Leonid Kaminsky is a Russian writer, journalist, artist and theater figure who has most of all shown his talent in humorous children's art. The author pushed the birth of Masha’s daughter on such an unusual life path, the statements of which, like pearls, were carefully collected and recorded by a loving father, who became part-time storyteller, artist and writer for his child. Because the little ones wanted to share such interesting and funny judgments with the public, Leonid began to write stories on their basis and publish them in children's magazines. But that was later ...
Kaminsky Leonid: biography
And first, the world, or rather, the town of Kalinkovichi in the Gomel region, met the future writer Lenya, who was born on April 27, 1931. The boy’s childhood coincided with wartime, the blockade of Leningrad and the evacuation. In 1954, Leonid Kaminsky, whose stories both the adult and the young generation read with pleasure, entered the Engineering and Construction Institute in Leningrad, where, along with his lovers of humor, he painted the wall-paper "Lightning" with caricatures of negligent students and friendly cartoons of teachers. In 1966, the printing institute in Moscow and the specialty “graphic artist” remained behind. As a thesis, Leonid presented a book of funny drawings “On Big and Small”.
Work in the Battle Pencil
A good school for Leonid Kaminsky, a man who possessed a great deal of creative optimism, was the Fighting Pencil community of poets and artists, which brought him interest in caricature. It was a team that became famous since the time of the war and the siege of Leningrad with its satirical posters, whose creations made people laugh at seemingly sad things in difficult situations. After all, everyone knows that laughter gives rise to optimism, and optimists live longer. And the “Battle Pencil” became for Kaminsky, who had been working in it for more than thirty years, a good platform that sets up people to perceive the surrounding world with ease and positive.
At the same time, the author and part-time artist Leonid Kaminsky, whose biography is familiar to most schoolchildren, conducted a humorous section called “Cheerful Call” in the Koster magazine and published on the pages of the Literary Newspaper in the then-popular “Club of 12 Chairs” with caricatures, but also with humorous works. The first printed story was called "Grafoman."
Demand and love of readers
Then there was work in the youth Leningrad magazine "Aurora" as the head of the humor department "SLON". After some time, Kaminsky Leonid, whose stories gained great popularity among children throughout the country, became a regular contributor to the magazine "Funny Pictures", publishing funny pictures and funny works for children of preschool and primary school age in the genre of poems, drawings, tales and stories. Also, the author collaborated with the children's magazines "Misha", "Sparkle", "Balamut", "Bus", "Cucumber", "Pinocchio".
Throughout his life, Leonid Kaminsky was engaged in collecting and publishing school humorous folklore, and often performed in schools and on stage with a humorous program.
Leonid Kaminsky: a lesson in laughter
For many years Leonid Davidovich traveled to schools, conducting "lessons of laughter"; the children didn’t just have fun, they scolded themselves, crawling from the chairs to the floor. For children, the writer was the best sincere friend; thousands of young Petersburgers knew him. Any book written by Leonid Kaminsky carries a huge positive, is characterized by wit and ease of presentation and is interesting to both children and their parents. Children easily understand the actions of the main characters, which the author described quite accurately, as if listening and peeping at their thoughts.
Love for children is an inexhaustible source for the work of Leonid Kaminsky
The writer has always believed that in a child it is necessary to develop self-irony and the ability to respond to jokes if the state is interested in the formation of a society of optimists. Communicating with children, Kaminsky at any age was a young soul and always retained children's mischief; from the stories of children he drew ideas for new books, the most famous of which is “Lessons of laughter” (1986). Despite the fact that the author flaunts and ridicules the bad habits of children, Kaminsky's great love for young readers is felt through the lines.
Leonid Kaminsky - the most famous teacher of laughter
In addition to its own poems, stories and drawings on school subjects, it included many childish stories with genuine names and surnames of the authors. The laughter teacher was a collector of school folklore and its popularizer. For 25 years until the very last days, he led the “Merry bell” department in the children's magazine “Bonfire”, from where the nickname Kaminsky - the Teacher of Laughter — originated. The author believed that the department of humor in the journal for schoolchildren should be led by a teacher, or rather, a teacher of laughter. The reaction of the readers was stunning: thousands of letters with pearls of school humor came from different parts of the Soviet Union . Leonid Davidovich, who believed that a person who lacks a sense of humor, is dangerous for society, was a regular author of Murzilka, Fun Pictures and other publications for children. His poems are part of the school curriculum for literature.
On the stage of the Theater "Experiment" was staged the play "Lessons of laughter", which lasted more than 10 years (from 1981 to 1992). In it, the role of a cheerful and witty teacher was played by Leonid Kaminsky. The author also conducted funny stories about the school in tandem with his friend, the poet Sergey Makhotin.
Funny story from the life of Leonid Kaminsky
Leonid Kaminsky, like every person, had his own funny story that happened with his poem “Announcement”. It was first published in 1983 - the times when advertisements were not hung on walls, but on drainpipes, in Funny Pictures. And now the published poem, which told about the sale of various things and the corresponding picture in the form of an advertisement with a “fringe”, cut down below and the phone number indicated for credibility, made a splash in the magazine, the circulation of which was huge. The telephone number indicated began to call Leningrad from all over the country, each asking about his own: who was selling the talking parrots, who was talking about import umbrellas. I got a pensioner who had the same number in Moscow. The latter, having figured out what’s the matter, complained about the Funny Pictures magazine. As a result, this person changed their phone number. But there were other cities with the same phone numbers ...
Leonid Kaminsky, whose works are beloved and read by the young generation, was the only one at once in four creative unions of St. Petersburg: artists, journalists, writers, and theater figures. Suddenly passed away on November 23, 2005 before the next meeting with schoolchildren.