Agniya barto is her patronymic. Barto Agnia Lvivna. cartoons

Barto Agnia Lvovna, whose biography will be discussed in detail in this article, is famous throughout the post-Soviet space for her wonderful children's poems. However, few people know that the poetess was also engaged in translations, wrote screenplays and even was a radio host.

Childhood

Barto Agnia was born on February 17, 1906. The biography of the writer says that her childhood years were very joyful. The girl was born into an intelligent family. Her father, Lev Nikolaevich, worked as a veterinarian, and her mother, Maria Ilyinichna, raised her daughter and ran the household.

Agnia (nee Volova) was born in Moscow, where she spent her childhood and youth. She always remembered her father especially warmly. Lev Nikolaevich often went on business trips, but on those rare days when he was at home, he spent a lot of time with his beloved daughter, read Krylov's fables to her, and taught her to read. It was he who instilled in Agnia a love of literature. His first serious gift was a biography book "How L. N. Tolstoy lived and worked."

The poetess had somewhat conflicting feelings for her mother. On the one hand, she loved her, on the other, she admitted that she considered her a capricious and lazy woman who constantly puts off things for tomorrow. The nanny, who came from the village, and the governess, who taught the girl French, took care of the child.

Academic years

Agnia Barto (photo and biography are presented in this article) received an excellent home education, led by her father. Lev Nikolaevich hoped that his daughter would become a ballerina, so she danced for many years, but she did not show talent in this area. But Agnia began to write poetry already in childhood. Akhmatova became the standard for her. Nevertheless, she did not give up ballet and combined these classes with gymnasium classes.

The first critic for Agnia was the father. He was very strict about her poetic samples and did not allow his daughter to neglect the style and meter. He especially scolded her for the fact that she often changed sizes in the lines of one verse. However, it is precisely this feature of Barto's poetry that will later become distinctive.

The revolutionary events and the Civil War did not particularly affect the fate of the girl, as she lived in the world of ballet and poetry. After the gymnasium, Agnia went to the Choreographic School, which she graduated in 1924. These were hungry years, and the future poetess, despite her fifteen years of age, went to work in a store where they gave out herring heads, from which they cooked soup.

Final exam

The biography of Agnia Barto is replete with happy accidents (a brief summary of the life of the poetess can be made up of many unexpected coincidences). So, at the ballet school, the graduation test was approaching, at which Lunacharsky himself, the people's commissar of education, was supposed to be present. The program included a final exam and a concert prepared by the graduates. At the concert, Agnia read her poems, it was a humorous sketch "Funeral March". Lunacharsky remembered the young poetess and after some time she was invited to the People's Commissariat for Education. The People's Commissar personally talked with Agnia and said that her vocation was to write humorous poems. This offended the girl very much, since she dreamed of writing about love. Therefore, Barto did not listen to Lunacharsky and entered the ballet troupe, in which she worked for a year.

The path of the poetess

She was forced to give up her career as a ballerina Barto Agnia, the biography of the writer changed dramatically after working in a theater troupe. The girl realized that the dance is not hers. And already in 1925 the first book of the poetess was published - "Chinese Wang Li", and then the collection of poems "The Thief Bear". By this time she was only 19 years old.

Barto very quickly gained fame, but this did not save her from her natural shyness. It was she who prevented the girl from meeting Mayakovsky, whose poems she adored. At the same time, books with her poems for children were published one after another: “Toys”, “Following flowers in the winter forest”, “Bullfinch”, “Boy on the contrary”, etc.

1947 was marked by the release of the poem "Zvenigorod", the heroes of which were children whose parents died during the war. To write this work, Barto visited several orphanages, talked with their pupils, who told her about their lives and the dead families.

Creation

In her poems, Barto Agnia spoke with children in their language. The biography of the poetess indicates that she had no creative failures. Perhaps the reason for this was her attitude towards the kids, as peers. That is why each of us is familiar with her poems and remember them by heart. It is with the works of Barto that a child first gets acquainted, and then tells them to his children.

Few people know that Agnia was also a screenwriter. In particular, she wrote scripts for the following well-known films:

• "Ten thousand boys".
• Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character.
• "Foundling".
• "Elephant and Rope".

Barto received several government awards for her works. Among them are the Stalin (1950) and Lenin (1972) prizes.

Foreign trips and war

Barto Agnia has been abroad several times (the biography confirms this). It first happened in 1937. The poetess ended up in Spain, where hostilities were taking place. Here she witnessed terrible pictures and heard the stories of mothers who lost their children forever. Already in the late 30s, the writer went to Germany, which seemed like a toy. However, from the slogans and Nazi symbols, I realized that the Soviet Union could not avoid war.

During the Great Patriotic War, Barto did not want to evacuate the capital and was going to work on the radio. However, her second husband, a specialist in power plants, was sent to the Urals, and he took his family with him - his wife and two children. Despite this, the poetess found the opportunity to come to Moscow and record programs for the All-Union Radio. In the capital, Barto lived in her apartment and somehow came under bombardment. Her house was not damaged, but she saw the destruction of the neighboring one and remembered it for a long time.

At the same time, she repeatedly asked to be enrolled in the army, and at the end of the war her wish was granted. Agnia was sent to the front, where she read her children's poems to the soldiers for a month.

Personal life

Not so lucky in her personal life as in her work was Agniya Barto. A short biography that tells about her family is full of irreparable losses and grief.

For the first time, the poetess married Pavel Nikolaevich Barto at the age of 18, and it was under his last name that she became famous. He was a writer and initially worked with Agnia. They composed the following works: "Girl-Revushka", "Counting" and "Girl Dirty". In 1927, a boy was born to the couple, who was named Edgar, but Agnia always affectionately called him Garik. The birth of a child did not save the marriage, and after 6 years the couple broke up. Presumably, the reason was the creative success of the poetess, which her husband refused to recognize.

The second marriage was much more successful. Andrey Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev, who was considered one of the best power engineers of the USSR, became the chosen one. Representatives of various creative professions often gathered in their house: directors, writers, musicians, actors. Among Barto's friends were Faina Ranevskaya and Rina Zelenaya. Andrei and Agnia loved each other, their life together went well. Soon they had a daughter, who was named Tatyana.

On May 4, 1945, a terrible tragedy occurred in the family - a car hit Garik, who was riding a bicycle. The seventeen-year-old youth died instantly. In the first months after the funeral, Agnia was cut off from reality, ate almost nothing and did not talk to anyone. The poetess devoted her further life to her husband and the upbringing of her daughter and grandchildren.

In 1970, Barto was waiting for another blow - her husband died of cancer. The poetess survived him for 11 years and left this world on April 1, 1981.

Agnia Barto (biography): interesting facts

Here are some notable events from the life of the poetess:

• All Barto's documents indicate that she was born in 1906. But in fact, Agnia was born a year or two later. The inaccuracy in the dates is not a mistake of bureaucrats, the writer added extra years to herself so that she was hired, since in those years there was a terrible famine in the country.
• The poem "Zvenigorod" is remarkable not only for its popularity and themes. Immediately after its publication, Agnia received a letter written by a woman who had lost her daughter at the beginning of the war. Some parts of the poem seemed familiar to her and she had a hope that the poetess was talking with her child in the orphanage. It soon became clear that this was the case. Mother and daughter reunited after a 10-year separation.
• In her youth, Agnia was in love with Mayakovsky. It was the words of the poet that you need to write only for children that prompted the girl to choose such a poetic fate.

Agnia Barto: biography for children

It is better to start a story about the life of a poetess for kids from her childhood. Tell about parents, ballet classes and dreams. Then you can move on to poetry. It is desirable here to recite a few verses of Barto. It would be useful to mention foreign trips and bring interesting facts. You can focus on the communication of the poetess with children. It is better not to touch personal life - it is rarely interesting for schoolchildren.

Finally, we can talk about how Agniya Lvovna Barto spent the last years of her life. A biography for children should not be replete with dates.

Agnia Lvovna Barto (née Volova). She was born on February 4 (17), 1906 in Moscow - she died on April 1, 1981 in Moscow. Russian Soviet children's poetess, writer, screenwriter, radio host.

Agnia Volova, who later became widely known as Agnia Barto, was born on February 4 (17 according to the new style) in Moscow in a Jewish family.

Father - Lev Nikolaevich (Abram-Lev Nakhmanovich) Volov (1875-1924), veterinarian.

Mother - Maria Ilyinichna (Elyashevna) Volova (nee Bloch; 1881-1959), a housewife, originally from Kovno (now Kaunas).

Mother's brother - a well-known otorhinolaryngologist and phthisiatrician Grigory Ilyich Bloch (1871-1938), in 1924-1936 was the director of the throat clinic of the Institute of Tuberculosis Climatology in Yalta (now it is the I.M. Sechenov Research Institute of Physical Methods of Treatment and Medical Climatology) . Grigory Bloch was also known as the author of children's educational poems.

According to some sources, the original name and patronymic of Agnia Barto is Getel Leibovna.

Agnia studied at the gymnasium, attended a ballet school.

After the gymnasium, she entered the choreographic school, which she graduated in 1924. Then she entered the ballet troupe, where she worked for about a year.

In 1924, Lunacharsky, People's Commissar for Education, attended a demonstration concert of graduates of the choreographic school. He drew attention to the performance of poetry by Agnia and a few days later invited her to an appointment with his people's commissariat, where he advised her to become a poetess.

In the mid-1920s, she married the poet Pavel Barto and took her husband's surname.

During World War II, the Barto family was evacuated to Sverdlovsk. There she had to learn the profession of a turner. The prize received during the war, she gave to the construction of the tank.

In 1944 she returned to Moscow.

In 1949, her collection of poems was published under the title "Poems for children", for which she was awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree (1950).

Most of Agnia Barto's poems are written for children - preschoolers or younger students. Her style is very light, and the poems are easy to read and memorize for children. The author, as it were, speaks to the child in a simple everyday language, without lyrical digressions and descriptions - but in rhyme. And the conversation is with young readers, as if the author is their age.

Barto's poems are always on a modern theme, she seems to be telling a story that happened recently, and it is typical for her aesthetics to call the characters by their names: "Tamara and I", "Who does not know Lyubochka", "Our Tanya is crying loudly", "Volodin's portrait", " Lyoshenka, Lyoshenka, do me a favor ”- we are talking about the well-known Lyoshenka and Tanya, who have such shortcomings, and not at all about child readers.

In 1970, a collection of her poems "For Flowers in the Winter Forest" (1970) was published, for which she was awarded the Lenin Prize (1972).

Also popular was her book Notes of a Children's Poet, published in 1976.

Agniya Barto reads her poems

In 1964-1973, she hosted the Find a Person program at the Mayak radio station about the search for the families of children who were lost during the Great Patriotic War. Thanks to this transfer, ties were restored between members of almost a thousand Soviet families. On the basis of the program, the prose book "Find a Man" (1968) was written. Later, the format of the program was taken as the basis for the "Wait for me" program.

She lived at the address Moscow, Lavrushinsky lane, d. No. 17 (“House of Writers”).

Agniya Barto died on April 1, 1981. She was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 3).

She was posthumously awarded the Leo Tolstoy International Gold Medal "For Merit in Creating Works for Children and Youth".

The name Agnia Barto was given to the minor planet (2279) Barto, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, as well as to one of the craters on Venus.

Personal life of Agnia Barto:

Was married twice.

The first husband is Pavel Barto, a poet. Together with him, she wrote three poems - "Girl-roar", "Girl grimy" and "Counting".

In 1927, their son Edgar (Garik) was born, and after 6 years the couple divorced.

The son died on May 5, 1945 at the age of 18 - he was hit by a truck while riding a bicycle in Lavrushinsky Lane.

The second husband is Andrey Vladimirovich Shcheglyaev, heat engineer, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In marriage, a daughter, Tatyana Andreevna Shcheglyaeva, was born, candidate of technical sciences.

Screen versions of the works of Agnia Barto:

1962 - "Two illustrations" (puppet two-plot cartoon)
1983 - "Bullfinch" (drawn cartoon)
1984 - "Magic Shovel" (drawn cartoon)
2004 - "Tamara and I" (2D computer animation.

Poems of Agnia Barto:

pancakes
Katia
Assistant
chatterbox
Quartet
Time to say good-bye
Botany is sick
Kid
Come help me
Letter "R"
Lullaby
About lazy Fedot
goby
Kopeikin
bee venom
In an empty apartment
ship
Rubber Zina
In the theatre
Queen
The river has overflowed
To school
Lenochka with a bouquet
Needlewoman
important prisoner
Summer on the scales
Cricket
Rope
Fly, fly!
Serezha teaches lessons
That's the protector!
amateur angler
Strength of will
All for all
Lyubochka
The tits are back
Elections
Lyalechka
The starlings have arrived
Swan geese
Painter
Elephant
Two grandmothers
cheerleader mom
Bullfinch
Two sisters look at their brother
bear
Sonechka
Twins
We are at the zoo
watchman
Grandpa's granddaughter
We cleared the old garden
Dad has an exam
It was in January...
ball
left
savage
At the school party
Lesson in the garden
Speaker
Our neighbor Ivan Petrovich
Cherub
The house has moved
No tits: they didn't arrive!
Predator
His family
The right song
Cold Spring
There are such boys
Once I broke the glass
Lame stool
Greedy Egor
Deer
Miracle in the classroom
curlicues
Where are you from, tits?
Chiefs
Bunny
I'll put it off for later
Joke about Shura
Charger
Glasses
Young naturalist
Bird voices rang...
The first love
I grew up
Calls
First lesson
I know what to think
herd game
Song of the Sailors
I'm in pain
To us, on colorful pages...
Petya is tired
I'm superfluous
vacation
On the way to class

Agnia Lvovna Barto was born on February 4 (17), 1906, in Moscow, in an intelligent family. The future writer received her primary education at home. Then she was sent to study at the gymnasium. At the same time, young Agnia attended a choreographic school. The first poems were “born” at about the same time.

In 1924, Barto graduated from college and remained in the ballet troupe. She worked there until 1925.

The beginning of the creative path

Barto Agniya Lvovna, still in her youth, attracted the attention of the People's Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky. Having visited a demonstration concert of graduates of the choreographic school in 1924, he was delighted with her professional performance of poetry. Having expressed his admiration, the People's Commissar invited the girl to his People's Commissariat. A conversation took place there, during which Lunacharsky convinced Barto that she needed to develop her talent.

The heyday of literary creativity

The collection "Poems for Children" was published in 1949. The collection "For Flowers in the Winter Forest" - in 1970.

In 1976, the book "Notes of a Children's Poet" was published.

Agniya Barto contributed to the Soviet cinema. In 1939, together with R. Zelena, she wrote the script for the film “The Foundling”. In 1949 the script "The Elephant and the Rope" was written, in 1953 - "Alyosha Ptitsyn develops character", in 1961 - "10,000 Boys".

Social activity

In 1930, a letter signed by A. Barto appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta. In this letter, the author opposed another well-known children's writer, K. I. Chukovsky. Chukovsky's children's fairy tales were seen as "anti-Soviet".

In 1944, Chukovsky received a reprimand from his colleagues from the Writers' Union. The writers, led by Barto, firmly asked the writer not to write more "absurd charlatan nonsense."

From the autumn of 1965 to February 1966, Barto took an active part in the process of the writers Yu. M. Daniel and A. D. Sinyavsky. They were also accused by Barto of "anti-Sovietism".

In 1974, at the insistence of A. Barto, the daughter of K. Chukovsky, L. Chukovskaya, was expelled from the Writers' Union. Until 1987, her publications in the Soviet Union were banned.

Death

Personal life

From his first marriage, A. Barto had a son, Edgar, who was born in 1927. On May 5, 1945, he died after falling under the wheels of a truck.

The second spouse of the poet was A. V. Shcheglyaev, corresponding member of the ANSSR. Their daughter, T. A. Shcheglyaeva, is a candidate of technical sciences.

Other biography options

• There is confusion in the date of birth of Agnia Barto. “Officially” she was born in 1906, but researchers believe that this happened two years later. The confusion arose due to the fact that Barto, who knew poverty and hunger early, wanted to get a job, but she “lacked” a couple of years for this. So she faked her metrics.
• In her youth, Barto fell in love first with the poems of V.V. Mayakovsky, and then with him. She never dared to confess her feelings to him. They met often, but Mayakovsky never found out about Barto's love. Once he mentioned that writing should be for children. Agnes did just that.
• Barto rarely dedicated works to her own children. She preferred to look for her heroes in pioneer camps and schools. But the famous poem "Our Tanya cries loudly" was dedicated to the poet's daughter, Tatyana.
• In 1937, A. Barto took part in the international congress, which took place in Spain during the Civil War. For some reason, the noise of explosions prompted the poet to purchase castanets. Ignoring the difficult situation in the city, Barto got to the store and made a purchase.
• This act was the basis for jokes 4.3 points . Total ratings received: 786.

04.02.1906 - 01.04.1981

Russian poetess

(real name Volova) Biography of Agnia Barto

Agniya Barto was born on February 4 (17), 1906 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, experiencing the creative influence of A.A. Akhmatova and V.V. Mayakovsky, began to write poetic epigrams and sketches. 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, her first poems "Chinese Wang Li" and "The Thief Bear" were published. They were followed by The First of May (1926), Brothers (1928), after the publication of which, K.I. Chukovsky noted outstanding talent Barto like a children's poet. Some poems were written jointly with her husband, the poet P.N. Barto (The Dirty Girl and The Ryushka Girl, 1930).

After the publication of a cycle of poetic miniatures for the smallest "Toys" (1936), as well as poems "Flashlight", "Mashenka" and others, Barto became one of the most famous and beloved by readers of children's poets, her works were published in huge editions, were included in anthologies. The rhythm, rhymes, images and plots of these poems turned out to be close and understandable to millions of children.

Agniya Barto wrote scripts for the films The Foundling (1940, together with actress Rina Zelena), Alyosha Ptitsyn Develops Character (1953), 10,000 Boys (1962, together with I. Okada). Her poem "The Rope" was taken by the director I. Fraz as the basis for the concept of the film "The Elephant and the Rope" (1945).

During the Great Patriotic War, Barto was evacuated in Sverdlovsk, went to the front with the reading of her poems, spoke on the radio, wrote for newspapers. Her poems of the war years (the collection "Teenagers", 1943, the poem "Nikita", 1945, etc.) are mainly of a journalistic nature. For the collection "Poems for Children" (1949), Agnia Barto was awarded the State Prize (1950).

The pupils of the orphanage are described in Barto's poem "Zvenigorod" (1948). For nine years, Barto hosted the Find a Man radio program, in which she searched for people torn apart by the war. With its help, about 1000 families were reunited. About this work, Barto wrote the story "Find a Man" (published in 1968).

In "Notes of a Children's Poet" (1976), the poetess formulated her poetic and human credo: "Children need the whole gamut of feelings that give rise to humanity." Numerous trips to different countries led her to the idea of ​​the wealth of the inner world of a child of any nationality. This idea was confirmed by the poetry collection "Translations from Children" (1977), in which Barto translated children's poems from different languages.

For many years, Barto headed the Association of Literature and Art for Children, was a member of the international Andersen jury. In 1976 she was awarded the International Prize. H.K. Andersen. Barto's poems have been translated into many languages ​​of the world.

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 Man" was published, in 1976 the book "Notes of a Children's Poet" was published.

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 Great Lent began. The Russian Empire was on the eve of changes: the creation of the first State Duma, the implementation of Stolypin's agrarian reform; hopes for a solution to the "Jewish question" have not yet 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. Primary education at home, the French language, 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 home. The opposition was expressed in the fact that Lev Nikolaevich was extremely fond of the writer Tolstoy and taught his daughter to read from his children's books. His wife, Maria Ilyinichna, 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’ll do it the day after tomorrow. ”It seemed to her that the day after tomorrow was 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. Early manifested creative energy directed in another direction - poetic. She became interested in poetry following her school friends. Ten-year-old girls then all as one were admirers of the young Akhmatova, and Agnia's first poetic experiments were full of "grey-eyed kings", "dark-skinned youths" and "hands clenched under a veil".

The youth of Agnia Volova fell on the years of the revolution and the 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 the young black-eyed beauty with pathos read poems of her own composition called "The Funeral March", Lunacharsky could hardly restrain 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. The "Silver Age" brought up in her the most important trait for a children's writer: an 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 in English. 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 was 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 about this directly, but there is every reason to believe that most of the 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 a second child - daughter Tatyana. Andrei 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 character of Agnia Lvovna 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 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 Agnia 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 an affectionate, charming, handsome boy, capable of music and the 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 saw for the rest of his life," Barto wrote. "Can't a child's memory help in the search? Can't 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 poems "Vovka - a kind soul." Andrei 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 USSR's largest specialist in steam turbines, 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 stay in society, spoke several languages, dressed beautifully and danced beautifully. In Moscow, there was absolutely no one to dance with - Barto's social circle was made up of writers and her husband's colleagues - 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 a study - only an apartment in Lavrushinsky Lane and an attic in a dacha in Novo-Daryino, where there was an old card table and books piled up in piles. But the doors of her house were always open to guests. She gathered MPEI students, academics, 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, laid the table - and attached a sign to each dish: "Black caviar - for academicians", "Red caviar - for corresponding members", "Crabs and sprats - for doctors of sciences", "Cheese and ham - for candidates "," Vinaigrette - for laboratory assistants and students. They say that this joke sincerely amused the laboratory assistants and students, 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 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 case, it wasn't just a minute, it was how she lived her whole life.