Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T07:20:38.724Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How Nauchnaia Fantastika Was Made: The Debates about the Genre of Science Fiction from NEP to High Stalinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Matthias Schwartz
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Based on a detailed analysis of published and unpublished sources, Matthias Schwartz reconstructs the making of Soviet science fiction in the cultural context of Soviet literary politics. Beginning in the 1920s, nauchnaia fantastika (scientific fantasy) became one of the most popular forms of light fiction, though literary critics and activists tended to dismiss it because of its origins in popular adventure, its ties to the so-called Pinkerton literature, and its ambiguous relationship to scientific inventions and social progress. Schwartz's analysis shows that even during high Stalinism, socialist realism's norms were far from being firmly established, but in the case of nauchnaia fantastika had to be constantly negotiated and reconstituted as fragile compromises involving different interest groups (literary politicians, writers, publishers, readers). A cultural history of Soviet science fiction also contributes to a better understanding of what people actually wanted to read and sheds new light on the question of how popular literature adapts to political changes and social destabilizations.

Type
Reading the History of the Future: Early Soviet and Post–Soviet Russian Science Fiction
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , Summer 2013 , pp. 224 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See e.g., Green, Martin, The Adventurous Male: Chapters in the History of the White Male Mind (University Park, 1993);Google Scholar Phillips, Richard, Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography of Adventure (London, 1997).Google Scholar Whereas the process by which western adventure literature became science fiction has inspired some significant cultural history studies, In the spring of 1938, at the height of the Great Terror, Aleksandr Beliaev asserted that so-called nauchnaia fantastika (scientific fantasy) met with immense and indisputable success by Soviet readers. His assertion was provocative, not only because it highlighted the genuine popularity of a genre that had been marginalized in Soviet literature at this time, but also because it used a term to describe this genre that had been consistently disputed. In the previous decade, the term nauchnaia fantastika was at first a hotly contested neologism, and then it nearly feil into oblivion. Beliaev's statement therefore points to a phenomenon that has received little scholarly attention until now.we have no account of the contested origins of the genre and its name-nauchnaia fantastika-in the Soviet context. For the west, see e.g., John Rieder, Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction (Middletown, 2008). Recent Russian studies are either personal accounts by science fiction writers themselves or selective readings that do not provide any further context, see e.g., Kir Bulychev, Padcheritsa epokhi: Izbrannye raboty ofantastike (Moscow, 2004); Genadii Prashkevich, Krasnyi sfinks: Istoriia russkoi fantastiki ot V.F. Odoevskogo do Boris Shterna (Novosibirsk, 2007); Dmitrii Nikolaev, Russkaia proza 1920-1930-kh godov: Avantiurnaia, fantasticheskaia i istoricheskaia proza (Moscow, 2006).

2. Eikhenbaum, Boris, “Kak sdelana ‘Shinel’ Gogolia,” Oproze (Leningrad, 1969), 306.Google Scholar

3. The classification of Soviet science fiction as children's or youth literature is a controversial topic beyond the scope of this article. Not accidently, scholars in this field scarcely pay attention to the genre, see e.g., Balina, Marina and Rudova, Larissa, eds., Russian Children's Literature and Culture (New York, 2008).Google Scholar

4. On these avant-garde tendencies, see Bowlt, John E. and Matich, Olga, eds., Laboratory of Dreams: The Russian Avant-Garde and Cultural Experiment (Stanford, 1990);Google Scholar Stites, Richard, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York, 1989).Google Scholar Stites, taking into account some of the scientific-fantastic novels mentioned in this article, reads them in the overall context of scientific enthusiasm without focusing on the context of popular adventure literature of which they are a part. See Stites, , Revolutionary Dreams, 167–89.Google Scholar

5. On some of these utopian visions, see Michael Hagemeister, ‘“Unser Körper muss unser Werk sein': Beherrschung der Natur und Überwindung des Todes in russischen Projekten des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Hagemeister, Michael and Groys, Boris, eds., Die Neue Menschheit: Biopolitische Utopien in Russland zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main, 2005), 19–67;Google Scholar Vöhringer, Margarete, Avantgarde und Psychotechnik: Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik der Wahrnehmungsexperimente in derfrühen Sowjetunion (Göttingen, 2007).Google Scholar On the “cosmic” imaginations of the popular-scientific community of the time, see Siddiqi, Asif A., The Red Rackets’ Glare: Spaceflight and the Soviet Imagination, 1857-1957 (Cambridge, Eng., 2010), 74–113. Google Scholar

6. In the first sense, Soviet critics in particular have defined the genre since the thaw period, see e.g., Britikov, Anatolii, Russkii Sovetskii nauchno-fantasticheskii roman (Leningrad, 1970).Google Scholar Ironically, western scholars often took over this conceptualization of the origins of nauchaia fantastika, see e.g., Stites, Richard, “Fantasy and Revolution: Alexander Bogdanov and the Origins of Bolshevik Science Fiction,” in Bogdanov, Alexander, Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia, ed. Stites, Richard and Graham, Loren R. (Bloomington, 1984), 1–16.Google Scholar Pioneering for the second, even more normative understanding of the genre was Darko Suvin, with bis emphasis on its critical impact: Suvin, Darko, “The Utopian Tradition of Russian Science Fiction,” Modern Language Review 66, no. 1(January 1971): 139–59;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Geiler, Leonid, Vselennaia za predelom dogmy: Razmyshleniia O sovetskoi fantastike (London, 1985).Google Scholar In the late Soviet Union, several literary scholars started to reconceptualize nauchnaia fantastika in a broader context of fantastic literature, fairy tales, and folklore, see e.g., Neelov, Evgenii, Volshebno-skazochnye korni nauchnoi fantastiki (Leningrad, 1986).Google Scholar Furthermore, Anindita Banerjee in her pioneering dissertation embeds the emergence of science fiction in the broader “discourse around science and technology” in fin-de-siecle Russia and mainly analyzes (anti)utopian, occult, or technical-fantastical narratives in “high literature,” see Banerjee, Anindita, “Genesis and Evolution of Science Fiction in Fin de Siede Russia, 1880-1921” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2000), 16.Google Scholar For a brief introduction to the debate about differing approaches to science fiction in general, see Luckhurst, Roger, Science Fiction (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 1–12.Google Scholar

7. Kubikov, Ivan, “Nat Pinkerton-korol’ syshchikov,” Rabochii mir 11 (1918): 40.Google Scholar

8. For the prerevolutionary era, see Brooks, Jeffrey, When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917 (Princeton, 1988), 246–68.Google Scholar On this broad definition of adventure literature in the early Soviet period, see e.g., Lezhnev, A., “O prikliuchencheskoi literature,” Krasnaia molodezh –3-4 (1925): 198–200;Google Scholar Dinamov, Sergei, “Avantiurnyi roman,” in Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, ed. Shmidt, Otto Iu. (Moscow, 1926), 1:120–22.Google Scholar

9. Most of these texts were translations or adaptations of works and sources written in English or French, parts of which were considerably changed for Russian readers. See Brooks, , When Russia Learned to Read, 109–17, 143-53.Google Scholar

10. See e.g., Lovell, Stephen, “Literature and Entertainment in Russia: A Brief History,” in Lovell, Stephen and Menzel, Birgit, eds., Reading for Entertainment in Contemporary Russia: Post-Soviet Popular Literature in Historical Perspective (Munich, 2005), 11–28.Google Scholar

11. Chukovskii, Kornei, “Nat Pinkerton i sovremennaia literatura” (1910), Sobranie sochinenii v 15 tomakh (Moscow, 2003), 7:36.Google Scholar This article is based on a popular lecture Chukovskii gave in different Russian towns from 1908 onwards.

12. Here Chukovskii is obviously hinting about André Laurie's bestseller Atlantis (1895, Russ. 1900) and H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901), see Chukovskii, , “Nat Pinkerton i sovremennaia literatura,” 36.Google Scholar

13. Trotskii, Lev, “K. Chukovskii” (9 February 1914), Literatura i revoliutsiia (1923), (Moscow, 1991), 273–83.Google Scholar See Kaletskii, P., “Pinkertonovshchina,” Literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1934), 8:648.Google Scholar

14. Bukharin, Nikolai, “Kommunisticheskoe vospitanie molodezhi v usloviiakh Nep'a (5-i Vser. s“ezd R.K.S.M Doklad N. Bukharina. Utrenee zasedanie 13-gooktiabria),” Pravda, 14 October 1922, 2.Google Scholar On Bukharin's appeal in more detail, see Dralyuk, Boris, Western Crime Fiction Goes East: The Russian Pinkerton Craze 1907-1934 (Leiden, 2012), 83–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Bukharin, Nikolai, “Zakluchitel ‘noe slovo tov. Bukharina (5-i Vser. s“ezd R.K.S.M),“ Pravda, 15 October 1922, 3.Google Scholar

16. By 1929 the overall number of book titles had reached the same level as before the war, whereas the circulation of copies bad doubled. See Rybnikov, Nikolai D., ed., Massovyi chitatel'i kniga (Moscow, 1925), 37–48;Google Scholar Cherniak, Mariia, Fenomen massovoi literatury X X veka (St. Petersburg, 2005), 85.Google Scholar

17. See Vsemirnyi sledopyt 11 (1928): 872-73.

18. Already in 1929, the editors of Vsemirnyi sledopyt and its supplement Vokrugsveta discovered through a reader survey that their magazines reached more readers than the !arge communist daily newspapers. See [Red.], “Chto skazal chitatel': Otchet redaktsii ob ankete ‘Vsem. Sledopyta’ sredi chitatelei, provedennoi v 1928 godu,'’ Vsemirnyi sledopyt 1(1929): 78-79.

19. See e.g., Slukhovskii, Mikhail, Kniga i derevnia (Moscow, 1928), 109;Google Scholar Dobrenko, Evgenii, Formovka sovetskogo chitatelia: Sotsial'nye i esteticheskie pred posylki retseptsii sovetskoi literatury (St. Petersburg, 1997), 59–60, 68-72, 126-27, 161-63;Google Scholar for the 1930s, see Friedberg, Maurice, “Foreign Authors and Soviet Readers,'’ Russian Review 13, no. 4 (October 1954): 266–75;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Lenoe, Matthew, Closer to the Masses: Stalinist Culture, Social Revolution, and Soviet Newspapers (Cambridge, Mass., 2004), 74–78, 217-21.Google Scholar

20. For instance, Conan Doyle's last novel The Maracot Deep (1929) as weil as his late short stories When the World Screamed (1928) and The Disintegration Machine (1929), were simultaneously printed in different translations by Mir prikliuchenii, Vokrug sveta, and Vsemirnyi sledopyt only a short time after their original English publication. Wells's The Time Machine alone was reprinted twelve times between 1918 and 1935; Warof the Worlds was reprinted ten times in the same period.

21. Obruchev was a professor at the Moscow mining institute who later became an influential Soviet academic and published two novels in a typical prerevolutionary Jules Verne-style, Plutoniia: Neobychainoe puteshestvie v nedra zemli (Plutonia: An Extraordinary Voyage to the Center of the Earth, 1924) and Zemlia Sannikova, ili Poslednie onkilony (Sannikov Land, or the Last Onkilons, 1926). The novels remained practically unnoticed until some reprints with high circulation appeared in the 1930s, but only since the thaw have both novels became classics of Soviet children's literature. Even the young Andrei Platonov published some of bis early stories in Vsemirnyi sledopyt.

22. See S. Berezhnoi, V. Borisov, et al., eds., Bibliografiia.ru. Fantastika, prikliucheniia, skazka idrugoe (2002-2004, 2008), at bibliography.ufacom.ru/main.php (last accessed 1 March 2013).

23. See Rykachev, Iakov, “Nashi Main-Ridy i Zhiul’ Verny,” Molodaia gvardiia 3 (1929): 87.Google Scholar

24. See Grigor'ev, Sergei, “Troika Or-Dim-Stach: Radio-rasskaz budushchego,“ Vsemirnyi sledopyt 1(1925): 1–16.Google Scholar

25. See, for instance, Karpov, Nikolai A., “Luchi smerti: Fantasticheskii roman,” Bibliotechka revoliutsionnykh prikliuchenii (1924): 1:3–46; 2:3-43; 3:3-50;Google Scholar Orlovskii, Vladimir, Mashina uzhasa: Nauchno-fantasticheskaia povest’ (Leningrad, 1927).Google Scholar For a satire, e.g., on cosmism, see Gireli, Mikhail, Prestuplenie professora Zvezdochetova (Leningrad, 1926).Google Scholar

26. See Dinamov, Sergei, “Avantiurnaia literatura nashikh dnei,” Krasnoe studenchestvo 6–7 (1925): 112.Google Scholar

27. Lunts, Lev, “Na zapad! Rech ‘ na sobranii ‘Serapionovykh brat'ev’ 2-go dekabria 1922 g.,” Vnezakona: P'esy, rasskazy, stat'i (St. Petersburg, 1994), 208.Google Scholar

28. Tolstoi, Aleksei, “Aelita (Zakat Marsa): Roman,” Krasnaia nov’ 6 (1922): 104–49; 1 (1923): 52-91; 2 (1923): 36-57.Google Scholar The journal publication was followed by only one book edition (Gosizdat in 1923). After the commercial and political flop of Iakov Protazanov's film adaption in 1924, reprints in Tolstoi's collected works went unnoticed by critics until he reworked the novel substantially in the 1930s. For the critics, see e.g” Chukovskii, Kornei, “Portrety sovremennykh pisatelei. Aleksei Tolstoi,” Russkii sovremmenik 1 (1924): 269;Google Scholar Tynianov, Iurii, “Literaturnoe segodnia (1924),” Poetika. Istoriia literatury. Kino (Moscow, 1977), 155–56.Google Scholar

29. Shklovskii, Viktor, “Sviaz priemov siuzhetoslozheniia s obshchimi priemami stilia” (1919), O teorii prozy (Moscow, 1925), 51.Google Scholar

30. Mikhail Bulgakov also experimented in a satirical way at this time with genre plot elements-for example, in writing his stories Rokovye iaitsa (The Fatal Eggs, 1925) and Sobach’ e serdtse (Heart of a Dog, 1925), but in contrast to the authors mentioned, he did not use it as a genre parody but as an artistic device to criticize political and social evils. See Howell, Yvonne, “Eugenics, Rejuvenation, and Bulgakov's Journey into the Heart of Dogness,” Slavic Review 65, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 544–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Meshcheriakov, Nikolai, “Predislovie k pervomu izdaniiu” (1923), in Shaginian, Marietta, Sobranie sochinenii 1905-1933 (Moscow, 1935), 3:107–8.Google Scholar

32. Only after a film adaption of the first novel, Miss Mend (1926, dir. Fedor Ocep, Boris Barnet), had some trouble with censorship did Shaginian reveal her long-known pseudonym and distance herself from her engagement in the genre, qualifying it as poor parody. See Shaginian, Marietta, “Kak ia pisala ‘Mess-Mend“’ (1926), Sobranie sochinenii 1905-1933 (Moscow, 1935), 3:375–82.Google Scholar

33. None of these novels was printed in the big commercial magazines for adventure literature mentioned above. For the negative critiques, see e.g., Aksenov, I. A., “Il'ia Erenburg. Istoriia gibeli Evropy,” Pechat’ irevoliutsiia 3 (1924): 261–62; 1.Google Scholar Modzalevskii, “V. Ka– taev. ‘Ostrov Erendorf.’ Roman s prikliucheniiami,” Knigonosha 3 (1925): 16; D., “V. Ivanov i V. Shklovskii. Iprit,” Knigonosha 26 (1925): 17.

34. See Eikhenbaum, Boris, “Literatura i kino” (1926), Literatura. Teoriia. Kritika. Polemika (Leningrad, 1927), 298;Google Scholar Piotrovskii, Adrian, “K teorii kino-zhanrov,” in Eikhenbaum, Boris, ed., Poetika kino (Moscow, 1927), 161–70.Google Scholar

35. Arkhangel, Aleksandr ‘skii, “Kompinkerton,” Kommunisticheskii Pinkerton (Leningrad, 1926), 7.Google Scholar

36. Abram Palei, “Sovetskaia nauchno-fantasticheskaia literatura,” Revoliutsiia i kul'tura 23-24 (1929): 63-68.

37. See Kelly, Catriona, “New Boundaries for the Common Good: Science, Philanthropy, and Objectivity in Soviet Russia,” in Kelly, Catriona and Shepherd, David, eds” Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution: 1881-1940 (Oxford, 1998), 238–55;Google Scholar Andrews, James T., Science for the Masses: The Bolshevik State, Public Science, and the Popular Imagination in Soviet Russia, 1917-1934 (College Station, 2003).Google Scholar

38. Thus contemporary critics very often claim that the known science popularizer Iakov Perel'man invented the term as far as he used it in an allegedly “missing chapter” of Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune (1865), which he wrote in 1915, referring to it as a “scientific-fantastic story” in a short preface. But Perel'man never again used this accidental attribute and there is no evidence that any of his contemporaries paid attention to it. See Perel'man, “Zavtrak v nevesomoi kukhne: Nauchno-fantasticheskii rasskaz,” Priroda i liudi 24 (1914): 381-82. For Russian critics, see Evgenii Kharitonov, “Apokrify Zazerkal –ia (Zapisnye knizhki archivariusa),” Fantastika 1(2003): 661-92.

39. Zamiatin, Evgenii, “Genealogicheskoe derevo Uellsa” (1924), My: Roman, povesti, rasskazy, p’ esy, stat’ ii vospominaniia (Kishinev, 1989), 606.Google Scholar The essay was printed for the first time in 1922 as an independent publication; in 1924 Zamiatin revised it as a preface for an edition of the collected works of H. G. Wells. The quote here is taken from the later essay.

40. Considering Zamiatin's fall into disgrace because of his anti-utopian novel My (We, 1921) it is not surprising that later Soviet genre histories passed over this statement.

41. See the cover of Vsemirnyi sledopyt 1(1925); see also [Red.], “Vsemirnyi sledopyt. Programma zhurnala,” Vsemirnyi sledopyt 2 (1925): inside front cover.

42. John W. Campbell (1910-1971) founded the magazine in 1937, which was generally regarded as the central publication outlet for the so-called Golden Age of American science fiction. See Krutskikh, K., “Russkii Kempbell,” Uralskii sledopyt 8 (2000): 5–8.Google Scholar

43. Popov, Vladimir, “Putesbestvie cbelovecbeskogo serdtsa vokrug sveta (Naucbnaia fantastika),” Vsemirnyi sledopyt 1 (1925): 73–74.Google Scholar

44. Popov bad initially conceived tbe term as an alternative to tbe disputed notion of “entertaining science,” wbicb Iakov Perel'man especially promoted in bis numerous publications.

45. [Red.], “Ot redaktsii (Golova professora Douelia),” Vsemirnyi sledopyt 3 (1925): 17.

46. See e.g., Okston, I., “Mezbplanetnye Kolumby: Naucbno-fantasticbeskii rasskaz kontsa veka,” Vsemirnyi sledopyt 9 (1926): 3–12;Google Scholar Ognev, S., “V. Goncbarov. Vek gigantov [rec.],” Knigonosha 33-34 (1925): 24.Google Scholar

47. Some literary scbolars of tbe time defined tbe term in tbis sense, see e.g., Eiges, Iosif, “Fantastika,” in Brodskii, N. L. et al., eds., Literaturnaia entsiklopediia: Slovar’ literaturnykh terminov (Moscow, 1925), 2:1010–19.Google Scholar

48. See e.g., Zlobnyi, I., “Fantasticbeskaia literatura,” Revoliutsiia i kul'tura 2 (1930): 47–49.Google Scholar

49. See Andrews, , Science for the Masses, 127–34.Google Scholar

50. [Red.], “Redaktsiia zhurnala ‘Vsemirnnogo sledopyta’ ob“iavliaet Vsesoiuznyi literaturnyi konkurs 1928 g.,” Vsemirnyi sledopyt 5 (1928): 392-93.

51. [Red.], “Litkonkurs ‘Sledopyta’ 1928 g.,” Vsemirnyi sledopyt 2 (1929): 149.

52. Ibid.

53. Palei, “Sovetskaia nauchno-fantasticheskaia literatura,” 63.

54. lbid.

55. See e.g” Katanian, V., “Est’ li u nas Zhul’ Verny? Beloe piatno na karte sovetskoi literatury: Neosvoennaia oblast'-nauchno-fantasticheskii roman,” Komsomol'skaia pravda, 16 January 1933, 4.Google Scholar

56. See e.g” Palei, Abram, “Ser'eznyi proryv na literaturnom fronte,” Revoliutsiia i kul'tura 17–18 (1930): 90;Google Scholar Blium, Arien, Za kulisami “ministerstva pravd y“: Tainaia istoriia sovetskoi tsenzury 1917-1929 (St. Petersburg, 1994), 244–58.Google Scholar

57. Marshak, Samuil, “Sodoklad S. Ia. Marshaka o detskoi literature,” in Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s“ezd sovetskikh pisatelei 1934: Stenograficheskii otchet (Moscow, 1934), 30–31.Google Scholar

58. Beliaev, Aleksandr, “Sozdadim sovetskuiu nauchnuiu fantastiku,” Literaturnyi Leningrad, 14 August 1934, 4.Google Scholar

59. Both had already been actively collaborating to establish new types of socialist children's literature, see e.g., Maksim Gor'kii, “Literatura-detiam,” Izvestiia, 11 June 1933, 2-3; Samuil Marshak, “Deti otvechaiut Gor'komu,” Pravda, 18 May 1934, 3; on children's literature in general, see Fateev, Andrei, Stalinizm i detskaia literatura v politike nomenklatury SSSR (1930-e-1950-e gg.) (Moscow, 2007).Google Scholar

60. See Gor'kii, Maksim, “Doklad A. M. Gor'kogo o sovetskoi literature,” in Pervyi vsesoiuznyi s“ezd sovetskikh pisatelei 1934, 5–18.Google Scholar

61. Marshak, , “Sodoklad S. Ia. Marshaka,” 30–31.Google Scholar

62. See e.g., Gor'kii, Maksim, “O temach,” Pravda, 17 October 1933, 2–3.Google Scholar

63. See Marshak, , “Sodoklad S. Ia. Marshaka,” 23.Google Scholar

64. See e.g., [Anon.], “Sozdadim nauchno-khudozhestvennye proizvedeniia, dostoinye nashei epochi,” Bor’ ba za techniku 17-18 (1934): 1-2.

65. See Adamov, Grigorii, “Na zapushchennom uchastke detskoi literatury,” Molodaia gvardiia 3 (1936): 166.Google Scholar

66. As reported by delegates at the first national conference for children's literature in January 1936, see e.g., Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi archiv literatury i isskustva (RGALI), f. 630, op. 5, ed. 8, II. 22-23 (Tsentral'nyi komitet Vsesoiuznogo Leninskogo Kommu– nisticheskogo Soiuza molodezhi, Izdatel'stvo detskoi literatury; Otdel'nye isstupleniia pisatelei i khudozhnikov na soveshchanii khudozhnikov v detskoi literature i pisatelei po voprosam detskoi literatury pri CK V.S.L.K.S.M. s K-Shch, 15/16/17/19 ianvaria 1936 goda); see also Beliaev, , “Zolushka,” 3.Google Scholar

67. See Beliaev, Aleksandr, “Vozdushnyi korabl',” Vokrug sveta 10 (1934): 1–4; 11:5-7, 12:14-18; 1(1935): 5-9; 2:13-17; 3:8-12; 4:10-14; 5:20-23; 6:15-19.;Google Scholar [Red.], “Itogi nashei ankety,” Vokrug sveta 6 (1935): 31-32.

68. The well-known children's writer Lev Kassil – characterized the development in the beginning of 1936 as a real “split” of the literary debate into officiaIIy printed statements and the true “corridor critique,” see Lev Kassil', “Neproizneshennaia rech', in RGALI, f. 630, op. 5, ed. 8, l. 2.

70. Adamov, “Na zapushchennom uchastke detskoi literatury,” 163-66.

69. See Razgon, Lev, Plen v svoem otechestve (Moscow, 1994), 307;Google Scholar RGALI, f. 630, op. 5, ed. 4, II. 1-105 (Direktsiia Izdatel ‘stva detskoi literatury, Tsentral ‘nyi komitet Vsesoiuznogo Leninskogo Kommunisticheskogo Soiuza molodezhi; Stenogramma soveshchaniia po detskoi literatury 15 ianvaria 1936 goda); [Anon.], “Pervoe soveshchanie o detskoi literature pri TsK VLKSM,” Pravda, 29 January 1936, 3; Andrei Andreev, “O detskoi literature: Rech’ sekretaria TsK VKP (b) tov. A. Andreeva na 1-m soveshchanii po detskoi literature pri TsK VLKSM 19 ianvaria 1936 g.,” Pravda, 29 January 1936, 4.

71. See [Anon.], “Sovetskaia detvora zhdet khoroshikh knig (Na sobranii aktiva Detizdata CK VLKSM),” Komsomol'skaia pravda, 20 April 1937, 2; [Komsomolets], “Dela izdatel'stva ‘Molodaia gvardiia,“’ Pravda, 25 July 1937, 3; Babushkina, A., “Do kontsa vykorchevat’ vrazheskuiu agenturu v komsomole,” Detskaia literatura 1 (1939): 19–25;Google Scholar Ia. Rachinskii et al., eds., Zhertvy politicheskogo terrora v SSSR (Mezhdunarodnoe obshchestvo “Memorial,” 2007), at lists.memo.ru/index.htm (last accessed 1 March 2013).

72. Beliaev, , “Zolushka,” 3.Google Scholar

73. See e.g., Beliaev, Aleksandr, “Sozdadim sovetskuiu nauchnuiu fantastiku,” Detskaia literatura 15–16 (1938): 1–8;Google Scholar Obruchev, Vladimir, “Neskol'ko zamechanii o nauchno-fantasticheskoi literature,” Detskaia literatura 1 (1939): 39–40;Google Scholar Vladko, Vladimir, “Puti nauchnoi fantastiki,” Detskaia literatura 7 (1939): 13–16.Google Scholar

74. See, for instance, Ivich, Aleksandr and Shklovskii, Viktor, “Uells i Zhiul – Vern,” Detskaia literatura 5 (1939): 14–18;Google Scholar Zhukov, L., “Sovetskii prikliuchencheskii i nauchnofantasticheskii roman,” Molodaia gvardiia 8 (1938): 170–78.Google Scholar In these debates, Gor'kii's conceptualization of “bourgeois” fantastic literature was still present, but only occasionally reactivated, see e.g., Mikhailovskii, B., “Fantastika,” Literaturnaia entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1939), 11:652–60.Google Scholar

75. Tushkan, Iurii, “O stile detskoi prikliuchencheskoi povesti,” Detskaia literatura 2 (1939): 75 Google Scholar; Vladko, “Puti nauchnoi fantastiki.“

76. Eikhler, G., “O nekotorykh zadachakh detskoi literatury,” Detskaia literatura 12 (1938): 25.Google Scholar

77. See Zhukov, , “Sovetskii prikliuchencheskii i nauchno-fantasticheskii roman,” 172–73.Google Scholar On the general “psychology” of Soviet literary heroes, who bad to develop from unconscious instinctive to political conscious characters, see Clark, Katerina, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Chicago, 1981), 15–24, 109-13.Google Scholar

78. See Iurikov, P., “Knigi, kotorykh zhdet chitatel',” Komsomol'skaia pravda, 10 December 1939, 3;Google Scholar RGALI, f. 631, op. 8, ed. 13, 11. 1-57 (Soiuz Sovetskikh Pisatelei SSSR, Sektsiia detskoi literatury, Stenogramma soveshchaniia ot 1/IV-1937 g.).

79. Thus, after the show trials against Bukharin and others, one commentator suggested that the “Communist Pinkertons” were an invention of the “traitor” Bukharin. See Zhukov, “Sovetskii prikliuchencheskii i nauchno-fantasticheskii roman,” 175.

80. The series was renamed several times; beginning in the thaw it was published under the name Biblioteka prikliuchenii i nauchnoi fantastiki. See Berezhnoi, Borisov, et al., eds., Bibliograjiia.ru.

81. See Mar’iamov, A., “Knigi bol ‘shoi mechty,” Detskaia literatura 4 (1940): 32–38.Google Scholar

82. Giperboloid inzhenera Garina was published in two, Aelita in four book editions in Russian. See Vel'chinskii, V., Bibliograjiia sovetskoi fantastiki: 1918-1991gg. (Moscow, 2000)Google Scholar, at http://bibliography.narod.ru (last accessed 1March 2013).

83. See Liapunov, Boris, Aleksandr Beliaev: Kritiko-biograficheskii ocherk (Moscow, 1967), 100–147.Google Scholar

84. See e.g” Grebnev, Grigorii, Arktaniia (Letaiushchaia stantsiia): Fantasticheskii roman (Moscow, 1938).Google Scholar

85. See e.g” Palei, Abram, Nauchno-fantasticheskie rasskazy (Moscow, 1937).Google Scholar

86. See e.g” Kazantsev, Aleksandr, Pylaiushchii ostrov: Nauchno-fantasticheskii roman (Moscow, 1941).Google Scholar

87. See Beliaev, Aleksandr, “Golova professora Douelia” (1938), lzbrannye nauchnofantasticheskie proizdvedeniia v trekh tomakh (Moscow, 1957), 2:3–160.Google Scholar

88. See Dolgushin, Iurii, “Generator chudes: Nauchno-fantasticheskii roman,” Tekhnika-molodezhi 5 (1940): 55–57; 11 (1940): 49.Google Scholar

89. lbid., 5 (1940): 50.

90. lbid., 57.

91. lbid.

92. For a more detailed reading, see Schwartz, Matthias, “Guests from Outer Space: Occult Aspects of Soviet Science Fiction,” in Menzel, Birgit, Hagemeister, Michail, and Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer, eds” The New Age of Russia: Occult Esoteric Dimensions (Munich, 2012), 211–37.Google Scholar

93. See e.g” Ivich at a discussion on the topic: RGALI, f. 630, op. 1, ed. 290, 1. 14; Viktor Shklovskii, “Detizdat v 1939 godu,” Detskaia literatura 12 (1939): 34-47. On Rykachev, see Kharitonov, Evgenii, Nauka o fantasticheskom: Bibliograficheskii spravochnik (Moscow, 2001), 197.Google Scholar

94. Ivich, Aleksandr, “Nauchno-fantasticheskaia povest',” Literaturnyi kritik 7–8 (1940): 165.Google Scholar

95. See Ivich, Aleksandr, “Knigi o budushchem,” Tridtsat’ dnei 5–6 (1940): 103–10Google Scholar; RGALI, f. 630, op. 1, ed. 290, 11. 14-15.

96. RGALI, f. 630, op. 1, ed. 296 (Soiuz Sovetskikh Pisatelei SSSR, Sektsiia detskoi literatury; Stenogramma soveshchaniia po obsuzhdeniiu doklada Andreeva K. K. “Amerikanskaia nauchno-fantasticheskaia literatura v 1940 g.” 11 fevralia 1941 g.).

97. Stated by the publisher's reader, “comrade Khalturin,” at an internal discussion in October 1946. See RGALI, f. 631, op. 15, ed. 787, l. 24.

98. See e.g., Beliaev, Sergei [E. Kramskoi], Kovarnoe oruzhie: Nefantasticheskii rasskaz (Moscow, 1942);Google Scholar Efremov, Ivan, “Observatoriia Nur-i-Desht. iz tsikla rasskazov o neobyknovennom,” Novyi mir 11–12 (1944): 120–30.Google Scholar

99. By December 1943 the publishing house Detgiz, reorganized yet again, had established its own “commission for scientific-popular literature,” which dealt with nauchnaia fantastika too. See RGALI, f. 360, op. 5, ed. 84, 11. 1-17; ed. 86, 11. 1-10.

100. See RGALI, f. 361, op. 22, ed. 1, 11. 1-3 (Pravlenie Soiuza Sovetskikh Pisatelei, Sektsiia nauchno-khudozhestvennoi literatury; Protokoly No. 1-5 zasedanii biuro sektsii na-chud.lit-y, nach. 20. marta 1945, kon. 22. noia. 1945); RGALI, f. 361, op. 22, ed. 5, 11. 1-57 (Pravlenie Soiuza Sovetskikh Pisatelei, Sektsiia nauchno-khudozhestvennoi literatury; Delo No. 4).

101. Besides innumerable magazine reprints alone between 1944 and 1946, Efremov published six books containing his scientific-fantastic stories. See e.g., Efremov, Ivan, Almaznaia truba: Rasskazy (Moscow, 1946).Google Scholar

102. See RGALI, f. 631, op. 22, ed. 14, II. 1-17 (15 December 1947).

103. See RGALI, f. 631, op. 22, ed. 18, 1. 4 (3 November 1948); RGALI, f. 631, op. 22, ed. 21, II. 1-7.

104. RGALI, f. 631, op. 22, ed. 22, 11. 1-90.

105. The term was first used by Sytin in March 1951 but soon became an often quoted dictum negatively associated with a rigid restriction of literary fantasy in time and place. See RGALI, f. 631, op. 22, ed. 41, 1. 62. Vladimir Shevchenko in a talk about the further development of nauchnaia fantastika at a meeting of the section for “scientific-fictional literature” on 26 March 1951. See RGALI, f. 631, op.22, ed. 41, 1. 19. See also Vladimir Shevchenko, “lskat’ i nakhodit': Za vysokuiu ideinost’ i khudozhennost’ v nauchnofantasticheskoi literature,” Komsomol’ skaia pravda, 8 October 1949, 2

106. The term was first used by the literary critic S. Poltavskii. See Poltavskii, S., “O siuzhete v nauchnoi fantastike,” in Makarova, V. A., ed., O literature dlia detei (Leningrad, 1955), 1:139.Google Scholar See Schwartz, Matthias, “A Dream Come True: Close Encounters with Guter Space in Soviet Popular Scientific Journals of the 1950s and 1960s,” in Scheide, Carmen et al., eds” Soviet Space Culture: Cosmic Enthusiasm in Socialist Societies (New York, 2011), 232–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

107. See e.g” Gomel, Elana, “The Poetics of Censorship: Allegory as Form and Ideology in the Novels of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky,” Science Fiction Studies 22, no. 1 (March 1995): 87–106.Google Scholar Not quite accidentally, colonial stereotypes, weil known from adventure novels, reappeared in many nauchnaia fantastika works at this time, see e.g” Efremov, Ivan, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale (Moscow, 1959).Google Scholar

108. See e.g” Nudel'man, Rafail, “Vozvrashchenie so zvezd (Mysli o nauchnoi fantastike),” Tekhnika-molodezhi 5 (1964): 24.Google Scholar The origin of the phrase “fantasy of immedi– ate objectives” is unclear. lt probably circulated in internal discussions starting in the mid-1950s. The earliest quotation to be found so far is from Lazar’ Lagin, “Bez skidok na zhanr! Zametki o nauchnoi fantasticheskoi literature,” Literaturnaia gazeta, 11 February 1961, 1-2.

109. Thomas Lahusen, in bis book on reconstructing the genesis of the novel and Vasilii Azhaev's process of writing the novel Daleko ot Moskvy (Far from Moscow, 1946- 47/1948), focuses, not on the “finished product of canonical works” and the “method” constituting a work, but on the contribution made by “real socialism.” From the making of nauchnaia fantastika we can learn that neither the method nor the products created by it were ever “finished.” See Lahusen, Thomas, How Life Writes the Book: Real Socialism and Socialist Realism in Stalin's Russia (Ithaca, 1997), 4.Google Scholar