page_title: Russian science fiction and fantasy
section_title: Genre fiction
hierarchical_section_title: Russian science fiction and fantasy / Imperial period / Late 19th - early 20th century / Genre fiction
caption_attribution_description: Picture from book "На Луне" (1893)
context_page_description: Science fiction and fantasy have been part of mainstream Russian literature since the 19th century. Russian fantasy developed from the centuries-old traditions of Slavic mythology and folklore. Russian science fiction emerged in the mid-19th century and rose to its golden age during the Soviet era, both in cinema and literature, with writers like the Strugatsky brothers, Kir Bulychov, and Mikhail Bulgakov, among others. Soviet filmmakers, such as Andrei Tarkovsky, also produced many science fiction and fantasy films. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, modern Russia experienced a renaissance of fantasy. Outside modern Russian borders, there are a significant number of Russophone writers and filmmakers from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, who have made a notable contribution to the genres.
context_section_description: Entertainment fiction adopted scientistic themes, such as resurrection of an ancient Roman (Extraordinary Story of a Resurrected Pompeian by Vasily Avenarius), global disaster (Struggle of the Worlds, 1900, by N. Kholodny; Under the Comet, 1910, by Simon Belsky), mind reading devices (a recurring theme in works by Andrey Zarin), Antarctic city-states (Under the Glass Dome, 1914, by Sergey Solomin), an elixir of longevity (Brothers of the Saint Cross, 1898, by Nikolay Shelonsky), and Atlantis (1913, by Larisa Reisner).
  Spaceflight remained a central science fiction topic since the 1890s in In the Ocean of Stars (1892) by Anany Lyakide, In the Moon (1893) and Dreams of Earth and Skies (1895) by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Voyage to Mars (1901) by Leonid Bogoyavlensky, "In Space" (1908) by Nikolay Morozov, Sailing Ether (1913) by Boris Krasnogorsky and its sequel, Islands of Ethereal Ocean (1914, co-authored by astronomer Daniil Svyatsky).
  In the 1910s Russian audience was interested in horror. Fire-Blossom, a supernatural thriller by Alexander Amfiteatrov and Vera Kryzhanovsky's occult romances, that combined sci-fi and reactionary elitist utopia, were popular. Bram Stoker's Dracula was imitated by pseudonymous "b. Olshevri" (= "more lies" in Russian) in Vampires, even before the original was translated to Russian. Early Alexander Grin's stories are mostly psychological horror (influenced by Ambrose Bierce), though later he drifted to fantasy.
  Future progress was described in fiction by scientists: "Wonders of Electricity" (1884) by electric engineer Vladimir Chikolev, Automatic Underground Railway (1902) by Alexander Rodnykh, and "Billionaire's Testament" (1904) by biologist Porfiry Bakhmetyev. Future war stories were produced by the military (Cruiser "Russian Hope" (1887) and Fatal War of 18.. (1889) by retired navy officer Alexander Belomor, Big Fist or Chinese-European War (1900) by K. Golokhvastov, Queen of the World (1908) and Kings of the Air (1909) by navy officer Vladimir Semyonov, "War of Nations 1921-1923" (1912) by Ix, War of the "Ring" with the "Union" (1913) by P. R-tsky, and End of War (1915) by Lev Zhdanov). Threat to the World (1914) by Ivan Ryapasov (who styled himself "Ural Jules Verne") is similar to Jules Verne's The Begum's Fortune. Jules Verne was so popular that Anton Chekhov wrote a parody on him, and Konstantin Sluchevsky produced a sequel - "Captain Nemo in Russia" (1898).
caption: An illustration to Tsiolkovsky's educational science fiction story On the Moon (1893)
exif: {}