Biography of Ian Larry. Fiction Archive. Bibliography in Ukrainian

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Ian Larry - Soviet writer. He wrote books for children and science fiction. 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, either helping a watchmaker or working as a waiter.

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

After leaving the army I went to study. In Leningrad he graduated from the biological faculty of the university, and later from graduate school. After some time, Larry managed to get the position of director of a fish factory. It is worth noting that he completed his postgraduate studies at 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 did not gain popularity. But the novel that Larry published a year later, “The Land of the Happy,” brought fame to the author. In the book, Larry described his idea of ​​the future of communism.

Not everyone knows that although the biography of Ian Larry is full of creative success, nevertheless, the writer received his main fame thanks to the children's book “The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya.” The book tells about the fantastic journeys of children. It describes plants and insects in an interesting way. In the future, the book was reprinted many times. In 1987, a film was even made based on it, and in 2005 a cartoon appeared.
In 1940, Ian Larry began working on the satirical novel The Heavenly Guest. In his books, he described how aliens see life on Earth. As Larry wrote chapters, he sent them to Stalin. He called Stalin “the only reader” of the novel. A year later, after posting 7 chapters, the writer was arrested and sent to a camp for 10 years.

After serving his prison term, Ian Larry wrote two more children's stories - “The Adventures of Cook and Cuckie” and “Notes of a Schoolgirl.” Ian Larry died at the age of 77 in Leningrad.

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YAN LEOPOLDOVITCH LARRY

Dates of life: February 15, 1900 – March 18, 1977
Place of Birth : Riga city
Soviet children's science fiction writer
Famous works: "The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya"

There is probably not a single boy or girl in our country who did not read in childhood, along with the adventures of Dunno, Pinocchio or Old Man Hottabych, a book about the adventures of Karik and Valya. Well, or at least watched 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 that surrounds us. But the fate of the author of this wonderful fairy-tale and at the same time true story is not at all similar to 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, our grandchildren.

From the Red Army to Science Fiction
Life never pitied him - neither in childhood, nor later, when he achieved literary fame.
Ian Larry was born in 1900, presumably in Riga, since there is no reliable information about this (he himself later wrote in his autobiography for some reason that he was born near Moscow).
His childhood actually passed near Moscow, where his father worked. But soon after his birth his mother died. And then my father passed away. And at the age of 9 the boy was orphaned. Attempts to place the orphaned child in an orphanage were unsuccessful - Jan ran away from there. The teacher Dobrokhotov took part in the fate of the homeless child, who prepared Yan as an external student for a gymnasium course. For some time Larry lived with a teacher's family. But during the First World War, Dobrokhotov was drafted into the army, and again Larry “hunted” wherever he had to. There was nothing and nowhere to live. He wandered around, then got a job as a watchmaker's apprentice and as 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 capabilities - the knowledge gained from Dobrokhotov and partially forgotten in the trenches was not enough. Vagrancy again. And then my father’s friends suggested joining the Red Army...
Then there was typhus, which at that time wiped out half of Russia, and a hospital. Larry was lucky to survive. But in the end, he could not find traces of the battalion to which he was assigned, lost somewhere on the front line. Typhus 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, Yan Leopoldovich could consider himself a journalist and writer.
Larry's first works began to be published in the 1920s, and his science fiction began in the early 1930s.
He came to Leningrad again three years later as a professional writer. He worked as 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, recalled Yan Leopoldovich, it was not easy for a children’s writer in the USSR: “The comprachicos of children’s souls - teachers, Marxist bigots and other varieties of stranglers of all living things, when they burned out science fiction and fairy tales with a hot iron, dashingly danced around children’s books...”
“My manuscripts,” Yan 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 accounting employees.”
The editors interfered in the author’s text in the most unceremonious way, “erasing entire chapters from the manuscript, writing in entire paragraphs, changing the plot and 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.
His debut in science fiction was the unsuccessful story “Window to the Future” (1930). However, the utopian novel “The Land of the Happy” (1931) enjoyed great success, where the author reflected his views on the near future of communism. In this imaginary 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 it is even a prophetic work.
In the same year, five years after arriving in Leningrad, Larry wrote the script for the film “Man Overboard” in collaboration with Stelmakh, and his “Notes of a Cavalryman” was also published.
Despite all the utopianism, Larry was able to place even a hint of Stalin in his work - 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 Leningrad State University and graduate school from the All-Union Research Institute of Fisheries. Worked as director of a fish factory.
He might have completely abandoned writing, angry at the editorial editing of the incompetent and party bosses, but the situation was saved by his future permanent editor Samuil Marshak, who became a faithful friend and guardian angel for many years.
Most of all, Ian 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's probably worth recalling its 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” left no stone unturned from the author’s intention: “It is wrong to reduce a person to a small insect. So, willingly or unwillingly, we show man not as the ruler of nature, but as a helpless creature, the young writer was taught. “When talking to young schoolchildren about nature, we must instill in them 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 “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. The 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” entourage, which misled the General Secretary.
At the beginning of 1940, addressed to I.V. Stalin's 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 another, funny historical anecdotes. One is known for having thousands of mistresses, another - extraordinary Bucephali, the third - wonderful jesters. In a word, there is no such great thing that would not rise in memory, not surrounded by some historical companions: people, animals, things.
Not a single historical figure has yet had his own writer. The kind of writer who would write only for one great man. However, in the history of literature you cannot find such writers who would have only one 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 judge me, just as people are not judged for having red hair or chipped teeth. I will try to replace the lack of talent with diligence and a conscientious attitude towards 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 unique way - creating a literary work for a single person, and this eccentric, without coming up with a single good pseudonym, decided to sign himself Kulidzhary. In sunny Georgia, whose existence is justified by the fact that this country gave us Stalin, the word Kulidzhary can probably be found, and perhaps you know its meaning.”
Attached to the letter is a fantastic story. 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, it becomes clear - somewhat from the outside - the situation of our society, deformed by the oppression of the party administration.
“What do you live for? - the author asks through the mouth of a Martian. - What problems concern you? Judging by your newspapers, all you do is give bright, meaningful speeches at meetings... But is your present so disgusting that you don’t write anything about it? And why don't any of you look to the future? Is it really so dark that you are afraid to look into it?
“It’s 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 reason, as they explained to the Martian, “is... the hypertrophic centralization of our entire apparatus, tying the local initiative hand and foot.” About the fact that “Moscow has become the only city where people live, and all other cities have turned into remote provinces where people exist only to carry out Moscow’s orders.” About the fact that our country does not know its scientists. About 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 First 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’s strange how much has something in common with our reality, if you think about your surroundings and discard some realities and technical achievements...
Ian Larry's incognito was revealed on April 13, 1941, after seven chapters had been sent. On the same day, the writer was arrested.
Excerpt from the arrest warrant (approved April 11, 1941): “...Larry Y.L. is the author of an anonymous story of counter-revolutionary content entitled “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 to the indicated address 7 chapters of his still unfinished counter-revolutionary story, in which he criticizes the activities of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Soviet government from a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist position.”
Indictment (June 10, 1941): “...The chapters of this story sent by Larry to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks 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 loss of rights for a period of 5 years. He was rehabilitated only in 1956 “due to the lack of corpus delicti in his actions.”
Typically, “creative” materials confiscated during arrest were destroyed. But as fate would have it, Ian Larry’s “Heavenly Guest” survived, and almost half a century later the manuscript was transferred to the Writers’ Union. And it was even published.
Five years after his 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 publications of the writer during his lifetime was the fairy tale “Brave Tilly: Notes of a Puppy, Written by the Tail,” published in “Murzilka.”
On March 18, 1977, the writer passed away. They made their years in the camps known. And his books still live today. Even if we don’t remember the fate of their author...

Fochkin, O. The Man Who Discovered the World [Yan Leopoldovich Larry] /O. Fochkin // Reading together. – 2010. - No. 2. – P. 46-47.

Yan Leopoldovich Larry(15.II.1900, Riga - 18.III. 1977, Leningrad), prose writer, children's writer, also known as a writer. other genres.
Genus. in Riga (now Latvia), at the age of 9 he was orphaned - he wandered, worked in a tavern, and as an apprentice in a watch shop; was drafted into the tsarist army, and until the end of the Civil War he fought in the ranks of the Red Army. After demobilization he worked in the editor's office. gas. Kharkov, Novgorod, Leningrad, (now St. Petersburg), engaged in self-education, graduated from Biology. Faculty of Leningrad State University, graduate school of the All-Union Research Institute of Fisheries, worked as director of a fish factory. He began publishing in the 1920s. Member SP.

In 1941 he was arrested and sentenced to 10 years (followed by disqualification for 5 years); released only in 1956
Arrested on April 13, 1941 by the NKGB Directorate for the Leningrad Region.

From December 17, 1940 to the present, he sent to the indicated address 7 chapters of his still unfinished counter-revolutionary story, in which he criticizes the activities of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Soviet government from a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist position.”

“...The chapters of this story sent by Larry to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks were written by him from an anti-Soviet position, where he distorted Soviet reality in the USSR and 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 10 years, followed by loss of rights for a period of 5 years.

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

Larry Ya.L. was rehabilitated in this case.

First SF production. L. went to the beginning. 1930s After the uninteresting story “Window to the Future” (1930), the writer published his most significant book - the “journalistic” story “The Land of the Happy” (1931), in which the author’s ideas about communism in the near future were expressed (see Optimism and Pessimism, Politics , Socialism, Utopia); rejecting totalitarianism and lies, warning about the impending global catastrophe (reduction of energy reserves) and the need for systematic space exploration, L., on the one hand, polemicized with the recently published. abroad with the novel “We” by E. Zamyatin, and on the other hand, he even risked hinting at Stalin, depicting him in the image of a suspicious, insidious and stubborn character named Molybdenum. As a result, the story was successfully suppressed for decades.

After a certain break, L. (with the help of S.Ya. Marshak) published a children's SF story, “The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya” (1937; 1937), which is not outdated to this day (see Biology, Children); filmed on television in 1987; as well as the story “The Mystery of Plain Water” (1939).

Another SF novel - "Heavenly Guest", in which the absurdity of owls. societies are exposed through the perception of cosmic. alien (see Aliens, Satirical SF, Socialism), L. began to write for the “only reader” - J.V. Stalin, to whom he sent chapter after chapter to the Kremlin; until April 1941, when the author was finally found and arrested, 7 chapters were written.

From NF L. post-war. period, the fairy tale “The Adventures of Cook and Cuckie” (1961) stands out.

I spent my childhood near Moscow. Lost my parents early.

He ran away from the orphanage. He worked as a boy in a tavern, as a watchmaker's apprentice.

The young street child was picked up by teacher Dobrokhotov - his last name says a lot. He prepared the future writer for exams for the full course of the gymnasium. During the First World War he served in the army. After the revolution he returned to Petrograd. I tried to go to university, but I didn’t have enough knowledge, I went to wander - the Red Army, typhus. Finally, in Kharkov, Ian Larry nevertheless entered the biology department of the local university. At the same time, he worked for the newspaper “Young Leninist” and published two essay books: “The Stolen Country” and “Sad and Funny Stories about Little People.” Having moved back to Leningrad (the city had already been renamed), he got a job as an executive secretary at the Rabselkor magazine and graduated from the university. One after another, books by Ian Larry were published: “Window to the Future” (1929), “Five Years” (1929, co-authored with A. Lifshitz), “How It Was” (1930), “Notes of a Cavalry Soldier” (1931). He completed his postgraduate studies at the All-Union Fisheries Research Institute.

In 1931, the fantasy story “The Land of the Happy” was published.

Undoubtedly, this was one of the very first attempts to draw a country in which communism had triumphed. The future world described by Ian Larry is not like our world. In the canteens, collective farmers and workers are served truffles and trout, hazel grouse and lobsters, public toilets are made exclusively of gold - “as a challenge to the old world”, thick branched wheat swings ears weighing at least one hundred grams, the state has completely done away with crime and alcoholism. In short, Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature and man has been fulfilled.

Ian Larry clearly argued with Yevgeny Zamyatin, who was persecuted at that time.

“In his memory... - (the hero of “The Land of the Happy”, - G.P.) - the pages of an old novel stood up, in which the hero believed that life in a socialist society would be joyless and gray. A blind rage seized Pavel. He wanted to pull this savage out of the coffin of the era... You resemble an old tradesman,” Ian Larry addresses the author of the novel “We,” who is afraid of a socialist society because his colorless personality could dissolve in the collective. He represented our team as a herd. But is our team like that? As if in an infinite scale, each of us sounds special... And we all unite together into a beautiful human symphony...” Even the girl in love in “The Land of the Happy” whispers to her beloved not the words we are waiting for. “Imagine our Republic at the hour of dawn...” she whispers. - There are dense gardens in the dew. Cereals sway heavily in the fields... Milk flows in rivers... Mountains of butter cover the horizon... Herds of well-fed, fat cattle raise their warm muzzles to the sky with sleepy lowing. A gentle pink dawn spilled over the endless plantations of cotton and rice. Oranges are burning in the wet green foliage.” Zamyatin’s heroine would not have dared to whisper such a thing, and she didn’t need to whisper anything like that: she got a ticket to meet a man, that’s all.

Communism in the “Land of the Happy” won so quickly that many Soviet people simply did not have time to rebuild; by their memory they are still firmly connected with the past, even the suspicious head and leader of the happy state - Molybdenum (a pseudonym easily readable, especially by those who knew about the existence of molybdenum become). It is clear that thoughtful Molybdenum is concerned about the pace of construction of a new society. For example, he condemns enthusiasts of space flights: this can distract people's attention from pressing matters. But “there will be a time,” says one of the heroes of the story, “when humanity will stand shoulder to shoulder and cover the planet with a solid crowd... The Earth is limited in its capabilities... The solution is in the colonization of planets... Ten, two hundred, three hundred years... In the end, one thing is clear: days the great migration will come." The hero himself is ready to go into space even now, however, under pressure from Molybdenum, the harsh Council of One Hundred still leaves the person the country needs on Earth. “You’re right, comrades,” the hero agrees. - I stay. But tell Molybdenum... this man left behind by the old era: we are different... He doesn’t know us well.”

They understood the hint about the leader.

The book was removed from libraries.

I had to return to the Fisheries Research Institute.

From time to time, Ian Larry published articles and feuilletons in newspapers and magazines, but he did not write science fiction books and did not appear in publishing houses until a truly happy occasion turned up. Once, the famous biologist L. S. Berg (by the way, the creator of the anti-Darwinian evolutionary theory - nomogenesis) was approached by Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak with a proposal to write something about Soviet science. For example, an entertaining book from which children would learn a lot about the world of insects.

L. S. Berg forwarded the request to his young employee.

In a short time, Ian Larry wrote a fantastic story for children, “The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya,” in which biologist professor Ivan Germogenovich Enotov invented a potion that can quickly and significantly reduce all objects in size. He, Karik and Valya also turned into tiny creatures. This allowed them to travel in an extraordinary world of enormously overgrown insects and plants.

An attractive twist on the theme.

But criticism saw ideological machinations in this too.

“It is wrong to reduce a person to a small insect,” wrote one internal reviewer. – So, willingly or unwillingly, we show man not as the ruler of nature, but as a helpless creature. When talking to young schoolchildren about nature, we must instill in them the idea of ​​a possible impact on nature in the direction we need.”

In those years, Ian Larry later recalled, “... the comprachicos of children’s souls – teachers, “Marxist bigots” and other varieties of stranglers of all living things – were famously cancaning around children’s books... Science fiction and fairy tales were burned out with a hot iron... My manuscripts were edited in such a way that I myself did not recognized his own works, because in addition to the editors of the book, everyone who had free time took an active part in correcting the “opuses”, from the editor of the publishing house to the accounting staff... erasing entire chapters from the manuscript, writing in entire paragraphs, changing the plot to their liking, the characters’ characters... Everything that the editors “improved” looked so poor that now I am ashamed to be considered the author of those books.”

As a result, the manuscript was stuck in the editorial office for a long time.

The writer turned to S. Ya. Marshak for help. After all, it was he who initiated the writing of such a book. Marshak immediately replied: “I read the story. It can be printed without changing anything.” Only after this “The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya” was published, first in the magazine “Koster”, then in Detizdat as a separate book. And over the years this book has gone through many reprints. And reviewers praised it and said it was entertaining.

But living life is more interesting than any story.

In December 1940, I.V. Stalin received a strange letter.

“Dear Joseph Vissarionovich! – wrote an unknown correspondent, hiding under the pseudonym Kulidzhary. – Every great man is great in his own way. After one, great deeds remain, after another, funny historical anecdotes. One is known for having thousands of mistresses, another for extraordinary Bucephali, 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 companions: people, animals, things. But not a single historical figure has yet had his own writer. The kind of writer who would write only for one great man. However, in the history of literature one cannot find such writers who would have only one reader...”

“I take pen in hand,” the mysterious Kulidzhary informed Stalin, “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 judge me, just as people are not judged for having red hair or chipped teeth. I will try to replace the lack of talent with diligence, a conscientious attitude towards 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 strengthens people ...

“You will never know my real name,” the letter’s author concluded. - But I would like you to know that there is one eccentric in Leningrad who spends his leisure hours in a unique way - creating a literary work for a single person, and this eccentric, without coming up with a single good pseudonym, decided to sign himself Kulidzhary. In sunny Georgia, whose existence is justified by the fact that this country gave us Stalin, the word Kulidzhary can perhaps be found, and perhaps you know its meaning...”

The manuscript of the fantastic story “Heavenly Guest” was attached to the letter.

One fine morning a fiery streak appeared high in the atmosphere above Pargolovo. Summer residents mistook it for a meteorite. But the neighbor of the author of the story, a certain Pulyakin, whose “inimitable art of barking like a dog was at one time marked by a high government award - the Order of the Red Star,” to his extreme surprise, found in the hole formed when the heavenly guest fell, a huge cylinder - about five meters in diameter “The morning was clear, warm, quiet. A weak breeze barely shook the tops of the pine trees. The birds have not yet woken up or have already been destroyed. In any case, nothing prevented Pulyakin from carefully and conscientiously examining the spherical carriage and coming to the conclusion with which he rushed to me, losing bags, bags, sacks, bags and handbags as he ran, the most, so to speak, necessary items of weaponry for a normal Soviet citizen - consumer of bulk goods sold by stores only in the containers of customers...” With “... the speed of people leaving vacation homes due to a strict diet,” the curious rushed to the landing site of the “interplanetary tram.” A huge crowd had gathered there. “Some well-mannered citizen persuaded everyone to stand in line and wait in an orderly manner for further developments. But the citizens were found to be irresponsible, and therefore the well-mannered man gave up and began to behave in a disorganized manner. Suddenly someone shouted: “They’re giving me cabbage!” It was as if the curious were immediately blown away by the wind.”

And in vain, because “...the upper part of the cylinder began to rotate. The shiny rifling of the screw appeared. A muffled noise was heard, as if air was either entering or leaving with a rather strong whistle. Finally, the upper cone of the cylinder swayed and fell to the ground with a roar. Human hands grabbed the edges of the cylinder from the inside, and a man’s head floated up above the cylinder, swaying. Deathly pallor covered his face. He was breathing heavily. His eyes were closed."

This is how the first heavenly guest appeared on Earth - a Martian.

It turns out that everyone on Mars speaks excellent Russian, and the Soviet state has existed on the red planet for 117 years. Life there managed to get better and get into the right rhythm. Life there is interesting. Maybe that’s why the Martian didn’t like the earthly newspapers at all. “I read and read, but I still couldn’t understand anything. What do you live for? What problems concern you? Judging by your newspapers, all you do is give bright, meaningful speeches at meetings and celebrate various historical dates and anniversaries. Is your present really so disgusting that you don’t write anything about it? And why don't any of you look to the future? Is it really so dark that you are afraid to look into it?

I wonder with what feeling the leader of all times and peoples read the pages of this extraordinary work dedicated to him?

“Our youth are raised by Komsomol members.” - “They are teachers, I hope?” - “You hope in vain. Not only do they have no idea about this science, but some of them are not even very strong in literacy at all.” - “But what kind of organization is this?” “This is something like a vestigial organ of Soviet power. The memory of those distant times when we had committees of the poor, women's departments and there was no state system for raising children at all. Well, since this ancient organization has survived, we must entrust it with some work.” - “Isn’t this Komsomol involved in the political education of children?” “Here, here,” I was delighted, “it’s political. They gather children 10–12 years old and “work through” the leaders’ reports with them, “introduce” them to Marx: “touch on” issues of the dialectical development of society.” - “Won’t the Komsomol members be offended if their organization is abolished?” “I even laughed: “You really fell from Mars!” - “But do you live better than they live in capitalist countries?” “Our life,” the author proudly answered, “is the real meaningful life of a human creator. And if it weren’t for poverty, we would live like gods.”

The text is incredible for those years!

Joseph Vissarionovich was probably delighted.

“The next day I said to the Martian: “Did you want to know the reasons for our poverty? Read it!” – and handed him the newspaper. “The Martian read loudly: “The United Chemist artel is located on Vasilyevsky Island.” It has only one paint grinding shop, which employs only 18 workers. For 18 production workers with a monthly salary of 4.5 thousand rubles, the artel has: 33 employees, whose salary is 20.8 thousand rubles, 22 service personnel and 10 fire guards...”

“An artist, engineer, journalist, director and composer came to visit me for a cup of tea,” we read further. – 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 really 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 questions of their conscience.” - “Is that so?” – the Martian was amazed. “So, in your country, people lie to each other?” “Oh, no,” the engineer intervened in the conversation, “it’s just that the professor didn’t quite accurately express his thought.” He obviously wanted to say that in our country they don’t like to be frank at all.” - “But if they don’t speak frankly, does that mean they’re lying?” “No,” the professor smiled condescendingly, “they don’t lie, they’re just silent... This is cunning The enemy has now chosen a different tactic. He says. He goes out of his way 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 we must admit that the enemies of the Soviet regime are much more active 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 for us. I remember one rainy morning. I stood in line. My arms and legs were numb. And suddenly two shabby citizens walk past the line. Having caught up with us, they sang a well-known song with couplets: “Thank you to the great Stalin for our happy life.” Can you imagine what a “success” this was among the chilled people! No, dear fellow Martian, the enemies are not silent now, but are screaming, and screaming louder than anyone else. The enemies of the Soviet regime know very well that talking about sacrifices means appeasing the people, and shouting about the need to thank the party means mocking the people, spitting on them, and spitting on the sacrifice that the people are making now.” “Are there many enemies in your country?” asked the Martian. “I don’t think so,” answered the engineer, “I’m 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 people. It's right. It is also true that their number is increasing, growing like a snowball set in motion. Everyone who receives three or four hundred rubles a month is dissatisfied, because it is impossible to live on this amount. Those who receive a lot are also dissatisfied, because they cannot buy for themselves what they would like. 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 earns, and if he says “two hundred,” you can say whatever you want about the Soviet regime in front of him.” “But perhaps,” said the Martian, “the work of these people is worth no more than this money?” “No more?” – the engineer grinned. – The work of many people who receive even five hundred rubles is not worth two kopecks. Not only do they not earn this money, but they themselves should be paid for the fact that they sit in warm and clean rooms.” “But then they cannot be offended by anyone!” said the Martian. “You don’t understand the psychology of the people of Earth,” said the engineer. “The fact is that each of us, performing even the most insignificant work, becomes aware of the importance of the task entrusted to him, and therefore lays claim to a decent reward...”

“You’re right,” the professor supported, “I get 500 rubles, that is, about the same as a tram driver gets. This is, of course, a very insulting bet. Don’t forget, comrades, that I am a professor and that I need to buy books, magazines, and subscribe to newspapers. After all, I cannot be less cultured than my students. And so I have to work with my whole family in order to maintain professorial prestige. I'm a good turner myself; Through dummies, I take home orders from artels. My wife teaches foreign languages ​​and music to our children, turning our apartment into a school. My daughter runs the house and paints vases. Together we earn about six thousand a month. But none of us are happy with this money.” - "Why?" – asked the Martian. – “Simply because the Bolsheviks hate the intelligentsia. They hate with some special, bestial hatred.” “Well,” I intervened, “you’re in vain, dear professor. True, recently this was 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 grinned. – What has changed since then? A decision was made: to consider the intelligentsia a useful social stratum. And that was the end of it. Most institutes, universities and scientific institutions are headed by people who have no idea about science...”

“The Soviet intelligentsia,” the professor continued, “of course, has its own demands, a natural desire for the entire intelligentsia of the world for knowledge, for observations, for understanding the world around us. What is the party doing or has done to satisfy this need? But absolutely nothing. We don't even have newspapers. After all, what is published in Leningrad cannot be considered newspapers. These are most likely leaflets for the first year of teaching political literacy, this is most likely a list of opinions of individual Leningrad comrades about certain events. The events themselves are shrouded in the darkness of the unknown. The Bolsheviks abolished literature and art, replacing both with memoirs and the so-called “reflection”. It seems that nothing more unprincipled can be found throughout the entire existence of art and literature. You will not find a single fresh thought, not a single new word, either in the theater or in literature. I think that in the time of John the First 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 someone to read, so all these shots turn out to be blanks.” “You see,” I said, “there are few books and magazines published in our country, because there is no paper.” “Why are you talking nonsense,” the professor got angry. - How come there is no paper? Our dishes and buckets are made of paper. We simply don’t know what to do with the paper. They even came up with the idea that they began printing posters and hanging them everywhere, and on the posters there were wise rules: “When you leave, turn out the lights.” “Wash your hands before eating!” “Wipe your nose. Button up your pants. Go to the restroom." God knows what..."

“And I’ll tell you this, comrades,” the collective farmer intervened, “when you look from above, you don’t notice so many little things, and that’s why everything seems so lovely to you that your soul just dances and rejoices. I remember somehow looking down from the mountain into the valley towards us. The view from above is surprisingly cheerful. Our river, nicknamed the Stinking River, meanders, well, just like in a picture. The collective farm village just begs to be captured on an artist’s canvas. And no dirt, no dust, no debris, no rubble - none of this beyond the distance can be seen with the naked eye. It’s the same on our collective farms. From above it may indeed look like a paradise valley, but below, both yesterday and today, it still smells like hellish fumes. And now we have a complete confusion of thoughts in the village. I would like to ask someone. But how to ask? They'll arrest you! They'll send you away! They will say a fist or something else. God forbid the evil Tatar should see what we have already seen. Well, that’s what I’m saying: I’d like to know a lot, but I’m afraid to ask. So in the villages we discuss our affairs among ourselves on the sly... And most importantly, we want some kind of law to be over us... Otherwise, what kind of laws are these when you don’t have time to read it yet, and here, they say, it’s already canceled came. Why do the Bolsheviks most disrespected in our village? And because they have seven Fridays a week..."

“Well,” said the engineer, “perhaps, for us, the people of the city, we need stable, strong laws. And we have misunderstandings due to too frequent changes in laws, regulations, decrees, 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 issued a law, then be kind enough to respect it yourself. Otherwise, we have a lot of laws (good laws, I’ll say), but what’s the point of that? It would be better not to issue good laws at all.” - “Right! He's right! - the professor cried. – This is exactly the same thing they say in our environment. Take, for example, the most wonderful, most human set of laws - our new constitution. Well, why, one might ask, was it made public? After all, much of this constitution is now a source of discontent, much is causing the torment of Tantalus. Sadly, the constitution has turned into that red cloak with which a matador teases a bull.” “And the funny thing,” said the writer who had been silent until then, “is that everything, even the most dangerous articles in the new constitution in quotation marks, can easily be turned into effective articles of law. For example, freedom of the press. In our country this freedom is exercised through preliminary censorship. That is, we are not given any essentially freedom” - “However,” said the collective farmer, “I am, so to speak, very little interested in the various freedoms of the press there. And since I'm in a hurry, I ask you to listen to me. I'll wrap it up now. I won't hold your attention. Well, that means this: I said something about the law. Now I want to say something else. About interest in work. I have already said that everyone here is unhappy. Do not think, however, that we are dreaming of a return to the old, individual economy. No. We are not drawn there. But think about this. Who are we? We are the owners! Collectors of goodness! Our whole being is built on this. Sometimes you work alone, or with a large family, but you still look at the farm as your own. We, working collectively, would like to consider the entire farm as our own.” “Well, look,” said the professor, “who is stopping you?” “Eh, comrade, a learned man,” the collective farmer waved his hand, “how can you look at your farm like a businessman when you are put at the doorstep ten times a day, like a farm laborer. If we lived in the village for a year, we would see how many bosses have divorced us. By God, you don’t have time to turn your neck and expose it. One doesn’t have time to bale, and lo and behold, the other is already reaching. Give it to me, he says, and I’ll try.” “The professor winced and said: “Well, what if this petty guardianship is removed from you, and you stop fulfilling plans, and in general, the devil knows what you’ll do?” “You’re wrong to think so,” the collective farmer was offended. “Let them give us a free hand for at least one year.” Let them give us the opportunity to turn around - and the state would benefit from this, and we wouldn’t have to live in dust.”

Stalin received several such chapter letters.

The arrest warrant stated: “Larry Ya. L. 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. From December 17, 1940 to the present, he sent to the indicated address 7 chapters of his still unfinished counter-revolutionary story, in which he criticizes the activities of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Soviet government from a counter-revolutionary Trotskyist position.”

On July 5, 1941, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Leningrad City Court sentenced the writer Yan Leopoldovich Larry to imprisonment for a period of 10 years, followed by disqualification for a period of 5 years - for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. Manuscripts confiscated during arrest were often destroyed and disappeared, but “Heavenly Guest” was lucky: it survived and half a century later was transferred from the archives of the NKVD to the Writers' Union, and even saw the light of day.

Fifteen years of camps did not kill the writer.

Ian Larry was released and even returned to literary work.

By a resolution of the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR dated August 21, 1956, the verdict of the Leningrad City Court against Ya. L. Larry was overturned, and the case itself was dismissed “for lack of corpus delicti.”

In 1961, Ian Larry published the books: “Notes of a Schoolgirl” and “The Amazing Adventures of Cook and Cuckie,” and the last publication of the writer during his lifetime was the fairy tale story “Brave Tilly: Notes of a Puppy, Written with a Tail,” published in 1970 in “Murzilka.”