Danko, Elena Yakovlevna

Yelena Yakovlevna Danko-Oleksenko was born on December 21, 1897 ( January 2, 1898 ) in the village of Parafievka (now Ichnyany district , Chernihiv region , Ukraine ) ^[3] in a family of revolutionary volunteers , railway employees - Yakov Afanasevich and Olga Iosifovna (Osipovna) Danko . ^[4] The older half-sister is ceramic sculptor Natalya Danko . She spent her childhood in Moscow and Vilna .

In 1908, she entered the private female gymnasium of E. A. Kruger in Kiev, in 1915 she completed the course with a gold medal. She received her primary art education at the Alexander Murashko School of Painting in Kiev .

In 1915 he moved to Moscow, where he took lessons from the studios of Ilya Mashkov and Fedor Rerberg . As an artist, he is influenced by A. A. Sidorov. He is also engaged in etching by A.V. Manganari.

In 1916-1918 he worked in the office of the Civil Engineering Department, then transferred to work at the People's Commissariat for Education. He meets O. D. Forsh and K. A. Fedin , who have become her mentors in literary work. He is fond of anthroposophy ; attends lectures by Andrei Bely .

In 1918 he moved to Petrograd, where he lives until the end of his life.

In 1918-1922 he wrote poems collected by her in the collection: E. Ya. Danko. "Simple flour." Petrograd. 1922. ^[5]

In 1919 she joined the Free Philosophical Association (Wolfil) . Participates in the activities of Wolfilla until 1924.

In February 1919, he began working as an assistant technician, then as a puppeteer in the Puppet Theater “Studio”, under the direction of L. V. Shaporina, who became the artist’s closest friend. a fool ”,“ Gulliver in the Land of the Lilliputians ”(1928),“ Gingerbread House ”,“ Don Quixote ”and others). During the period of 1920-1930s, numerous performances based on dramatizations by E. Ya. were constantly on the stages of the Leningrad puppet theaters. Danko. Since 1923 she was a member of the literary college of the Theater of Young Spectators.

From 1919 to 1924 she worked at the Petrograd (Leningrad) porcelain factory , a porcelain painter. The first paintings by E. Ya. Danko in porcelain had an ornamental or floral character (“Wreath with a gray rose”, “Cornflowers and green birds”), related to peasant themes or depicted landscapes. In 1924-1925 she studied at the Academy of Arts in Petrograd (class of K. P. Petrov-Vodkin), having entered there at the request of a porcelain factory. She left the institute due to disagreement with the methodology of teaching painting.

In the early 1920s, he creates several models in small plastic (co-authored with his sister, N. Ya. Danko): the most popular work is Liberated East (Turkish woman), also Georgian with a jug on his shoulder, Pioneer with a drum "). In mid-1924 she was dismissed from the factory. During her work in the painting workshop, E. Ya. Danko created many significant works, many of them were exhibited at different times at Soviet and foreign exhibitions.

Since 1922, she studied the history of ceramics . In 1923, the journal “Artistic Work” published her article on Soviet artistic porcelain. Later, she wrote a number of popular books on the history of porcelain: “Vase of Bogdykhan” (M.-L.: Rainbow, 1925), “Porcelain Cup” (L., State ed., 1925), “Chinese Secret” (M.- L .: State ed., 1929, illustrations by Nikolai Lapshin ). ^[7]

In the 1930s, combining literary and artistic work, he returned to work at the State Porcelain Factory, where he worked on painting small plastic. He is engaged in studying the history of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory , works in the archives. Works on the book “Porcelain Factory in the 18th Century” (unpublished). At the beginning of 1941 he finished editing the first part of this work. The chapter from this book is placed as an introductory article to the catalog “State Porcelain Factory named after M.V. Lomonosov ”(L .: State. Office of directories and catalogs, 1938).

Since 1925, meets S. Ya. Marshak , under his influence, begins to write books for children. She is concerned with the design of a children's book, although she herself never illustrates her books, yielding to the solution of the issue of their design to V. V. Lebedev . Among the illustrators of books by E. Ya. Danko are B. Kustodiev, V. Lebedev, E. Higer, V. Vatagin, N. Lapshin, D. Bushen, E. Evenbach, M. Ezuchevsky, V. Konashevich, N. Kupriyanov and other artists. Actively popularized a children's book. The artist Vitaly Bianchi called E. Ya. Danko "the smartest woman in Leningrad."

Since the mid-1920s, he has been a member of the literary society “Leningrad Association of Neoclassicists,” whose meetings since 1925 have been held at Fedor Sologub’s apartment. E. Ya. Danko wrote memoirs about F.K. Sologub (published in 1992),

In 1923 - 1924, while maintaining acquaintance with A. A. Akhmatova, gives a number of her portrait sketches. ^[eight]

In 1925-1927 he worked as secretary of the children's literature section of the Leningrad branch of the All-Russian Union of Soviet Writers. Since that time, he is a member of the board of the Writers' Union. From 1926 to 1932 he served as Secretary of the Board of the Leningrad Branch of the All-Russian Union of Writers ,

In 1934 he joined the USSR SP .

In 1931 she wrote the story "Wooden Actors" - about puppet dolls and stray puppeteers of Italy, Germany, France in the second half of the 18th century. Separate chapters from this book are published.

From April to September 1938, the play “Pinocchio is our guest” was published in the magazine “Chizh”, and in 1941 its novelization was released as a separate publication. It was a fairy tale story “Defeated Karabas”, which is a continuation of the fairy tale “The Golden Key, or The Adventures of Pinocchio ” by A. Tolstoy . The heroes of the book fall into pre-war Leningrad . The book was repeatedly reprinted with illustrations by Vladimir Konashevich and Leonid Vladimirsky .

In 1940, Elena Danko wrote an autobiographical novel, “Youth, or the Key to the Character of a Middle-aged Person. A sketch of a novel that will never be written. ” The incomplete work of E. Ya. Danko also remained a biographical book about Voltaire , on which she worked in the 1930s.

Despite the relatively modest literary heritage, Danko left a noticeable mark on the history of Russian children's literature of the 1920s and 1930s, and, above all, in the genre of science and fiction prose ^[9] .

In August 1941, the Leningrad Department of the USSR Art Fund requested the evacuation of E. Ya. Danko to Tashkent, but she refused to evacuate. The blockade winter of 1941-1942 was spent in Leningrad.

On February 27, 1942, she left for evacuation, together with her sister N. Ya. Danko and mother O. I. Prosviryakova-Danko. A few days later, E. Ya. Danko and her mother died from the effects of exhaustion, on the train, on the way from the besieged Leningrad to Yaroslavl and Irbit ; buried in one of the stop stations on the way.

• From June 1935 to February 1942: embankment of the Griboedov Canal , 9, apt. 57.

• Vase of Bogdykhan: Legend / Fig. E. Heather. [M .; L.]: Rainbow, 1925.
• Johannes Gutenberg: Poem / Fig. V. Tronova. [M .; L.]: Rainbow, 1925.
• A true pioneer: [Poems for children] / Fig. B. Kustodieva. L .: State. Publishing House, 1925.
• Porcelain cup: [Poems for children] / Fig. E. Evenbach. L .: State. Publishing House, 1925.
• Roly Pioneer in the State Circus. Drawn by D. Bushen. Poems by E. Oleksenko. L .: Committee for the Promotion of Art Editions, 1925.
• Green parrot. Fig. E. Heather. L .: State. Publishing House, 1926.
• Chinese secret: [History of porcelain in stories / Fig. N. Lapshin. M.; L .: State. publishing house, type. The Printing House in Lgr., 1929. (Reprint: 1931.1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1941, 1946)
• Chess: Poem for children age / Fig. M. Ezuchevsky, V. Vatagin. M.: Publishing House of G.F. Mirimanov, 1929.
• Chess: [Poems for children] / Il. N. Kupreyanova. [M.]: State. Publishing House, 1930.
• Wooden actors: Story / Obl. and rice N. Lapshin. M .; L .: Ogiz; The Young Guard, 1931.
• Art Porcelain: Catalog / State. porcelain. plant them. M.V. Lomonosov; Input Art. E. Ya. Danko. L .: Type. them. Willow Fedorova, 1938.
• Pinocchio at our party: Puppet. 4-comedy with a prologue. M .: Art, 1939.
• Wooden Actors: A Tale / Pictures by Sun Lebedev. Cover and title of E. Bordzilovsky. M .; L .: Det. Publishing House, 1940.
• Wooden Actors: A Tale / Pictures by Sun Lebedev. Cover and title of E. Bordzilovsky. L .: Children's literature, 1965, 200 p., 100,000 copies.
• Defeated Karabas / Fig. V. Konashevich. M .; L .: Det. publishing house in Lgr., 1941. (Reprint: 1966, 1989.)
• Memories of Fedor Sologub. Poems / Entry. Art., publ., comment. M. M. Pavlova // Persons: Biographical Almanac. Vol. 1. St. Petersburg, 1992. S. 190-261.

• Kalmanovsky E.S. Danko // Brief Literary Encyclopedia. T. 2. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1964. - St. 521.
• Rybakov N.I. Danko Elena Yakovlevna // Russian children's writers of the XX century: Bibliographic dictionary. - M .: Flint ; Nauka , 1997 .-- pp . 151-153 . - ISBN 5-02-011304-2 .
• Morozova O. The verge of talent // Children's literature . - 1972. - No. 7.
• Creativity sisters Danko. The author is V. Levshenkov. Under the scientific editorship of V.V. Znamenov. SPb: Publishing group "St. Petersburg Orchestra". 2012.S. 425.

• M. Pereslegin "Porcelain Miracles"
• An article on the site "Soviet Porcelain"
• Vladislav Krapivin about the story “Defeated Karabas”