Boris Strugatsky: "The Plague in Our House"
April 15 is the birthday of the remarkable writer Boris Strugatsky.
Their writing partnership with his brother Arkady was considered science fiction. But does it really matter in what corner of space the hero of the novel "Hard to Be a God," the progressor Rumata, battles the "dark ones," who always come "where the gray reigns"? And don't we recognize some of our compatriots in the inhabitants of the planet Saraksh from "Inhabited Island," deceived by the "radiation towers"?
1. Boris Strugatsky was born on April 15, 1933, in Leningrad. He survived the Leningrad Siege and evacuation. In 1955, he graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of Leningrad State University with a degree in astronomy and worked at the Pulkovo Observatory until 1965. He participated in geodetic and archaeological expeditions in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In the late 50s, the Strugatsky brothers wrote their first novel, "The Land of Crimson Clouds."
2. In the following years, "Monday Begins on Saturday," "It's Hard to Be a God," "Roadside Picnic," "The Doomed City," the "World of Noon" series, "Inhabited Island," "Snail on the Slope," and "A Billion Years Before the End of the World" were published... The writers had to endure constant battles with the censors, who weren't too fooled by the science-fiction setting and demanded that "seditious" passages be deleted or replaced.
3. In 1995, when many were optimistic about the future of "democratic Russia," Boris Strugatsky published his thoughts on the matter in the St. Petersburg newspaper Nevskoye Vremya—an article entitled "Fascism is very simple. An epidemiological reminder."
Here are some quotes.
4. The plague is in our home. We don't know how to treat it. Moreover, we often don't even know how to properly diagnose it. And those already infected often don't even notice they're sick and contagious.
He thinks he knows everything about fascism. After all, everyone knows that fascism is black SS uniforms, barked speech, raised arms in the Roman salute, swastikas, black and red flags, marching columns, skeletal men behind barbed wire, thick smoke from crematorium chimneys, a frenzied Führer with a fringe of hair…
5. Oh, we know perfectly well what fascism is—German fascism, aka Hitlerism. It never occurs to us that there's another fascism, just as vile, just as terrible, but our own, homegrown.
And perhaps that is precisely why we do not see it point-blank when it is growing before our eyes in the body of the country, like a silent malignant tumor.
6. Fascism is a dictatorship of nationalists. Accordingly, a fascist is someone who professes (and preaches) the superiority of one nation over others and, at the same time, actively advocates an "iron fist," "discipline and order," "iron fists," and other delights of totalitarianism.
And that’s all. There is nothing more at the basis of fascism. Dictatorship plus nationalism. Totalitarian rule of one nation. And everything else - secret police, camps, bonfires from books, war - sprouts from this poisonous grain, like death from a cancer cell.
7. If you suddenly "realized" that only your people are worthy of all the blessings, and all other peoples around you are second-class citizens, congratulations: you've taken your first step into fascism. Then it dawns on you that your people will achieve their lofty goals only when iron order is established and all those loudmouths and scribblers prattling on about freedoms are silenced; when all who disobey are put up against the wall (without trial or investigation), and foreigners are mercilessly crushed...
8. The road of history has long been well-trodden, the logic of history is merciless, and as soon as your Fuhrers come to power, a well-oiled conveyor belt will begin to operate: elimination of dissenters - suppression of inevitable protest - concentration camps, gallows - decline of the peacetime economy - militarization - war...
And if you, having come to your senses, want at some point to stop this terrible conveyor belt, you will be mercilessly destroyed, like the very last democrat-internationalist.
