window. The Volov family led a life typical of the intellectuals of that time: moderate opposition to the authorities and a well-to-do house. The opposition was expressed in the fact that Lev Nikolaevich was extremely fond of the writer Tolstoy and taught his daughter to read from his children's books. His wife, Maria Ilyinichna, was in charge of the household, a slightly capricious and lazy woman. Judging by fragmentary memories, Agnia always loved her father more. She wrote about her mother: “I remember that my mother, if she had to do something uninteresting for her, often repeated:“ Well, I will do it the day after tomorrow. ”It seemed to her that the day after tomorrow is still far away. I always I have a to-do list for the day after tomorrow."

Lev Nikolaevich, a fan of art, saw his daughter's future in ballet. Agnia was diligently engaged in dancing, but did not show much talent in this activity. The early manifested creative energy was directed to another channel - poetic. She became interested in poetry following her school friends. Ten-year-old girls then were all like one admirer of the young Akhmatova, and Agnia's first poetic experiments were full of "gray-eyed kings", "swarty-skinned youths" and "hands clenched under a veil."

The youth of Agnia Volova fell on the years of the revolution and civil war. But somehow she managed to live in her own world, where ballet and poetry coexisted peacefully. However, the older Agnia became, the clearer it was that she could not become either a great ballerina or a “second Akhmatova”. Before the graduation tests at the school, she was worried: after all, after them, she had to start a career in ballet. Lunacharsky, People's Commissar for Education, attended the exams. After the examination performances, the students showed a concert program. He diligently looked at the tests and perked up during the performance of the concert numbers. When a young black-eyed beauty recited poetry with pathos own composition titled "The Funeral March," Lunacharsky could hardly contain his laughter. And a few days later he invited the student to the People's Commissariat of Education and said that she was born to write funny poems. Many years later, Agniya Barto said with irony that the beginning of her writing career was rather insulting. Of course, in youth it is very disappointing when, instead of a tragic talent, only the abilities of a comedian are noticed in you.

How did Lunacharsky manage to discern in Agniya Barto the makings of a children's poet behind a rather mediocre poetic imitation? Or is the whole point that the topic of creating Soviet literature for children has been repeatedly discussed in the government? In this case, the invitation to the People's Commissariat of Education was not a tribute to the abilities of the young poetess, but rather a "government order." But be that as it may, in 1925, nineteen-year-old Agniya Barto published her first book, "Chinese Wang Li". The corridors of power, where Lunacharsky, by his own will, decided to make a children's poetess out of a pretty dancer, led her to the world that she dreamed of as a schoolgirl: having begun to print, Agnia got the opportunity to communicate with the poets of the Silver Age.

Glory came to her rather quickly, but did not add her courage Agnia was very shy. She adored Mayakovsky, but when she met him, she did not dare to speak. Having ventured to read her poem to Chukovsky, Barto attributed authorship to a five-year-old boy. About the conversation with Gorky, she later recalled that she was "terribly worried." Perhaps it was precisely because of her shyness that Agniya Barto had no enemies. She never tried to seem smarter than she was, did not get involved in near-literary squabbles and well understood that she had a lot to learn. " silver Age"brought up in her the most important trait for a children's writer: infinite respect for the word. Barto's perfectionism drove more than one person crazy: somehow, 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 Over and over again receiving new versions of the text, the translator at the end promised that he would never work with Barto again, even if she were at least three times a genius.

In the mid-thirties, Agnia Lvovna received the love of readers and became the object of criticism from her colleagues. Barto never spoke directly about this, but there is every reason to believe that most of frankly abusive articles appeared in the press not without the participation of the famous poet and translator Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak. At first, Marshak treated Barto patronizingly. However, his attempts to "instruct and teach" Agniya failed miserably. Once, driven to white heat by his nit-picking, Barto said: "You know, Samuil Yakovlevich, in our children's literature there is Marshak and marchers. I can't be a marshak, but I don't want to be a marcher." After that, her relationship with the master deteriorated for many years.

The career of a children's writer did not prevent Agnia from entering a stormy personal life. In her early youth, she married the poet Pavel Barto, gave birth to a son, Garik, and at twenty-nine left her husband for a man who became the main love of her life. Perhaps the first marriage did not work out, because she was too hasty with marriage, or maybe it was the professional success of Agnia, 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, from whom she gave birth to her second child, daughter Tatyana. Andrey Vladimirovich was one of the most respected Soviet specialists in steam and gas turbines. He was the dean of the power engineering faculty of MPEI, and he was called "the most beautiful dean of the Soviet Union." Writers, musicians, actors often visited their house with Barto the non-conflict nature of Agnia Lvovna attracted the most different 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 traveled a lot as part of the Soviet delegations. In 1937 she visited Spain. There was already a war going on, Barto saw the ruins of houses and orphaned children. A conversation with a Spaniard 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 survived her child?" Agnia Lvovna wrote then to one of her friends. A few years later, she received the answer to this terrible question.

Agniya Barto knew that war with Germany was inevitable. In the late thirties, she traveled to this "neat, clean, almost toy country", heard Nazi slogans, saw pretty blond girls in dresses "decorated" with a swastika. To her, sincerely believing in the universal brotherhood, if not adults, then at least children, all this was wild and scary. But the war had not been too hard on her. She was not separated from her husband even during the evacuation: Shcheglyaev, who by that time had become a prominent power engineer, was sent to the Urals. Agnia Lvovna had friends in those parts who invited her to live with them. So the family settled in Sverdlovsk. The Urals seemed distrustful, closed and harsh people. Barto had a chance to meet Pavel Bazhov, who fully confirmed her first impression of the locals. During the war, Sverdlovsk teenagers worked at defense factories instead of adults who had gone to the front. They were wary of the evacuees. But Agniya Barto needed to communicate with children she drew inspiration and plots from them. In order to be able to communicate with them more, Barto, on the advice of Bazhov, received the profession of a turner of the second category. Standing at the lathe, she argued that "also a man." In 1942, Barto made one last attempt to become an "adult writer". Or rather, a front-line correspondent. Nothing came of this attempt, and Barto returned to Sverdlovsk. She understood that the whole country lives according to the laws of war, but still she missed Moscow very much.

Barto returned to the capital in 1944, and almost immediately life returned to its usual course. In the apartment opposite the Tretyakov Gallery, the housekeeper Domash was again engaged in housekeeping. Friends were returning from evacuation, son Garik and daughter Tatyana again began to study. Everyone was looking forward to the end of the war. On May 4, 1945, Garik returned home earlier than usual. Home was late with dinner, the day was sunny, and the boy decided to ride a bicycle. Agnia Lvovna did not object. It seemed that nothing bad could happen to a fifteen-year-old teenager in the quiet Lavrushinsky Lane. But Garik's bicycle collided with a truck that had come around the corner. The boy fell to the pavement, hitting his temple on the sidewalk curb. Death came instantly. Barto's friend Evgenia Taratura recalls that Agniya Lvovna these days completely withdrew into herself. She didn't eat, she didn't sleep, she didn't talk. The Victory Day did not exist for her. Garik was affectionate, charming, handsome boy capable of music and exact sciences. Did Barto remember the Spanish woman who lost her son? Was she tormented by guilt for frequent departures, for the fact that Garik sometimes lacked her attention?

Be that as it may, after the death of her son, Agnia Lvovna turned all her maternal love to her daughter Tatyana. But she did not work less on the contrary. In 1947 she published the poem Zvenigorod, a story about children who lost their parents during the war. This poem was destined for a special fate. Poems for children turned Agniya Barto into the "face of the Soviet children's book", 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. It can be called an accident or a miracle. Agniya Barto wrote the poem after visiting a real orphanage in the town of Zvenigorod near Moscow. In the text, as usual, she used her conversations with children. After the book was published, she received a letter from a lonely woman who had lost her eight-year-old daughter during the war. Fragments of childhood memories included in the poem seemed familiar to the woman. She hoped that Barto communicated with her daughter, who disappeared during the war. And so it turned out: mother and daughter met ten years later. In 1965, the radio station "Mayak" began to broadcast the program "I'm looking for a man." The search for missing people with the help of the media was not the invention of Agnia Barto this practice existed in many countries. The uniqueness of the Soviet analogue was that the search was based on childhood memories. "The child is observant, he sees sharply, accurately and often remembers what he sees for life," wrote Barto. "Can not children's memory help in the search? Can parents recognize their adult son or daughter from their childhood memories?" Agniya Barto devoted nine years of her life to this work. She managed to unite almost a thousand war-torn families.

In her own life everything went well: her husband was moving up the career ladder, her daughter Tatyana got married and gave birth to a son, Vladimir. It was about him that Barto composed the poems "Vovka - a kind soul." Andrey Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev was never jealous of her fame, and he was pretty amused by the fact that in some circles he was known not as the largest specialist in steam turbines in the USSR, but as the father of "Our Tanya", the one that she dropped into the river ball (Barto wrote these poems for her daughter). Barto still traveled a lot around the world, even visited the United States. Agnia Lvovna was the "face" of any delegation: she knew how to keep herself in society, spoke several languages, dressed beautifully and danced beautifully. In Moscow, there was definitely no one to dance with - Barto's social circle was made up of writers and colleagues of her husband - scientists. Therefore, Agnia Lvovna tried not to miss a single dance reception. Once, while in Brazil, Barto, as part of the Soviet delegation, was invited to a reception by the owner of Machete, the most popular Brazilian magazine. The head of the Soviet delegation, Sergei Mikhalkov, was already waiting for her in the lobby of the hotel, when the KGB officers reported that a "vicious anti-Soviet article" had been printed in Mashet the day before. Naturally, there could be no talk of any reception. It was said that Mikhalkov could not forget the upset face and words of Agnia Barto, who got out of the elevator in an evening dress and with a fan, for a long time.

In Moscow, Barto often received guests. It must be said that the writer was extremely rarely engaged in housekeeping. In general, she retained her usual way of life from childhood: a housekeeper completely freed her from household chores, the children had a nanny and a driver. Barto loved to play tennis and could arrange a trip to capitalist Paris to buy a pack of drawing paper she liked. But at the same time, she never had a secretary, or even an office - only an apartment in Lavrushinsky Lane and an attic in a dacha in Novo-Daryino, where there was an old card table and stacks of books piled up. But the doors of her house were always open to guests. She gathered MPEI students, academicians, aspiring poets and famous actors around the same table. She was non-confrontational, adored practical jokes and did not tolerate swagger and snobbery. Once she arranged a dinner, set the table - and attached a sign to each dish: "Black caviar for academics", "Red caviar for corresponding members", "Crabs and sprats for doctors of science", "Cheese and ham for candidates ", "Vinaigret for laboratory assistants and students". They say that the laboratory assistants and students were sincerely amused by this joke, but the academicians lacked a sense of humor, some of them were then seriously offended by Agnia Lvovna.

In 1970, her husband, Andrei Vladimirovich, died. He spent the last few months in the hospital, Agnia Lvovna stayed with him. After the first heart attack, she was afraid for his heart, but the doctors said that Shcheglyaev had cancer. It seemed that she returned to the distant forty-fifth: the most precious thing was again taken 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, only began to fear loneliness. I talked for hours with my friends on the phone, tried to see my daughter and grandchildren more often. She still did not like to remember her past. She was also silent about the fact that for decades she helped the families of repressed acquaintances: she got scarce medicines, found good doctors; about the fact that, using her connections, for many years she "punched" apartments sometimes for people who were completely unfamiliar.

She passed away on April 1, 1981. After the autopsy, the doctors were shocked: the vessels were so weak that it was not clear how the blood had flowed into the heart for the past ten years. Once Agniya Barto said: "Almost every person has moments in his life when he does more than he can." In her own case, it was not a minute—that was how she lived her whole life.