Lev Atamanov

In his works Lev Atamanov subtly conveyed the national coloring of fairy tales and combined romantic elation in images of positive characters with warm and kind humor.

Levon Konstantinovich Atamanyan was born in Moscow into an Armenian family hailing from Nakhichevan-on-Don. Atamanov studied acting and directing with Lev Kuleshov at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, graduating in 1926. Atamanov first worked as an assistant to the painter and animator Yuri Merkulov and later joined Mezhrabpomfilm Studio. Atamanov’s debut was the short public service announcement Across the Street (1931, with Vladimir Suteev), which explained traffic rules. He then made one of the first animated sound pictures, The Tale of the Little White Bull (1933), an allegorical anti-Western pamphlet directed against the League of Nations. In 1936 Atamanov moved to Yerevan where at Armenfilm Studio he directed the first Armenian animated films, Dog and Cat (1938), from a fairy tale by Hovhannes Tumanyan, and The Priest and the Goat (1941). During the Great Patriotic War, Atamanov served in the Red Army. After his discharge, he completed one more animated film in Armenia, The Magic Carpet (1948). He then returned to Moscow and joined Soyuzmultfilm studio. Atamanov’s animated features; The Golden Antelope (1954) from Indian fairy tales and The Snow Queen (1957) from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale proved to be successful domestically and internationally. He later tried out a variety of styles and topics, among them political satire, for example, in That’s in Our Power (1970), from caricatures of Danish Communist cartoonist Herluf Bidstrup, who was popular in the Soviet Union. He also directed The Scarlet Flower as a plea against Soviet antisemitism. He was buried at the Moscow Armenian Cemetery.

• The story about the white bull-calf (1933) • The Blot in the Arctic (1934) • Blot-barber (1935) • The dog and the cat (1938) • The priest and the goat (1941) • The magic carpet (1948) • The yellow stork (1950) - the first work at Soyuzmultfilm studio • The Scarlet Flower (1952) • The Golden Antelope (1954) • The dog and the cat (1955) - a remake of the version of 1938 • The Snow Queen (1957) • Roads of spring (1959) • The thieves of paints (1959) • The Key (1961) • The fairy tales about another's paints (1962) • Jokes (1963) • The shepherdess and the chimney sweep (1965) • The bouquet (1966) • The bench (1967) • The fence (1967) Kaleidoscope-68 • The cyclist (1968) Kaleidoscope-68 • The ballerina by the ship (1969) • It in our forces (1970) • Confusion (collection) (1971) • Petrushka (1971) • Above head! (1972) • The short stories about the space (1973) • The pony runs in round (1974) • I remember … (1975) • The kitten by the name of Bark (1976) (release 1) • The kitten by the name of Bark (1977) (release 2) • The kitten by the name of Bark (1979) (release 3) • The kitten by the name of Bark (1980) (release 4)

* • Biography of Lev Atamanov