The text of this particular fairy tale, which she remembered and loved very much from childhood and had never seen it anywhere else, Elena Polenova will write down, illustrate and publish as the first artistically designed book for children in the history of Russia in 1889.Įlena Polenova always considered Pavel Petrovich Chistyakov to be her “first and last” teacher of painting and drawing. When the travelers drove into a large pine forest near Tambov, 'babasha' told her grandchildren the fairy tale The War of the Mushrooms. Subsequently, when Lilya, as they called Elena Polenova in the family, found herself in beautiful places, she exclaimed: 'Like it is here, in Imochentsi!'įrom early childhood, Polenova fell in love with the poetry of ancient wooden architecture and oral creativity of the northern people, who did not know the Mongol-Tatar yoke and serfdom, and later reflected it in her illustrations for fairy tales, sayings and jokes.Īnother vivid impression of Polenova's childhood was traveling in a carriage with her grandmother Vera Nikolaevna Voeikova (Lvova) from Moscow to her Tambov estate, Olyianka. Children adored the Imochentsi with dense forests smelling of pine needles, with deep lakes, where one could see fabulous swans, with long voyages on a small flotilla along the Oyat River. Here, on his ancestral land, Dmitry Vasilyevich built a three-story house with large terraces, spacious rooms and a workshop. Bryullova, Maria Alekseevna Polenova gave the first drawing lessons to her children.īeginning in 1855, the Polenovs with their three sons and two daughters spent every summer in Karelia, in the former Olonets province, on the Imochentsy estate. A talented amateur artist who once took lessons from Academician K.A.

His legacy in the Polenov family is love for progressive social thought and zealous service to educate the people.įrom him, Elena Polenova's mother, Marya Alekseevna Polenova, inherited a love of literature, music and painting and managed to pass it on to her children, especially her son Vasily and daughter Elena. Returning to his homeland, even in Catherine's times, he wrote a work On the destruction of serfdom in Russia, where he advocated the immediate emancipation of the peasants and universal literacy.

Lomonosov, who received a higher legal education at universities in Germany. Her great-grandfather on her father's side - Alexei Yakovlevich Polenov, the famous first Russian 'lawyer' and 'emancipator', by the decision of M.V.

Russian fairy tales by E.M. Almedingen