Vitaly Bianki

Vitaly Bianki
Soviet writer Vitaly Bianki in 1938
Born	30.01.1894 St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died	28.05.1959 (10.06.1959) (aged 65) Leningrad, USSR
Occupation	Writer, teacher
Genre	Natural history Children's literature

Vitaly Valentinovich Bianki (Russian: Вита́лий Валенти́нович Биа́нки) (11 February 1894, St. Petersburg — 10 June 1959, Leningrad) — was a popular russian children’s writer and a prolific author of books on nature.

Bianki's father was Valentin Lvovich Bianchi (1857-1920), an entomologist and curator at the Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His three sons were at home in its halls. On a summer vacation Vitaly Bianchi went on his first forestry trip, and became a passionate outdoorsman. He graduated from the Natural Science Department of the Physical and Mathematical Faculty of Petrograd University in 1916 with a specialization in ornithology, as well as studies in art at the St. Petersburg Art Institute to assist with the drawing of plants and animals.

Bianchi served in the army in 1916 and joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party in 1917. In 1917 moved to Biysk, where he was forced into the army of the Kolchak royalists. He deserted and lived under a false name "Vitaly Belyanin" until the eventual expulsion of the Kolchak regime. His double name Bianki-Belyanin remained on his passport until the end of his life. He worked for the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Tsarskoye Selo, and was sent in spring 1918 to Siberia and the Volga, where he worked in the summer of 1918 in Samara for the newspaper People ("Народ").

After the Soviets came to power, Bianki worked in Biysk in the Department of Education at a regional museum where he served as director. He also worked as a school teacher for Comintern III. He was arrested twice in 1921, and in fear of further arrest, he moved his family in 1922 to Petrograd.