Life is by the wayside. Books of Strugatsky

It is unlikely that the work of Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, whose works were in the 60s - the end of the 80s, can be called Soviet fiction. Too deep layers of human relationships both with the real world, and with other worlds and people inhabiting them, they reveal. Books of Strugatsky for several generations of readers have become a guidebook in the fantasy world.

Arkady Strugatsky

In the writer's tandem Strugatsky, the main literary word belonged to Arkady Natanovich, his elder brother.

He was born on August 28, 1925 in Batumi. He survived the evacuation from besieged Leningrad and, by conscription, went to study at the Aktobe artillery school, from which, in 1943, he was transferred to the Moscow Military Institute of Foreign Languages for the department "translator from English and Japanese". After graduation, he taught in a special school for military translators, served in the Far East until the demobilization in 1955.

The first fantastic works, written in co-authorship with his brother, were published in 1958. Famous brothers brought the story "The Country of the Crimson Clouds" (1959).

Even in the Soviet era , the Strugatsky books, the list of which includes more than 60 novels, stories, stories and screenplays, have become classics of a fantastic genre. They were translated into more than 40 languages and published in 33 countries.

Arkady Naumovich Strugatsky died on October 12, 1991 in Moscow.

Boris Strugatsky

Boris Natanovich was born on 15.04.1933 in Leningrad, was evacuated during the blockade, and after his return became a student of the Leningrad State University in the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty. Having obtained the diploma of an astronomer, he worked at the observatory (Pulkovo) until 1960.

Member of the Writers' Union, Boris Natanovich wrote not only in co-authorship with his brother, but also separately under the pseudonym S. Vititsky. The writer died on November 19, 2012.

The Strugatsky books became the best works of the Soviet period, in which their own model of the future was created, far from "light" communism. Utopian "tomorrow" is the background for the main theme of their work - the place of man in general and a scientist in particular in the universe and society.

The best works of the 60's

To write so as to provoke the reader to think out, argue, try to understand the work, that's what the Strugatsky brothers put in their every novel. The best books of authors have some understatement, what especially attracts to their works of people searching and thinking.

One of the first disputed works of the Strugatsky brothers was the novel "It's Hard to Be a God" (1964). It was conceived as a light adventure reading, but turned into a digression on ethical questions about attempts to change human nature in order to turn history along another path of development.

The main issues that the Strugatsky books consider are the legitimacy of interference in the lives of others, in the events of the past or in scientific progress. This is how the Soviet intelligentsia took the plot of the novel "It's hard to be a god". They saw in it the surrounding reality - interference in the development of other countries, the "fraternal" assistance of the Soviet Union in building socialism, attempts to keep the state within the framework of the socialist camp even at the cost of blood.

In 1965, two sensational novels were published, which were written by the Strugatsky books "Monday begins on Saturday" and "Predatory Things of the Century."

A cheerful tale of enthusiastic scientists who are passionate about their work - the search for absolute happiness, for the creative intelligentsia of that time became a reference book. According to this novel in 1982, the New Year's merry comedy "Wizards" was filmed.

The novel "Predatory Things of the Century" became somewhat prophetic, as the authors drew a future similar to today's present. The world is filled with things that have enslaved people, they depend on them. The main theme of the novel is that a person without a goal, without interest in finding a new, unknown, is just an animal that consumes things like drugs.

Early 70's

Books Strugatsky, written in the period from the late 60's to early 80's, have a new direction in the worldview of the authors. Now the main theme of their works is the search for an answer to the question: Who are we, why are we here?

If you take all the creativity of the authors entirely, it is clear that the Strugatsky best books were written just in this time period.

1. "Inhabited Island" (1969) was the first novel to expose the system of injustice and inequality. Very bold and powerful book for his time. The application of idealistic, "correct" principles of life for all from the point of view of the protagonist can become the same cause of the catastrophe as the totalitarian regime.
2. "The Hotel" The Dead Mountaineer "(1970) is a detective fiction novel that, with a sense of humor inherent in Strugatsky, tells about events in a high-altitude hotel with the participation of aliens.

These works were included in the category of novels, which brought writers worldwide fame.

"Roadside Picnic"

Not so many works of Soviet time that would change the minds and outlook of people. Strugatsky, the book "Picnic on the Roadside", "The City of the Doomed", "For a Billion Years to the End of the World" and "The Beetle in an Ant Hill" - fell at the most fruitful creative period of the authors and could evoke a response in the minds and souls of the Soviet reader.

"Picnic on the Roadside" (1972) - one of the most significant novels of writers. The realization that the Earth is not the only and unique planet in the universe inhabited by highly developed creatures, but just a curb in the Universe, on which one can stop for a picnic, leave garbage and fly away, turned the minds of many people not only of that time. A tremendous novel about finding a person the answer to the question: what am I from myself?

Creativity Strugatsky today

Books of writers are written in such a way that their relevance today is even higher than in Soviet times. The future, which the authors drew, has already come, which means that the problems described 40 years ago became a reality for a person in the world of high technologies.

Nothing has changed, a man without a goal at any time was a lost hero of his time.