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Science fiction archive. The Naive Romantic Ian Larry Ian Larry Artwork for Children

Science fiction archive. The Naive Romantic Ian Larry Ian Larry Artwork for Children

10.08.2021

Jan Larry heavenly guest

Jan Leopoldovich Larry

(1900-1977)

USSR State Security Committee

Office for the Leningrad Region

Leningrad

Larry Jan Leopoldovich, born in 1900, native of Riga, Latvian, citizen of the USSR, non-partisan, writer (worked under an employment contract), lived: Leningrad, pr. 25th October, 112, apt. 39

wife Larry Praskovia Ivanovna, born in 1902

son - Larry Oscar Yanovich, born in 1928

From December 17, 1940 to the present, he sent 7 chapters of his still unfinished counter-revolutionary story to the indicated address, in which he criticizes the measures of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government from counter-revolutionary Trotskyite positions.

“... The chapters of this story sent by Larry to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) were written by him from an anti-Soviet position, where he distorted Soviet reality in the USSR, cited a number of anti-Soviet slanderous fabrications about the situation of workers in the Soviet Union.

In addition, in this story, Larry also tried to discredit the Komsomol organization, Soviet literature, the press and other ongoing activities of the Soviet government.

Charged under Art. 58–10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda).

On July 5, 1941, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Leningrad City Court sentenced Larry Ya. L. to imprisonment for a period of 10 years, followed by disqualification for a period of 5 years.

By the decision of the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR of August 21, 1956, the sentence of the Leningrad City Court of July 5, 1941 against Larry Ya. L. was canceled, and the case was dismissed due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions.

Larry Y.L. rehabilitated in this case.

From the book "Writers of Leningrad"

Larry Jan Leopoldovich (February 15, 1900, Riga - March 18, 1977, Leningrad), prose writer, children's writer. Orphaned early. Before the revolution, he was a watchmaker's apprentice, changed many other occupations, wandered. Member of the Civil War. Worked in newspapers and magazines in Kharkov, Novgorod, Leningrad. He moved to Leningrad in 1926. Graduated from Leningrad University (1931). He studied at the postgraduate course of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Fisheries. Wrote the script for the film Man Overboard (1931, co-authored with P. Stelmakh). For an autobiographical note, see The Editor and the Book (1963, no. 4).

Sad and funny stories about little people. Kharkov, 1926; Five years. L., 1929 and other ed. - In collaboration with A. Lifshitz; Window to the future. L., 1929; How it was. L., 1930; Notes of a Horseman. L., 1931; The land of the happy. L., 1931; The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali: A Science Fiction Tale. M.-L., 1937 and other ed.; Notes of a Schoolgirl: A Tale. L., 1961; The Amazing Adventures of Cook and Kukka. L., 1961; Brave Tilly: Puppy Notes written with a tail. "Murzilka", 1970, No. 9-12.

HOW WRITER JAN LARRY STALIN ENLIGHTENED

The generation of the revolution, scorched by the fire of the civil war, enchanted by the prospects of building a new society, for the most part firmly believed that a happy bright future was not far off and that the difficulties along the way to it would pay off a hundredfold. I had to talk with many people whose youth fell on the 30s - they did not have even the slightest doubt about the correctness of the state's policy. The slogans proclaimed by the party, appeals, even at times absurd, were perceived solely as inciting to action. And the repressions, which, despite the monstrous scale, it was not customary to speak aloud, are also correct measures, not subject to criticism, as a fair punishment for actions, given the tense international situation. The causes and mechanism of this mass hypnosis, which engulfed tens of millions of people, will be the subject of research by historians, sociologists and psychologists for a long time to come.

However, not everything was bright and smooth in the realm of socialism. People who, by virtue of their intellect, peculiarities of the soul, could not help but think about what was happening around them, inevitably noticed the illogicality and inexpediency of many government actions, the poverty of life driven into the barracks. And they were unable to say anything about it.

I'm not sure that the hero of my essay fully understood the blatant cruelty of the system, which was given out as the fulfillment of the age-old dream of mankind - this requires both time and an outside look at one's own history. I admit that he was not able to fully understand the mechanism of social movements, otherwise he would not have done what he did - at the risk of his life, open the eyes of "deeply respected Joseph Vissarionovich" to what is happening in the country. However, then many believed in the infallibility of the leader and teacher, and all the troubles, difficulties and injustices were attributed to the erroneous or dishonest actions of his entourage.

At the beginning of 1940, a letter addressed to I.V. Stalin was sent from Leningrad. It contained a literary manuscript.

“I will write only for you, without demanding for myself any orders, no fees, no honors, no glory ...

... I would like you to know that there is one eccentric in Leningrad who spends his leisure hours in a peculiar way - creating a literary work for a single person ... ”an unknown addressee said.

A fantastic story is attached to the letter. Its plot is quite simple. A spaceship with a Martian, a creature quite close to us earthlings, descends to Earth (in the region of the Leningrad Region). In conversations with hospitable hosts, the position of our society, deformed by the yoke of the party administration, becomes clear - as if somewhat from the outside.

“What do you live? - the author asks through the lips of a Martian. - What problems concern you? Judging by your newspapers, all you do is make bright meaningful speeches at meetings ... Is your present so disgusting that you do not write anything about it? And why aren't any of you looking to the future? Is it really so gloomy that you are afraid to look into it?

It is not customary for us to look into the future, they answered the Martian.

Much has been written about it. About the blatant Russian poverty, the cause of which - this is how the Martian was explained - "is ... the hypertrophic centralization of our entire apparatus, tying the local initiative hand and foot." The fact that "Moscow has become the only city where people live, and all other cities have turned into a remote province, where people exist only to carry out the orders of Moscow." The fact that in our country they do not know their scientists. On hatred of the intelligentsia: and although “a decision was made: to consider the intelligentsia a useful social stratum,” nothing has changed. And that in the time of John the Printer, more books were published than now. "I'm not talking about party literature, which is thrown away every day in millions of copies," wrote an unknown author.

Several more letters were sent to Moscow with the continuation of the story. Four months later, the author was "expelled".

In the arrest warrant of April 11, 1941, it was said: “... Larry Jan Leopoldovich is the author of an anonymous story of counter-revolutionary content called “Heavenly Guest”, which he sent in separate chapters to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the name of Comrade. Stalin."

Writer Jan Larry was charged with criticizing the activities of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government from Trotskyist positions. In the indictment, he was accused of "perverting Soviet reality, anti-Soviet slanderous fabrications about the situation of workers in the Soviet Union, attempts to discredit the Komsomol organization and other measures of Soviet power."

Usually materials of a "creative nature" confiscated during arrest were destroyed. But by the will of fate, Ian Larry's "Heavenly Guest" survived and after almost half a century the manuscript was transferred to the Writers' Union. And I was able to see the light.

Jan Leopoldovich Larry was tried on July 3, 1941. The indictment under the infamous Article 58-10 meant ten years in prison, followed by disqualification for a period of five years.

Fifteen years later, J.L. Larry's sentence was overturned and the case dismissed for lack of corpus delicti.

The author of The Heavenly Guest, unknown to the Soviet reader, and very popular, one of the best fantasy books for children, The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali, was rehabilitated. Fortunately, not posthumously.

Jan Leopoldovich Larry was born in 1900 in Riga - according to the official version (near Moscow, as he specified in his autobiography). His childhood passed near Moscow, where his father worked. But from the first years, Ian Larry's life was marked by a chain of misfortunes. Mother died early. At the age of ten, the boy lost his father. Attempts to arrange an orphaned child in an orphanage were unsuccessful - Yang escaped from there. The teacher Dobrokhotov took part in the fate of the homeless child, preparing Jan as an external student for the course of the gymnasium. For some time Larry lived in a teacher's family. But during the First World War, Dobrokhotov was drafted into the army, and again Larry "traded", where necessary.

After the revolution, he came to Petrograd, assuming that the knowledge gained from Dobrokhotov was enough to enter the university. But these hopes were not destined to come true.

Wandering again. Through accidentally met friends of the late father, Larry joins the Red Army. Typhoid puts the young man in the hospital for a long time. As a result, traces of the battalion were lost. Relapsing fever again pulls the young man out of active life. After recovery - further wanderings around Russia.

Ian Larry began writing in 1923. The first publications in the Kharkov newspaper "Young Leninist" attracted attention. Larry was offered a full-time job. From that moment on, Jan Leopoldovich could consider himself a journalist and writer.

Jan Larry published his first books in Kharkov.

He returned to Leningrad three years later as a professional writer. He worked as a secretary of the magazine "Rabselkor", then in the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda". He established himself as a children's writer. He worked as a journalist, and since 1928 he switched to free “literary bread”.

This apparent ease of traveling through the crossroads of life was purely external. In the 1930s, Yan Leopoldovich recalled, it was not easy for a children's writer in the USSR: “Around a children's book, the comprachoses of children's souls famously cancanated - teachers, "Marxist bigots" and other varieties of stranglers of all living things, when fantasy and fairy tales were burned out with a red-hot iron ... "

“My manuscripts,” Jan later wrote...

Check out the biography of Ian Larry below to get a complete picture of his life and his work.

Jan Larry - Soviet writer. He wrote books for children and fantasy. Born in Riga on February 15, 1900. The writer's childhood was difficult. Already at an early age, his parents died, as a result of which Larry became homeless. Already at the age of 10, he began to earn extra money, sometimes helping a watchmaker, sometimes working as a waiter.

When Larry was only 14 years old, the First World War began. The boy was drafted into the army, and served until October 1917, when the Great October Socialist Revolution took place. After the revolution, Jan Larry joined the Red Army and fought for them during the Civil War.

After leaving the army, he went to study. In Leningrad, he graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the University, and later postgraduate studies. After some time, Larry managed to get the position of director of the fish factory. It is worth noting that he graduated from the graduate school of the All-Union Research Institute of Fisheries.

Creativity in the biography of Ian Larry

The writer began his literary work in the 1920s. After some time, the writer began to pay more attention to science fiction. The first such work appeared in 1930 and was called "Window to the Future". The book was not popular. But the novel, released by Larry a year later, "The Land of the Happy", brought fame to the author. In the book, Larry described his vision of the future of communism.

Not everyone knows that although the biography of Jan Larry is full of creative success, nevertheless, the writer received the main fame thanks to the children's book "The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali." The book tells about the fantastic journey of children. It has interesting descriptions of plants and insects. The book has been reprinted many times in the future. In 1987, a film was even made on it, and in 2005 a cartoon appeared.
In 1940, Ian Larry set to work on the satirical novel The Heavenly Guest. In the book, he described how aliens see life on Earth. As the chapters were written, Larry sent them to Stalin. He called Stalin "the only reader" of the novel. A year later, after sending 7 chapters, the writer was arrested and sent to a camp for 10 years.

After serving his sentence, Ian Larry wrote two more children's stories - "The Adventures of Cook and Kukka" and "Notes of a Schoolgirl". Jan Larry died at the age of 77 in Leningrad.

If you have already read the biography of Ian Larry, you can rate this author at the top of the page.

In addition, we invite you to visit the Biographies section, where you can read other interesting articles about the work of popular writers, in addition to the biography of Ian Larry.

Jan Larry was born on February 15, 1900 in Riga, orphaned early - at the age of 9 - and since then he has been wandering, working as a watchmaker's apprentice and as a waiter in a tavern. During the First World War he was drafted into the tsarist army, after the Great October Revolution he went over to the side of the Reds, in their army and fought in the Civil War. After demobilization, he worked in the newspapers of Kharkov, Leningrad, Novgorod. Graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the Leningrad State University, postgraduate studies at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Fisheries. He worked as a director of a fish factory.

Larry's first works began to appear in the 1920s, and science fiction began to appear in the early 1930s. The debut in this area was the unsuccessful story "Window to the Future" (1930). However, the utopian novel The Land of the Happy (1931), where the author reflected his views on the near future of communism, enjoyed great success. In this world there is no place for totalitarianism and lies, expansion into space begins, but utopia is threatened by a global energy crisis. Despite all the utopia, Larry was able to put in his work even a hint of Stalin - the negative character Molybdenum. However, the first edition of the story had to wait several decades. Larry is known for the children's book "The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali" (1937), written by order of Samuil Marshak and having dozens of reprints. In the story, brother and sister Karik and Valya become small and travel in the world of insects. In 1987, the story was filmed. Larry also wrote a children's book, The Riddle of Plain Water (1939).

In 1940, Larry began to write the satirical novel The Heavenly Guest, in which he described the world order of the inhabitants of the Earth from the point of view of aliens, and sent the written chapters to Stalin - "the only reader" of this novel, as he believed; in April 1941, after 7 heads sent, he was arrested. On July 5, 1941, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Leningrad City Court sentenced Larry Ya. L. to imprisonment for a period of 10 years, followed by disqualification for a period of 5 years.

He was rehabilitated in 1956. After the camp, Larry wrote another children's story, The Adventures of Cook and Cookie (1961).

Bibliography

"Window to the Future" (1930)
Land of the happy: Publicistic story. - L .: Leningrad. region publishing house, 1931. - 192 p. - 50,000 copies.
"The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali" (1937)
"The Riddle of Plain Water" (1939)
"Heavenly Guest" (1940-1941)
"The Adventures of Cook and Kukka" (1961)
"Notes of a schoolgirl" (1961)

[email protected]

Jan Leopoldovich Larry

(1900-1977)

Larry Jan Leopoldovich, born in 1900, native of Riga, Latvian, citizen of the USSR, non-partisan, writer (worked under an employment contract), lived: Leningrad, pr. 25th October, 112, apt. 39
wife Larry Praskovia Ivanovna, born in 1902
son - Larry Oscar Yanovich, born in 1928
Arrested on April 13, 1941 by the NKGB Directorate for the Leningrad Region.

Extract from the arrest warrant (approved April 11, 1941):
“... Larry Ya. L. is the author of an anonymous story of counter-revolutionary content called The Heavenly Guest, which he sent in separate chapters to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the name of Comrade Stalin.
From December 17, 1940 to the present, he sent 7 chapters of his still unfinished counter-revolutionary story to the indicated address, in which he criticizes the measures of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government from counter-revolutionary Trotskyite positions.

In the indictment (June 10, 1941):
“... The chapters of this story sent by Larry to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) were written by him from an anti-Soviet position, where he distorted Soviet reality in the USSR, cited a number of anti-Soviet slanderous fabrications about the situation of workers in the Soviet Union.
In addition, in this story, Larry also tried to discredit the Komsomol organization, Soviet literature, the press and other ongoing activities of the Soviet government.

Charged under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda).
On July 5, 1941, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Leningrad City Court sentenced Larry Ya. L. to imprisonment for a period of 10 years, followed by disqualification for a period of 5 years.
By the decision of the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR of August 21, 1956, the sentence of the Leningrad City Court of July 5, 1941 against Larry Ya. L. was canceled, and the case was dismissed due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions.
Larry Y.L. exonerated in this case.

From the book "Writers of Leningrad"

Sad and funny stories about little people. Kharkov, 1926; Five years. L., 1929, etc. ed. - In collaboration with A. Lifshitz; Window to the future. L., 1929; How it was. L., 1930; Notes of a Horseman. L., 1931; The land of the happy. L., 1931; The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali: A Science Fiction Tale. M.-L., 1937 and other ed.; Notes of a Schoolgirl: A Tale. L., 1961; The Amazing Adventures of Cook and Kukka. L., 1961; Brave Tilly: Puppy Notes written with a tail. "Murzilka", 1970, No. 9-12.

HOW WRITER JAN LARRY STALIN ENLIGHTENED

Aelita Assovskaya

REPORT ON THE CASE OF WRITER IAN LARRY

At the end of 1940, a manuscript with a letter was sent to Stalin, which I would like to quote in full.
“Dear Joseph Vissarionovich!
Every great man is great in his own way. After one, great deeds remain, after the other, funny historical anecdotes. One is known for having thousands of mistresses, another for extraordinary Bucephalus, the third for wonderful jesters. In a word, there is no such great thing that would not rise in memory, not surrounded by some historical satellites: people, animals, things.
Not a single historical personality has yet had its own writer. The kind of writer who would only write for one great man. However, even in the history of literature one cannot find such writers who would have a single reader...
I take up the pen to fill this gap.
I will write only for you, without demanding for myself any orders, no fees, no honors, no glory.
It is possible that my literary abilities will not meet with your approval, but for this, I hope, you will not condemn me, just as people are not condemned for having red hair or for chipped teeth. I will try to replace the lack of talent with zeal, conscientious attitude to the obligations assumed.
In order not to tire you and not cause you traumatic damage with an abundance of boring pages, I decided to send my first story in short chapters, firmly remembering that boredom, like poison, in small doses not only does not threaten health, but, as a rule, even tempers people .
You will never know my real name. But I would like you to know that there is one eccentric in Leningrad who spends his leisure hours in a peculiar way - creating a literary work for a single person, and this eccentric, without inventing a single worthy pseudonym, decided to sign Kulidzhary. In sunny Georgia, whose existence is justified by the fact that this country gave us Stalin, the word Kulidzhary, perhaps, can be found, and perhaps you know its meaning.

IAN LARRY

HEAVENLY GUEST
social fiction story

Chapter I

Chapter II

The next day I said to the Martian:
- You wanted to know the reasons for our poverty? Read!
And handed him a newspaper.
The Martian read aloud:
“There is an artel “United Chemist” on Vasilyevsky Island. It has only one paint shop, which employs only 18 workers. (..)
For 18 production workers with a monthly salary fund of 4.5 thousand rubles, the artel has: 33 employees, whose salary is 20.8 thousand rubles, 22 service personnel and 10 fire and guard guards. (...)"
- This, of course, is a classic, - I said, - but this example is not an isolated one, - and what is most offensive of all is that no matter who writes, no matter how they write, it will not come out of it until an order from above will be given to eliminate such outrages. (...)
If tomorrow Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin said:
- Come on, lads, look, I ask you, better - if there are any unnecessary institutions in our country.
If the leader had said so, then I am sure that in a week 90% of our institutions, departments, offices and other rubbish would be completely unnecessary. (...)
The cause of poverty is also the hypertrophic centralization of our entire apparatus, which binds local initiative hand and foot. (...)
But all this is still half the trouble. Worst of all, this monstrous guardianship impoverishes our lives. It so happened that Moscow became the only city where people live, and all other cities turned into a remote province, where people exist only to carry out the orders of Moscow. No wonder, therefore, that the provinces are shouting hysterically, like Chekhov's sisters: To Moscow, to Moscow! The ultimate dream of a Soviet person is life in Moscow. (...)

Chapter III

An artist, an engineer, a journalist, a director and a composer came to visit me for a cup of tea. I introduced everyone to the Martian. He said:
- I am a new person on Earth, and therefore my questions may seem strange to you. However, I would very much ask you, comrades, to help me understand your life. (...)
- Please, - said the old professor very politely, - ask, and we will answer you as frankly as people in our country now say only in private, answering the questions of their conscience.
- That's how? - the Martian was amazed, - so in your country people lie to each other?
- Oh, no, - the engineer intervened, - the professor did not quite accurately, perhaps, stated his idea. He obviously wanted to say that in our country people generally do not like to be frank.
- But if they do not speak frankly, then they are lying?
“No,” the professor smiled condescendingly, “they don’t lie, they just keep silent. (...) And now the cunning enemy has chosen a different tactic for himself. He says. He tries his best to prove that everything is fine with us and that there is no reason to worry. The enemy is now resorting to a new form of propaganda. And it must be admitted that the enemies of the Soviet government are much more mobile and inventive than our agitators. Standing in line, they shout in a provocative falsetto that we should all be grateful to the party for creating a happy and joyful life. (...) I remember one rainy morning. I stood in line. My hands and feet are numb. And suddenly two shabby citizens walk past the queue. Coming up with us, they sang the famous song with verses "thank you to the great Stalin for our happy life." Can you imagine what a "success" it had with chilled people. No, dear Martian, the enemies are not silent now, but they are screaming, and they are screaming the loudest. The enemies of Soviet power know perfectly well that talking about victims means reassuring the people, and shouting about the need to thank the party means mocking the people, spitting on them, spitting even on the sacrifice that the people are now making.
- Are there many enemies in your country? asked the Martian.
“I don’t think so,” replied the engineer, “I am rather inclined to think that the professor is exaggerating. In my opinion, there are no real enemies at all, but there are a lot of dissatisfied ones. It's right. It is also true that their number is increasing, growing like a snowball set in motion. Everyone who receives three hundred or four hundred rubles a month is dissatisfied, because it is impossible to live on this amount. Those who receive too much are also dissatisfied, because they cannot get what they would like for themselves. But, of course, I will not be mistaken if I say that every person who receives less than three hundred rubles is no longer a great friend of the Soviet regime. Ask a person how much he gets, and if he says "two hundred" - you can say anything about Soviet power in front of him.
“But maybe,” said the Martian, “the labor of these people is worth no more than this money.
- Not more? - the engineer chuckled. - The work of many people who receive even five hundred rubles is not worth two kopecks. Not only do they not work off this money, but they themselves should be paid for sitting in warm rooms.
- But then they can not be offended by anyone! said the Martian.
- You do not understand the psychology of the people of the Earth, - said the engineer. - The fact is that each of us, performing even the most insignificant work, is imbued with a consciousness of the importance of the work entrusted to him, and therefore he claims a decent reward. (...)
- You are right, - said the professor, - I get 500 rubles, that is, about the same amount a tram driver receives. This is, of course, a very insulting bet. (...)
Do not forget, comrades, that I am a professor, and that I have to buy books, magazines, subscribe to newspapers. After all, I cannot be less cultured than my students. And so I have to work with the whole family in order to maintain professorial prestige. I myself am a good turner; through nominees, I take home orders from artels. My wife teaches children foreign languages and music, turning our apartment into a school. My daughter runs the household and paints the vases. All together we earn about six thousand a month. But none of us are happy with this money. (...)
- Why? asked the Martian.
“Simply because,” said the professor, “the Bolsheviks hate the intelligentsia. They hate with some special, bestial hatred.
- Well, - I intervened, - you are really in vain, dear professor. Indeed, it has recently been the case. But then even a whole campaign was carried out. I remember the speeches of individual comrades who explained that it is not good to hate the intelligentsia.
- So what? - the professor chuckled. - And what has changed since then? A decision was made: to consider the intelligentsia a useful social stratum. And that's where it all ended. (...) The majority of institutes, universities and scientific institutions are headed by people who have no idea about science.
“You know,” the engineer laughed, “it is these people who sow distrust and hatred of the intelligentsia. Just think, professor, what will happen to them when the party decides that it can do without intermediaries in its relations with the workers of science. They have a vested interest in maintaining hatred and distrust of the intelligentsia.
“Perhaps you are right,” the professor said thoughtfully, “but that is not what I wanted to draw your attention to. (...) Worse than the other. The worst thing is that our work does not find approval among the Bolsheviks, and since they control the press, public opinion, it has happened in our country that no one knows their scientists, no one knows what they are working on, what they are going to work on. . And this is happening in a country that prides itself on its culture. (...)
The Soviet intelligentsia, of course, has its own demands, a natural desire for knowledge, for observations, for knowledge of the surrounding world, which is natural for all the intelligentsia of the world. What is the party doing or what has it done to meet this need? And absolutely nothing. We don't even have newspapers. After all, one cannot consider as a newspaper what is published in Leningrad. These are most likely leaflets for the first year of political education, this is most likely a list of opinions of individual Leningrad comrades about certain events. The events themselves are shrouded in darkness. (...)
The Bolsheviks abolished literature and art, replacing both with memoirs and the so-called "display". Nothing more unprincipled, it seems, can be found throughout the existence of art and literature. You will not find a single fresh thought, a single new word either in the theater or in literature. (...) I think that in the time of John the Printer, more books were published than now. I'm not talking about party literature, which is thrown away every day in millions of copies. But you can't force reading, so all these shots turn out to be blanks.
“You see,” I said, “there are few books and magazines in our country, because there is no paper.
- Why are you talking nonsense, - the professor got angry. - How is it that there is no paper? Our dishes and buckets are made of paper. We simply do not know what to do with paper. Vaughn even thought of the fact that they began to print posters and hang them everywhere, and on the posters there are wise rules: When you leave, put out the light. Wash my hands before eating! Wipe your nose. Zip up your pants. Visit the restroom. God knows what! (...)
- Allow me! shouted a voice.
We turned to the window.
A tall, clean-shaven man without a cap was looking at us. A harness and bridle lay on the man's shoulder.
- We are from the collective farm, - said the stranger. - Having listened to the claims of a respected fellow scientist of an unknown name, I also want to add my voice of protest against various disorders. (...)

Chapter IV

I’ll tell you this, comrades,” the collective farmer began his speech, “when you look from above, you don’t notice so many little things, and that’s why everything seems so charming to you that your soul simply dances and rejoices. I remember looking down from the mountain down into the valley towards us. The view from above is amazingly cheerful. Our river, nicknamed Stinky, meanders, well, as if in a picture. The collective farm village just asks for the artist's canvas. And neither dirt, nor dust, nor debris, nor rubble - none of this beyond the range of distance can be seen with the naked eye.
The same is true in our collective farms. From above, it may indeed look like a paradise valley, but below, both yesterday and today, it still smells of hellish burning. (...) And now we have a complete confusion of thoughts in the village. Would like to ask someone. But how to ask? Arrested! They will send you! They will say fist or something else. God forbid the evil Tatar see what we have already seen. Well, that's what I say: I would like to know a lot and I'm afraid to ask. So we are discussing our affairs among ourselves in the villages on the sly. (...) And most importantly, we want some kind of law over us. So answer them here. Try.
“However,” the journalist said, “we have laws, and there are plenty of these laws.
The farmer grimaced and sighed heavily:
“Oh, comrades,” he said, “what are these laws when you don’t have time to read it yet, and here, they say, the repeal has already come to him. Why do we have the most disrespect for the Bolsheviks in the countryside? And because they have seven Fridays a week. (...)
- Well, - said the engineer, - perhaps, for us, the people of the city, stable, strong laws are needed. And we have misunderstandings because of the too frequent change of laws, regulations, resolutions, regulations, and so on and so forth. Comrade is right. The law must be designed to last. Changing laws like gloves is not good, if only because it leads to undermining the authority of legislative institutions.
- And again, - said the collective farmer, - if you have issued a law - so be kind enough to respect it yourself. And then we have a lot of laws (good, I will say, laws), but what is the use of this? It would be better if no good laws were issued at all.
- Right! He's right! - exclaimed the professor, - Exactly the same thing is said in our environment. Take, for example, the most remarkable, most human code of laws - our new constitution. Why, you ask, was it made public? Indeed, much of this constitution is now a source of discontent, much causes Tantalus to suffer. Sadly, the constitution has turned into that red cloak with which the matador teases the bull.
- And the funny thing, - said the writer, who had been silent before, - is that all, even the most dangerous in quotation marks, articles of the new constitution can easily be turned into effective articles of the law. Take, for example, freedom of the press. With us, this freedom is exercised with the help of preliminary censorship. That is, we are not given any essentially freedom. (...)
“However,” said the collective farmer, “the freedoms of the press, so to speak, are of very little interest to me. And since I'm in a hurry, I ask you to listen to me. I'm rounding up now. I won't hold your attention. Well, then, like this: I said something about the law. Now I want to say something else. About interest in work. I have already said that all of us are dissatisfied. Do not think, however, that we are dreaming of a return to the old, individual farming. No. We are not drawn there. But here's something to think about. Who are we? We are the hosts! Good Collectors! On that, all our insides are built. And you used to work alone, and with a large family, but still you look at the economy as if it were your own. We, even working in the artel, would like to consider the whole economy as our own.
- Well, consider, - said the professor, - who's stopping you?
- Eh, comrade - a learned man, - the collective farmer waved his hand, - how can we look at our farm in a businesslike way, when they put you on the doorstep ten times a day, like a farm laborer. If we had lived a year in the countryside, we would have seen how many bosses had divorced us. By God, you don’t have time to turn your neck and substitute it. One does not have time to poke, but you look, and the other is already stretching. Come on, he says, and I'll try. (...)
The professor grimaced and said:
- Well, what if this petty guardianship is removed from you, and you stop fulfilling your plans, and in general, what the hell will you do?
- In vain you think so, - the collective farmer was offended. - Let them untie our hands for at least one year. Let them give us the opportunity to turn around - and the state would benefit from this, and we would not live dusty. (...)

YAN LEOPOLDOVICH LARRY

Life dates: February 15, 1900 - March 18, 1977
Place of Birth : city of Riga
Soviet children's science fiction writer
Notable works: "The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Vali"

Probably, there is not a single boy or girl in our country who would not read in childhood, along with the adventures of Dunno, Pinocchio or Old Man Hottabych, a book about the adventures of Karik and Valya. Or at least watch a movie about them. This is an integral part of our childhood, without which it is difficult to imagine further development and immersion in the wonderful world of books and the nature around us. But the fate of the author of this wonderful fabulous and at the same time true story is not at all like the magical world that he left to his descendants, that is, to you and me, our children and, there is hardly any doubt about this, grandchildren.

From the Red Army to science fiction
Life never spared him - neither in childhood, nor later, when he achieved literary fame.
Jan Larry was born in 1900, presumably in Riga, since there is still no reliable data on this (for some reason he himself later wrote in his autobiography that he was born near Moscow).
His childhood really passed near Moscow, where his father worked. But shortly after his birth, his mother died. And then there was no father. And at the age of 9 the boy was orphaned. Attempts to arrange an orphaned child in an orphanage were unsuccessful - Yang escaped from there. The teacher Dobrokhotov took part in the fate of the homeless child, preparing Jan as an external student for the course of the gymnasium. For some time Larry lived in a teacher's family. But during the First World War, Dobrokhotov was drafted into the army, and again Larry "traded", where necessary. There was nothing to live on and nowhere to live. He wandered, then got a job as an apprentice watchmaker and an errand boy in a tavern. At the end of the First World War, the young man was drafted into the army. And after the October Revolution, he, like many soldiers that year, went over to the side of the Bolsheviks and already fought on the side of the Red Army in the Civil War. True, this was preceded by an attempt to enter the university in Petrograd. But the young man overestimated his abilities - the knowledge received from Dobrokhotov and partially forgotten in the trenches was not enough. Wandering again. And then my father's friends offered to join the Red Army...
Then there was typhus, which had mowed down half of Russia at that time, and a hospital. Larry was lucky he survived. But in the end, he could not find traces of the battalion to which he was assigned, lost somewhere on the front line. Typhoid again. And then further wanderings around Russia.
Early publications in the Kharkov newspaper "Young Leninist" attracted attention. Larry was offered a full-time job. From that moment on, Jan Leopoldovich could consider himself a journalist and writer.
Larry's first works began to appear as early as the 1920s, and science fiction in the early 1930s.
He returned to Leningrad three years later as a professional writer. He worked as a secretary of the magazine "Rabselkor", then in the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda". He established himself as a children's writer. He worked as a journalist, and since 1928 he switched to free “literary bread”.
In the 1930s, Yan Leopoldovich recalled, it was not easy for a children's writer in the USSR: “Around a children's book, the comprachicos of children's souls famously cancanated - teachers, Marxist bigots and other varieties of stranglers of all living things, when fantasy and fairy tales were burned out with a red-hot iron ... "
“My manuscripts,” Jan Leopoldovich later wrote, “were edited in such a way that I myself did not recognize my own works, because, in addition to the editors of the book, everyone who had free time took an active part in correcting the “opuses”, starting from the editor of the publishing house and ending with accountants.
The editors intervened in the author's text in the most unceremonious way, "blackening out entire chapters from the manuscript, inserting entire paragraphs, changing the plot, the characters of the characters to their liking ..."
“Everything that the editors“ improved ”looked so poor that now I am ashamed to be considered the author of those books,” Larry notes bitterly.
The debut in science fiction was the unsuccessful story "Window to the Future" (1930). However, the utopian novel The Land of the Happy (1931), where the author reflected his views on the near future of communism, enjoyed great success. In this invented world there is no place for totalitarianism and lies, expansion into space begins, but utopia is threatened by a global energy crisis. In some ways, even a prophetic work.
In the same year, five years after his arrival in Leningrad, Larry wrote the script for the film "Man Overboard" in collaboration with Stelmakh, and his "Notes of a Cavalryman" were also published.
Despite all the utopianism, Larry was able to put in his work even a hint of Stalin - the negative character Molybdenum. However, the first edition of the story had to wait several decades.
In addition to writing, Larry graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the Leningrad State University, postgraduate studies at the All-Union Research Institute of Fisheries. He worked as a director of a fish factory.
Perhaps he would have completely abandoned writing, angry with the editorial correction of clumsy and party bosses, but the situation was saved by his future permanent editor Samuil Marshak, who became a true friend and guardian angel for many years.
Most of all, Jan Larry is known, of course, for the children's book The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya (1937), written under the order of Samuil Marshak. The book went through many editions. It is probably worth recalling her plot: brother and sister - Karik and Valya - become small and travel in the world of insects.
But the very first review received from the Moscow Detgiz did not leave a stone unturned from the author's intention: “It is wrong to reduce a person to a small insect. So, voluntarily or involuntarily, we show a person not as the ruler of nature, but as a helpless creature, the young writer was taught. “When talking with young schoolchildren about nature, we must inspire them with the idea of a possible impact on nature in the direction we need.” The situation was saved by Marshak, who himself explained to Larry what needed to be changed, and worked as an editor on the manuscript. As a result, the book became popular almost immediately. In 1987, the story was filmed.

Stalin's personal writer
In 1940, Larry began writing the satirical novel The Heavenly Guest, in which he described the world order of the inhabitants of the Earth from the point of view of aliens. He decided to send the written chapters to Stalin - "the only reader" of this novel, as he believed. Chapters of the novel came to "comrade Stalin" from an anonymous author. Larry, like many other party members of that time, firmly believed in the infallibility of the leader and his "bad" environment, which misled the General Secretary.
At the beginning of 1940, in the name of I.V. Stalin, his first letter left Leningrad. It contained a literary manuscript.
“Dear Joseph Vissarionovich!
Every great man is great in his own way. After one, great deeds remain, after the other, funny historical anecdotes. One is known for having thousands of mistresses, another for extraordinary Bucephalus, the third for wonderful jesters. In a word, there is no such great thing that would not rise in memory, not surrounded by some historical satellites: people, animals, things.
Not a single historical personality has yet had its own writer. The kind of writer who would only write for one great man. However, even in the history of literature one cannot find such writers who would have a single reader...
I take up the pen to fill this gap.
I will write only for you, without demanding for myself any orders, no fees, no honors, no glory.
It is possible that my literary abilities will not meet with your approval, but for this, I hope, you will not condemn me, just as people are not condemned for having red hair or for chipped teeth. I will try to replace the lack of talent with zeal, conscientious attitude to the obligations assumed.
You will never know my real name. But I would like you to know that there is one eccentric in Leningrad who spends his leisure hours in a peculiar way - creating a literary work for a single person, and this eccentric, without inventing a single worthy pseudonym, decided to sign Kulidzhary. In sunny Georgia, whose existence is justified by the fact that this country gave us Stalin, the word Kulidzhary, perhaps, can be found, and perhaps you know its meaning.
A fantastic story is attached to the letter. Its plot is quite simple. A spaceship with a Martian, a creature quite close to us earthlings, descends to Earth (in the region of the Leningrad Region). In conversations with hospitable hosts, the position of our society, deformed by the yoke of the party administration, becomes clear - as if somewhat from the outside.
“What do you live? - the author asks through the lips of a Martian. - What problems concern you? Judging by your newspapers, all you are doing is making bright meaningful speeches at meetings ... Is your present so disgusting that you do not write anything about it? And why aren't any of you looking to the future? Is it really so gloomy that you are afraid to look into it?
It is not customary for us to look into the future, they answered the Martian.
Larry wrote that poverty in the Russian state is appalling. And its cause, as explained to the Martian, "is ... the hypertrophic centralization of our entire apparatus, tying the initiative on the ground hand and foot." The fact that "Moscow has become the only city where people live, and all other cities have turned into a remote province, where people exist only to carry out the orders of Moscow." The fact that in our country they do not know their scientists. On hatred of the intelligentsia: and although “a decision was made: to consider the intelligentsia a useful social stratum,” nothing has changed. And that in the time of John the Printer, more books were published than now. "I'm not talking about party literature, which is thrown away every day in millions of copies," wrote an unknown author.
It is strange how many things resonate with our reality, if you think about the environment and discard some realities and technical achievements ...
Ian Larry's incognito was revealed on April 13, 1941, after seven chapters sent. On the same day, the writer was arrested.
An excerpt from the arrest warrant (approved on April 11, 1941): “... Larry Ya.L. is the author of an anonymous story of counter-revolutionary content called "The Heavenly Guest", which he sent in separate chapters to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in the name of Comrade Stalin.
From December 17, 1940 to the present, he sent 7 chapters of his still unfinished counter-revolutionary story to the indicated address, in which he criticizes the measures of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government from counter-revolutionary Trotskyite positions.
The indictment (June 10, 1941): “... The chapters of this story sent by Larry to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) were written by him from an anti-Soviet position, where he distorted Soviet reality in the USSR, cited a number of anti-Soviet slanderous fabrications about the situation of workers in the Soviet Union .
In addition, in this story, Larry also tried to discredit the Komsomol organization, Soviet literature, the press and other ongoing activities of the Soviet government.
Ian Larry was charged under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda). On July 5, 1941, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Leningrad City Court sentenced Larry Ya.L. to imprisonment for a period of 10 years, followed by disqualification for a period of 5 years. He was rehabilitated only in 1956 "due to the absence of corpus delicti in his actions."
Usually materials of a "creative nature" confiscated during arrest were destroyed. But by the will of fate, Ian Larry's "Heavenly Guest" survived, and almost half a century later the manuscript was transferred to the Writers' Union. And it was even printed.
Five years after the release, two wonderful books came to young readers at once - “Notes of a Schoolgirl” and “The Amazing Adventures of Cook and Kukka”. And one of the last lifetime publications of the writer was the fairy tale “Brave Tilly: Notes of a Puppy Written by a Tail” published in Murzilka.
On March 18, 1977, the writer died. Let them know their years in the camps. And his books live on today. Even if we do not remember the fate of their author...