Article ID: CBB001201409

Aleksei N. Tolstoi and the Enigmatic Engineer: A Case of Vicarious Revisionism (2013)

unapi

In this article, Muireann Maguire examines the cultural construction of the trope of the engineer-inventor in Russia during the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on the changing representation of this archetype in three science fiction novels by Aleksei Tolstoi: Aelita (1922--23), Soiuz piati (The Gang of Five, 1925), and Giperboloid inzhenera Garina (Engineer Garin's Death Ray, 1925--26). Tolstoi's fiction portrays engineers as misguided and self-centred at best and as amoral, megalomaniacal, and irredeemably un-Soviet at worst. This increasingly negative portrayal of the engineers in these novels, and in their later redactions and cinema versions, helped to prepare the way for the alienation of engineer and technical specialist within Soviet society, providing cultural justification for Iosif Stalin's show trials and purges of both categories in the 1930s. Tolstoi's alienation of the engineer-inventor, the traditional hero of early Soviet nauchnaia fantastika (science fiction), prefigured the occlusion of science fiction as a mainstream literary genre. As a trained engineer, former aristocrat, and returned émigré whose own status in Soviet Russia was deeply compromised, Tolstoi's literary demonization of engineers effectively purchased his own acceptance within the Stalinist literary hierarchy

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001201409/

Similar Citations

Chapter Ljudmilla Chapovalova; (2014)
Tra fantasia e realtà: lo scienziato russo nelle opere di Michail Bulgakov (/isis/citation/CBB731416132/)

Article Zabelin, K. I.; Ignatenko, Ye. S.; (2011)
The First Russian Electronic Televisions (/isis/citation/CBB001211389/)

Book F. James; R. Bud; M. Shiach; P. Greenhalgh; (2018)
Being Modern: The Cultural Impact of Science in the Early Twentieth Century (/isis/citation/CBB441532378/)

Article Jim Endersby; (2016)
Deceived by Orchids: Sex, Science, Fiction and Darwin (/isis/citation/CBB385205511/)

Book Cheng, John; (2012)
Astounding Wonder: Imagining Science and Science Fiction in Interwar America (/isis/citation/CBB001202122/)

Book Banerjee, Anindita; (2012)
We Modern People: Science Fiction and the Making of Russian Modernity (/isis/citation/CBB001551522/)

Book William, Rosen; (2010)
The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry and Invention (/isis/citation/CBB001320959/)

Chapter Franz Haas; (2014)
Università, mediocrità, infelicità. Gli scienziati tormentati di Daniel Kehlmann (/isis/citation/CBB986682857/)

Chapter Nicoletta Vallorani; (2014)
Creature: Faust e la scienza da Moreau a von Sasser (/isis/citation/CBB201051007/)

Book Peter J. Bowler; (2017)
A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H. G. Wells to Isaac Asimov (/isis/citation/CBB074226848/)

Book Carmelina Imbroscio; (2003)
Il testo letterario e il sapere scientifico (/isis/citation/CBB822024738/)

Article Clayton, Jay; (2013)
The Ridicule of Time: Science Fiction, Bioethics, and the Posthuman (/isis/citation/CBB001200682/)

Authors & Contributors
Ljudmilla Chapovalova
Franz Haas
Raffaella Vassena
Camilla Storskog
Nicoletta Vallorani
Morag Shiach
Concepts
Science and literature
Science and culture
Science fiction
Science and ethics
Science and politics
Imagination
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, early
Modern
19th century
18th century
Medieval
Places
Russia
Europe
Great Britain
Soviet Union
United States
Sweden
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment