Ian Larry became famous for his wonderful book about the adventures of the boy Karik and the girl Vali, who became tiny and had the opportunity to directly learn about what is happening in the world of insects. The writer is also known as the creator of a satirical work in which he condemned the Soviet reality. For this work, Larry received ten years in the camps.
Ian Larry: facts from the biography
The future writer, famous for his famous book about the adventures of Karik and Vali, was born in Riga on February 15, 1900. At nine years old, he became an orphan. From that time he began to wander, then got a job as an apprentice to a watchmaker. For some time he worked as a waiter in a tavern.
At the height of the imperialist war, Jan was drafted into the tsarist army. After the victory of October, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks. During the civil war he fought in the ranks of the Red Army.
Demobilized, Larry worked in periodicals in Kharkov, Leningrad and Novgorod. He has a solid education behind him - he graduated from the Faculty of Biology of the Leningrad State University. After that, there was a postgraduate study at the Research Institute of Fisheries and work as a director of a fish factory. However, Larry abandoned his further career, focusing on literature.
Creativity Ian Larry
Larry created his first literary works in the 1920s, and from the 1930s his science fiction began to appear. The debut in this genre was the not very successful story "Window to the Future", published in 1930.
But Ian Larry's utopian novel "The Land of the Happy" (1931) enjoyed great success among the reading public. In this book, Larry developed his views on the future of communist society. There is no place for lies and totalitarianism in this world. Humanity begins to explore outer space. However, humanity is still threatened by a crisis in the economy.
And yet the greatest fame to Yan Leopoldovich was brought by the children's book "The Unusual Adventures of Karik and Vali", published in 1937. Its author was written by order of Marshak. The story has withstood several dozen reprints. The heroes of the book are the boy Karik and his sister Valya. They become tiny creatures and participate in adventures in the insect world. In the 80s, Larry's story was filmed. In 2005, based on the work, an animated film was shot.
Along the dangerous path of satire
In 1940, Yan Leopoldovich began writing the satirical work Heavenly Guest. In the book, he tried to describe the structure of life of earthlings from the point of view of an alien mind. As the chapters were written, the author sent them for reading to Joseph Stalin, whom he chose as his only reader.
The unfinished book contained sharp criticism of the current state of affairs in society. The author denounces the meaningless life of earthlings, hours of party meetings, points to the terrible poverty of the population. In a country where communism has been proclaimed, there is a complete collapse of culture. There is no freedom of the press here, and people are afraid to tell the truth.
Larry managed to send seven excerpts of the book to the head of state, after which he was arrested. In the summer of 1941, the Leningrad City Court sentenced the writer to ten years in prison, after his release he was limited in civil rights.
In 1956, Larry was rehabilitated. After serving his sentence, he managed to write several more works, including the notable novel "The Adventures of Cook and Cook", published in 1961.
The writer passed away on March 18, 1977 in Leningrad.
