Summary of the lesson “Russian folk tales in the work of the illustrator E. M. Rachev. Works of the artist E. Rachev Illustrations by the artist E. rachev

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev (02/08/1906 - 07/02/1997) - Soviet animal painter, one of the most popular children's illustrators of the last century.

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev was born on February 8, 1906 in the city of Tomsk. He lost his father early. His mother was a dentist, and his stepfather was a civil engineer. Eugene spent his childhood in the village with his grandmother, in the Siberian village of Yudino. These were regions rich in game, famous hunting grounds. They remembered Siberia as some kind of fabulous country. In the evenings, the grouse would sit importantly on the branches of firs. The lakes are full of fish and ducks. And mushrooms ... And berries ...

When Eugene was in his twelfth year, the October coup took place in the country, the Civil War began. And a few years later, in 1920, when he was 14 years old, his grandmother died. Eugene had to travel alone from Siberia to Novorossiysk, to his mother. This journey was difficult: without food and money, he rode on the roof of a freight car for two and a half months. I almost became a street child. He was helped by soldiers returning from the front. They took the tired and emaciated boy into their heating car, warmed him up, fed him and drove him to Novorossiysk. But the first impression of the sea was unforgettable.

When did the artist awaken in him? When did you first get acquainted with the nature of Siberia and learned its first secrets? Or when, like all boys, he began to draw soldiers and military battles? After all, it was a wartime - the First World War.

But a conscious desire for art awakened later, already in Novorossiysk. During that hard, hungry time, he studied at a nautical vocational school, worked in the port as a loader and a machinist on a winch, then moved to a steam locomotive polytechnic.

But more and more attracted his art, he wrote poetry, painted. And in 1924 Rachev entered the Kuban Art and Pedagogical College in Krasnodar. In this technical school, young people were given the main o good professional craft in their hands. In those years, teaching at this technical school was very well organized. Many teachers came from St. Petersburg and Moscow (fleeing hunger). But even this school was penetrated by leftist revolutionary sentiments. They also captured Rachev. He no longer wanted to just draw and write from life, he got carried away with textural searches, often pasted scraps of matter, scraps of newspapers, etc. into his sketches. For such leftism, Rachev, along with several other students, was even expelled from the technical school, but then restored, and in 1928 the technical school was completed, and even with honors.

Then there was the Kiev Art Institute, where Rachev studied at the printing faculty. Since 1930, the young artist began working at the Kiev publishing house "Culture". He recalls that an important role in the activities of "Culture" was played by the art editor A. Butnik-Siversky, who served concurrently as the head of the office of children's creativity at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.

“This man was truly passionate about his work and knew how to ignite everyone who worked with him,” writes Rachev. - For me, he became a real teacher who introduced me to the understanding of children's literature and the peculiarities of illustrations for children. He taught us illustrators two important things: firstly, attention and love for the little reader and, secondly, respect for the literary text that he undertook to illustrate. Since then I have firmly grasped these two commandments and never allow myself, even in details, to run counter to the author, "refute" him with my drawings. Another thing is to develop what the author writes about, or even what is not, but is implied in the book. ”Since 1930, the young artist began working in a Kiev publishing house. Later, Rachev remembered with gratitude his mentor, the art editor of the publishing house A. Butnik-Siversky: “He taught us, illustrators, two important things: firstly, attention and love for the little reader and, secondly, respect for that literary text who undertook to illustrate. "

And also: "The younger the viewer for whom you work, and, consequently, the less his life experience, the more responsible the role of the artist."

Evgeny Mikhailovich did not immediately find his style of drawing ... His first children's illustrations were both verbose and schematically simplified, and at first he tried on other people's manners:,. The animalistic theme gradually captured the artist more and more. And when he was ordered to illustrations for V. Bianchi's book "Where the crayfish winter", he finally decided that his vocation was "an animalist and storyteller."

From 1937 until the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he worked in Detgiz, making mostly animalistic drawings. Then he moved to Moscow, joined the Moscow Union of Soviet Artists in 1938, took part in exhibitions of Moscow graphics. Rachev was attracted by the opportunity to convey psychological in the landing and appearance of animals and birds. states and situations that resemble people, their characters, demeanor. That is why he was so fond of illustrating fables where animals act as carriers of certain human qualities.

But circumstances developed in such a way that the artist managed to really turn to fable and fairy-tale themes only many years later, after the Great Patriotic War.

The war interrupted the peaceful course of life and left an imprint on the artist's work. On November 7, 1941, Rachev joined the people's militia and, as part of a machine-gun battalion, participated in the defense of Moscow. In 1942, he worked in the editorial office of the army newspaper "Battle Alarm": he painted portraits of soldiers, posters, cartoons. Arseniy Tarkovsky and May Miturich made this newspaper together with him. In 1943, the artist was sent to the Main Road Administration of the Soviet Army. Here he and other artists painted or enlarged posters and drawings to huge sizes, which were then attached to shields along military highways.

The artist returned to the work of a children's illustrator in 1945. He makes illustrations for M. Prishvin's books "The Pantry of the Sun" and "Golden Ray". Working on illustrations for the books of Prishvin and Bianchi, Evgeny Mikhailovich is convinced that he is most attracted not by the animalistic genre itself, but by its special area - illustrations of fairy tales and fables about animals that personify various human qualities. The artist illustrates Ukrainian, Bashkir, Hungarian and Russian folk tales published in Detgiz.

Now it's hard to believe, but when he brought his first drawings with animal characters so similar to people, the publishing house was very puzzled. It was completely new. Nobody drew like that. For almost a year they did not dare to print (this was at the end of the 40s of the last century).

And when they were published, the books were snapped up. Fantasy, invention, expressiveness of the heroes of fairy tales, the ability to enter the 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.

“I wanted,” the artist said, “to draw a fabulous creature, like an animal, and at the same time carries the traits of a human character. It attracted me most of all. "

Since the 50s, he has illustrated Mikhalkov's fables and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Rachev believed that a different approach was needed to illustrate fairy tales, depending on the nature of the tale. But there is also something in common and important, which is characteristic of all fairy tales and distinguishes this genre from the rest. Every fairy tale is characterized by a free flight of dreams, not constrained by the framework of ordinary everyday "common sense". And at the same time, any fairy tale, for all its external fantasy and unreality, always comes from life, ridicules human vices and affirms good human qualities. The beasts in a fairy tale or fable are only the external guise of its heroes, and the essence of all these images is human. One of the first books that Rachev illustrated in the first post-war years (in 1947) was the touching and funny "Alyonushka's Tales" by Mamin-Sibiryak.

A little later, he began to work on Bashkir fairy tales, which were distinguished by a special acuteness of the social characteristics of the characters. It was then that for the first time the artist “dresses” his animal heroes in human clothes. Partly in order to make their characters more comical and entertaining, but most of all in order to sharpen the social characteristics of the heroes and express national flavor in the drawings. Ukrainian ones followed the Bashkir tales. The artist is improving his own techniques for illustrating fairy tales. He visited Ukraine, made special sketches and sketches of Ukrainian life. The ability to convey the national flavor of a work in the choice of type, clothing, character of the heroes is one of the strengths of Rachev as an illustrator. He skillfully emphasized national features not only in characters, but also in the environment: landscape, architecture, decorative ornaments.

Until 1949, Rachev's drawings were black and white. His first colored works were illustrations for the Russian folk tale "Cockerel - the Golden Scallop" and the Ukrainian one - "Rukavichka".

It is interesting to trace how in the fairy tale "Mitten" the fairytale house-mitten gradually changes from drawing to drawing. It is overgrown with farming. In the first drawing, the mitten lies right on the snow, in the second and third - it has already been raised on a foundation made of sticks and supported on all sides by knots, an added ladder appears. In the fourth picture, there is a wooden porch covered with straw, then a chimney from the stove, a window with carved platbands, and a bell at the entrance appear.

The talent of the illustrator-storyteller was fully revealed in Rachev's drawings for Russian fairy tales. In the drawings dedicated to Russian fairy tales, Evgeny Mikhailovich inherits and in his own way develops the valuable qualities of the famous Russian fairy tale artists.

Rachev's artistic talent, his characteristic fabulousness and poetic fantasticness, manifested itself in another genre of his work - wooden sculpture. Moreover, what Rachev did from various rhizomes and fragments of trees was not literally a sculpture. After all, the forms of his fantastic animals, birds, fish were created more by nature than by the hand of a sculptor.

But in order to create these works, of course, the artist's rich creative imagination was needed.

The last in time and, moreover, a very significant work of Rachev was illustrations to the fables of I.A. Krylov. In them, the artist set out to restore in all its acuteness the real historical background of Krylov's fables. Rachev especially succeeded in some of the characters in fables, personified in the form of animals, fish and birds, but, moreover, with a striking "portrait" resemblance. Such is, for example, Napoleon in the form of Vaska's cat from the fable "The Cat and the Cook".

Over the years of his work, Evgeny Mikhailovich has created a world of inimitable fairy tale animals from Rachev. The artist told about himself and his work:

“For all my life I have kept 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 how those animals and birds that you are going to draw look like. You can't even draw a sparrow until you get a good look at it.

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

So it turns out - before drawing, you need to know better about the people who lived in those places where fairy tales were invented. Then I can well imagine my fairy-tale heroes. As if they are my old friends or acquaintances.
It is especially interesting for me to convey in the drawing the character of the 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 - to an animal or bird. And if I met a bear dressed in clothes in the forest, then, probably, I was not surprised, but I would have said to the owner of the forest respectfully:

Hello Grandpa Bear!

And if you look at my drawings and rejoice at the amusing fabulous invention, it means that I succeeded as in a fairy tale.
If you, looking at my birds and animals, understand that a fairy tale with a trick, hints at people, then I have succeeded, as in the fairy tales that I illustrate. "

Starting in 1960, Rachev became the chief artist at the Malysh publishing house and remained so for about twenty years.

The artist devoted 70 years of his creative life to the children's book. EAT. Rachev was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia and Honored Artist of the RSFSR. 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 to the book of Ukrainian folk tales "Kolosok" E.M. Rachev received an Honorary Diploma of the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature UNESCO - IBBY. The IBBY awards the Hans Christian Andersen International Prize to Children's Authors - Writers and Artists every two years, as well as Honorary Diplomas to the best recently published books for children and youth. In 1996, the long-term work of E.M. Racheva was awarded with the audience award - "Golden Key". His works were shown at exhibitions in our country and abroad. Many books with his illustrations have been translated into different languages ​​of the world.

It's a miracle, how good, how funny, and entertaining are Evgeny Rachev's drawings for Russian fairy tales! How much fantasy, wisdom, humor are in them! The artist's drawings are a whole encyclopedia of folk life.

Take, for example, the book Terem-Teremok (Moscow: Det. Lit., 1972).

This book contains Russian folk tales about animals. Yevgeny Mikhailovich's wonderful gift to turn ordinary animals into fairy-tale heroes manifested itself in this book as well. Evgeny Mikhailovich knew well the life of animals, their habits. Here's what he said:

“I really like to look at animals. Do you think you can't see the mood of a goat or dog from the face? Nothing of the kind, you can see everything! Animals, like people, both feel and think. And their eyes also change, sometimes they become cheerful, sometimes they become sad. You can understand everything by looking at your eyes. Sad animals sit in the zoo. And their faces are tired, indifferent. And in the wild, the animals are funny. So I look and draw: funny and sad animals, angry and kind, well-fed and hungry. And then I read a fairy tale and imagine: how do a fabulous goat with kids in a hut live? How do they sit down at the table? What do they do in the evenings? And I thought: "Of course, the goat spins wool and tells fairy tales to its children." And this scene presented itself to me: a goat, smiling, speaks a fairy tale, and the kids listen with bated breath. So I drew it all. "

Many books have been published with illustrations by Rachev, including: Vladimir Obruchev "Plutonium"; M. M. Prishvin "Pantry of the Sun" and "Golden Meadow"; Durov V. L. "My animals"; Mamin-Sibiryak D. M. "Alyonushkin's Tales"; Saltykov-Shchedrin M. Ye. "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, for folk tales: Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Hungarian, Romanian, Tajik, as well as to the tales of the peoples of the North.

On a significant part of his books, Evgeny Mikhailovich worked 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 tales of different peoples, was a compiler of collections of fairy tales and even calculated the layouts of the books so that there was an exact match between the test and future illustrations. It helped a lot in the work on the books and in their family life. After all, it is not for nothing 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 stories 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 put in them by Ivan Krylov. There were other books in which you can see that among the creators was L. Gribova - that is, Lydia Ivanovna Racheva.

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

A site dedicated to the work of the artist Rachev E.M.

"Three Bears. Fairy tales about animals ",

“Ryaba Chicken. Fairy tales about animals ",

“Yezhko-Bezhko and the Sun. Bulgarian folk tales "

Terem-Teremok. Russian folk tales "

"Masha and the Bear. Russian folk tales "

Krylov I. A. "The wolf in the kennel",

Tolstoy L. N. "Little stories",
(the book uses illustrations by E.M. Rachev on p. 151-183, Fables)

Bianchi V. V. "I taught them birds",

Panku-Yash O. "Everything in the forest is good, only the tailors are bad"

“The bear and the hare Tevasi. Nenets Tales "

"Raven Kutkha"

One of the best Soviet animal painters. Evgeny Mikhailovich's drawings radiate warmth and harmony. He loved to paint with pastels (sometimes watercolors, gouache, charcoal) on a tinted background, choosing clean, calm colors. Foxes and bears, hares and cats, magpies and roosters of the artist, dressed in folk costumes, are always unusually expressive, since they are endowed with many features inherent in humans and human characters.

Many books were published with illustrations by Rachev, including "The Pantry of the Sun" and "Golden Meadow" by M. M. Prishvin, "My Animals" by V. L. Durov, "Alyonushka's Tales" by D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak, satirical tales of M E. Saltykova-Shchedrin. He created wonderful drawings for the works of V.M. Garshin, I. Ya.Franko, L.N. Tolstoy, V.V.Bianki and, of course, for folk tales - Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Hungarian, Romanian, Tajik, and also to the tales of the peoples of the North.

Books with illustrations by the artist

Biography

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev(1906-1997) - artist, book illustrator.

Born in Tomsk, spent his childhood in the village with his grandmother. In 1920 he reached his mother alone in Novorossiysk, worked in the port, studied at the nautical vocational school, then at the steam locomotive polytechnic. Since childhood, he was fond of drawing, wrote 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, he studied for some time at the Kiev Art Institute, and since 1930 he began cooperation with various Kiev children's publishing houses as an illustrator. He joined a group of young avant-garde graphic artists united around the Kiev publishing house "Culture", among whom were L. Hamburger, B. Ermolenko, B. Kryukov, I. Kisel, M. Boychuk; and in 1936 Rachev's drawings, who increasingly preferred Russian fairy tales and fables in his work, were seen in Detgiz and invited the artist 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 the children's book; Many books have been published with his illustrations, including "The Pantry of the Sun" by M. Prishvin, "My Animals" by Lev Durov, "Alenushka's Tales" by D. Mamin-Sibiryak, "Satirical Tales" by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, Krylov's fables, works by V. M. Garshin, 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 younger the viewer for whom you work, and, consequently, the less his life experience, the more responsible the role of the artist.

I am an animal painter - an animal painter. But not those animals that live in the forest, but those that inhabit fables or fairy tales. Fabulous animals talk, laugh, cry, the relationship between them is purely human, they live according to human laws

Throughout my life I have kept 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 how those animals and birds that you are going to draw look like. You can't even draw a sparrow until you get a good look at it.

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

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

It is especially interesting for me to convey in the drawing the character of the 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 - to an animal or bird. And if I met a bear dressed in clothes in the forest, then, probably, I was not surprised, but I would have said to the owner of the forest respectfully:

Hello Grandpa Bear!

And if you look at my drawings and rejoice at the amusing fabulous invention, it means that I succeeded as in a fairy tale.

If you, looking at my birds and animals, understand that a fairy tale with a trick, hints at people, it means that I succeeded, as in the fairy tales that I illustrate.

Not only the peacock is beautiful, the sparrow is also very beautiful. But its beauty is discreet, you have to be able to see it. There is sometimes much more beauty in a small puddle than in a huge lake.

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

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

He spent his childhood in the village with his grandmother, near Tomsk, in the Siberian village of Yudino. When Eugene was in his twelfth year, the October coup took place in the country, the Civil War began. In 1920, fleeing hunger, he was forced to travel alone from Siberia to Novorossiysk to his mother. During that hard, hungry time, he studied at a nautical vocational school, worked in the port as a loader and a machinist on a winch, then moved to a steam locomotive polytechnic. But more and more attracted his art: he wrote poetry, painted.

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

In 1936, Rachev's drawings were seen at 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 instructed to design a front-line newspaper. After the war, Yevgeny Mikhailovich continued to work at Detgiz, in addition, he collaborated with many other publishing houses. And, starting in 1960, he became the chief artist in the publishing house "Malysh" and remained so for about twenty years.

Rachev devoted his entire creative life to work with books, more than sixty years, 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 a child.

Many books were published with illustrations by Rachev, including: Vladimir Obruchev "Plutonium"; M. M. Prishvin "Pantry of the Sun" and "Golden Meadow"; Durov V. L. "My animals"; Mamin-Sibiryak D. M. "Alyonushkin's Tales"; Saltykov-Shchedrin M. Ye. "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 to the 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", IA Krylov "Fables", S. Mikhalkov "Fables".

In 1986, for illustrations to the book of Ukrainian folk tales "Kolosok" E.M. Rachev received an Honorary Diploma of the International Council for Children's and Youth Literature UNESCO - IBBY. The IBBY awards the Hans Christian Andersen International Prize to Children's Authors - Writers and Artists every two years, as well as Honorary Diplomas to the best recently published books for children and youth.

In 1996, the long-term work of E.M. Racheva was awarded with the audience award - "Golden Key".

Evgeny Mikhailovich worked on a significant part of his books 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 tales of different nations, was a compiler of collections of fairy tales and even calculated the layouts of books so that there was an exact correspondence 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 link the stories of the fables to real events, which made it possible to create unique drawings that exactly correspond 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 put in them by Ivan Krylov. There were other books in which you can see that among the creators was L. Gribova - that is, Lydia Ivanovna Racheva.

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

======================================

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

When they say - drawings by Evgeny Rachev, fairy tales and childhood are immediately remembered. His illustrations cannot be confused with any others. The bright personality of his characters will be remembered for a lifetime.

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev devoted his entire creative life to the Book. More than 250 books with a total circulation of over 75 million copies have been published in 68 languages ​​of the peoples of Russia and the world.

Of course, in his work a huge place is occupied by Russian folk tales, but he also illustrated Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bashkir, Tajik, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian fairy tales, fairy tales of the peoples of the North, books of stories and fairy tales about nature and animals, for example. "Whose nose is better?" V. Bianki, "The Pantry of the Sun" by M. Prishvin, "Alenushka's Tales" by D. Mamin-Sibiryak, "My Animals" by Lev Durov, "The Frog-Traveler" by V. Garshin, books of fables and satirical tales by I. Franko, I. Krylov , S. Mikhalkova, M.V. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. Tolstoy and others.

Evgeny Mikhailovich Rachev is a wonderful illustrator, graphic artist, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, Honored Art Worker of the Russian Federation.

Evgeny Rachev was born in 1906 in Tomsk, graduated from the Kuban Art College, studied at the Kiev Art Institute. He began to illustrate books in 1929-30, he was noticed and invited to the largest children's publishing house in the country - Detgiz, to Moscow. From October 1941 in the militia near Moscow, he ended the war in 1945, when, together with other artists, he was sent from the army for the festive decoration of Moscow. After the war he returned to Detgiz. Since 1960, Rachev is the chief artist of the children's publishing house "Malysh", where he worked for twenty years.

The main characters of his illustrations are animals, moreover animals, with character traits inherent in people. Rachev studied the habits of animals in order to show them later in books. “If you look at my drawings and are happy with an amusing fairy tale, it means that it turned out like in a fairy tale. If you, looking at my birds and animals, understand that a fairy tale with a trick, hints at people, then I have succeeded, as in the fairy tales that I illustrate. "

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

His wife Lidia Ivanovna Racheva, who often sketched ornaments and folk costumes in museums, translated and retold fairy tales of different nations, was a compiler of collections of fairy tales. When Yevgeny Mikhailovich took up illustrations for Krylov's fables, his wife collected material in the archives that made it possible to connect the stories of the fables with real events. That is why unique drawings have turned out, exactly corresponding to the text of the fables and the events to which they were dedicated. In this book, the fables were provided with commentaries written by Lydia Ivanovna, which revealed to the readers the meaning put in them by Ivan Andreevich Krylov.