The most famous bear cub in the world turns 85 today: Winnie-the-Pooh, Winnie de Poeh, Pu der Bär, Medvídek Pú, Winnie l "ourson, Kubuś Puchatek, Micimackó, Peter Plys, Ole Brumm and the more familiar Winnie the Pooh - it's all him.
His "official" birthday is August 21, 1921, the day Alan Alexander Milne gave his son the toy that became famous throughout the world. True, not right away - at first the name Winnie belonged to the Winnipeg bear, an “acquaintance” of little Christopher Robin, and only three years later it was “gifted” to the bear cub.
There were other options: Vinnie could become Edward. Edward Bear, from the diminutive Teddy Bear, as all teddy bears in England are called - “Teddy Bear”. Sometimes it is mistakenly believed that Winnie the Pooh and there is a third name - Mr. Sanders. But this is not at all true: according to the book, he literally lived under this name, this is just an inscription on Vinnie’s house. Perhaps this is his older relative or just some kind of bear about which we know nothing.
Pooh also had many titles: Piglet's Friend, Rabbit's Companion, Discoverer of the Pole, Eeyore's Comforter and Tail Finder, Bear with a Very Low IQ and Christopher Robin's First Mate on the Ship, Bear with Pleasant Manners. By the way, in last chapter Winnie becomes a knight, so he can rightfully be called Sir Pooh de Bear, that is, Sir Pooh Bear, write the creators of the official website about Winnie the Pooh.
Christopher Robin's real-life toys also included Piglet, Eeyore without a Tail, Kanga, Roo and Tigger. Milne invented the Owl and the Rabbit himself, and in Shepard’s illustrations they look not like toys, but like real animals.
The prefix Pooh in the bear cub's name appeared thanks to a swan that lived with Miln's friends; he appears in the collection "When We Were Very Little." By the way, it should be pronounced correctly as “Pu,” but in the Russian language “pooh” has also taken root because it hints at the plumpness and fluffiness of the main character. However, in the book by Boris Zakhoder there is another explanation: “If a fly landed on his nose, he had to blow it away: “Pooh!” Pooh!" And maybe - although I'm not sure about it - maybe that's when they called him Pooh."
Winnie the Pooh - main character Milne's two books: Winnie-the-Pooh (the first chapter published in the newspaper before Christmas, December 24, 1925, the first separate edition was published on October 14, 1926 by the London publishing house Methuen & Co) and The House at Pooh Corner (House on Pooh Corner, 1928). In addition, Milne's two collections of children's poems, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, contain several poems about Winnie the Pooh.
The Pooh books take place in Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England, known in the book as The Hundred Acre Wood.
Despite the image we are familiar with, in the original he looks slightly different: he has chaff in his head, while according to Zakhoder’s version he has sawdust in his head. Pooh is “scared by long words”, he is forgetful, but often brilliant ideas come into his head. Pooh's favorite pastimes are writing poetry (noisemakers, screamers, chants and puffers) and eating honey.
Who wrote "Winnie the Pooh"? The man who wanted to go down in history English literature as a serious writer, but entered and remained as the creator of the hero whom everyone knows from childhood - a plush bear with a head full of sawdust. Alan Alexander Milne created a series of stories and poems about a teddy bear, writing stories for his son, Christopher Robin, who also became the hero of the book.
Many of Milne's characters received names thanks to very real prototypes - his son's toys. Perhaps the most confusing is the story of Vinny himself. Winnipeg is the name of Christopher's pet bear. Milne brought his son to the zoo in 1924, and three years before that the boy received a bear as a gift for his first birthday, unnamed until that epoch-making meeting. He was called Teddy, as is customary in But after meeting a live bear, the toy was named Winnie in her honor. Gradually Vinnie made friends: loving father I bought new toys for my son, and the neighbors gave the boy Piglet as a gift. The author came up with such characters as the Owl and the Rabbit as the events in the book unfolded.
The first chapter of the story about the bear cub appeared on the eve of Christmas 1925. Winnie the Pooh and his friends stepped into a life that happily continues to this day. More precisely, Milne wrote two prose books and two collections of poetry about Vinnie. Prose collections are dedicated to the writer’s wife.
But the answer to the question of who wrote Winnie the Pooh will be incomplete without mentioning one more name. Ernest Shepherd, Punch magazine cartoonist, like Milne, was a veteran of the First World War. He became a true co-author of the writer, creating images of toy heroes the way generations of children imagine them.
Why so about the teddy bear and his friends? Probably because to many these stories, told one after another, resemble fairy tales that loving parents tell their children. Often such tales are simply made up at night. Of course, not all parents have the gift that Milne possessed, but this special atmosphere of a family, where the child is surrounded by love and care, is felt in every line of the book.
Another reason for such popularity is the amazing language of the fairy tale. The author of "Winnie the Pooh" plays and has fun with words: there are puns, and parodies, including advertising, and funny phraseological units, and other philological delights. Therefore, not only children, but also adults love the book.
But again, there is no definitive answer to the question of who wrote Winnie the Pooh. Because "Winnie the Pooh" is a magical book, it has been translated best writers different countries, considering it an honor to help little fellow citizens meet funny For example, the book was translated into Polish by the sister of the poet Julian Tuwima Irena. There were several translations into Russian, but the text by Boris Zakhoder, which was published in 1960, became a classic, and millions of Soviet children began to repeat the screams and chants after Vinny the Bear.
A separate story is the film adaptation of a fairy tale. In the West, the Disney studio series is known, which, by the way, the main character of the book did not really like - A soviet cartoon with amazing voice acting, where the characters speak in the voices of E. Leonov, I. Savina, E. Garin, is still much more popular in the post-Soviet space.
The one who wrote "Winnie the Pooh" was never able to free himself from the hugs of a teddy bear, but it was this book that brought him immortality.
Although the versions differ from each other, they are united by one thing - the friendship of a boy and a bear. This became the reason for writing the fairy tale.
Interesting facts
Anyone who has ever read a book about Vinny or watched a cartoon knows that the bear loves honey. This is actually not true. The real Winnipeg didn't like honey, but she just loved condensed milk. Growing up, Christopher told how he constantly treated her to condensed milk.
No one knows why the author added Pooh to Winnie’s name. Opinions vary. Some say that the bear received this nickname thanks to a swan named Pooh, who lived with friends of the Milns. Others were sure that all this was thanks to the pen with which the author wrote. The company that produced the pen in which the author wrote the work was called Swan Pen, which in translation sounds like “Swan Pen”.
Forest life
The Milnes did not live in London all their lives. In 1925, the whole family successfully moved to an estate near Hartfield. The estate was located near Ashdown Forest, which became a favorite vacation spot for the whole family.
The emergence of Winnie the Pooh
Differing from other stories, shrouded in mysteries and myths, the history of the origin of Winnie the Pooh himself is simple and understandable. Christopher Robin had a toy teddy bear, which was nicknamed Winnie the Pooh. The child also had other toys, which later became prototypes for the characters. Among them were: a pig, a donkey whose tail was actually torn off, a tiger cub and a kangaroo with a baby kangaroo. Milne had already invented the owl and the rabbit himself.
Conclusion
Although the story of Winnie the Pooh himself sometimes seems a little gloomy, the fairy tale itself has been loved by many generations. Friendship story little boy and the bear cub with sawdust in its head has stuck in the hearts of millions of children around the world, and, perhaps, survives us too.
Winnie the Pooh is a character from Alan Milne's book, a teddy bear that has become incredibly popular all over the world. In the USSR, Winnie the Pooh won the hearts of children after the release of stories about the restless bear cub retold by Boris Zakhoder, and then after the release of the cartoon "Winnie the Pooh and All, All, All." Today, Winnie the Pooh has long gone beyond book pages and screens - Winnie the Pooh has become a unique brand, one of the best-selling plush toys in the world and simply a favorite of children and their parents.
Winnie-the-Pooh - a figment of fantasy English writer Alan A. Milne. The children's book about the bear was inspired by his little son Christopher Robin and his favorite toys - a teddy bear named Winnie the Pooh, a pig and a donkey with a torn off tail. By the way, several strange name for the bear cub was made up of two names - the Winnipeg bear (Winnie) from the London Zoo and a swan named Pooh, who lived with the writer’s friends.
Surprisingly, in the book the story about the bear cub is told to the boy by his father, while in real life Christopher Robin read his father's books when he was almost an adult, although Milne wrote them when his son was 5-7 years old. This happened because Milne himself never considered himself a great writer and preferred to raise his son on the books of other, in his opinion, more deserving children's writers. The irony was that at the same time the “greats” were raising their children on Milne’s books.
Be that as it may, Winnie the Pooh quickly won the hearts of the children. He was a naive and good-natured bear, quite modest and even shy. By the way, about the fact that “there is sawdust in his head,” in original book it is not said - this already appeared in Zakhoder’s translation. By the way, in the book Milna hara
The character of Winnie the Pooh depended entirely on how his owner wanted him to be. Winnie the Pooh's birthday is either August 21, 1921 (the day Milne's son turned one year old), or October 14, 1926, when the first book about Winnie the Pooh was published.
By the way, today a teddy bear that belonged to Christopher Robin, the same “original” Winnie the Pooh, is exhibited in the children's room of the New York Library.
A huge boost to the popularity of Winnie the Pooh, no doubt, came from disney cartoons, the first of which came out in the early 1960s.
In the USSR, the first cartoon about a bear named Winnie the Pooh was released in 1969. It’s strange, but this already established and completely formed character suddenly found in a distant Soviet country completely new image, and the image is strong, unique in its own way and generally very far from the original. By the way, Boris Zakhoder always insisted that he did not translate, but retold Alan Milne’s book, which is why the image of “our” Winnie the Pooh is so far from English.
Thus, “our” Winnie the Pooh does not even outwardly resemble “their” Winnie the Pooh. Small, plump, even round, the “Soviet” Winnie the Pooh looks completely different from the original, which was more reminiscent of an ordinary teddy bear. By the way, very strong
The image of “our” Winnie the Pooh was strengthened by Evgeniy Leonov, who voiced him, whose voice forever became “the voice of Winnie the Pooh” for all of us. The cartoon was created by the wonderful cartoon director Fyodor Khitruk (he later received the State Prize for this work).
Speaking about the character of “our” Winnie the Pooh, we can immediately say that Winnie the Pooh is a bear-poet, a bear-thinker. He easily accepted the fact that there was sawdust in his head, was not at all puzzled by this and continued to do what he loved most. And he loves to eat. It seems that Winnie the Pooh is slow-witted, this is especially noticeable in some dialogues, when he openly “freezes” and answers abruptly and out of place. In fact, Winnie the Pooh constantly has an internal thought process that is known only to him. There is reason to believe that all his time he thinks deeply about where he can get honey or something tasty.
He never reveals his emotions, Winnie the Pooh's face is impenetrable, his thoughts are inaccessible. At the same time, we see that he is an ignorant, but a charming ignoramus. Winnie the Pooh is not burdened with any good manners - this is especially noticeable when he smells nearby food. Winnie the Pooh in the “Soviet” version turned out to be surprisingly stylish and complete. Pr
This cartoon itself is quite simple in animation.
It remains a mystery - why exactly did Soviet children and their parents fall in love with Winnie the Pooh? After all, Winnie the Pooh was not a “hero” at all - he did not save his friends, did not defeat evil, and in general “hanged out” on the screen quite uselessly, trying to find something tasty. However, he was and is loved by several generations of Russians. Literally every phrase from cartoons ended up in quotation books. The popularity of Winnie the Pooh can be judged by the number of jokes about him.
So, Winnie the Pooh, as we, Russian readers and viewers know him, is a rather selfish but cute fat bear. He is not burdened with good manners, but he definitely has charisma - all animals willingly make contact with him. On occasion, he can help someone, but only if it does not interfere with his plans. A lover of food, especially sweets, he spends his days most likely thinking about food. And although he is hardly capable of serious discoveries, he lives as a poet and thinker - in his “head full of sawdust” there is a constant thought process, invisible to the audience, but occupying him entirely.
We can only guess whether Winnie the Pooh is happy, because in general he is almost autistic, completely incomprehensible, but incredibly cute and attractive
Everything, everything, everything about Winnie the Pooh.
The story of the creation of a book about the adventures of the teddy bear Winnie the Pooh is far from simple. The bear has many prototypes, and its very birth was probably a complete surprise and may even be a prank for its creator. Winnie the Pooh's dad (writer who wrote the book), Scotsman Alan Alexander Milne, was the son school teacher. Having received an excellent education, he worked at Punch magazine as an assistant editor. In 1913 Milne married Dorothy Daphne de Selincote, from which one son was born, Christopher.
Alan Alexander Milne was quite a “grown-up” writer and wrote serious books. He dreamed of earning fame as a great detective writer and wrote plays and short stories. But...On December 24, 1925, on Christmas Eve, the first chapter of Pooh, “in which we first meet Winnie the Pooh and the bees,” was published in the London evening newspaper and broadcast on BBC radio. And for many years now, Milnov's books have been recognized classics for children. bookshelves and Disney cartoons.
Alan Alexander Milne with his son Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh 1920s
The irony is that Milne was convinced that he wrote neither children's prose nor children's poetry. He spoke to the child inside each of us. By the way, he never read his Pooh stories to his son, Christopher Robin,
although he acknowledged the decisive role of his wife, Dorothy, and son in the writing and the very fact of the appearance of Winnie the Pooh. 
Christopher Robin with his mother Dorothy Milne
Christopher Robin's room, Winnie on the bed, 1920s 
The history of the creation of this book is truly full of mysteries and contradictions.
The path is traced from the front-line favorite of the soldiers, the Winnipeg bear (by the way, the predatory Baribal), who came to Great Britain during the First World War as a living mascot (mascot) of the Canadian Army Veterinary Corps from Canada, from the outskirts of the city of Winnipeg. It was decided to leave the animal at the London Zoo until the end of the war. Londoners fell in love with the bear, and the military did not object to not taking her from the zoo even after the war. Until the end of her days (she died on May 12, 1934), the bear was on the payroll of the veterinary corps, about which a corresponding inscription was made on her cage in 1919.
In 1924, Alan Milne came to the zoo for the first time with his four-year-old son Christopher Robin, who truly became friends with Winnie, even feeding her sweet milk. Three years earlier, Milne bought an Alpha Farnell teddy bear (see photo) from Harrods and gave his son a teddy bear (see photo) for his first birthday. After the owner met Winnie, this bear received a name in honor of his beloved bear. The boy even came up with a new name for him - Winnie Pooh. The word Pooh came to the former Teddy from the swan whom Christopher Robin met when the whole family went to his country house at Cotchford Farm in Sussex. By the way, this is next to the very forest that is now known to the whole world as the Hundred Acre Wood. Why Pooh? Yes, because “because if you call him and the swan doesn’t come (which they really like to do), you can pretend that Pooh said just like that...”. The toy bear was approximately two feet tall, had a light coloring and often had missing eyes.
Christopher Robin's real-life toys also included Piglet, Eeyore without a Tail, Kanga, Roo and Tigger. Milne invented the Owl and the Rabbit himself. 
The toys that Christopher Robin played with are kept in Public library New York. In 1996, Milne's beloved teddy bear was sold at Bonham's London auction to an unknown buyer for £4,600.
The very first person in the world who was lucky enough to see Winnie the Pooh was the then young artist, cartoonist for Punch magazine Ernest Sheppard. It was he who first illustrated Winnie the Pooh. Initially, the teddy bear and his friends were black and white, and then they became colored. And his son’s teddy bear posed for Ernest Sheppard, not Pooh at all, but “Growler” (or Grumpy). 
Artist Ernest Howard Shepard (1879–1976), who illustrated the book. 1976 
Shepard Christmas card, Sotheby's. 2008 
First American edition at Sotheby's auction. 2008
In total, two books were written about Winnie the Pooh: Winnie-the-Pooh (the first separate edition was published on October 14, 1926 by the London publishing house Methuen & Co) and The House at Pooh Corner (House on Pooh Corner, 1928). In addition, Milne's two collections of children's poems, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, contain several poems about Winnie the Pooh. 
Alan Alexander Milne, 1948
When Milne died, no one doubted that he had discovered the secret of immortality. And this is not 15 minutes of fame, this is real immortality, which, contrary to his own expectations, was brought to him not by plays and short stories, but by a little bear cub with sawdust in his head.
Christopher wrote to his friend Peter (actor): “My father understood nothing about the specifics of the book market, knew nothing about the specifics of sales, he never wrote books for children. He knew about me, he knew about himself and the Garrick Club (writers -artistic club of London) - and he simply did not pay attention to everything else... Except, perhaps, life itself." 
Adult Christopher Robin with his bride 1948
Worldwide sales of Winnie the Pooh since 1924 to 1956 exceeded 7 million.
By 1996, about 20 million copies had been sold, published only by Muffin. This does not include publishers in the United States, Canada, or non-English-speaking countries.
In 1961, Disney acquired the rights to Winnie the Pooh. Walt Disney slightly changed the famous illustrations by the artist Shepard, which accompanied Milne's books, and released a series of cartoons about Winnie the Pooh. According to Forbes magazine, Winnie the Pooh is the second most profitable character in the world, second only to Mickey Mouse. Winnie the Pooh generates $5.6 billion in revenue every year
On April 11, 2006, a star for Winnie the Pooh was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
At the same time, Milne's granddaughter, Claire Milne, living in England, is trying to get her teddy bear back. Or rather, the rights to it. So far unsuccessful 
In 1960, Winnie the Pooh was brilliantly translated into Russian by Boris Zakhoder and published with illustrations by Alice Poret. 
The bear cub gained even greater popularity among Soviet children and adults after the Soyuzmultfilm studio released three 10-minute cartoons based on the book. True, the bear cub turned out to be completely different from Milnovsky. However, this did not stop him from becoming everyone's favorite. Just look at his chants, screams, and sawdust. 
