Boris Zakhoder was born to a
Jewish family in
Kagul (now Cahul,
Moldova) and grew up in Moscow. His father was a
lawyer, a graduate of
Moscow University, and his grandfather was the first
crown rabbi of
Nizhny Novgorod. After he graduated from high school in 1935, Zakhoder studied at
Moscow Aviation Institute,
Moscow and
Kazan University until in 1938 he entered
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. His studies were interrupted when he was drafted to
Soviet-Finnish War and later to
World War II. He then returned to the institute and graduated in 1947. He started publishing
poems and
fairy tales for the children the same year and became popular as a children's writer. His work on translations of
Goethe is much less known. Zakhoder started publishing translations of children's literature in 1960 with
A.A. Milne's
Winnie-the-Pooh. His version was also the basis for the Soviet 1969 animated film
Winnie-the-Pooh and its sequels. Zakhoder was awarded the
Russian State Prize for his work, as well as the
Hans Christian Andersen Award. One of his children's books is a collection of stories called "The Hermit and the Rose." == See also ==