Draft:Jan Larry

Jan Larry (Ян Ларри; 1900—1977) was a Soviet children's science fiction writer.

Jan Larry born in Riga. He was orphaned at the age of 9, and then he took to loitering. During the First World War, he was drafted into the Tsarist army. After the October Revolution, he sided with the Soviet regime and fought in the Red Army during the Civil War.

After demobilization, he worked in newspapers and magazines in Kharkiv, Novgorod, and Leningrad. He moved to Leningrad in 1926. Larry graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Leningrad State University and completed postgraduate studies at the All-Union Research Institute of Fisheries. He held the position of director of a fish factory.

The first works of Jan Larry began to appear in the 1920s. Jan Larry is known for the children's book "The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya" (1937), ordered by Samuil Marshak to promote knowledge of entomology among the younger generation and stimulate interest in this science.

On April 11, 1941, he was arrested by the NKVD. On July 5, 1941, the judicial panel for criminal cases of the Leningrad City Court sentenced Larry for his "anti-Soviet" position to imprisonment for ten years, followed by loss of rights for five years.

In 1956, Larry was released and rehabilitated. He lived his entire future life in Leningrad, was married, and had a son.

Larry died in 1977. The urn with the writer's ashes was buried in St. Petersburg Crematorium.