Spiridon Vangheli

Spiridon Stepanovich Vangeli is a Moldovan writer, author of the collections "Guguta - the captain of the ship", "Pantalonia - the country of eccentrics", "Nightingale", story-tales "Chubo from the village of Turturica", translator of works by B. Zakhoder and A. Lindgren.

In his memoirs, he admitted that very early he felt like an adult. Spiridon Stepanovich Vangeli was born on July 14, 1932 in Moldova, in the village of Grineutsi, in a peasant family. He was left without a mother early, so his childhood was not easy, moreover, it fell on the difficult pre-war and war years. In 1951, the young man came to Chisinau, entered the pedagogical institute, and after graduation, after serving in the army, he worked as a teacher in a small rural school.

Communication with children became for him a launching pad for his own space travel - travel to childhood. In one interview, he recalls: “By the age of 29, I was tired of adult games, I was drawn to become a child again and once again, only a little differently, to live my childhood. After all, we do not attach importance to so many things in childhood! We are in a hurry to grow up, like a traveler in a hurry to come before dark to the mountain, but, having climbed to the top, he realizes that the most beautiful of all was the valley that stretched out at the foot. "

His students were the first with whom he wanted to share the re-experienced feelings of childhood. And his fairy tales were appreciated: "As I now see the faces of the second graders - I read about the adventures of the new hero, and their lively, joyful laughter did not stop, as if a cheerful breeze was blowing in thirty jugs ..." He wrote a lot and with enthusiasm, and his works were willingly and often published in newspapers, in collections.

They were first published in 1955 as part of the collection Young Voices. The first book - "In the land of butterflies" - was published in 1962, and the fairy tale "The Adventures of Gugutse" that appeared in 1966 (in 1970 it was awarded the Second All-Union Prize for Children's Literature) brought the writer well-deserved fame, which gradually turned into to the world.