Agniya Barto


Agniya Lvovna Barto was a Russian Soviet poet and children's writer of Belarusian Jewish origin.

Early life and education

Agniya was born Gitel Leybovna Volova in Moscow to a Belarusian Jewish family. Her father, Lev Nikolayevich Volov, was a veterinarian from Šiauliai, and her mother, Maria, was from Kaunas, Lithuania. Her mother's brother was, a famous otolaryngologist and phthisiologist. Agniya studied at a ballet school. She liked poetry and soon started to write her own, trying to imitate Anna Akhmatova and Vladimir Mayakovsky. She read her poetry at the graduation ceremony from the ballet school. Among the guests was the Minister of Education Anatoly Lunacharsky who remarked that instead of becoming a ballerina she should be a professional poet. According to legend, despite the fact that all of Barto's poetry at that time was about love and revolution, Lunacharsky predicted that she would become a famous children's poet.

Career

Agniya married ornithologist and poet Pavel Barto, grandson of an English-born merchant Richard Barto. Some of her children's poems were published under two names: Agniya Barto and Pavel Barto. In 1925 she published her first books: Chinese boy Wang-Li and Mishka the Petty Thief. Subsequently, she published The First of May, 1926 and Brothers, 1928 which received a positive review from Korney Chukovsky. After publishing a book of poetic miniatures for toddlers entitled Toys in 1936, she suddenly became one of the most popular children's authors, with millions of published copies.
During World War II, she wrote patriotic anti-Nazi poetry, often directly addressed to the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin. She also worked as a Western Front correspondent for the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. In 1949, she was awarded the Stalin Prize for her book Poetry for Children.
During the 1960s, Barto worked in an orphanage that inspired her to write the poem Zvenigorod. For nine years, Barto was the anchor of the radio program Find a Person, which helped people find family members lost during World War II. During that time she helped to reunite no fewer than a thousand families. She wrote a book about it in 1966. In 1977, she published Translations from the Children's Language composed of her translations of poetry written by children of different countries.
She was the author of the script for the children's films Foundling, An Elephant and a Rope 1945, Alyosha Ptitsyn builds his character, 1953, 10,000 Boys, 1962, Find a Person, 1973.

Personal life

She lived at the in Moscow. She died in Moscow in 1981 and buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

Awards and honours