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Arkady Strugatski (1925-1991) | |
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Russian author, who collaborated with his brother Boris Strugatski and published acclaimed science fiction novels. The Strugatskis became best-known Soviet science fiction writers, continuing the Russian tradition starting from Nikolai Gogol's novel Chronicles of a City, Vladimir Mayakovsky's play The Bedbug, and Mikhail Bulgakov's fantasy The Master and Margarita. Under the official Soviet ideology much of the Strugatskis' works were written in code to avoid censorship. In ULITKA NA SKLONE (The Snail on the Slope) they argued, that no form of knowledge can be the ultimate truth, questioning indirectly the validity of Marxist-Leninist theories of progress. Arkady Strugatski was born in Batumi, Georgia. His mother, Alexandra Ivanova Strugatsky, was a teacher. Strugatski's father, Natan Zenovievich Strugatsky, came from a Jewish family. He was an active member of the Communist party, and died of hunger during the siege of Leningrad in 1942. One of his brothers died in the political purges of 1937. Strugatski served in the Soviet army in 1943-55, becoming a senior lieutenant. In 1955 he married Elena Oshanina; they had one stepdaughter. Strugatski studied English and Japanese at the Military Institute for Foreign Languages, and worked as a technical translator and editor for Institute for Technical Information, Goslitizdat (1959-61). He was an editor of Detgiz in 1961-64 and then worked as a freelance writer and translator from English and Japanese from 1964. Arkady Strugatski died on October 23, 1991. Boris Strugatsky was born in 1933 in Leningrad, where the family had moved in the late 1920s. He was too weak to leave the city during World War II, but he survived with his mother the siege – she died in 1979 at the age of seventy-nine. Strugatski studied astronomy at Leningrad University. After graduating in 1956 he joined the staff of Pulkov astronomical observatory, situated near Leningrad. In 1957 he married Adelaida Karpeliuk, they had one son. From 1956 to 1964 he worked in Pulkov as a computer mathematician and then started his career as a freelance writer. Arkady and Boris Strugatski's first book appeared in 1957. Their father, who had a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Leningrad, had kindled Arkady's interest in the works of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Arhur Conan Doyle. The combination of Boris's scientific expertise and Arkady's knowledge of western science fiction helped make them Russia's most widely translated writers of the genre. Their early stories followed the tradition of Ivan Jefremov and praised the achievements of science and technology. A typical example of these works is Noon: 22nd Century (1962) in which the cosmonauts optimistically search unknown frontiers. The heroes, Anton Bukov, Vladimir Yurovsky, and Ivan Zhilin, fly to Venus for uranium and have an adventure on one of the Jupiter moons. They are brave but grow old, and Yurovsky dies after taking a suicidal risk. After the brothers began move gradually to the direction of social satire, they came into conflict with the censors, although they were never dissidents or anti-Soviet. VTOROYE NASHESTVIYE MARSIAN (1962) was a humorous sequel to H.G. Wells's famous novel War of the World. In the story the Martians come back after their defeat but now they have better weapons: bribes and propaganda. Far Rainbow (1963) was a story about a catastrophe threatening a whole planet. The hero, Gorbovsky, must decide who can leave the planet, a test ground, and who will die. In TRUDNO BYT BOGOM (1964, It's Hard to Be a God) a group of historians from the future visit a medieval planet in order to observe its historical development. Anton alias Don Rumata, a historian, witnesses in the city of Arkanar increasing tension. Don Reba, Minister for Security, accedes more influence and his pogroms among the members of the intelligentsia spread terror. Finally Reba comes to power and establishes a tyranny, beginning a systematic purging of the people. Anton feels he must contravene the Terran Historical Institute's directive of non-interference by helping dissidents to escape from Arkanar. 'Can man be a god?' asks Anton. Can – or should – a god permit evil? This Dostoyevskian theme brought Arkady and Boris Strugatski recognition as serious writes. In 1969 The Ugly Swans, a dystopian story set in an unnamed country, did not find publisher. In appeared in Germany in 1972, and the writers enjoyed the role of semi-outcasts until the advent of glasnost. In the story the indolent intelligentsia has lost its role as a critical counterforce and the new generation, children transformed into geniuses, decides to leave the whole old world. Konstantin Lopushansky's film adaptation from 2006, set in a rainy Siberian town, was loosely based on the book. OBITAYEMYI OSTROV (1971) was about a planet governed by a tyranny and the attempts of an young idealistic pilot to change the society. In Definitely Maybe (1976-77) scientists witness strange events, which refer that somebody wants to hinder their work. According to their theory, the faceless threat from above is the whole world order wanting to keep its secrets. The scientists give up, except one, a rebel, who do not submit to the situation, but continues research. After the death of Arkady in 1991, it remained uncertain whether or not Boris would continue writing alone. Among their other major works is Roadside Picnic (1972), which was adapted into screen by Andrei Tarkovsky under the title Stalker. The original story tells of a mysterious Zone in Canada where enigmatic artifacts can be found, left there like picnic rubbish on an alien stopping place. In the film the smuggler-saint Stalker is a guide to two men, the Writer and the Scientist, across a waste land and to the Room, where one's most secret wish will be granted. When the group reach their objective, nobody has the courage to enter the Room. The journey into the Zone can be interpreted as a psychoanalytical process in which Stalker shows the way to the subconscious. "People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolizes, and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject. I'm reduced to a state of fury and despair by such questions. The Zone doesn't symbolize anything, any more than anything else does in my films: the zone is a zone, it's life, and as he makes his way across it a man may break down or he may come through. Whether he comes through or not depends on his own self-respect, and his capacity to distinguish between what matters and what is merely passing." (Tarkovsky in Sculpting the time, 1986) In 1981 Tarkovsky worked with Arkady in an another film project, but at that time the director was already planning to go into exile and Arkady was suffering from ill health. Tarkovsky's other science fiction film, Solaris (1971), was based on Stanislaw Lem's novel, which appeared in 1961. His last film, The Sacrifice, was heavily influenced by Ingmar Bergman, and contained a section visualizing World War III. For further reading: Microworlds, ed. by Franz Rottemsteiner (1985); World Authors 1975-1980, ed. by Vineta Colby (1985); Soviet Fiction since Stalin: Science, Politics, and Literature by R.J. Marsh (1986); The Second Marxian Invasion: The Fiction of the Strugatsky Brothers by Stephen W. Potts (1991); Apocalyptic Realism: The Science Fiction of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky by Yvonne Howell (1995) Selected works:
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