Yevgeny Charushin

Who was Yevgeny Charushin?

Yevgeny Ivanovich Charushin was a Russian illustrator and author of children's literature in the Soviet Union.

Charushin was born into the family of a Vyatka architect. His father, Ivan Charushin, encouraged his early artistic efforts and his love of nature and hunting, all of which played a role in his development as an illustrator and writer. After graduating from high school in 1918, Charushin was drafted into the army. He was posted to Petrograd in 1922 to attend the Russian Academy of Arts, and he graduated in 1926.

After graduation from the academy, Charushin started to work as an illustrator under the guidance of Vladimir Lebedev, who was at that time the artistic director of the children's literature department at the Leningrad offices of Gosizdat. The first book with his illustrations, Murzik by Vitaly Valentinovich Bianki was a success that led to invitations to illustrate many more books by, among others, Samuil Marshak, Korney Chukovsky, Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak, Mikhail Prishvin, Vladimir Arsenyev and Alexander Vvedensky. At the same time, Charushin began writing and illustrating his own children's books, including "Little Beasties", "Mishka," and "Wolf Cub". He would be best known for his stories and illustrations of animals. In an essay he wrote about his work for the magazine, "Children's Literature," in 1935, Charushin stated that "More than anything else, I love to depict young animals, touching in their helplessness and interesting, because within them one can already see signs of the full-grown beast."