Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки (Jan 2024)
Debating the Noon Universe: A. and B. Strugatsky vs M. and S. Dyachenko
Abstract
This article provides a comparative analysis of the concepts of the world of the future as presented in the story Noon: 22nd Century (and partially in other parts of the Noon Universe cycle) by A. and B. Strugatsky and the novel Pandem by M. and S. Dyachenko. It discusses the common basic principles (infinity of knowledge, creative work, personal self-realisation) underlying the social models proposed by the writers, analyses salient characteristics of the writers’ “happy tomorrow” (society organisation, management system, upbringing of the younger generation, and space expansion). The article pays close attention to the similarity of the artistic structures of the story and the novel, representing an “in-the-story-narrative” with the mosaic composition of chronological type, which shows the main stages of the development of the society depicted. The author enlarges on the fantastic premise (the works under analysis do not give its detailed substantiation), typical of social science fiction, and both duos are recognised masters of it. The author singles out functions of the cross-cutting characters that bind together individual episodes with independent plots into a single large-scale canvas, revealing not only general processes and global events in the world of the future, but also details of private life and the ups and downs of personal destinies of our descendants. Additionally, the author analyses the finale of the story (and more widely, of the cycle about the Noon Universe) and the novel. While externally opposed (an optimistic assertion of the utopian world by the Strugatsky brothers and the growing social imbalance and rejection of the social experiment conducted by Pandem in Dyachenkos’ work), both works demonstrate common aspects of the writers’ views on the fate of humanity. Observations and conclusions reflect similarities and differences in the interpretation of multifaceted utopian and dystopian social models in Russian-language science fiction of the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century.
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