Yanchevetsky Vasily Grigorievich is known under the pseudonym Yan Vasily. This is how the author signed his fascinating historical novels. Having deep knowledge of history and philology, Vasily Yan left to his descendants a whole series of books about great commanders and conquerors.
Biography
Vasily Grigorievich Yanchevetsky was born on December 23, 1874 in the Ukrainian city on the Dnieper - Kiev. The boy's father, Grigory Andreevich, was a school teacher who taught ancient languages. He was fluent in Latin and Ancient Greek. After his appointment as director of the Alexander Gymnasium in Riga, the whole family moved to Latvia.
From childhood, little Vasily was very curious, was fond of reading and spent all his time with his father at work in the gymnasium, studying ancient manuscripts and books. After graduating from school, the young man leaves for St. Petersburg, where he becomes a university student at the Faculty of History. Having received his education, Yanchevetsky sets off on an independent hiking expedition through Russian cities and villages. Studying the traditions and life of the Russian people, he collects unique material that will form the basis of his first book, which was published in 1901.
Travel and Adventure
The purpose of his next trip was to study the culture and customs of the tribes and peoples of Asian countries. The four years spent in Central Asia, where Yanchevsky returned more than once, became the main period of his creative life.
For ten years of his numerous wanderings, Vasily Grigorievich, wrote more than 70 different essays and novels, which became especially popular in the post-war period. For his main historical novel about the Mongolian people, the writer was awarded the Stalin Prize.
In the Far East, the traveler and writer finds himself in the midst of a military conflict between Russia and Japan as a war correspondent. Vasily Yan subsequently wrote truthful notes about this period in many Moscow magazines.
Literary creativity
Returning to St. Petersburg in 1907, Yanchevetsky got a job at the editorial office of the Rossiya newspaper and at the same time taught Latin at St. Petersburg State University. In 1910 he became the founder of the first scout unit in Moscow. In 1925, Vasily Grigorievich Yan went to Uzbekistan, where he worked as an employee of the Central Bank, and continued to write books.
His contribution to historical prose is known to readers - "Genghis Khan", "Batu", "Spartacus", "Youth of the commander" and many other literary works.
In 1944, after returning to the Moscow region of Zvenigorod Yanchevetsky, most of the time he is engaged only in the revision of unfinished editions. The writer spent the last years of his life alone. His wife, the famous singer Olga Yanchevetskaya, stayed in Romania with their adopted daughter back in 1918. After several years of serious illness, on August 5, 1954, Vasily Grigorievich Yanchevetsky died in his country house and was buried in one of the cemeteries in Moscow.
