Russian Disney: The great calling and great love of Vladimir Suteev

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Since childhood, each of us is familiar with the kind fairy-tale world of Vladimir Suteev. Since childhood, we leafed through books with his drawings, watched cartoons created by him, and the toys with which we played were embodied according to his sketches. In the life of the main Soviet cartoonist, there was one great vocation and one great love. He followed the calling all his life - and almost all his life he was waiting for his love.

Suteev was born in 1903 in the family of a Moscow doctor who was passionate about art. Father very much encouraged creative aspirations in children, arranged home drawing contests for them, learned songs with them … With the outbreak of the Civil War, young Vladimir Suteev was forced to look for work. He happened to be an orderly, and a physical education teacher, and … an artist. Already at the age of fourteen, he began to draw everything for a small fee - posters, diagrams, diplomas and certificates for sports competitions … A little later Suteev began to illustrate children's and teenage magazines, already at the age of twenty he designed books by Chukovsky and Marshak. In the mid-twenties, a lot of foreign films were released in Soviet distribution, and Suteev drew posters for them. An impressive number of published works allowed him to become a student at the State College of Cinematography.

These were years of creative research, artistic innovation, and Soviet animation was taking the first steps towards its glorious future. Young Suteev, along with other young filmmakers, worked on the creation of an experimental propaganda film "China on Fire". In 1931 he took part in the work on the first sound cartoon in the USSR "Street across". And five years later he came to work for Soyuzmultfilm, which became everything for him - an inexhaustible source of inspiration, home, salvation and love.

On the night of June 22, 1941, at the Committee of Cinematography, Suteev presented his "Mukhu-Tsokotukha". I was going crazy with excitement - after all, not only the future of the cartoon depended on the decision of the artistic council, but in many respects its own. "Tsokotukha" was approved, Suteev was jubilant … And a few hours later the war began. Two days after its start, as part of the rifle division, the thirty-seven-year-old artist was sent to the Southwestern Front. In September 1941, his division was surrounded and heroically held out until liberation in March 1942. Suteev almost never talked about the war and left almost no memories of those terrible days. In a sense, he did not stop working even then, his skills were also found in wartime. It is known that in 1943 he participated in the creation of educational war paintings. Subsequently, shots from the films "Terrain Orientation", "Types of Enemy Tanks", "Destroy Enemy Tanks", "Fighting Enemy Tanks", "How to Deal with Freezing" were included in the number of visual aids of domestic military schools.

Returning to a peaceful life was not easy. Suteev's marriage fell apart, he himself, trying to forget the horrors of war, became addicted to alcohol … But work saved. However, the work brought him both the greatest happiness and the greatest suffering in life. At "Soyuzmultfilm" he got the position of director … and there he met the animator Tatiana Taranovich. It was she who worked on the cartoons "Thumbelina" and "Gray Neck". Suteev admired her talent, her charm, needed her approval … but no more. Tatyana Taranovich was married. Happily. "Leave it, she will not leave her husband, build her own life!" - colleagues told Suteev. He really did not remain alone - his former classmate became Suteev's second wife. They said that Suteev decided on this marriage "out of despair", and this was its own truth, however, he was faithful to his wife to the end, going through everything with her, including the worst - the last years of her life, darkened by a serious illness and paralysis. And all this time Suteev wrote letters to Taranovich, many passionate and desperate letters, to which she replied only twice. He added to these lines, full of happiness and hopelessness, small pictures in which he portrayed himself as a duckling, and Taranovich as a chicken. "My golden chicken" - so he addressed his beloved.

Two years after meeting with Taranovich, he parted … with "Soyuzmultfilm", leaving unfinished painting "Hunting Rifle". Since then, he very rarely saw her in person and almost never in private. Of course, he did not completely break with the profession. After leaving the post of director, Suteev actively collaborated with Soyuzmultfilm as a screenwriter - he wrote about forty scripts of popularly loved cartoons. Around the same time, Suteev began working with Detgiz as an illustrator. The images of fairy-tale characters he created became models for some Soviet toys. In the early fifties, his first book, "Two Tales about a Pencil and Paints," was published, which was well received by colleagues and critics. Resuming his career as an illustrator and debuting as a writer, he gave up drinking and did not touch a glass for the rest of his life. And he parted with cigarettes decisively, one day, when he heard from someone that Taranovich did not tolerate the smell of tobacco.

Suteev was remembered as a cheerful person, sometimes sarcastic, who valued friendship more than anything else. He drew constantly, on any piece of paper, on a napkin, anywhere and even … with both hands at the same time - this he loved to entertain his guests.

And fate had in store for him long and wonderful ten years of happiness with his beloved woman. Both of them became widows, being already very mature people - he was eighty, she was sixty-seven. And after an eternity of waiting, Suteev, taking her hand, said: "Tanya Taranovich is now mine." And now he saved each of their joint steps in drawings - the Duckling and the Chicken are going to the store, the Duckling and the Chicken are listening to the radio, the Duckling and the Chicken went on a journey … And everything was like in a fairy tale - they lived happily ever after, but died alone … day but year. The last words of Suteev, already blind and hardly recognizing anyone, were "thank you" addressed to Tatiana.