Winnie the Pooh and all the rest

Original title: Vinni Pukh i vse-vse-vse

Viktor Chizhikov’s illustrated books have been published for over fifty years. He has reimagined numerous children’s books in his unique, playful and dynamic style.

The timeless stories about the restless bear and his friends, illustrated by Viktor Chizhikov, were published in 1986. But the artist had long before decided to create illustrations for Milne’s legendary tale, retold by Boris Zakhoder.

At that time, Moscow publishing houses had a practice: an illustrator would submit a proposal for the book he wanted to illustrate. Viktor Chizhikov submitted such a proposal for “Winnie-the-Pooh…” in the mid-1970s and waited ten years for the opportunity. “Zakhoder creates very vivid, memorable characters, and his plots are intriguing and cheerful,” Viktor Alexandrovich explained. “Experts say that Boris Vladimirovich’s retelling of “Winnie-the-Pooh” is more engaging and interesting than the original.”

A little boy once asked the artist why his teddy bear looked nothing like a popular cartoon character. “It was a difficult question,” Chizhikov admitted. “I tried to explain that every artist creates their own book character, and copying someone else’s image is, firstly, uninteresting, and, secondly, simply impossible for ethical and legal reasons.

Yes, a cartoon immediately captures an audience of millions, especially if it’s created by talented people. The director, artist, composer, cameraman, an army of animators—each brings their own imagination, their own mood. In a book, only the author, artist, and printing house work for the reader. That’s all. The print run is no more than 100,000, so the reach is much smaller than with a cartoon. Besides, reading is an active labor, not everyone can handle it.”