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Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Prelude to the Literature of Glasnost
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 May 2017
Extract
When Chingiz Aitmatov's Plakha first appeared in Novyi mir in 1986 many readers here were astounded at the uncanny ability of this established author to ride the wave of the future. This sensational novel, with its stark portrayal of the drug trade, exploitation of the environment, and social alienation in the Soviet Union, was seen by many as the ultimate expression of newfound creative freedoms under Mikhail Gorbachev. For all its seeming novelty, however, Aitmatov's venture into the area of exposé literature has not been an isolated incident. Plakha is only one of a number of recent Soviet novels that focus exclusively on the ills of contemporary Soviet society.
The appearance of exposé literature under glasnost could be viewed simply as a direct effect of the loosening of controls under Gorbachev. Its emergence at this time, however, is actually the result of a whole complex of factors, only one political. Soviet literature has already dealt with such issues as the environment, impending nuclear catastrophe, and a disappearing national memory. These issues, in fact, form the thematic core of the trend of fantastic literature that immediately preceded glasnost and ushered in fundamental changes in Soviet literary discourse. This article is an attempt to examine four Soviet novels that appeared before the era of glasnost. My purpose is to elucidate the nature of the changes occurring in Soviet literature in the mid-1970s and early 1980s and the contribution of this literature to glasnost.
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References
1. This admission of the need to expand the traditional mode of socialist realism was the major theme of the speech by Georgii Markov at the Seventh Congress of the Writer's Union. See “Sovetskaia literatura v bor'be za kommunizm i ee zadachi v svete reshenii XXV-go s″ezda KPSS: Doklad pervogo sekretaria pravleniia Soiuza pisatelei SSSR G.M. Markova,” Literaturnaia gazeta, no. 27 (1 July 1981): 2.
2. See more on this subject in chapter 2 of my dissertation Utopia and Fantasy in the Contemporary Soviet Novel, 1975–1981 (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1986).
3. It has been shown that socialist realism is a set of formal conventions that are a “system of signs comprising, in the case of the novel, such things as standard attributes and epithets for both positive and negative heroes, and standard plot functions which are usually organized in a formulaic plot” (Katerina Clark, “Quo Vadis Socialist Realism: The Case of Chingiz Aitmatov's I dol'she veka dlit'sia den',” unpublished article, 3). Some novels of the new trend employ fantastic devices to expand the temporal and spatial dimensions of what essentially remains a familiar formulaic plot of the Stalinist novel of the 1930s and 1940s.
4. See Chingiz Aitmatov, I dol'she veka dlit'sia den’ in Novyi mir, no. 11 (1980) and Nodar Dumbadze, Zakon vechnosli (Tbilisi: Merani, 1979).
5. See, for example, Marger Zarin', Fat'shivyi Faust (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1981); Natal'ia Sokolova, Ostorozhno, volshebnoe! (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1981); Vladimir Orlov, At'list Danilov in Novyi mir, nos. 2, 3, 4 (1980).
6. Andrei Platonov (1899–1951), Soviet writer and critic. His most important works include a science fiction trilogy Potomki solntsa (1922), Lunnaia bomha (1926), Efirnyi trakt (1926–27); a book of poetry Golubinaia glubina (1922); and collections of stories: Epifanskie shliuzy (1927). Sokrovennyi chelovek (1928), Proiskhozhdenie masteru (1929) (lirst part of the novel Chevengur, published in full only in the west, 1972), and Kotlovan (1930), published in the west in 1973. An electrical engineer by profession Platonov was an enthusiastic supporter of the revolution. His idiosyncratic style of writing and his insistence on a reexamination of the costs of building a socialist society were reasons for his repression in the 1930s. Platonov's work betrays the direct influence of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov (1828–1903), whose confidence in Russia's messianic role in transforming nature, belief in the ancient Orthodox idea of the eventual transfiguration of all matter through communal work, regenerated feeling of brotherliness, and rejection of the sexual union, form the ideological core of Platonov's own writing. Platonov's work is unique in its simultaneous praise of traditional peasant values and insistence on the need for a technological transformation of the world. Platonov's hero, sokrovennyi chelovek, a compassionate seeker and an eccentric, is entrusted with the task of building a perfect society through brotherly love and technological reorganization of the world. Platonov's gradual rehabilitation in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death is responsible for his direct influence on contemporary Soviet literature. Publication of Platonov's long suppressed Kotlovan and luvenii'noe more in the Soviet Union today is yet another proof of the writer's importance for contemporary Soviet literature as well as of the leadership's desire to reexamine recent Soviet history.
7. Evdokimov, Nikolai, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1983) 2:150–232 Google Scholar.
8. Anatolii Kim, Lotos in Druzhba narodov. no. 8 (1980).
9. “Otrazhenie istiny. Molodyc kritiki obsuzhdaiut” (Pavel Nerler), Literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (1982), 40.
10. Ibid. (Arkadii Khvoroshchan).
11. Ibid., 41.
12. Ibid. (Svetlana Lanshchikova).
13. Ibid. (A. Razumikhin), 42.
14. First published in the collection Nefritovyi poias (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1981).
15. Angar, Konlakt in Druzhba narodov, no. 12 (1978), 122–155. All subsequent quotations are from this edition. The translation is mine.
16. Latynina, A., “Forma dlia mysli?” Literaiurnoe obozrenie, no. 7 (1979), 56 Google Scholar.
17. Ibid., 57.
18. Anar, Kontakt, 155.
19. See Reuters, 30 June 1986; also Paul Quinn Judge in The Christian Science Monitor, 18 July 1986, and Radio Liberty Research publication of the samizdat version of the conversation on 23 October 1986.
20. See, for example, lurii Bondarev's Igru (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1985); Valentin Rasputin's Pozhar in Nash sowemennik no. 7 (1985), 3–38; Rvgenii Evtushenko's Fuku in Novyi mir, no. 9 (1985), 30–58; and Chingiz Aitmatov's Plakha in Novyi mir, nos. 6, 8, 9 (1986).
21. Pravda, 9 September 1985.
22. Oktiabr', no. 1 (1986); Nash sovremennik, no. 8 (1986).
23. See Iurii Bondarev's Vybor (1981), Chingiz Aitmatov's I dol'she veka dlit'sia den’ (1980), Evgenii Evtushenko's lagodnye mesta (1981), Valentin Rasputin's Proshchanie s materoi (1976).