Briefly about the article: In an interview article written in 1967 for Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Strugatskys talk about the dangers of a consumer society, the need to create an Educated Man, the importance of the figure of a teacher, building an open information society and the inevitable confrontation with the "gray" who, alas, , hide far not only in the Arkanar gateways.

"INTELLIGENT - THE CONCEPT OF WORLD VIEW..."

Unpublished interview with the Strugatsky brothers

This interview was written in 1967. The Strugatsky brothers have long been the flagships of Russian science fiction. Despite the abundance of criticism, they enjoyed the undisguised and enduring love of readers. A dozen stories written by them up to that moment took first place in the reader's ratings (then their role was played by club and library questionnaires).

Some of the wording and theses of the interview (more precisely, the articles - although the brothers answered the questions of the presenter, but the text was structured in the form of a monologue) will inevitably seem outdated. However, following the then accepted rhetoric, the Strugatskys repeat the same things they always tried to talk about: about the danger of a consumer society, about the need to create a Man of Education, about the importance of the figure of a teacher, about the need for an open information society and about the inevitable confrontation with the "gray" who, alas, they hide not only in the Arkanar gateways.

CHRONICLES OF THE FAILED PUBLICATION

The history of this article begins with an entry in the working diary of the Strugatskys, made on January 12, 1967, while working on The Ugly Swans: “They called from Komspr, asked for an interview about philistinism and a real person.”

Further vicissitudes can be traced through the correspondence of the brothers (and they corresponded constantly, once every few days).

Arkady - Boris

“I was in Koms. Truth,” he spoke to the guys. We are waiting for an interview on the topic of the young intelligentsia. They will prepare questions, and we will answer them.

“I am sending you everything that I have sprinkled. As you can see, it has little to do with the questionnaire, but it seems to me that the guys themselves do not know exactly what they want. I am also sending "KP" with a dialogue with Amosov - for the sake of generality *. Work with God. Cut and edit, write great, be the master.

Boris - Arcadia

“I am sending you materials. You wrote well, and I added little. Crossed out something. If in ink, then - categorically, and if with a pencil, then as you wish. In fact, it didn’t turn out quite right, of course, but I think that it won’t be published anyway (issues of the intelligentsia are decided at the level of Pravda, as you know), so it will do.”

Arkady - Boris

“I am glad that our article in Komsomolskaya Pravda is over. Now I’ll reprint it and take it, and that’s it.”

“Our article for Komsomolskaya Pravda did not raise any objections, they only ask to meet again and supplement it with a lively conversation, since this still goes under the “Our Dialogues” section. I'm going this week."

Boris - Arcadia

“Will the article in the Komsomolskaya Pravda go without significant changes? Something is not believed. In any case, I beg you: send the final text to me for review. It’s a serious matter, you have to be very precise if they really want to print.”

Arkady - Boris

“Not everything has been decided with the article in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Three days ago I was there again, we talked for two hours, they will supplement and develop on the basis of the transcript, and then they will give us a master to go through. It will be, apparently, in your presence in Golitsyn.

As a result, this article-interview was not published, as Boris Natanovich had supposed. It was found in the Strugatsky archives and carefully restored from drafts by members of the Ludens group. Soon these materials will be included in the book “Unknown Strugatskys. Letters. Work diaries. 1967–1971”, and today we bring them to the attention of the readers of the World of Science Fiction.

Let's agree right away: we are not sociologists, but simple Soviet writers. In talking about such a powerful and serious social phenomenon as the young Soviet intelligentsia, we can proceed only from personal impressions and observations and from the most general considerations. We have practically no statistical or personal data. It is therefore possible that our statements will not be convincing, and some of our conclusions will even turn out to be incorrect.

1. What is intelligence? Actually, intelligence is a notion rather ideological than sociological. An intelligent person is characterized, first of all, by a certain attitude towards the world around him, and only then by belonging to a certain social stratum. Roughly speaking, intelligence is knowledge plus the desire for knowledge, as opposed to philistinism, which is, first of all, ignorance plus unwillingness to learn something that lies outside a very narrow circle of needs. Therefore, there are very unintelligent associate professors and members of the Writers' Union and quite intelligent, say, workers.

However, such an approach, as we are clear, is contrary to the intuition of readers, and can cause confusion. Therefore, we will talk about an intellectual as a creative worker of mental labor, and we will limit ourselves to only that part of the intelligentsia that participates in the economic, cultural and other efforts of the state with creative work in science, and we will limit ourselves primarily because it is the scientific intelligentsia, in our opinion, with most vividly demonstrates the features characteristic of the modern young Soviet intelligentsia.

What is a modern intellectual-scientist?

a) This is a mass person: the modern scientific intelligentsia is an army of hundreds of thousands of workers.

b) This is a collective person: he works in research institutes and laboratories in rather large groups, often very large ones.

c) This is a communist, instinctive and conscious, in the Marxian sense: the ideal society for him is a society that provides all the opportunities for creative work, huge masses of spiritual food and information in its entirety.

d) This is a citizen: he keenly experiences all the phenomena of the domestic and foreign policy of his country.

e) This is a skeptic and a revolutionary: he hates stagnation and routine, is merciless to a fool, and is inclined to try every authority on the tooth.

Like the working class, like the peasantry, the scientific intelligentsia is a well-defined productive group of society, which is determined by the modern role of science as a productive force. This group has its own psychology, its spiritual and material needs, its heralds in the world of literature and art. It is influenced by other social groups, influences them itself and is not sharply separated from them. Nor is it protected from the influence of petty-bourgeois ideology: the figure of a good worker, but a petty-bourgeois and scoundrel, is just as common among intellectuals as, say, among workers and peasants.

2. The modern mass scientific intelligentsia is a phenomenon that has not yet been seen in history, and perhaps it makes sense to consider it as the next step in the development of society towards communism - as the most advanced, most developed, most revolutionary detachment of Soviet society, which has absorbed all the best, what is in the other working classes. If we agree that the philistine, bourgeois worldview, nourished by the lowest biological and social instincts, really poses a threat to communism, then the scientific intelligentsia can serve as a kind of approximation to the humanity of the future, and its attitude to the world, to work, to culture - a model attitudes towards these categories of communist man. And from this follows the need to educate in every member of modern Soviet society the traits inherent in an intellectual.

Let's be frank: too little is being done for this. We don't know what to do to fix the situation. Probably, it is necessary to start with education, because experience shows that education lies at the very foundation of education. And in education, everything starts with the teacher, with the teacher. The state should put forward and in every possible way, propagandistically and materially, legislatively and morally, support the thesis: the teacher is the most important profession in the country, the teacher - all kinds of material incentives, all party and administrative workers are primarily responsible for education, and then for the rest, including number and production. This is the first half of the problem. The second half is the very figure of the teacher. The level of qualification and intelligence of the teacher as a whole must be brought up to the level of an advanced scientific intellectual. An intellectual is the best, ideal example of an educator: with a great outlook, doubting, searching, mocking and attentive. Most of all loving his work and therefore well protected from instinctive impulses, knowledgeable enough to correctly choose the basic principles of life, and smart enough not to turn these principles into dogma in changed conditions. The upbringing of educators is not only a very complex problem, it is a problem that requires many years of hard and consistent work to solve. To solve this problem, it will take decades, huge funds and all the latest achievements in psychology, pedagogy, and sociology. Human education has always been a great art, with its masterpieces and its geniuses like Ushinsky, Korchak and Makarenko. Now the task is reduced to the transformation of art into science, and the solution of this task must begin now.

The role of the means of mass education is obvious to everyone: literature, cinema, and television. Half-educated, cowards, gray people have no place here. Here, too, real intellectuals are needed. At least in order to correctly translate the famous saying of Marx: not "art should be understood by the people," but "art should be understood by the people."

3. For a person with a broad outlook and with a psychology least touched by the petty-bourgeois contagion, that is, for an intellectual, especially a young one, the authority of a place does not exist. He sensitively catches any falsity and any illogicality of a poorly convinced or gray "powerful" and at best he will slowly laugh, and at worst he will be disappointed and spit.

For the scientific intelligentsia, only the authority of knowledge, dedication to work, supported by a constant readiness to defend their principles, even before God, is real. A boss who justifies the rejection of his principles or necessary actions with references to vague higher considerations or instructions from above may not be condemned by scientific youth (they readily agree that nothing human is alien to us), but will never enjoy authority. A boss who has been defeated by superior fools can count on the solidarity of his scientific subordinates, if they are sure of his adherence to principles.

In general, solidarity and adherence to principles, mutual assistance and mutual support are characteristic of the scientific intelligentsia more than the rest of the population. They intuitively and consciously exercise these features - it is enough to pay attention to the mass participation of the intelligentsia in various kinds of risky tourist expeditions, as well as to the fact that over 90% of climbers, participants in this most dangerous sport, are physicists and mathematicians. Probably, "overcoming himself" in expeditions and ascents, the scientist subconsciously solves the problem: "What am I for my comrades?"

4. The intelligentsia, as the most greedy consumer of spiritual food, needs information more than anyone else. She perfectly understands that the general availability of information is a necessary condition for the development of an advanced society and the formation of an Educated Man. The justification of judgments, a healthy critical attitude to reality, the readiness to eliminate dirty tricks and imperfections - all this to a large extent depends on the ability to arm yourself with the most complete information. Moreover, the overlap of channels of information offends as an expression of unjustified distrust. Here is the source of nihilism, generated both by the information vacuum and by resentment. Nihilism instead of healthy skepticism, which grows on great knowledge and encourages action - and hence the neglect of social work, hostility towards the administration, a mocking attitude towards any attempts to organize in support of mass social movements. This can often be observed in a young intellectual. And one more thing, very important: where there is no information, hearing arises and fills with power. The most unreliable, monstrous, stupid, but it fills a sucking void in the picture of reality, the void that information was supposed to fill.

5. There are many things in the way of thinking and in the way of life of the intelligentsia that set the layman and the philistine against it. This is natural, it has always been and will always be as long as there are ordinary people and philistines who are incomprehensible, and therefore hostile to everything that goes beyond the primitive ideas about the purpose of life and the essence of man. In the backward sections of the population there is a myth about the parasitism of the intelligentsia (this myth, vile as it may seem, is supported, sometimes even by the youth press) and about its crazy earnings: “They don’t peck money, but we don’t have enough for vodka”*. There are still many people who perceive the word "intelligentsia" as a curse, there are still many who like to talk about the nihilism and instability of the intelligentsia. And when such amateurs declare that a merciless ideological struggle is going on in the world, they seem to not want to see that the scientific intelligentsia are not the conductors of an ideology hostile to Marxism, and the ideological struggle is not a scuffle in the ring. Our scientific youth is an enormous creative and revolutionary force. The front of the ideological struggle does not pass along the borders, but within each of us. Doubts, a critical attitude, the desire for a continuous expansion of horizons - this is not capitulation to bourgeois culture, but a weapon of struggle for a new communist culture that will absorb all the best that has been created and is being created on our planet in this area. There are cretins who, in their hatred of the intelligentsia, have gone so far as to call them "spiritual Vlasovites." There are "bosses" who close exhibitions. There are "gray" people who are terribly afraid that something might come out of the youth's desire for knowledge, for culture.

But for everyone who believes in the inevitability of communism, it is clear that history will leave behind all these townsfolk and militant philistines - simply because a communist society is a society consisting of creators and researchers.

One slightly indiscreet question... however, as they say, "There are no immodest questions - there are immodest answers"... Any of your works can turn (or has already turned) from fantastic to narrative over time. Which of them would you not let become a reality, having the opportunity to CHOICE?

Sergey Kuzmin< >Ventspils, Latvia - 06/13/98 21:34:45 MSK

Dear Sergei! In their works, ABS designed many "evil" worlds. For example, the world of Saraksha. Or the world of Giganda. Or the world of Arkanar. Of course, if it were my will, I would not let any of them come true. But on the other hand: there is nothing incredible or “devilish” in them - they were created not by demons, but by people who inhabit these worlds. Do I have the right to deprive people of the right to choose? It's a question! Here, after all, the whole point is that there are no worlds where EVERYONE would be unhappy; in every world you can adapt and live happily, and not even guess that you are unhappy. And every time you make a decision to “stop” some world, you will definitely deprive millions of people of their small, strange, but - for them, undoubted - happiness. So it goes. Thanks for the kind words about our work.

Boris Natanovich, please answer a few questions: 1. Will your own books be published?

Evgeny Arabkin< >St. Petersburg, Russia - 06/13/98 21:44:27 MSK

Meaning: will I write them? I write, but very slowly and hard. I hope that I can finish another novel. But when? Don't know.

2. Who do you single out in Russian science fiction and fantasy literature?

Evgeny Arabkin< >St. Petersburg, Russia - 06/13/98 21:45:00 MSK

There is a whole cohort of excellent writers. All of them are well known. Rybakov, Stolyarov, Loginov, Lukyanenko, Lukin, Stern... you can't list them all. But there is also Weller and Pelevin - they themselves do not consider themselves science fiction, but I know that they are science fiction - and excellent.

3. How good or bad do you think Michael Moorcock's work is?

Evgeny Arabkin< >St. Petersburg, Russia - 06/13/98 21:45:58 MSK

I have long been indifferent to foreign fiction. I tried to read Moorcock - I didn't like it.

4. Do you continue to believe in the “Temple” that you described in “The Doomed City”?

Evgeny Arabkin< >St. Petersburg, Russia - 06/13/98 21:46:42 MSK

The theory (or rather, the hypothesis) of the Temple is simply an attempt to ennoble the rather empty and very vague concept of "the meaning of life." This theory is no worse than others. But not better either. In fact, each person determines the meaning of life for himself to the extent of his abilities and his moral potential. There can be no meaning of life for the crowd, and the Temple is very good, as the meaning of life for a certain type of person.

How do you manage to ensure that when reading your works, it does not seem that 2 people wrote? After all, probably you and Arkady have different styles and ideas about the work being written. How did you come to a consensus?

Sol< >Novosibirsk, Russia - 06/13/98 21:48:33 MSK

It was a long journey of trial and error. We tried, I believe, all possible ways of working together and settled on the most effective. One sits at the typewriter, the other - next. One proposes a phrase, the other thinks about it and makes changes. The first one agrees or disagrees. If he agrees, the phrase is written down on paper. If not, the amendment process continues. And so - phrase by phrase, paragraph by paragraph, page by page. From the point of view of a fresh person, this method seems clumsy and unnecessarily laborious. However, this is nothing more than an ORAL editing of a draft. Each final text of the ABS actually contains three, four, five drafts that were never written, but were SPOKEN. Of course, this way of working is possible only if the co-authors, being different and even very different people, nevertheless have a common idea of ​​what is good and bad in literature. The ABS initially had such a general idea, and over time, their position became more and more common, although certain differences persisted. These differences, however, did not interfere with work, but rather helped, especially when creative dead ends arose. So in the process of evolution, not the most genetically perfect species survive, but those in which the genotype is able to quickly and dramatically change if necessary.

Dear Boris Natanovich! What kind of music are you into (if you are)? What genres? Performers? Also, what do you think about the works of Castaneda? Is this contrived or true? How close are these works to you?

Artyom< >New York, USA - 06/13/98 21:50:51 MSK

In music, I'm almost a complete layman. I prefer ordinary silence to all symphony orchestras and pop groups. I heard a lot about Castaneda (including the fact that there is a similarity between him and ABS), but I never read or even held it in my hands.

Almost ALL of today's science fiction writers have learned from your books. Dear BorNat (if you can be called that :), I would like to know how you feel about this?

Sobo Igor< >Ufa, Russia - 06/13/98 21:52:37 MSK

It pleases me, of course. Especially when, having started as an ABS imitator, the author finds his own way and his own style.

Dear Boris Natanovich! Has your collaboration with filmmakers stopped? I remember, it seems, in the late 80s, there were persistent rumors that they were going to shoot a TV series based on Inhabited Island, some of the fans shouted that they had heard with their own ears that a film based on The Kid was being launched. Then there was talk that "It's Hard to Be a God" was going to be re-shot by some of our cinematic masters. To what extent these rumors are justified, is it worth waiting for film adaptations?

Grig Perm, Russia - 06/13/98 22:21:12 MSK

The script for Inhabited Island (and a very good one!) was written; and the contract was concluded; and it was completely on the ointment - they say, even some material was filmed. And then everything sort of fell apart without a trace. "Baby" was filmed in the Czech Republic. The Americans bought "Picnic" a few years ago, but for some reason the film was never made. The Greeks bought the Billion Years. In Russia, a director has long been threatening to make a film based on the script of The Cloud... Well, and so on. I have long unlearned to believe the promises of filmmakers. God is their judge.

Boris Natanovich, in your novel Search for Destiny you mention the famous rock guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. And what is your general attitude to modern music, in particular, to rock music? Do you listen to her? If yes, then what?

Alexander Bessonov< >Tomsk, Russia - 06/13/98 22:22:51 MSK

I never listen to music SPECIALLY. But sometimes I HAVE to listen to it. In general, I love the classics of rock: the Beatles, Deep Parple, the Rolling Stones ... Ritchie Blackmore got into the text of "Search" quite by accident - he just turned up under the arm.

Dear Boris Natanovich, I have two questions. 1. Is humanity progressing spiritually or is there nothing new under the sun, and we have remained the same people (I won’t say savages), with the only difference that we are surrounded not by mammoths, but by computers? (This is not about social progress).

Dmitry Polyashenko< >Moscow, Russia - 06/13/98 22:27:52 MSK

Dear Dmitry! Unfortunately, there is no standard for measuring the spiritual progress of mankind, and therefore there is no answer to your question either. I personally have the impression that all the "discoveries" in the field of morality and moral philosophy have already been made by mankind, and in this sense, indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. Now it's up to the little things: to introduce all these highest achievements of thought and morality into the souls of gigantic human masses. And here we are in for a big disappointment. These masses have been living for thousands of years according to the principle “the old generation is repeated in the new one”, and nothing has been able to change this stationary process yet. Under the thin, fragile film of a new morality (say, Christian) lives the same hairy savage with a club as forty thousand years ago. And until we learn to suppress this savage in ourselves (or lull; or lure; or intoxicate; or deceive; or transform), until then there will be difficulties with the spiritual progress of mankind. (Which, however, as before, as always, will not interfere with individual great upsurges of the spirit of individuals and even small teams.)

Owned by Dmitry Vatolin, creator of the Russian Science Fiction website. Even at the very beginning of the site, Dmitry got excited about the idea: it would be nice if the leading science fiction writers presented on Russian Science Fiction constantly answered questions from visitors to the pages. Boris Natanovich did not object to this in principle, but he was resolutely not ready, personally, to master some tricky scripts with which he could send his answers directly to the site. Now, if someone takes over the entire technical side of the matter ... Energetic Dima immediately "took the bull by the horns" and puzzled the Ludena group at the next Interpresscon. It so happened that it was me who worked with the Internet most actively from the group, and I had the share of dealing with this technical side. The wise Boris Natanovich, having leafed through the living room of the ABS - pages and found that questions are often repeated there, immediately placed on us the entire responsibility of the primary selection of questions to be answered, which, of course, at first (now everyone is already used to this) was perceived by individual representatives of the general public as the usurpation of informational freedoms, the blocking of oxygen and, in general, a violation of the democratic foundations of the universe. Nevertheless, the initial roughness still managed to be smoothed out, and on June 13, 1998, the first 12 answers of Boris Strugatsky saw the light in this long and interesting conversation.

Quite quickly, somewhere by trial and error, somewhere after correspondence with Boris Natanovich, the basic principles for selecting questions were developed. So, frankly boorish and impudent letters were rejected, texts that did not contain questions (except for congratulations on holidays and birthdays), repetitive questions. That's what happened with these, and especially now - it's especially hard. First, what is considered a repetition? The author of the question believes that he has set a new twist on the topic, that he is asking about something that no one has asked before. After some hesitation, I decide that yes, the topic of the question is not particularly original, but the tone is interesting. I'm sending a question. But Boris Natanovich has a different opinion. And we get the standard answer: “I already talked about this. Look at the page." Honestly, every such answer I perceive as my serious mistake. Judge for yourself: he took Strugatsky’s time, he spent some time on processing this issue, and finally, he remained in line and did not go to the master for another, more interesting question ... Well, okay, over time, it seems, he began to pierce less. But the flow of answered questions is constantly growing, and after a while I simply physically could not keep all the abundance of information passed through the interview in my head! And the questions go on and on, some impatient visitors to the page begin to duplicate their letters ... In general, the punctures, of course, continued and continue. Up to the point that, sometimes, Boris Natanovich had to answer the same question twice.

Another subtlety of conducting this interview. Quite often, those who ask questions use the guestbook not so much to ask Strugatsky as to express themselves on this or that burning topic. Or they make attempts to discuss with the master. There is, of course, nothing reprehensible in this, but still the concept of “interview” involves asking questions, and there are other events for disputes ... Here you have to rack your brains. I have not found any formal sign for making a decision, I act intuitively. If a very cumbersome text is proposed on an abstract topic that has nothing to do with either the work of the Strugatsky brothers or the problems of our time, which ends with the on-duty question: “What do you think about this?”, then the probability of sending such a text to Boris Natanovich is still small . To be honest, questions about how the master relates to this or that author also seem unpromising to me. In principle, you can determine the answer to this question yourself, just look at who became the winners of the Bronze Snail or the ABS Prize.

But the master allowed to send him fantastic stories (not exceeding the volume of one printed sheet - 40,000 characters), however, having stipulated in advance an additional condition: he will respond to such a letter only if he likes the story. And you know, in the stream of submitted works, there were some pearls, which later saw the light in Boris Strugatsky's magazine "Noon, XXI century". I am glad that with the help of this interview it was possible to bring to light new authors and their creations, and although I have no merit in this, it is pleasant to recognize my “complicity” ...

You can read in this book why Boris Natanovich has not stopped this interview for 8 years already, which undoubtedly still distracts a busy person from other equally important matters (such questions are not uncommon). I will briefly note why I like my participation in this process. First of all, thanks to the offline interview, we managed to learn a lot of interesting details about the life and work of the Strugatsky brothers. If only because sometimes interview participants manage to ask questions that would not have occurred to me, but are of great interest. Although there is an opinion that authors should not talk about their works, nevertheless, the author's judgment quite often opens up some new facets of familiar books that you seem to know almost by heart. Especially when it comes to books by such profound authors as the Strugatsky brothers.

And it is also interesting to compare my answer options (which I, as a researcher of ABS creativity, arise involuntarily) with what the master answers. I must admit that from time to time I am surprised by the answers of Boris Natanovich, although, without hesitation, I assume that I know what his words will be. And it's an incomparable pleasure to read these answers first. True, I must admit that the state of “Koshchei languishing over gold” is alien to me, and I try to immediately bring these answers to the general public. In particular, in addition to special pages on the ABS website, this interview can be received by subscription. And lately I have been happy to announce fresh answers in LiveJournal.

What amazes me is Boris Natanovich's commitment and his unfailing benevolence towards those who ask questions. Even if it is clear from the question that the person does not share the political or literary tastes of the master, you can be sure that the answer will be even, correct, specific and to the point. And if this can be explained by St. Petersburg intelligence and upbringing, then it still remains a mystery how he manages to answer the questions received almost instantly?! With the exception of those unfortunate cases when Boris Natanovich cannot answer due to illness, you can be sure that the answers from him will come the next day or even earlier! I conduct an extensive correspondence, but I simply do not know of other examples of such compulsion, such organization.

Now (September 2006) Boris Strugatsky's offline interview has six and a half thousand answers from the master. You are offered a representative selection of thematically sorted questions that are most interesting in the opinion of the compiler. It seems to me that there are no analogues in world practice in terms of the volume and duration of this marathon. Maybe it's really worth trying to record this achievement in the Guinness Book of Records?

Vladimir Borisov (BVI)

Boris Natanovich Strugatsky

Years long interview: based on offline interview materials

The interview continues...

The idea and initiative to conduct an offline interview with Boris Strugatsky belongs to Dmitry Vatolin, the creator of the Russian Science Fiction website. Even at the very beginning of the site, Dmitry got excited about the idea: it would be nice if the leading science fiction writers presented on Russian Science Fiction constantly answered questions from visitors to the pages. Boris Natanovich did not object to this in principle, but he was resolutely not ready, personally, to master some tricky scripts with which he could send his answers directly to the site. Now, if someone takes over the entire technical side of the matter ... Energetic Dima immediately "took the bull by the horns" and puzzled the Ludena group at the next Interpresscon. It so happened that it was me who worked with the Internet most actively from the group, and I had the share of dealing with this technical side. The wise Boris Natanovich, having leafed through the living room of the ABS - pages and found that questions are often repeated there, immediately placed on us the entire responsibility of the primary selection of questions to be answered, which, of course, at first (now everyone is already used to this) was perceived by individual representatives of the general public as the usurpation of informational freedoms, the blocking of oxygen and, in general, a violation of the democratic foundations of the universe. Nevertheless, the initial roughness still managed to be smoothed out, and on June 13, 1998, the first 12 answers of Boris Strugatsky saw the light in this long and interesting conversation.

Quite quickly, somewhere by trial and error, somewhere after correspondence with Boris Natanovich, the basic principles for selecting questions were developed. So, frankly boorish and impudent letters were rejected, texts that did not contain questions (except for congratulations on holidays and birthdays), repetitive questions. That's what happened with these, and especially now - it's especially hard. First, what is considered a repetition? The author of the question believes that he has set a new twist on the topic, that he is asking about something that no one has asked before. After some hesitation, I decide that yes, the topic of the question is not particularly original, but the tone is interesting. I'm sending a question. But Boris Natanovich has a different opinion. And we get the standard answer: “I already talked about this. Look at the page." Honestly, every such answer I perceive as my serious mistake. Judge for yourself: he took Strugatsky’s time, he spent some time on processing this issue, and finally, he remained in line and did not go to the master for another, more interesting question ... Well, okay, over time, it seems, he began to pierce less. But the flow of answered questions is constantly growing, and after a while I simply physically could not keep all the abundance of information passed through the interview in my head! And the questions go on and on, some impatient visitors to the page begin to duplicate their letters ... In general, the punctures, of course, continued and continue. Up to the point that, sometimes, Boris Natanovich had to answer the same question twice.

Another subtlety of conducting this interview. Quite often, those who ask questions use the guestbook not so much to ask Strugatsky as to express themselves on this or that burning topic. Or they make attempts to discuss with the master. There is, of course, nothing reprehensible in this, but still the concept of “interview” involves asking questions, and there are other events for disputes ... Here you have to rack your brains. I have not found any formal sign for making a decision, I act intuitively. If a very cumbersome text is proposed on an abstract topic that has nothing to do with either the work of the Strugatsky brothers or the problems of our time, which ends with the on-duty question: “What do you think about this?”, then the probability of sending such a text to Boris Natanovich is still small . To be honest, questions about how the master relates to this or that author also seem unpromising to me. In principle, you can determine the answer to this question yourself, just look at who became the winners of the Bronze Snail or the ABS Prize.

But the master allowed to send him fantastic stories (not exceeding the volume of one printed sheet - 40,000 characters), however, having stipulated in advance an additional condition: he will respond to such a letter only if he likes the story. And you know, in the stream of submitted works, there were some pearls, which later saw the light in Boris Strugatsky's magazine "Noon, XXI century". I am glad that with the help of this interview it was possible to bring to light new authors and their creations, and although I have no merit in this, it is pleasant to recognize my “complicity” ...

You can read in this book why Boris Natanovich has not stopped this interview for 8 years already, which undoubtedly still distracts a busy person from other equally important matters (such questions are not uncommon). I will briefly note why I like my participation in this process. First of all, thanks to the offline interview, we managed to learn a lot of interesting details about the life and work of the Strugatsky brothers. If only because sometimes interview participants manage to ask questions that would not have occurred to me, but are of great interest. Although there is an opinion that authors should not talk about their works, nevertheless, the author's judgment quite often opens up some new facets of familiar books that you seem to know almost by heart. Especially when it comes to books by such profound authors as the Strugatsky brothers.

And it is also interesting to compare my answer options (which I, as a researcher of ABS creativity, arise involuntarily) with what the master answers. I must admit that from time to time I am surprised by the answers of Boris Natanovich, although, without hesitation, I assume that I know what his words will be. And it's an incomparable pleasure to read these answers first. True, I must admit that the state of “Koshchei languishing over gold” is alien to me, and I try to immediately bring these answers to the general public. In particular, in addition to special pages on the ABS website, this interview can be received by subscription. And lately I have been happy to announce fresh answers in LiveJournal.

What amazes me is Boris Natanovich's commitment and his unfailing benevolence towards those who ask questions. Even if it is clear from the question that the person does not share the political or literary tastes of the master, you can be sure that the answer will be even, correct, specific and to the point. And if this can be explained by St. Petersburg intelligence and upbringing, then it still remains a mystery how he manages to answer the questions received almost instantly?! With the exception of those unfortunate cases when Boris Natanovich cannot answer due to illness, you can be sure that the answers from him will come the next day or even earlier! I conduct an extensive correspondence, but I simply do not know of other examples of such compulsion, such organization.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Articles and interviews

On criticism of science fiction

Schweik tried in vain to strike up a conversation with the corporal and explain to him in a friendly way why corporals are called company ulcers.

1. Preamble

There is a kind of fiction called science fiction. Another thing is that numerous attempts to theoretically delimit science fiction from other types of fiction have not led to any definite results. We therefore proceed from the assumption that a normal person intuitively grasps the difference between, say, Granin's "Searchers" and Efremov's "Andromeda Nebula" and between Tolstoy's "Aelita" and the Russian folk tale about Likho One-Eyed. So science fiction exists. It exists in order to satisfy the natural human desire for the extraordinary, to awaken the imagination, to satisfy curiosity. This is the specific purpose of science fiction, and every science fiction writer knows it. (Although there are still boring people who want science fiction to serve as high school textbooks.)

To put an end to banal truths, we present two more.

1. Modern science fiction is burdened with numerous shortcomings.

2. Nevertheless, it is one of the most massive, most read types of literature.

This leads to a trivial conclusion: science fiction needs benign criticism.

2. Science fiction as we see it

To begin with, from our point of view, there is no fundamental difference between science fiction and other types of literature and between the work of a science fiction writer and any other fiction writer. Like any kind of literature, science fiction is not homogeneous; it contains a number of different ideological and thematic currents. Here are some of them: the fate of the greatest inventions and discoveries of modern science; creating an image of a person of the future - a romantic hero; creating an image of an ordinary person of the future - not fundamentally different from the hero of our time; the creation of grotesque situations as a result of a person's collision with the extraordinary properties of nature. Like any honest fiction writer, the science fiction writer makes some kind of evolution in his work, improves, sometimes changes his views. A science fiction writer, starting to work on a work, sets himself a certain task arising from his views and tastes, and solves it with his own characteristic means, using his own methods of influencing the reader.

As in any other form of literature, in science fiction all the ideas and all the topics developed are legitimate (with the exception, of course, of ideas and topics that are contrary to the communist worldview). Criticism will be discussed later, but we note that, like any fiction writer, the science fiction writer clings tightly to his views, and if criticism is not able to change these views, then this, by the way, may also mean the weakness of the positions of criticism. Finally, as in any other form of literature, science fiction has occasional authors and newcomers. There are also hacks - just like in any other form of literature.

This is science fiction from our point of view, and we do not see opportunities for other science fiction.

3. Science fiction as critics see it

Everything stated in the previous section is ignored by the critics. This is what modern science fiction looks like from the point of view of one critic - from a point of view that seems to us quite characteristic.

“... It is very difficult to detect in ... these works ... the individuality of the writer, his personal special theme. Try to distinguish science fiction writers by their voices, try to find originality in each of them - you are unlikely to succeed ... "" ... Most of our science fiction writers are mostly concerned with only one thing: they try to write as fantastically as possible, not caring at all about to rise “simply” to real, good literature. That is why the main thing for them is a certain hypothesis, and everything else: characters, conflicts, plot - nothing more than "packaging". “A set of standard situations, characteristics of characters, descriptions is taken - a set that resembles a box with planks, screws and wheels from a children's construction kit ... All this is kneaded with the yeast of a more or less real scientific hypothesis, then poured into the reused form of a “horror story”, a detective, monologue of a "repentant skeptic" or "fiery enthusiast" - and the story is ready. As you can see, there is no stone left unturned from the first paragraph of the previous section.

We learn no less interesting information about our science fiction from other critical works. Illiterate ignoramuses turn out to be science fiction writers, who, due to plot needs, needed to jump out of the limits of modern scientific ideas. Boring technicians, on the other hand, are those science fiction writers whose plot needs allowed them to exist on the verge of the possible. Critics from among science fiction writers themselves invent curious theories, the essence of which is that only the direction presented by the author of the theory is true, and other directions should be punished mercilessly. Here is the second paragraph of the previous section blown to dust.

Thus, the overall picture of the struggle of criticism against science fiction looks like this. All science fiction is taken - say, for the last three years. Notice, if we say "all" - it means all. Young and old. Beginners and venerable. Scammers and honest. Capable and incompetent. Works of the 59th year and works of the 61st. Everything is mixed together. From this heap, like raisins from a loaf, the most unfortunate is selected and ridiculed. In this case, as a rule, these are the things that happen. For example, one of this bunch of authors suffers from a penchant for clichés. They take an example from him, raise this example to the proper satirical height and declare: “Here they are, these modern science fiction writers!” Try to justify yourself later ... But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Such is the science fiction that critics see, and for some reason they don’t see any other.

4. Criticism as we see it

It is interesting what A. N. Tolstoy would say if he saw such a note on the third page of any literary newspaper.

Not that!

More than once I tried to imagine the image of an honest intellectual who accepted the October Revolution. Images of selfless people arose in the imagination, spending days and nights in typhoid barracks, sitting at Lunacharsky's with inflamed eyes from insomnia, selflessly going into battle for the young Republic.