Lazar Lagin - the one who gave the kids a miracle

He wrote scripts for the cartoons "About the evil stepmother", "Warning, wolves!" And several others. It was from his pen that came out fantastic novels "Atavia Proxima", "The Island of Disappointment", novels and pamphlets. It was he who recalled Mayakovsky in his book Life Before. But, it seems, the most important thing is his work, on which he was recognized and still loved and remembered, is a story-tale "Old Man Khottabych". Lazar Lagin gave all boys and girls of the Soviet Union (and also their parents) the belief that miracles exist, and cherished desires can be fulfilled regardless of anything.

Childhood and youth

In 1903, on November 21 (December 4), a boy was born to a Jewish family with a very modest financial means. He was given the name Lazar at birth (being already an adult, he took the pseudonym Lazar Lahin - in the first syllables of his name and surname - LAZAR GINZBURG) . He was the eldest of the five toddlers Joseph Fayvelevich and Khana Lazarevna Ginzburg. Joseph worked as a raft. A year after the birth of his son, the family, after accumulating money, moved to Minsk. In this city my father opened a hardware store.

The boy was only 10 years old, as the First World War (1914) began, and only three years later - the October Revolution (1917).

At the age of fifteen (1919), Lazar Lahin graduated from high school in Minsk and, after receiving a matriculation certificate, went to the Civil War as a volunteer. During this period of his life he organizes the Komsomol in Belarus and even for a while is one of its leaders.

The beginning of the creative path

The guy early starts to write, and since 1922 his poems and notes have already been printed on the pages of various newspapers. The level of his lines was quite high, but ... As Lazar Iosifovich once remarked with irony irony, recalling his first literary works, he has a great merit for the literature of his Fatherland - he stopped on time and stopped rhyming words forever.

Then, in Rostov-on-Don, he met Vladimir Mayakovsky and showed him his poems. The famous poet praised Lagin's work. A little later, when I was in Moscow, I asked each question why Lazar Iosifovich was not bringing him his new lines.

The next year, the guy begins his studies at the vocal department of the Minsk Conservatory. It takes very little time, and he realizes that the theory of music does not interest him at all. Therefore, studies end, not having time to start properly.

Moscow life

The day comes when he moves to the capital - the city of Moscow - Lazar Lagin. His biography is supplemented by the following fact: he graduated from the institute, which in the future became known as "Plekhanovsky". After receiving the diploma, Lazar Iosifovich serves in the army. He leaves no thoughts about his studies. And a little later, from 1930 to 1933, when he enters the Institute of Red Professors, where he defends his thesis and receives the degree of candidate of economic sciences. Lagin spent some time at the institute as an assistant professor, even led a teaching job. In parallel, he was able to write several brochures in his specialty.

After a while, very fruitful work at the institute was interrupted. Lazar Lagin was recalled to a new job, which was offered in the newspaper Pravda. A little later he works in the magazine "Crocodile". It was in him in 1934 that he became deputy editor-in-chief (famous journalist Mikhail Koltsov).

In the literary field, Lagin begins as a Komsomol poet and feuilletonist. His first book comes out - "153 suicides". Just after his work comes out of print, Lazar Iosifovich becomes a member of the Writers' Union. In the same book, one of the pamphlets, Elixir of Satan, was published. In the postwar years, this very pamphlet turned out to be a very interesting and fantastic novel, "Patent AB". However, five years later, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published a feuilleton, in which it was suggested that the idea of the novel was borrowed from the story of Alexander Belyaev. But a special commission came to the conclusion that plagiarism was ruled out.

How was the old man Khottabych born?

After the end of the thirties, Lazar Lahin, whose books were of great interest to readers of different ages both during the Soviet era and in recent years, was sent on a long-term business trip to the island of Spitsbergen. Once he read the work of Thomas Ansty Guthrie "The Copper Pitcher", and, being impressed by this book, in the Arctic begins to write a story about the adventures of an ordinary Volka boy whose life changed dramatically after he freed from the magic lamp of the most wonderful old Hottabych .

At first this story-fairy tale was published in the newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda and the Pioner magazine. But a fairy tale became a separate book only two years later, in 1940. It is interesting that the first edition was strikingly different from the subsequent one, which readers could already acquire in 1951. For 11 years, characters and episodes have been changed, new interesting pages have appeared in the book itself. And the script of the film, which to this day with the same pleasure look both adults and children, was written by the author just on the basis of the second edition of the tale.

Lazar Lagin was very careful and attentive to the political situation in the country, which constantly underwent changes. Therefore, almost every edition of his fairy tale is ruled.

New works

The most favorite work of Lugin is the novel "Blue Man", which tells about the journey from the Soviet Union of the fifties in the time of tsarist Russia. This creation, which he wrote 7 years, contemporaries do not consider such a success. More interesting is the cycle "Insulting Tales", which Lugin wrote from 1924 until the end of his life. Before he could finish his story "Filumen-Filimon".

According to Lugin's scripts, even several cartoons were filmed.

The earthly path of the literary pope, the wizard Hottabych, ended on June 16, 1979 in Moscow.