It was he who wrote the scripts for the cartoons “About the Evil Stepmother”, “Attention, Wolves!” and several others. It was from his pen that the fantastic novels Atavia Proxima, Island of Disappointment, novels and pamphlets came out. It was he who remembered Mayakovsky in the book Life Back. But, it seems, the most important of his work, by which he was recognized and is still loved and remembered, is the story-tale "The Old Man Hottabych." Lazar Lagin gave all the boys and girls of the Soviet Union (as well as their parents) the belief that miracles exist, and cherished desires can be fulfilled no matter what.
Children's years and youth
In 1903, on November 21 (December 4), a boy was born into a Jewish family with very modest material wealth, who was given the name Lazar at birth (as an adult, he took the pseudonym Lazar Lagin - according to the first syllables of his first name and surname - Lazar GINzburg) . He was the eldest of the five babies Joseph Fayvelevich and Hana Lazarevna Ginzburg. Joseph worked as a raftsman. A year after the birth of a son, the family, having saved up money, moved to Minsk. In this city, dad opened a hardware store.
The boy was only 10 years old when the First World War (1914) began, and only three years later - the October Revolution (1917).
At the age of fifteen (1919), Lazar Lagin graduated from high school in Minsk and, having received a certificate of maturity, went to the Civil War as a volunteer. During this period of his life, he organizes a Komsomol in Belarus and even for some time is one of its leaders.
The beginning of the creative path
The guy begins to write early, and since 1922 his poems and notes are already printed on the pages of various newspapers. The level of his lines was quite high, but ... As the author himself once remarked with a twist of irony, Lazar Iosifovich, recalling his first literary works, he has a great merit for the literature of his Fatherland - he stopped in time and stopped forever rhyming words.
Then, in Rostov-on-Don, he met Vladimir Mayakovsky and showed him his poems. The famous poet praised the work of Lagin. A little later, already in Moscow, at each meeting I asked the question why Lazar Iosifovich did not bring him his new lines.
The next year, the guy begins his studies at the vocal department of the Minsk Conservatory. Very little time passes, and he understands that the theory of music does not interest him at all. Therefore, study ends before it really begins.
Moscow life
There comes a day when he moves to the capital - the city of Moscow - Lazar Lagin. His biography is replenished with the following fact - he graduates from the institute, which in the future began to be called "Plekhanovsky." After graduation, Lazar Iosifovich serves in the army. He leaves no thoughts about studying. And a little later, from 1930 to 1933, when he entered the Institute of the Red Professor, where he defended his thesis and received a Ph.D. in economics. Lagin worked for some time at the institute as an assistant professor, and even conducted teaching work. In parallel with this, he was able to write several brochures on his specialty.
After some time, very fruitful work at the institute was interrupted. Lazar Lagin recalled to a new job, which was proposed in the newspaper "Pravda". A little later, he works in the magazine "Crocodile". It was there that in 1934 he would become deputy chief editor (famous journalist Mikhail Koltsov).
In the literary field, Lagin begins as a Komsomol poet and feuilletonist. His first book, “153 Suicides,” appears. Just after this work of his was published, Lazar Iosifovich became a member of the Writers' Union. One of the pamphlets, “The Elixir of Satan,” was published in the same book. In the postwar years, this pamphlet turned out to be a very interesting science fiction 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 old Hottabych born?
At the end of the thirties, Lazar Lagin, whose books were of great interest to readers of different ages both in Soviet times and in recent years, was sent on a long-term business trip to the island of Svalbard. He once read the work of Thomas Anstey Guthrie, “The Copper Jug,” and, impressed by this book, begins to write in the Arctic about the adventures of an ordinary boy Volka, whose life changed dramatically after he freed the wonderful old man Hottabych from the magic lamp .
First, this fairy tale story was published in the newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda and the journal Pioneer. But the fairy tale became a separate book only two years later, in 1940. Interestingly, the first edition was very different from the next, which readers were able to purchase as much in 1951. Over 11 years, characters and episodes have been changed, new interesting pages have appeared in the book itself. And the script of the film, which adults and children watch with equal pleasure to this day, was written by the author precisely 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 was constantly undergoing changes. Therefore, he ruled almost every edition of his tale.
New works
Lagin’s favorite work is the Blue Man novel, which tells of a journey from the Soviet Union of the fifties to the time of Tsarist Russia. This creation, which he wrote for 7 years, contemporaries do not consider so successful. The cycle “Offensive Tales”, which Lagin wrote from 1924 until the end of his life, is called more interesting. He did not even have time to finish his novel Filumen-Filimon.
According to the scripts of Lagin, several cartoons were even shot.
The earthly journey of the literary pope wizard Hottabych ended on June 16, 1979 in Moscow.