It is no exaggeration to say that all the children of the Soviet and then Russian era discovered and are discovering the wonderful world of nature through the stories of Vitali Bianchi. In any home library you can find shabby little books with sparrows and hedgehogs on the covers. Their more presentable descendants in bright glossy bindings flaunt today on the shelves of bookstores. Ask anyone: “Who writes children's stories about nature best of all?” - and they will answer you without hesitation: “The writer of Bianchi”. The biography of this person will be the topic of our article. How did the main “natural scientist” of our country live and work?
Vitaly Bianchi. Short biography
Vitaliy Valentinovich Bianchi was born on January 30 (February 11), 1894 in the city of St. Petersburg. Fate measured him not too long - 65 years. During this time, he experienced a lot, visited different cities, but died in the same place where he was born - in his native Leningrad (former and future St. Petersburg).
The writer’s father was an ornithologist. It was he who raised in his son the ability to observe and understand nature.
Young years of the future writer
Biography of Bianchi suggests that at the end of school he entered the Petrograd University in the natural department of the Physics and Mathematics Department, from where he was drafted into the army in 1916. In 1917, he was elected to the Council of Soldiers and Workers Deputies, then joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
In 1917-1918, Vitaly Bianchi was a member of the commission responsible for the protection of art monuments in Tsarskoye Selo, worked in the newspaper "People" in Samara. Then there were transfers to Ufa, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk and Biysk. In Biysk he was mobilized into the Russian army, from where he defected and hid under the name Belyanin. After Soviet power was established in the city, Vitaly Valentinovich worked in the education department, headed the museum, lectured at the university, and was a member of the local society of nature lovers.
The difficult life of a Soviet writer
Further biography of Bianchi is consonant with the biographies of millions of his contemporaries. In 1921 he was arrested several times. In 1922, after receiving a warning about the next arrest, Bianchi left with his family in Petrograd, where the next year (1923) his first literary works were published: the story “The Journey of the Red-headed Sparrow” and the book of short stories “Whose nose is better.”
Bianchi’s biography resembles a layer cake, where a normal life, full of scientific and literary activity, is interspersed with periods of arrest and exile:
- 1925 - arrest, exile in Uralsk. Three years later, obtaining permission to move first to Novgorod, and then to Leningrad (thanks to the request of M. Gorky and other writers and scientists).
- 1928 - return to Leningrad, release of the first issue of the famous "Forest newspaper for every year."
- 1932 - an arrest lasting three and a half weeks. Continuation of the release of the "Forest Newspaper", writing stories, tales and articles on observations of nature.
- 1935 - another arrest, sentence of exile for 5 years in the Aktobe region. Thanks to the efforts of Ekaterina Peshkova (the first wife of M. Gorky) - freedom.
During the war, the writer was evacuated to the Urals, then returned to Leningrad. At the end of his life, he suffered from a serious illness that almost completely paralyzed the work of his limbs.
The date on which the biography of Bianchi Vitaly Valentinovich ends is June 10, 1959. On this day, he died, leaving behind 120 books, which included more than three hundred fairy tales, novels, stories and articles.