Biography of E Rachev artist. Lesson summary “Russian folk tales in the works of illustrator E

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev - Honored Artist of the RSFSR, a wonderful Soviet animal artist.
He is known for his numerous works in book graphics, and his main activity is illustrations for Russian fairy tales.

The famous artist was born in 1906 in the city of Tomsk, graduated from the Kuban Art College, and studied at the Kiev Art Institute. In 1930 he began his career as an illustrator.

Over the 30 years of his creative activity, E.M. Rachev became the author of hundreds of illustrations.
Rachev deeply loved people, felt the poetry of Russian nature, and this was felt in every one of his works.

Ka Rachev's pictures Russian fairy tales and fables became his calling. Such works are especially close to the artist,
where the only characters are animals.

Rachev studied the habits of animals and was able to subtly show their qualities.
His illustrations for Russian fairy tales are replete with animals with human characteristics.
Rachev's animals are dressed in costumes and surrounded by everyday objects and furnishings.

At the end of the 1950s, Rachev prepared a large series of illustrations for the fables of I.A. Krylov for the exhibition "Soviet Russia"

Looking at the illustrations for Russian fairy tales by E.M. Rachev, I immediately remember my childhood and the fairy tales that were in my childhood. Do you remember the characters - Bayun the Cat, Lisa Patrikeevna, Kolobok, Frog Princess?

Unfortunately, the heroes of modern children - supermen, terminators and spider-men - will not teach what Russian fairy tales taught, and especially with illustrations by such a wonderful artist as Evgeniy Mikhailovich Rachev.

Rachev's paintings for children

Rachev's painting "Catch the fish, small and large"

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev

Idea and design by V.A. Turkova
© 2011, Vladimir Andreevich Turkov

When they read books, especially in childhood, they often do not ask questions:

Whose illustrations are in the book?

Who designed this book?

Therefore, the name of the illustrator is most often well known in the publishing house, but not by the reader himself.

Once the great fabulist I.A. Krylov was asked: “Why did you choose this type of poem?” He replied: “My animals speak for me.” This can rightfully be said about Rachev’s works on fairy tales and fables. In one of his articles, he writes: “If you look at my drawings and rejoice at the amusing fairy-tale invention, then it turned out like in a fairy tale. If you, looking at my birds and animals, understand that the fairy tale has a trick, it hints at people , - it means I succeeded, just like in the fairy tales that I illustrate.”

Since the beginning of Rachev’s creative activity in 1929, the total circulation of his books has amounted to more than 75 MILLION copies! and they were produced at 68! languages ​​of the peoples of Russia and the world.
On a significant part of his books, Evgeniy Mikhailovich worked together with his wife Lydia Ivanovna Racheva (1923 - 2011), who often collected material for his future books, made sketches of ornaments and folk costumes in museums, translated and retold fairy tales of different peoples, and was a compiler of collections of fairy tales and even calculated book layouts so that there would be an exact match between the test and future illustrations. This helped a lot in working on books and in their family life. It’s not without reason that they say that the strongest marriages are created not in heaven, but at work.
When the idea arose to make illustrations for Krylov’s fables, she collected material in the archives that made it possible to tie the plots of the fables to real events, which made it possible to create unique drawings that exactly corresponded to the text of the fables and the events to which they were addressed. This book of fables was very different from all other books with Krylov’s fables; the fables were provided with comments written by Lydia Ivanovna, which conveyed to the readers the meaning embedded in them by Ivan Krylov. There were other books in which you can see that among the creators was L. Gribova - that is, Lidia Ivanovna Racheva.

A word of memory about a wonderful artist, person... and about books

Last year, 2011, quietly and unnoticed, the non-round 105th anniversary of Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev, an exceptional children's book artist in his talent, took place. Only two or three Internet pages of commemorative dates found space for this modest event. More than one generation of children grew up on his books, who still remember these books, these drawings with unique “Rachev” animals.

His life can be said to be successful:

– was not a member (of any party or group, and as a result, of the Academy of Arts);

– was not involved (incredibly lucky, maybe precisely because he “wasn’t involved”);

– did not participate (with the exception of the front-line years in the Great Patriotic War, which he began in October 1941 in the militia near Moscow, and ended in 1945, when he was sent from the army to Moscow for the festive decoration of the city along with other artists).

Have worked. For many years, my favorite thing was to work on children's books, which, unfortunately, have not been published for almost the last twenty years. The book counters at this time were filled with books that I don’t want to call children’s books, with soulless, but bright and colorful drawings of caricatured fairy tale characters. On the pages of these books, lurid castles were built, which outdid the famous castles of the Bavarian King Louis II, and which have already moved from the pages of these books to the streets and open spaces of our Motherland, fencing themselves and their owners from these open spaces with fences. A generation is growing that does not feel true beauty, and which, very possibly, will not feel anything at all except this “wonderful” life fenced off from everyone.

After all, not so long ago the world, its understanding, the feeling of oneself in this world began, to a certain extent, with books and, in fact, with education. Books were read, they were examined, books were shown, they explained, including beauty. And what artists made these books - Bilibin, Vasentsov, Dekhtyarev, Konashevich, Kuzmin, Lebedev, Mavrina, Suteev, Charushin, I list them alphabetically and not all of them! Thank God, now some publishing houses are returning to these artists. Why were they forgotten, pushed aside? There is a feeling that they have fallen victim to strangely understood newfangled slogans about modernization and reforming everything. Why does this need to be reformed, sweeping aside the best that has already passed the test and that is good. Until now, humanity as a whole, its culture, and its knowledge have accumulated and developed, and only without forgetting and trampling on your past can you do something else. He forgot, and became another Ivan “not remembering his kinship.” Now they want to reform education, highlighting both compulsory “necessary” subjects, a dash of knowledge, and not so necessary ones, and children themselves will select them for themselves, assess their need for themselves. But in order to select them, you must first know them, that is, study them, and only then can you say whether this knowledge is necessary or not! In Vietnam, there is a Temple of Literature with a thousand-year history, in which you can see two slogans: “An educated person is an instrument of the state” and “Education begins with morality.” Isn’t this a guide to a reasonable attitude towards education, culture, and the future of the country!

The 100th anniversary of E.M. Rachev passed even more unnoticed in its time, for which a small exhibition of his works was prepared. This exhibition took place in the art gallery of the city of Tarusa, where Evgeniy Mikhailovich often lived for a long time, where he worked a lot, and which he loved very much because of its picturesque spaces and landscapes. During his lifetime, there were only two of his personal exhibitions for his two anniversaries in the 50s and 70s of the last century. A personal exhibition is always a very significant gift for any artist. It is noteworthy that the second exhibition in the exhibition hall on Gorky Street followed the exhibition of pilot-cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, so two artists came together in time - a storyteller at heart and a science fiction writer in subjects and profession.

Time passes, and Rachev’s workshop, which was built in the attic of a residential building with his personal fees, in which he worked for many years, and in which his numerous works were stored, is no longer there. This loss happened just in time for the artist’s 100th birthday. Such a “wonderful” gift was organized by cunning, in this case, “people” from art. Yes, the time of “privatization” passed terribly through our country and people, when even “the people’s” suddenly became someone’s “mine.”

There is something Bulgarian-sounding about the surname Rachev, which is how it was written in the passport, although it was pronounced as “Rachev” or “Rachov”, in the latter form it was written many years ago on the covers of his first books, which were published in Ukraine. The first of them was published in 1929. And he was born in the city of Tomsk in 1906. He spent his childhood in Siberia in his grandfather's family. As a boy he was restless, mischievous, ran away to the First World War and loved to draw, more than to study. Immediately after the civil war, he, still in childhood, had to make his way alone through the entire country and devastation from Siberia to the south to Novorossiysk. In order to survive, he, a boy in those years, even had to work in the port as a loader. Then there was an art college, the first paid artistic works - signs for Nepmanov shops and, finally... books. Apparently the freedom and beauty of Siberia was so ingrained in his soul that the best books were about nature and animals. His books were noticed, and he was invited to Moscow to work in the largest children's publishing house in the country, which was called differently over the years, but we always say Detgiz.

He returned to the same Detgiz after the war. Books in the publishing house were published for a long time with black and white drawings, but gradually became more and more color. And Rachev’s beautiful black and white graphics of nature, animals and birds gradually transformed, and those very bright, colorful drawings appeared, which we now call “Rachev’s”, in which we see animals with the characters of people in national costumes, which is fully consistent with the plot and morality fairy tales, and of course, the national flavor of the fairy tale. These animals completely retained their natural plasticity, did not become a caricature of either themselves or people; the human in them can only be guessed. “The fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it...” Rachev is perhaps the only artist who managed to do this. But it is surprising that when the first such Rachev book was offered to the publishing house, it sat on the shelf for a whole year. This was so new that officials were afraid that there might be some hint of the power and order that reigned in the country at that time. They came to their senses, and his new books began to be published with great success. Currently, in the same wonderful Rachev drawings, they are straightforwardly trying to look for signs of a different kind - “Sovietism” in its various aspects. But in Rachev’s drawings there have never been and are no animals with either a nationalist or an “ideological expression on their face.” Is it really possible to say about his animals that “the wolf is an inveterate imperialist, the bear is a good-natured drunkard, the fox is an insidious NEP-man,” and “the bunny should personify an inveterate coward, and therefore a hidden traitor.” His animals are always filled with folk wisdom, they are more diverse, wiser, “more humane” and... kinder, even the evil wolf. Look at his drawings and try to say otherwise.

Rachev's books were published in large editions. Fantasy, invention, expressiveness of the heroes of fairy tales, the ability to enter into folk culture, humor, kindness that came from the drawings and, of course, high graphic skill - all this aroused the keen interest of adults and the love of young readers. And perhaps the most popular among them is the Ukrainian folk tale “The Mitten,” published for the first time in 1951. It has been translated many times into other languages ​​of the world – "TheOldMan'sMitten" – "TheMagicGlobe" – "LaMitaine" – "Tebukuro" – "Der Handschuh" – " Skinvotten" - "Rukkanen". When it was published in English, numerous retellings and redrawings of this fairy tale appeared in the world. Rachev's version of this book is still one of the three longest-selling children's books in Japan. Many of his books received well-deserved awards in Russian and international book exhibitions and fairs. In 1986, for illustrations for the book of Ukrainian folk tales "Spikelet" E.M. Rachev received an Honorary Diploma of the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature of UNESCO (IBBY), which awards the International Hans Christian Andersen Prize. the titles of People's Artist of the Russian Federation, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, received the State Prize of Russia. In 1996, E.M. Rachev’s long-term work was awarded the audience award - “Golden Key”.

In the 60s of the last century, when the Malysh publishing house was organized, Evgeniy Mikhailovich was invited to the main artists and worked there for almost 20 years, creating good creative conditions for artists there. A. Brey, E. Bulatov, O. Vasiliev, V. Duvidov, A. Eliseev and M. Skobelev, Y. Zaltsman, Y. Kopeiko, V. Kurchevsky, V. Losin, M. Miturich-Khlebnikov began working at the publishing house, G. Nikolsky, V. Pertsev, A. Sklyutauskaite, M. Skobelev, N. Ustinov, V. Chizhikov and others. In this post, Evgeniy Mikhailovich attached great importance to the quality of a children's book; it had to be addressed to the little reader, understandable and interesting to him, and not to an adult, which, sometimes getting carried away, some artists forgot about. In fact, he devoted his entire creative life to children's books. And I didn’t regret it.

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Rachev lived a long life, it included many events - both personal and those that his contemporaries experienced; he was born in one country - the tsarist one, and died in a third - “democratic”, living all the time in the same one. He was buried at the Kalitnikovskoye cemetery in Moscow in 1997, and those artists with whom he worked at the Malysh publishing house came to see him off.

He was often called the artist of Russian folk tales, which was completely unfair. Among his works were illustrations for a variety of folk tales - Bashkir, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Russian, Ukrainian, peoples of the North, for the wonderful Hungarian fairy tale “Two Greedy Little Bears”, for the fairy tale of the Romanian writer Octave Pancu Yash “Everything in the forest is good, only the tailors are bad” "

But there were other themes in his work. He wonderfully illustrated books of stories and fairy tales about nature and animals, the authors of which were V. Bianki, M. Prishvin, P. Barto, D. Mamin-Sibiryak, I. Aramliev, V. Garshin, O. Ivanenko and others.

On a separate shelf there are books of fables and satirical tales illustrated by him, which were written by Rafael Pambo, Ivan Franko, Ivan Krylov, Sergei Mikhalkov, M.V. Saltykov-Shchedrin and Leo Tolstoy. Each of these books has its own author, its own personality, its own difference from the others, but everywhere the artist is easily recognizable by his drawings with unique “Rachev” animals.

Rachev’s books have long become a bibliographic rarity, but even these read and re-read, worn, with glued or lost pages, with the scribbles of their little owners, these books, which are now between twenty and eighty years old, are actively sold on the Internet and find their new readers . When they compiled a list of his books, it turned out that more than 250 of them were published! It seems that the words “My animals speak for me” have two authors - the fabulist Ivan Krylov and the artist Evgeny Rachev.

Vladimir Turkov

Smoke break. Western Front near Sukhinichi 1942.

On my birthday with my family. 02/08/1987 (photographed by son - I.E. Rachev).

At his birthday in 1994 with his son and his daughter Katya. Grandson Alyosha is standing.

...and behind me a whole bookcase of books

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev- Honored Artist of the RSFSR, Soviet animal artist, known for his work in the field of book graphics.

Born in the city of Tomsk. He lost his father early. His mother was a doctor, and his stepfather a civil engineer.

He spent his childhood in the village with his grandmother, near Tomsk, in the Siberian village of Yudino. When Eugene was twelve years old, the October Revolution took place in the country and the Civil War began. In 1920, fleeing hunger, he was forced to travel alone from Siberia to Novorossiysk, to his mother. During that difficult time of hunger, he studied at a nautical vocational school, worked in the port as a loader and winch operator, then transferred to the locomotive polytechnic school. But he became increasingly attracted to art: he wrote poetry and painted.

In 1928, he graduated with honors from the Kuban Art and Pedagogical College in Krasnodar, then briefly studied at the Kiev Art Institute and in 1930 began collaborating with various children's publishing houses as an illustrator. He chose Russian folk tales, Russian prose and fables as his specialization.

In 1936, Rachev’s drawings were seen in “Detgiz” and invited to Moscow. The young artist moved to the capital and began to work actively, but soon the Great Patriotic War began, and he went to the front, he was assigned to design a front-line newspaper. After the war, Evgeniy Mikhailovich continued to work at Detgiz, in addition, he collaborated with many other publishing houses. And, starting in 1960, he became the main artist at the Malysh publishing house and remained so for about twenty years.

Rachev devoted his entire creative life, more than sixty years, to working with books, and created hundreds of beautiful drawings. At the same time, the artist always remembered his little viewer and tried to make his drawings understandable to the child.

Many books were published with Rachev’s illustrations, including: Vladimir Obruchev “Plutonia”; Prishvin M. M. “Pantry of the Sun” and “Golden Meadow”; Durov V.L. “My animals”; Mamin-Sibiryak D. M. “Alyonushkin’s Tales”; Saltykov-Shchedrin M. E. “Satirical tales.” In 1958–1959, especially for the exhibition “Soviet Russia,” Rachev prepared a whole series of drawings for the fables of I. A. Krylov. He created wonderful drawings for the works of V. M. Garshin, I. Ya. Franko, L. N. Tolstoy, S. Mikhalkov, V.V. Bianki and, of course, to folk tales: Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Hungarian, Romanian, Tajik, as well as fairy tales of the peoples of the North.

In 1973 E.M. Rachev became the Laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR for illustrations of the books: “Terem-Teremok”, I.A. Krylov “Fables”, S. Mikhalkov “Fables”.

In 1986, for illustrations for the book of Ukrainian folk tales “Spikelet” by E.M. Rachev received an Honorary Diploma from the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature of UNESCO - IBBY. Once every two years, IBBY awards the International Hans Christian Andersen Prize to children's authors - writers and artists, as well as Honorary Diplomas to the best recently published children's and youth books.

In 1996, many years of work by E.M. Racheva was awarded the audience award - “Golden Key”.

Evgeniy Mikhailovich worked on a significant part of his books together with his wife Lidia Ivanovna Racheva(1923 - 2011), who often collected material for his future books, made sketches of ornaments and folk costumes in museums, translated and retold fairy tales of different peoples, was a compiler of collections of fairy tales and even calculated book layouts so that there was an exact match between the test and future illustrations. For example, when the idea arose to make illustrations for Krylov’s fables, she collected material in the archives that made it possible to tie the plots of the fables to real events, which made it possible to create unique drawings that exactly corresponded to the text of the fables and the events to which they were addressed. This book of fables was very different from all other books with Krylov’s fables; the fables were provided with comments written by Lydia Ivanovna, which conveyed to the readers the meaning embedded in them by Ivan Krylov. There were other books in which you can see that among the creators was L. Gribova - that is, Lidia Ivanovna Racheva.

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Rachev lived a long life, it included many events - both personal and those that his contemporaries experienced; he was born in one country - the tsarist one, and died in a third - “democratic”, living all the time in the same one. He was buried at the Kalitnikovskoye cemetery in Moscow in 1997, and those artists with whom he worked at the Malysh publishing house came to see him off.

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The copyright holder for the use of the artist’s works is a member of our site

Rachev Evgeny Mikhailovich (1906-1997)- Soviet animal artist, known for his work in the field of book graphics. Honored Artist of the RSFSR. The artist’s name is inextricably linked with fairy tales, especially fairy tales with animal heroes. Over thirty years of creative activity, Rachev created hundreds of illustrations. In 1958 - 1959, for the exhibition "Soviet Russia" he performed a large series of drawings for the fables of I.A. Krylova. In 1973 E.M. Rachev became the Laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR for illustrations of the books: “Terem-Teremok”, I.A. Krylov "Fables", S. Mikhalkov "Fables". In 1986, for illustrations for the book of Ukrainian folk tales “Spikelet” by E.M. Rachev received an Honorary Diploma from the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature of UNESCO - IBBY. Once every two years, IBBY awards the International Hans Christian Andersen Prize to children's authors - writers and artists, as well as Honorary Diplomas to the best recently published children's and youth books. In 1996, many years of work by E.M. Racheva was awarded the audience award - "Golden Key". Since 1960, Rachev E.M. was the main artist at the Malysh publishing house and remained so for about twenty years. Many books with his illustrations have been translated into different languages ​​of the world.

A word from the artist E.M. Rachev:

“For the rest of my life I have retained my love for all living things. To make drawings for fairy tales about animals, of course, you need to know nature well. You need to know well what the animals and birds you are going to draw look like. You can't even draw a sparrow until you look at it properly.

I can draw a long-eared hare, or a toothy wolf, or a raven bird. But after reading the fairy tale, I’m still in no hurry to immediately take up brushes and paints. Because in fairy tales, animals are like different people: good or evil, smart or stupid, mischievous, cheerful, funny.

So it turns out that before you draw, you need to know better about the people who lived in the places where the fairy tales were invented. Then I can clearly imagine my fairy-tale heroes. As if they were my old friends or acquaintances.

For me, it is especially interesting to convey in a drawing the character of an animal - good-natured or cruel, harmless or predatory. Studying the appearance of an animal and its character, you suddenly notice that one of the animals or birds is surprisingly similar to this or that person, and a person is like an animal or bird. And if I met a bear dressed in clothes in the forest, I probably would not be surprised, but would say respectfully to the owner of the forest:

- Hello, Grandpa Bear!

And if you look at my drawings and rejoice at the amusing fairy tale, it means that it turned out like a fairy tale.

If, looking at my birds and animals, you understand that the fairy tale is clever and hints at people, then I have succeeded, as in the fairy tales that I illustrate.” (Rachev E.M.)

Rachev E.M. born in 1906 in Siberia, in Tomsk. I lost my father very early. Mother was a dentist. Until the age of fourteen, he lived in the village with his grandmother. Since childhood, Zhenya loved the forest very much and visited the taiga more than once, was interested in the life of animals and birds, watched them, noticed their habits and drew what he saw. They later remembered Siberia as some kind of fairy-tale country. In the evenings, black grouse sat importantly on the branches of fir trees. Lakes full of fish and ducks. And mushrooms... And berries... When the boy was 14 years old, his grandmother died, and the Civil War was going on. And he, fleeing hunger, went to his mother, who lived at that time in Novorossiysk. For three months he made his way alone through the whole of Russia, disturbed by the revolution, from Siberia to the Krasnodar Territory. He was helped by soldiers returning from the front. They took the tired and emaciated boy into their heated carriage, warmed him up, fed him and took him to Novorossiysk. There, dreaming of ships and the open spaces of the sea, he entered a nautical school. However, due to health problems, he had to give up sailing. But the young man began to draw again. And so I went to study at the Kuban Art and Pedagogical College. Teaching at this technical school in those years was very good. Many teachers came from St. Petersburg and Moscow (fleeing hunger). After graduating from technical school in 1928 with honors, he acquired the necessary skills as an artist. Then Rachev moved to Kyiv and entered the printing department of the Kyiv Art Institute. Almost immediately, he began actively collaborating with various publishing houses as an illustrator.

In 1936, the young artist’s drawings were seen in “Detgiz” and invited to Moscow. Evgeniy moved to the capital and began to work actively.

But soon the Great Patriotic War began, and he went to the front. He went through the entire war from 1941 to 1945. At first he was a private in a machine-gun battalion in the Moscow militia during the most difficult days for Moscow, when enemy troops approached almost the city itself. Moscow was defended. Throughout this long journey from Moscow to Berlin, Rachev was in the active army. During the war, the artist, already with the rank of lieutenant, served in the front-line army newspaper "Battle Alert". Having learned that Private Rachev could draw, the command instructed him to design a front-line newspaper.

Rachev E.M. Drawing for a front-line newspaper. 1942 his other front drawings

Arseniy Tarkovsky and Mai Miturich created this newspaper together with him. Some of Rachev's wartime sketches were shown at a group exhibition in 1946 at the Moscow Union of Artists. But later Rachev never addressed the military topic in his work. Once he said bitterly: “There is no more terrible beast than man.”

After the war, Evgeny Mikhailovich returned to Moscow and continued working at Detgiz. He also collaborated with many other publishing houses. When he first brought his drawings with animal characters so similar to people to the publishing house in the late 1940s, they were very puzzled. It was completely new. Nobody drew like that. For almost a year they did not dare to publish.

But they published it, and the books went in great demand. Fantasy, invention, expressiveness of the heroes of fairy tales, the ability to enter into folk culture, humor, kindness that came from the drawings and, of course, high graphic skill - all this aroused the keen interest of adults and the love of young readers.

On a significant part of his books, Evgeniy Mikhailovich worked together with his wife Lydia Ivanovna Racheva (1923 - 2011), who often collected material for his future books, made sketches of ornaments and folk costumes in museums, translated and retold fairy tales of different peoples, and was a compiler of collections of fairy tales and even calculated book layouts so that there would be an exact match between the test and future illustrations.

“Pictures” by Evgeny Mikhailovich truly radiate peace, warmth and harmony. He loved to paint with pastels (sometimes watercolors, gouache, charcoal) on a tinted background, choosing pure, calm colors, which largely contributed to the special softness and “affection” of his works. Foxes and bears, hares and cats, magpies and roosters by the artist Rachev, dressed in folk costumes, only at first, inattentive glance, seem purely decorative. They are always unusually expressive, because they are endowed with many features and traits inherent in us humans - human characters.

The ability to humanize animal characters was especially useful to the artist when he designed the fables of I.A. Krylov and S.V. Mikhalkov, V.M. Garshin’s fairy tale “The Frog Traveler” and Russian folk tales. In illustrations to the works of M.M. Prishvina, B.S. Zhitkova, V.V. Bianki Rachev, as a rule, avoids irony; here he is more lyrical and thoughtful, although in everything that concerns “zoology” he is invariably accurate and scrupulous.

His wife Lidia Ivanovna Racheva provided the artist with great assistance in his work. When the idea arose to make illustrations for Krylov’s fables, she collected material in the archives that made it possible to tie the plots of the fables to real events, which made it possible to create unique drawings that exactly corresponded to the text of the fables and the events to which they were addressed.

Rachev E.M. fable by I. Krylov “Dragonfly and Ant”

This book of fables was very different from all other books with Krylov’s fables; the fables were provided with comments written by Lydia Ivanovna, which conveyed to the readers the meaning embedded in them by Ivan Krylov. There were other books in which you can see that among the creators was L. Gribova - that is, Lidia Ivanovna Racheva. charming allegory of fables in illustrations by E.M. Racheva. Krylov I. A., "Fables". - Hood. E. Rachev. - Children's literature, 1983.

We can say that the artist’s creative destiny was going well. Books with his drawings were published widely both in our country and in other countries, and were exhibited at a variety of exhibitions. Some of his drawings are in museums.

Rachev E.M. Terem-teremok. For illustrations for the book of Russian folk tales “Terem-Teremok” the artist was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR.

The book “Terem-Teremok” contains Russian folk tales about animals. In fairy tales, everything is unusual: events and heroes. Animals and birds behave in a special way: they speak like humans, think and act like people - good or evil, brave or cowardly, stupid or smart. And in the bright, colorful drawings made by the artist for this book, an ordinary red fox becomes a gluttonous and cunning gossip, a hare - a cheerful village joker, a cat - a mischievous and lazy person. How masterfully the wonderful artist Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev has the wonderful gift of turning ordinary animals into fairy-tale heroes.

Rachev E.M. Cockerel - golden comb

Almost every book with his drawings was awarded diplomas and medals at competitions. He was awarded the high titles of People's Artist of the Russian Federation, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, and received the State Prize of Russia.

Attaching great importance to the development of children's books, Evgeniy Mikhailovich worked for about 20 years as the main artists of the Malysh publishing house, creating good creative conditions for artists there.

In each of his works, be it a colorful watercolor for a children's fairy tale, a life drawing of an animal or an allegorical image of a fable character, one can see an intelligent, kind and cheerful person who deeply feels the poetry of his native nature, who loves people and hates those who prevent them from living together happily. This integral life-affirming worldview is the basis of Rachev’s art and determines the leading theme of his work: he illustrates mainly Russian folk tales, fables and fairy tales of the classics of Russian literature.

From all the variety of fairy-tale plots, Rachev, naturally, chooses those that are closer to him as an animal artist, in which the main, and sometimes the only, characters are animals.

Striving for psychological expressiveness and social sharpness of images, the artist uses the natural qualities, habits and habits of animals that he subtly observed, and introduces costume, furnishings, and household items into his illustrations.

Rachev E.M. Gray pubic cat, goat and ram

An excellent understanding of nature and animals over time manifested itself in the new unusual works of Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev - these are sculptures made of wood. In the bends of branches or rhizomes of fallen trees, the artist saw the plasticity of living creatures that are similar to animals familiar to us or are the product of his imagination. Sculptures inspired by the artist can be viewed

this site (This photograph and part of the illustrations from the book by V. Tolstoy. Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev. M.: Soviet artist. 1960)

In essence, the artist and his wife devoted their entire creative lives to children's books. And they didn’t regret it.

This is a very interesting job,” said Evgeniy Mikhailovich. - I wanted to draw a fairy-tale creature, like an animal, and at the same time carrying human character traits. This was what attracted me most.

And he created a whole world of inimitable fabulous “Rachev animals”. Preserving the natural appearance of animals, he endowed them with human facial expressions, gestures, and clothing. Revealing the fairy tale completely - not only the plot, but also the meaning that lies in the beautiful fairy tale.

Rachev E.M. Bear. From the fairy tale “The Cat and the Fox”

Evgeny Rachev lived a long and fruitful life in art. The artist’s affectionate, spiritual drawings do not age and continue to delight the eye and heart.

His works are also interesting because he depicted all animals with anatomical accuracy. That is, say, if a bird’s foot bends only in one direction (for example), then this is how it will be in his drawing. In his works, animals do not have human toes and bulging cartoon eyes, which is the fault of many illustrators of modern children's books.

Thus, his drawings also have educational value. Of course, it is impossible to achieve complete realism - after all, a fox does not walk on its hind legs (and it is impossible to guess what kind of body position it will have when walking), and a crow cannot laugh. However, the combination of, on the one hand, humanly dressed, and on the other hand, physiologically plausible animals is quite curious. Particularly interesting are dogs in fur coats and fur boots (onuchas?), whose legs (hind legs) were bent at the knees not like humans, but in the opposite direction (i.e., like real dogs).

RACHEV EVGENY MIKHAILOVICH

Dates of life: January 26 (February 8) 1906 – July 2, 1997
Illustrator, graphic artist, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.

Evgeniy Mikhailovich was born in Tomsk and spent his childhood in the village with his grandmother. In 1920, he traveled alone to Novorossiysk to visit his mother, worked in the port, studied at a nautical vocational school, then at a locomotive polytechnic school. Since childhood, Evgeniy Mikhailovich was fond of drawing and writing poetry. The desire for creativity led him to the Kuban Art and Pedagogical College in Krasnodar, from which he graduated with honors in 1928. After graduation, Rachev studied for some time at the Kiev Art Institute, and in 1930 he began collaborating with various Kyiv children's publishing houses as an illustrator. He joined a group of young avant-garde graphic artists who united around the Kyiv publishing house “Culture”, among whom were L. Hamburger, B. Ermolenko, B. Kryukov, I. Kisel, M. Boychuk; and in 1936, the drawings of Rachev, who increasingly gave preference to Russian fairy tales and fables in his work, were seen in “Detgiz” and the artist was invited to Moscow.
In 1960, Rachev became the chief artist of the children's publishing house "Malysh", and worked in this position for almost twenty years.
Evgeny Rachev devoted more than sixty years of his creative life to children's books; Many books have been published with his illustrations, including “The Pantry of the Sun” by M. Prishvin, “My Animals” by Lev Durov, “Alenushkin’s Tales” by D. Mamin-Sibiryak, “Satirical Tales” by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Krylov’s fables, works by V. M. Garshina, I. Ya. Franko, L. N. Tolstoy, S. Mikhalkov, V. V. Bianki and a huge number of folk tales - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Hungarian, Romanian, Tajik...

The main characters of his illustrations are animals, and animals with character traits inherent in people. Rachev studied the habits of animals in order to later show them in books. In fairy tales, animals speak and act like people, and Rachev dresses them in Russian folk costumes, making them look like people. That’s why you can immediately see what kind of character the furry and feathered fairy-tale heroes have.

Here is the bear from the fairy tale “Tops and Roots” - he is naive and trusting, and the crafty little man with whom the bear is talking is not at all afraid of him.

Here is the fox talking to the mice in the Eskimo fairy tale “The Brave Mouse.” It is clear that the fox is cunning; she seems to be smiling, squinting her eyes and preparing to grab the mice. But one of them turned out to be more cunning - she told the fox that she could hear the hunters approaching to scare the red cheat.

And here is a fox and a cat, dressed up in ancient costumes: the fox is a hawthorn, the cat is a governor. They walk proudly - after all, they deceived all the forest inhabitants by telling them that the cat was sent to the forest as the leader over all the animals.

The most popular Ukrainian folk tale is “The Mitten,” first published in 1951. It has been translated many times into other languages ​​of the world. “Mitten,” with illustrations by Rachev in Japanese, is one of the three longest-selling children's books in Japan.

Rachev himself spoke about his work like this: “For me, it is especially interesting to convey in a drawing the character of an animal - good-natured or cruel, harmless or predatory. Studying the appearance of an animal and its character, you suddenly notice that one of the animals or birds is surprisingly similar to this or that person, and a person is like an animal or bird. And if I met a bear dressed in clothes in the forest, I probably would not be surprised, but would say respectfully to the owner of the forest: “Hello, Grandfather Bear!” And if you look at my drawings and rejoice at the amusing fairy tale, it means that it turned out like a fairy tale. If, looking at my birds and animals, you understand that the fairy tale is somehow cunning and hints at people, then I have succeeded, as in the fairy tales that I illustrate.”

Read, look at books with drawings by Evgeny Rachev!

Evgeniy Mikhailovich Rachev(-) - Russian and Soviet animal artist, graphic artist, illustrator.

Biography

Participant of the Great Patriotic War from October 1941 to 1945. He started the war in the militia near Moscow. In 1945 he was sent from the army to decorate Moscow for the holidays together with other artists.

In the 1960s, after the creation of the publishing house "Children's World" (since 1963 - "Malysh"), he became the main artist and worked there for almost 20 years.

From all the variety of fairy tales and fables, he chose those that were closer to him as an animal artist, in which the main, and sometimes the only, characters are animals.

Striving for psychological expressiveness and social sharpness of images, the artist used the natural qualities, habits and habits of animals that he subtly noticed, and introduced costume, furnishings, and household items into his illustrations.

Awards

• Silver medal of the USSR Academy of Arts for illustrations to the fables of I. A. Krylov (1961)
• Honorary diploma of the International Council on Children's and Youth Literature of UNESCO (IBBY), which awards the International Hans Christian Andersen Prize for illustrations for the book of Ukrainian folk tales “Spikelet” (1986).
• Audience Award - “Golden Key” for many years of work (1996).
• State Prize of the RSFSR named after N.K. Krupskaya (1973) - for illustrations and design of books for children and youth: “Terem-Teremok”, “Fables” by I.A. Krylov, “Fables” by S.V. Mikhalkov.

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Literature

• . - M. : JSC Publishing Group "Progress", 1996. - P. 100.
• Lyakhov V.I. E. M. Rachev // The Art of Books. - M., 1961. - Issue. 2. - pp. 182-184.
• Chereyskaya M. E. M. Rachev // Art. - 1957. - No. 4. - P. 26-27.

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Excerpt characterizing Rachev, Evgeniy Mikhailovich

The next day, on the advice of Marya Dmitrievna, Count Ilya Andreich went with Natasha to Prince Nikolai Andreich. The count prepared for this visit with a gloomy spirit: in his heart he was afraid. The last meeting during the militia, when the count, in response to his invitation to dinner, listened to a heated reprimand for not delivering people, was memorable for Count Ilya Andreich. Natasha, dressed in her best dress, was on the contrary in the most cheerful mood. “It’s impossible that they wouldn’t love me,” she thought: everyone has always loved me. And I’m so ready to do for them whatever they want, I’m so ready to love him - because he’s a father, and she’s because she’s a sister, that there’s no reason why they wouldn’t love me!”
They drove up to an old, gloomy house on Vzdvizhenka and entered the hallway.
“Well, God bless,” said the count, half jokingly, half seriously; but Natasha noticed that her father was in a hurry, entering the hall, and timidly, quietly asked if the prince and princess were at home. After the report of their arrival, there was confusion among the prince's servants. The footman, who ran to report them, was stopped by another footman in the hall and they whispered about something. A girl, a maid, ran out into the hall and also hurriedly said something, mentioning the princess. Finally, one old footman with an angry look came out and reported to the Rostovs that the prince could not receive him, but the princess was asking to come to her. M lle Bourienne was the first to greet the guests. She especially politely met the father and daughter and took them to the princess. The princess, with an excited, frightened face covered with red spots, ran out, stepping heavily, towards the guests, and tried in vain to appear free and welcoming. Princess Marya did not like Natasha at first sight. She seemed too elegant, frivolously cheerful and vain to her. Princess Marya did not know that before she saw her future daughter-in-law, she was already ill-disposed towards her out of involuntary envy of her beauty, youth and happiness and out of jealousy of her brother’s love. In addition to this irresistible feeling of antipathy towards her, Princess Marya at that moment was also excited by the fact that at the report of the Rostovs’ arrival, the prince shouted that he did not need them, that he should let Princess Marya receive them if she wanted, and that they should not be allowed to see him . Princess Marya decided to receive the Rostovs, but every minute she was afraid that the prince would do some kind of trick, since he seemed very excited about the Rostovs’ arrival.
“Well, dear princess, I brought you my songbird,” said the count, shuffling and looking around restlessly, as if he was afraid that the old prince might come up. “I’m so glad that you met... It’s a pity, it’s a pity that the prince is still unwell,” and after saying a few more general phrases, he stood up. “If you would allow me, princess, to give you an idea of ​​my Natasha for a quarter of an hour, I would go, just two steps away, to the Dog Playground, to see Anna Semyonovna, and pick her up.”
Ilya Andreich came up with this diplomatic trick in order to give his future sister-in-law space to explain himself to his daughter-in-law (as he said this after his daughter) and also in order to avoid the possibility of meeting with the prince, whom he was afraid of. He did not tell this to his daughter, but Natasha understood this fear and anxiety of her father and felt insulted. She blushed for her father, became even more angry for blushing, and looked at the princess with a bold, defiant look that said that she was not afraid of anyone. The princess told the count that she was very happy and only asked him to stay longer with Anna Semyonovna, and Ilya Andreich left.
M lle Bourienne, despite the restless glances thrown at her by Princess Marya, who wanted to talk with Natasha face to face, did not leave the room and firmly held the conversation about Moscow pleasures and theaters. Natasha was offended by the confusion that occurred in the hallway, by her father’s anxiety and by the unnatural tone of the princess, who, it seemed to her, was doing a favor by accepting her. And then everything was unpleasant for her. She didn't like Princess Marya. She seemed very bad-looking to her, feigned and dry. Natasha suddenly shrank morally and involuntarily adopted such a careless tone, which pushed Princess Marya away from her even more. After five minutes of heavy, pretend conversation, fast footsteps in shoes were heard approaching. Princess Marya's face expressed fear, the door of the room opened and the prince entered in a white cap and robe.
“Oh, madam,” he said, “madam, countess... Countess Rostova, if I’m not mistaken... I beg your pardon, excuse me... I didn’t know, madam.” God knows, I didn’t know that you honored us with your visit; you came to see your daughter in such a suit. I beg your pardon... God sees, I didn’t know,” he repeated so unnaturally, emphasizing the word God and so unpleasantly that Princess Marya stood with her eyes downcast, not daring to look at either her father or Natasha. Natasha, having stood up and sat down, also did not know what to do. One m lle Bourienne smiled pleasantly.