Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Russian Science Fiction


                                Russian Science Fiction





       Science fiction and fantasy have been part of mainstream Russian literature since the 19th century. Science fiction did emerge as a coherent genre in the early 20th century through the influence of translated works by western writers, while fantasy originated from older traditions of folklore and mythology. In Russian language, fantasy, science fiction, horror and all other related genres are considered a part of a larger umbrella term, fantastika, roughly equivalent to "speculative fiction".
            Science fiction has always been closely linked to the ideology of its time, even closer, in some respects, than mainstream literature. Russian science fiction appearing in the last decades of the 19th century was viewed as a convenient means of fictionalizing certain statements about the future rather than as a new artistic method of reflection and cognition.
            While science fiction did not emerge as a coherent genre until the early 20th century, many aspects of science fiction (utopia, the fantastic voyage, etc.) can be observed in earlier works. The first work which is indisputably "proto" science fiction is Fedor Dmitriev - Mamonov's A Philosopher Nobleman (1769). Utopia is also recognized as a form of speculative fiction; the first generic utopia in Russia represented by a short prose piece by Alexander Sumarokov, "A Dream of Happy Society" (1759). Another example of utopias in form of imaginary voyage are Vasily Levshin's Newest Voyage (1784, which is also the first Russian "flight" to the Moon), Ancient Night of the Universe (1807), an epic poem by Semyon Bobrov, is the first work of Russian Cosmism.
            E.T.A Hoffmann's fantastic tales caused great impact upon many Russian writers including Nikolay Gogol, Nikolai Polevoy, Aleksey Tomofeev, Konstantin Aksakov, Vasily Ushakov etc. Alexander Pushkin's The Queen of Spades (1834) was called "a masterpiece of fantastic art" by Dostoyevsky. A central figure of the early 19th century is Vladimir Odoevsky, a romantic writer influenced by E.T.A. Hoffmann, combined his vision of the future with faith in scientific and technological progress. Perhaps the first true science fiction author in Russia was Alexander Veltman. In 1836 he published The forebears of Kalimeros: Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon, which has been called the first original Russian science fiction novel and the first novel to use time travel. In it the narrator rides to ancient Greece on a hippogriff, meets Aristotle, and goes on a voyage with Alexander the Great before returning to the 19th century.
            Western influence also played a vital role in the formation of science fiction in Russia. Dostoevsky’s magazine Vremya was first to publish Russian translations of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories with Dostoevsky’s own forward. Many works of Valery Bryusov, one of the leading symbolist writers, many be classified as science fiction.
            Nikolai Chernyshevsky's immensely popular and influential novel, What Is To Be Done (1863) describes an utopian dream of the far future, which became a prototype for many socialist utopias. The image of glass derived from the Crystal Palace in What Is To Be Done became an influential image for the later science fiction. Glass is the symbol of the Future Society, which will be free, luminous, and open. In Zamyatin’s We this symbol is effectively used, where all the buildings are made of glasses. Spaceflight remained a central science fiction topic since the 1890s in In the Ocean of Stars (1892) by Anany Lyakide, Voyage to Mars (1901) by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Possible miracles of technical progress were regularly described in form of fiction by scientists Wonders of Electricity (1884) by electric engineer Vladimir Chikolev, Automatic Underground Railway (1902) by Alexander Rodnykh etc deals with such themes.

Works Referred For This Article

 RAFAIL NUDLEMAN, Soviet Science Fiction and the Ideology of Soviet Society, Science Fiction Studies (SF-TH Inc,1989)
DANIEL GEROULD, On Soviet Science Fiction, Science Fiction Studies (SF-TH Inc,1983)

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