Children's writer agnia barto. Agniya Lvovna Barto, a story about life and work

Soviet poetess Agniya Lvovna Barto. Her life and work is the personification of the bright and kind for so many generations of children, from the times of the USSR to the present day. I had my own cousin “Baba Aga”, very beloved, because she allowed everything, and she knew 1000 funny stories. What else does a child need. Agniya Barto has always been guided by high human principles and ideals not so much of her time, but by fundamental moral principles. She sincerely wanted and could teach the child accuracy and politeness, be able to make friends and take care of their loved ones. Barto genuinely loved children. She was well versed in the child psychology of both the smallest and adolescents. Agnia Barto's poems for kids are imbued with the understanding that children need to be unobtrusively, but confidently accompanied through life until they become independent. “Children do not have yesterday, they have everything ahead, everything is today and tomorrow.” “Isn't it important that children should be studied. To protect their moral purity... To reveal the world to them, referring to their imagination... children need the whole gamut of feelings that give rise to humanity.. Barto Agniya Lvovna (1906-1981) was born in Moscow in the family of a veterinarian. She began writing poetry while still in high school. She studied at the ballet school. At her final exams, Lunacharsky heard Barto's poetry and advised her to continue writing. In 1925, books of poems for children were published - "Chinese Wang Li", "The Thief Bear". A huge influence on Barto's work was exerted by V.V. Mayakovsky, having finally determined the choice of the theme of Barto's poetry - "education of the future citizen". She regularly published collections of poems: "Brothers" (1928), "Boy on the contrary" (1934), "Toys" (1936), "Bullfinch" (1939). The style - "lyrical miniatures", so understandable and intelligible for a child, brought Barto the glory of a classic of children's poetry. The poetess led an active social life. The creative biography of Agnia Barto is directly related not only to what is happening in the USSR, but throughout the world. Barto headed the Association of Literature and Art for Children, was a member of the international Andersen jury. Barto's poems have been translated into many languages of the world. In 1937, Barto was at the International Congress for the Defense of Culture, which was held in Spain, in the besieged, destroyed Madrid. During the Patriotic War, Barto often spoke on the radio in Moscow and Sverdlovsk, wrote military poems, articles, and essays. In 1942 she worked as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda on the Western Front. In the post-war years, Barto traveled to Bulgaria, Iceland, Japan, England and other countries. In 1945, Agniya Borto suffered a personal tragedy - the death of her son. But she went to work even more actively. In 1940-50, her collections were published: "First Grader", "Zvenigorod", "Funny Poems", "Poems for Children". In 1958, the poetess wrote a large cycle of satirical poems for children "Leshenka, Leshenka", "Grandfather's granddaughter" and others. ".
Barto launched a large-scale project to search for relatives who were lost during the war. In 1965, the radio station "Mayak" began to broadcast the program "I'm looking for a man." This inspired the poetess to write the story "Find a Man", which was published in 1968. In 1976, the book "Notes of a Children's Poet" was published - a kind of summary and generalization of all her richest experience in raising children of more than one generation. This book is like a biography of Agnia Barto, with her crystal position in life. Barto refers to the classical heritage of Russian aesthetics and pedagogy - Belinsky, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Turgenev, Chekhov. Agniya Borto was an excellent translator - not only from foreign languages - but also from the "language of children" for adults and vice versa. In 1976, the collection "Translations from Children" was published.

"I give you my heart
Draw what you want
On a white leaf
I give you my heart
Do whatever you want with it.
Play anywhere
Go with him everywhere
I won't get angry
But better on it
You don't learn to draw
Let my heart
Stay clean"
Collection of Barto "Translations from children" 1976.

A. Barto died in 1981 in Moscow.
Along with Marshak, Chukovsky, Mikhalkov, the life and work of Agnia Barto is a golden fund, a model for the development and formation of children of all ages and socio-cultural opportunities. The poems of Agnia Lvovna, so melodic, understandable and pleasant to children's ears, are still heard on children's radio channels, cited by kindergarten teachers and teachers.
“I love my horse, I will comb her hair smoothly ...”
The masseuse Valya gently whispers to make the baby smile.
Possessing an incredible sense of style, Agniya Lvovna Barto enriched the inner world of children. She skillfully managed to instill a sense of beauty, which is as difficult as simply accustoming to bad.

Victoria Maltseva

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.

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 by 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.

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 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 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 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 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 her 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 nature 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 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 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 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 turned out 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.

Every child in our country knows the poems of Agnia Barto (1906-1981). Her books were printed in millions of copies. This amazing woman devoted her whole life to children.
Agnia Lvovna Barto was born in Moscow in the family of a veterinarian. She began writing poetry in elementary school. She dreamed of becoming a ballerina, she graduated from a choreographic school.
She became a writer thanks to a curiosity. A. V. Lunacharsky was present at the graduation tests at the school, where Barto read her poem "Funeral March". A few days later, he invited her to the People's Commissariat of Education and expressed confidence that Barto was born to write funny poems. In 1925, at the State Publishing House, Barto was sent to the children's editorial office. Agnia Lvovna set to work enthusiastically. She studied with Mayakovsky, Chukovsky, Marshak.
During the Great Patriotic War, Barto spoke a lot on the radio, went to the front as a newspaper correspondent. In the postwar years, Agnia Lvovna became the organizer of the movement to search for families separated during the war. She suggested looking for lost parents on childhood memories. Through the program "Find a person" on radio "Mayak" it was possible to connect 927 separated families. The first book of the writer's prose is called "Find a Man".
Agnia Barto was repeatedly awarded orders and medals for her writing and social activities. She traveled a lot abroad, helped children's international friendship. The writer died on April 1, 1981, having lived a long and necessary life for people.
The style of her poems is very light, they are easy to remember. The author, as it were, speaks to the child in a simple everyday language - but in rhyme. And the conversation is with young readers as if the author is their age.