Often the Strugatsky brothers were asked: "How do you write together?" Not only did they live in different cities, but also brothers, and everyone has more than enough ambition. Indeed, contradictions did occur, but they did not come to quarrel. The secret is simple - the brothers initially came up with a scheme of how to "resolve" conflicts, if the plots of one work of Arkady and Boris, so to speak, do not agree. They just drew lots. Whoever won - that is the truth.

Mikhail Weller about who the famous brothers were for a huge country:

Oh, and they were healthy guys! One hundred ninety-two sprout and shoulders under the sixtieth size. Rumor claimed that Arcadia's rate was one and a half liters of cognac. After that, he could talk gracefully and sensibly about literature.

At one of the literary meetings in the Komarovo House of Creativity, when Arkady Strugatsky was speaking, they suddenly muttered in a group of smokers behind open doors:

Let's keep it quiet, guys. Until Arkady drove into the snout. He can do it.

Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky was born in Leningrad in 1925. Boris - in 1933. Eight years of difference is a natural reason for a younger brother, taken care of in a boy's life by an older one, to form under his influence. And later, when the situation is equalized with age, the way of thinking and the whole worldview turns out to be common.

At the same time, Arkady was a Japanese philologist, an assistant-translator and served in uniform for more than one year - on the easternmost borders. Note that elements of Japanese flavor, details and terms, rituals and weapons have entered Russian literature in recent decades precisely with its light - heavy? - arms. Boris, on the other hand, is a star astronomer by profession and has worked most of his life at the Pulkovo Observatory. Arkady was chubat, mustachioed, hoarse and cool. That was set off by a slyly wise smile, friendly manners, thin hair and lop-eared ears of Boris.

They dressed like regular Soviet engineers. These flannel shirts, these nylon jackets, these rabbit earflaps and shabby trousers ... Nothing from the celestials, from the glitter of the stars. And apartments for Khrushchev's small-sized standards in residential areas. The car "Zaporozhets" will adequately complete the portrait of a genius in the interior. High style. Be, not seem to be. Genius does not need paraphernalia and affectation. And it is not determined by the assessment of the official authorities or their mirror reflection - a professional get-together.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky on the balcony of A. Strugatsky's Moscow apartment. 1980s

In such a distant year 1966, young people who would now be called "advanced" read three authors and were proud of them: Bradbury, Lem, Strugatsky. Hard to Be God, a book unsurpassed in its purity and grace in its ironic-romantic style, made them famous. “Monday starts on Saturday” turned the Strugatskys into idols of countless research institutes and design bureaus, students and laboratory assistants. "Snail on the Slope" attracted aesthetic snobs and sophisticated intellectuals.

“A raznochinny intelligentsia” - that's how the main reader of the Strugatskys would have been defined a hundred years earlier. The cream of the middle class, the brains and conscience of the country. Those who are in opposition to the authorities, while believing in goodness and in their own strength.

What is amazing: generations change, time passes, and the Strugatskys find readers in each maturing generation, and stay with it, and do not disappear from the shelves.

And the artistic component is strong. Poetic beginning. The steel core of the plot, about which they repeated so much to their students. A transparent tongue, like crystal clear water. Lively characters, savory phrases - and calm wisdom without oversight.

“Well, then? When will you defeat your enemies? And establish a fair regime? What will you do then? Is it sweet to eat? - Yes! Then we will sweetly eat and drink and have fun and freely enjoy life! We deserved it, damn it! - That's it. And then what? - Sorry? I don't understand you, senor. What else? "

This dialogue was addressed to us - forty years later, cut into this politically correct and civilized world - dying out without purpose and idea. And don't say you weren't warned!

How do they work together? It was affirmed by individual initiates: one sits at a typewriter and knocks on the keys, sometimes accompanying the appearance of the text with reading aloud. The second is lying on the sofa, or drinking coffee in an armchair, or walking around with a cigarette. Sometimes he inserts his own phrase or paragraph, continuing the thought and scene of the co-author. After a few pages or an hour and a half, they change places. Style, intonation, course of action are the same for both. The Strugatskys have always shied away from direct answers about the technology of co-authorship. They only said that they had been discussing and coordinating everything over the phone for a long time: Arkady lived in Moscow, Boris in his native Leningrad.

Even under Soviet rule, their fan clubs appeared in different cities and played in their books. No other Soviet writer could boast of this anymore.

Any of their books begins as a game. An unburdened convention, an entertaining fairy tale. Time passes, and you discover that that light fairy-tale world has remained in you and acquired rigidity: this is our real world in one of its deepest essences, revealed by the talent of the Artist.

None of the other Soviet writers of this era introduced a new word into the Russian language. Have you heard the word "stalker"? Roadside Picnic has become a steady turnover.

Not a single modern Soviet writer has been translated so much. Hundreds of publications in all civilized and less civilized languages \u200b\u200bof the world: the exact number was difficult to account for (there were reasons for that). They could have been rich - but the VAAP (All-Union Copyright Agency) of the USSR took 97 percent (!) Of royalties in favor of the state.

They did not exist for official criticism. Some envied their brilliance and fame, while others believed "real literature" in the form of exclusively "critical realism" in opposition to "socialist" realism. For a piece of the government's pie, the writers ate each other alive, and the squeamish, mocking Strugatskys kept aloof from the "literary process."

Between them and their readers there have never been other people's opinions and state baits. And the readership consisted of half of the country's entire young intelligentsia. The half with a higher forehead and smaller blinders on the eyes. Then the young intelligentsia became elderly, and a new generation of matured schoolchildren was added to the readership.

Their language was enjoyable, the plot dragged on, and the thought made you think. Students, engineers and doctors, lawyers and journalists - the layer from which the elite is formed in normal countries - were exchanged with the Strugatskys' phrases like a password.

The Strugatskys never wrote science fiction (in the conventional sense). The Strugatskys wrote harsh and piercing dystopias. The only ones in the deaf and impenetrable Soviet empire, they managed to be free between all the writers.

Dystopia was a forbidden genre: no freethinking, the party will indicate and predict everything necessary! But ... "fantasy", youth, light genre, Jules Verne, you know ...

... And the Strugatskys have always been loved for their inflexibility, for their tough and active optimism. Their heroes always fought for what they believed in. They fought with such convinced strength that victory was inevitable. Even if it went beyond the book.

FACTS FROM THE LIFE OF THE STRUGATSKY BROTHERS:

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the only Russian writers whose novels are abbreviated in their homeland.

According to one version, the reason for this was the negative attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the work of the Strugatsky brothers after the publication of the novel The Ugly Swans - supposedly with the help of such a simple cipher, fans of science fiction writers avoided possible troubles with the authorities. On the other hand, this is due to the fact that the names of the writers after the appearance of their first works were shortened by readers for the convenience of designation to ABS, and then transferred this principle to the names of novels.

The Strugatsky brothers guessed a pair of Karpov - Kasparov a year before Kasparov was born.

In the novel "Noon, XXII century" (1962), the "Kasparo-Karpov method" is mentioned - a system of hard coding for the crystalline quasi-biomass of the biological code (in fact - the technology of transferring a person to another medium). The famous chess match for the title of world champion between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov was still 22 years away. Anatoly Karpov was in his eleventh year at that time, and Garry Kasparov was born a year after the novel was published.

The Strugatsky brothers did not like some of their works. Boris Strugatsky:

"The Tale of Friendship and Dislike" is one of two or three of our stories, which "could not have been written." Written under the pressure of circumstances that have nothing to do with the creative process. We ourselves did not like her - as well as "Strana" ("Country of crimson clouds"), "Guy" ("Guy from the underworld") and "Baby".

The total circulation of the Strugatsky brothers' works exceeds 40 million copies. In addition to Russian editions, their books have withstood more than 620 editions in 42 languages \u200b\u200bin 33 countries of the world.

In the works of the Strugatsky brothers, there are practically no main characters - women.

The overwhelming majority of the main characters in practically all the novels, novellas and short stories of the Strugatskys are men. Women, even if they appear on the pages of works, are much less vividly written: for example, Rada Gaal in "Inhabited Island", the wife of Red Shewhart in "Roadside Picnic", Kira in "It's Hard to Be God."

Boris Strugatsky:“We did not know how and, in my opinion, were afraid to write about women and about women. Why? I do not know. Maybe because they professed an ancient principle: women and men are creatures of different breeds. It seemed to us that we know and understand men (men themselves), but none of us would dare to declare that he knows and understands women. And children, for that matter! After all, children are, of course, the third special type of intelligent creatures living on Earth. "

Boris Strugatsky

The Strugatsky brothers did not consider their work to be anti-Soviet, and themselves as dissidents.

Despite the fact that the official Soviet authorities and the censorship often regarded the works as defamatory, and among the dissidents, the work of the Strugatsky brothers was especially popular, the writers themselves never considered themselves anti-Soviet or dissidents. The foreign publication of the story "The Ugly Swans" only strengthened this attitude, despite the fact that after it the authors had to officially disown the publication of the work in the West, having published a letter on the pages of the Literaturnaya Gazeta.

Boris Strugatsky: “They (the works of the Strugatsky brothers) are permeated with rejection of totalitarianism and bureaucracy. But since the USSR was a true triumph of totalitarianism and bureaucracy, our stories such as "The Snail on the Slope", "The Tale of the Troika" and even "The Inhabited Island" were perceived by especially zealous ideologists of the regime precisely as "anti-Soviet".

The Strugatsky brothers did not believe in the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Direct indications of the existence of other civilizations are contained in such novels by the Strugatskys as "It is difficult to be a god", "Kid", "Inhabited island", "Roadside picnic", "Hotel" At the deceased climber ". At the same time, the authors themselves considered the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence as a fantastic idea.

Boris Strugatsky:“I don’t believe in the existence of“ another mind ”- on Earth, or even in the Universe: I have no grounds for this. And although you can somehow count on the Universe - it is too huge in space and time for at least something (for example, Mind) to exist in it in a single copy, then our Earth, on the contrary, is too small to be so huge, an almost dimensionless, incredibly active thing, like Reason, could exist here, remaining unnoticed. "

“And with Hawking (who claims that the human mind is alone in the universe), I almost agree. And I agree even more with Joseph Shklovsky - this is our remarkable astrophysicist, he spoke in the late 1960s in the sense that another mind exists in our universe, but is extremely rare. I think he's right. After all, our Universe is so huge in space and time that it would be strange if at least something existed in it in a single copy. "

Many well-known science fiction writers are direct students of the Strugatskys.

Not all readers knew about the existence of a literary association under the leadership of Boris Strugatsky. This fact became widely known in 1996 after the release of the first issue of the collection of fantastic works "The Time of the Students", in which the works of the members of the literary association were published.

Arkady Strugatsky, 1964, © Archive of ITAR-TASS

Fantastic without a computer.

According to the recollections of relatives and friends, Arkady Strugatsky was very conservative in technology. Even when brother Boris got his own personal computer, Arkady Natanovich was not tempted by the electronic novelty and until the end of his days typed his works on a typewriter.

Arkady Strugatsky knew Japanese very well

Scientist studied at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, and later served as a divisional translator in the Far East. He specialized in English and Japanese. Even after demobilization, he did not leave the work of translating foreign literature.

In the works of the Strugatsky brothers, the Bible is very often quoted, although they themselves have never been believers.

Numerous quotes from the Gospel and the glory of dissidents forced many readers to see religious overtones in the books of the Strugatsky brothers, and class their authors as secretly believers. In particular, a common interpretation of the image of Maxim Kammerer in the novel "Inhabited Island" was a comparison of his story with the story of Christ who appeared in the world to atone for his sins by his death. However, the Strugatsky brothers themselves never considered themselves believers or religious people.

Boris Strugatsky:“The fact is that both of us highly appreciated the Gospel (the Old Testament - to a lesser extent) as a brilliant LITERARY work: an impeccable plot, a painfully beautiful intrigue, an amazing hero. To quote this text, or to retell it, or to freely refer to it, or to embed it in some new storyline, gave us genuine pleasure and seemed very fruitful. At the same time, the religious ideas of the Bible remained intellectually and emotionally alien to us, and ethics, on the contrary, is understandable and close. An interesting situation. In a sense, even implausible. "

Arkady Strugatsky

The expression "And a no-brainer" became popular thanks to the Strugatsky brothers

The source of the expression "And a no-brainer" is a poem by Mayakovsky ("It's clear even a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois"). It became widespread, first in the Strugatskys' story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited adolescents who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I).

The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, biennial students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year the expression “no brainer” was very relevant.

17 films based on the plot of their novels

Among them - "Stalker" by Tarkovsky, "Days of the Eclipse" by Alexander Sokurov, "Ugly Swans" by Konstantin Lopushansky, "Inhabited Island" by Fyodor Bondarchuk.

The Strugatsky brothers' literary prize is awarded on their “average birthday”.

"June 21 -" average birthday (between August 28 and April 15) ", a date that is" official ", of course, is not, but according to tradition, it is on this day in St. Petersburg that the annual literary prize to them. A. and B. Strugatsky ".

International Literary Prize. A. and B. Strugatskikh was established in 1998 and has been awarded since 1999 in two nominations: “For the best work of fiction (novel, story, story)” and “For the best critical-journalistic work about science fiction or on a fantastic topic (article, review , essay, book) ". More often than others - three times - the laureate in the nomination "Fiction" was the poet, writer, journalist Dmitry Bykov, twice - the writers Mikhail Uspensky and Vyacheslav Rybakov (both from the Leningrad LITO, which was directed by Boris Strugatsky). The most titled winner of the award in the category "Criticism and Publicism" is the writer Kir Bulychev - he received the award twice.

The joke that became the name.

Writers believe that the true title of a novel often comes after it is written. But there are also exceptions. Boris Strugatsky said: back in the early 1960s, a good friend played a trick on him, claiming that a new book by Ernest Hemingway “Monday Starts on Saturday” is being sold in the Leningrad House of Books. Boris Natanovich killed half a day in search of this novel. When the deception was revealed, the writer did not become indignant. But I remembered the invented name of a non-existent work. The Strugatsky liked it for its deep aphorism, and later the brothers used it for their famous story.

Boris Strugatsky

The principle of creativity

Every writer has his own characteristics. Boris Strugatsky never answered the question: "What are you working on now?" He considered it almost insulting.

Never say, "I'm doing." Always only: "I did it," he explained to everyone. - Great rule. Recommend.

They came from another planet

The incredible popularity gave rise to many rumors and legends. In the early 70s, some romantic-minded fantasy lovers had an idea of \u200b\u200ba fix: their favorite authors, the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, are actually not people at all, but agents of a powerful extraterrestrial civilization. It got to curiosities. Scientists received many letters, where they were offered help, since they were "stuck in this time on Earth", they apologized for the fact that modern technology is not so advanced to repair their ship ... Perhaps this was the highest form of recognition of the talent of science fiction authors ...

After death, both brothers, according to their will, were not only cremated, but also scattered their ashes from a helicopter over the Pulkovo Observatory, where the BNS once worked.

Based on materials:

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky on the balcony. 1980s Birth name:

Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky, Boris Natanovich Strugatsky

Aliases:

S. Berezhkov, S. Vitin, S. Pobedin, S. Yaroslavtsev, S. Vititsky

Date of Birth: Citizenship: Occupation: Years of creativity: Genre:

Science fiction

Debut: Prizes:

aelita award

Works on the website Lib.ru rusf.ru/abs

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (Strugatsky brothers) - brothers Arkady Natanovich (08/28/1925, Batumi - 10/12/1991, Moscow) and Boris Natanovich (04/15/1933, St. Petersburg - 11/19/2012, St. Petersburg), Soviet writers, co-authors , screenwriters, classics of modern science and social fiction.

Arkady Strugatsky graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages \u200b\u200bin Moscow (1949), worked as a translator from English and Japanese, as an editor.

Boris Strugatsky graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of the Leningrad University (1955) with a degree in celestial astronomer, worked at the Pulkovo Observatory.

Boris Natanovich began writing in the early 1950s. The first art publication by Arkady Strugatsky - the story "Ashes of Bikini" (1956), written together with Lev Petrov while still serving in the army, is devoted to the tragic events associated with the test of the hydrogen bomb on the Bikini Atoll, and remained, in the words of Wojciech Kaitoch, "typical for that time an example of "anti-imperialist prose" ".

In January 1958, the first joint work of the brothers was published in the journal "Technics for Youth" - the science fiction story "From the outside", later reworked into the story of the same name.

The last joint work of the Strugatskys was a play - a warning "The Jews of the City of St. Petersburg, or Sad Conversations by Candlelight" (1990).

Arkady Strugatsky wrote several works alone under the pseudonym S. Yaroslavtsev: the burlesque tale "Expedition to the Underworld" (1974, parts 1-2; 1984, part 3), the story "Details of the life of Nikita Vorontsov" (1984) and the story "The Devil Among People "(1990-1991), published in 1993.

After the death of Arkady Strugatsky in 1991, Boris Strugatsky, by his own definition, continued to "saw through a thick log of literature with a two-handed saw, but without a partner." Under the pseudonym S. Vititsky published his novels "The Search for Destiny, or the Twenty-Seventh Theorem of Ethics" (1994-1995) and "The Powerless of This World" (2003).

The Strugatskys are the authors of a number of screenplays. Under the pseudonyms S. Berezhkov, S. Vitin, S. Pobedin, the brothers translated from English the novels of Andre Norton, Hall Clement, John Wyndham. Arkady Strugatsky translated from Japanese the stories of Akutagawa Ryunosuke, the novels of Kobo Abe, Natsume Soseki, Noma Hiroshi, Sanyutei Encho, the medieval novel The Tale of Yoshitsune.

The Strugatskys' works were published in translations in 42 languages \u200b\u200bin 33 countries of the world (more than 500 editions).

The small planet [[(3054) Strugatskia | № 3054], discovered on 11.09.1977 at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, is named after the Strugatskys.

The Strugatsky brothers are laureates of the Symbol of Science medal.

Sketch of creativity

The first notable work of the Strugatsky brothers is the science fiction story "The Land of Crimson Clouds" (1959). According to the memoirs, the story "The Land of Crimson Clouds" was started on a dispute with the wife of Arkady Natanovich - Elena Ilinichna. The sequels connected by common heroes with this story - "The Way to Amalthea" (1960), "Trainees" (1962), as well as the stories of the first collection of the Strugatskys "Six matches" (1960) laid the foundation for a multivolume cycle of works about the future World of Midday, in which the authors I would like to live. The Strugatskys color traditional fantastic schemes with action-packed moves and collisions, liveliness of images, and humor.

Each new book by the Strugatskys became an event, provoking bright and contradictory discussions. Inevitably and repeatedly, many critics have compared the world created by the Strugatskys with the world described in Ivan Efremov's utopia "The Andromeda Nebula". The first books of the Strugatskys met the requirements of socialist realism. A distinctive feature of these books in comparison with the samples of the then Soviet fiction were "non-schematic" heroes (intellectuals, humanists, devoted to scientific research and moral responsibility to humanity), original and bold fantastic ideas about the development of science and technology. They organically coincided with the period of the “thaw” in the country. Their books during this period are imbued with the spirit of optimism, faith in progress, in the ability of human nature and society to change for the better. The programmatic book of this period was the story "Noon, XXII century" (1962).

Beginning with the novellas “It's Difficult to Be God” (1964) and “Monday Begins on Saturday” (1965), elements of social criticism appear in the work of the Strugatskys, as well as the modeling of variants of historical development. The story "Predatory Things of the Century" (1965) is written in the tradition of the "warning novel" popular in the West.

In the mid-1960s. The Strugatskys became not only the most popular authors in the genre of science fiction, but also the spokesmen for the mood of the young, opposition-minded Soviet intelligentsia. Their satire is directed against the omnipotence of the bureaucracy, dogmatism, conformism. In the stories "The Snail on the Slope" (1966-1968), "The Second Invasion of the Martians" (1967), "The Tale of the Troika" (1968), the Strugatskys, skillfully using the language of allegories, techniques of allegory and hyperbole, create vivid, grotesquely sharpened pictures of social pathology generated by the Soviet version of totalitarianism. All this drew on the Strugatskys sharp criticism from the Soviet ideological apparatus. Some of the works already published by them were actually withdrawn from circulation. The novel The Ugly Swans (completed in 1967, published in 1972, Frankfurt am Main) was banned and circulated in samizdat. With great difficulty, their works were published in small editions.

In the late 1960s and 1970s. The Strugatskys create a number of works with a predominance of existential and philosophical problems. In the stories "The Kid" (1970), "Roadside Picnic" (1972), "A Billion Years Before the End of the World" (1976), the issues of the competition of values, the choice of the line of behavior in critical, "borderline" situations and responsibility for this choice. The theme of the Zone - the territory on which, after the Visit of the aliens, strange phenomena occur, and stalkers - daredevils who secretly penetrate this Zone, was developed in the film by Andrei Tarkovsky "Stalker", filmed in 1979 according to the script of the Strugatsky.

In the novel "The Doomed City" (written in 1975, published in 1987), the authors build a dynamic model of the Soviet ideologized consciousness, explore different phases of its "life cycle". The evolution of the main character of the novel, Andrei Voronin, symbolically reflects the spiritual experience of generations of Soviet people of the Stalinist and post-Stalin eras.

The latest novels of the Strugatskys - "A beetle in an anthill" (1979), "Waves extinguish the wind" (1984), "Weighed down by Evil" (1988) - testify to the crisis of the rationalistic and humanistic-educational foundations of the authors' worldview. The Strugatskys are now questioning both the concept of social progress and the power of reason, its ability to find an answer to the tragic collisions of life.

In a number of works by the Strugatskys, whose father was a Jew, traces of national reflection are noticeable. Many critics see the novels The Inhabited Island (1969) and The Beetle in the Anthill as an allegorical depiction of the situation of the Jews in the Soviet Union. One of the main characters of the novel "The Doomed City" is Izya Katsman, in whose life many characteristic features of the fate of a galut (see Galut) Jew are concentrated. Publicistically frank criticism of anti-Semitism is contained in the novel "Weighed Down by Evil" and in the play "The Jews of the City of Peter" (1990).

The Strugatskys have always considered themselves Russian writers, but they turned to allusions to Jewish themes, reflections on the essence of Jewry and its role in world history throughout their entire career (especially since the late 1960s), this enriched their works with non-trivial situations and metaphors , imparted additional drama to their universalist quests and insights.

Boris Strugatsky prepared for the complete collected works of the Strugatskys "Comments on the past" (2000-2001; published as a separate edition in 2003), in which he described in detail the history of the creation of the works of the Strugatskys. An interview continued on the official website of the Strugatskys in June 1998, in which Boris Strugatsky had already answered several thousand questions.

Collected works of the Strugatsky

Until now, four complete collections of works by A. and B. Strugatsky have been published in Russian (not counting various book series and collections). The first attempts to publish the collected works of the authors were made in the USSR since 1988, as a result of which in 1989 the publishing house "Moskovsky Rabochy" published a two-volume collection of "Selected Works" with a circulation of 100 thousand copies. Its peculiarity was the text of the story "The Tale of the Troika", specially prepared by the authors for this collection, which is an intermediate version between the "Angarsk" and "Smenov" versions.

The complete collected works of the Strugatskys today are:

• Collected works of the "Text" publishing house, the main building of which came out in 1991-1994. edited by A. Mirer (under the pseudonym A. Zerkalov) and M. Gurevich. Collected works were arranged in chronological and thematic order (for example, in the same volume were published "Noon, XXII century" and "Distant Rainbow", as well as "Monday begins on Saturday" and "The Tale of the Troika"). At the request of the authors, the collection did not include their debut story "The Land of Crimson Clouds" (it was published only as part of the second additional volume). The first volumes were printed with a circulation of 225 thousand copies, the subsequent ones - 100 thousand copies. Initially, it was supposed to publish 10 volumes, to each of which A. Mirer wrote a short preface, he also owned the biography of A. and B. Strugatsky in the first volume - the first of those published. Most of the texts were published in "canonical" versions known to fans, however, the censored "Roadside Picnic" and "Inhabited Island" were first published in the author's edition, and "The Tale of the Troika" - in the 1989 version. In 1992-1994 ... saw the light of day four additional volumes, including some early things (including "The Land of Crimson Clouds", included at the request of readers), dramatic works and screenplays, a literary recording of A. Tarkovsky's film "Stalker" and things published by A.N. and B N. Strugatsky independently. They were printed in circulation from 100 thousand to 10 thousand copies.
• Book series "Worlds of the Strugatsky brothers", published on the initiative of Nikolai Yutanov by the publishing firms Terra Fantastica and AST since 1996. Currently, the publication has been transferred to the publishing house Stalker (Donetsk) within the framework of the Unknown Strugatskys project. As of September 2009, within the framework of the series, 28 books were published, with a circulation of 3000-5000 copies. (reprints follow annually). The texts are arranged thematically. This book series to this day remains the most representative collection of texts related to the life and work of A. and B. Strugatsky (for example, the translations of Western fiction by the Strugatskys were not published in other collections of works, as well as a number of dramatic works). Within the framework of the series, 6 books of the Unknown Strugatskys project have been published, containing materials from the Strugatskys' archive - drafts and unrealized manuscripts, a working diary and personal correspondence of the authors. Lame Destiny was published separately, without the insert story The Ugly Swans. "The Tale of the Troika" was first published in both versions - "Angarsk" and "Smenovskaya", and since then has been republished only in this way.
• Collected Works of the Stalker Publishing House (Donetsk, Ukraine), implemented in 2000-2003. in 12 volumes (originally it was planned to publish 11 volumes, published in 2000-2001). It is sometimes called "black" by the color of the cover. The editor-in-chief was S. Bondarenko (with the participation of L. Filippov), volumes were published with a circulation of 10 thousand copies. The main feature of this edition was its closeness to the format of an academic collected works: all texts were carefully checked against the original manuscripts (when possible), all volumes were provided with detailed commentaries by B.N.Strugatsky, selected excerpts from the critics of their time, etc. related materials. The 11th volume was devoted to the publication of a number of completed, but not published at the time, works (for example, A. N. Strugatsky's debut story "How Kang died" in 1946), it also included a significant part of the Strugatskys' journalistic works. All texts of the collected works have been grouped in chronological order. The 12th (additional) volume includes a monograph by the Polish literary critic V. Kaitokh "The Strugatsky Brothers", as well as the correspondence between BN Strugatsky and BG Stern. In electronic form, this collection of works is available on the official website of A. and B. Strugatsky. In 2004, an additional circulation was released (with the same ISBN), and in 2007 this collected works were reprinted in Moscow by the publishing house "AST" (also in black covers) as "the second revised edition". In 2009, it was also published in a different design, although it was also indicated that its original layout was made by the Stalker publishing house. The volumes in the 2009 edition of AST are not numbered, but are indicated by the years of writing of the texts included in them (for example, “ 1955 - 1959 »).
• Collected Works of the Eksmo Publishing House in 10 volumes, released in 2007-2008. The volumes have been published both as part of the Founding Fathers series and in multi-colored covers. Its content did not follow the chronological order, the texts were published according to the collected works of "Stalker" with the attachment of "Commentaries to the passed" BN Strugatsky.

Bibliography

The year of the first publication is indicated

Novels and stories

• 1959 - Country of crimson clouds
• 1960 - From Outside (based on the story of the same name published in 1958)
• 1960 - Path to Amalthea
• 1962 - Noon, XXII century
• 1962 - Trainees
• 1962 - Attempt to escape
• 1963 - Distant Rainbow
• 1964 - It's hard to be a god
• 1965 - Monday starts Saturday
• 1965 - Predatory things of the century
• 1990 - Anxiety (the first version of the Snail on the Slope, written in 1965)
• 1968 - Snail on the slope (written in 1965)
• 1987 - The Ugly Swans (written in 1967)
• 1968 - Second invasion of the Martians
• 1968 - The Tale of the Troika
• 1969 - Inhabited Island
• 1970 - Hotel "At the Lost Mountaineer"
• 1971 - Kid
• 1972 - Roadside Picnic
• 1988-1989 - Doomed City (written in 1972)
• 1974 - The guy from the underworld
• 1976-1977 - A billion years before the end of the world
• 1980 - A Tale of Friendship and Dislike
• 1979-1980 - Beetle in an anthill
• 1986 - Lame Destiny (written in 1982)
• 1985-1986 - Waves extinguish the wind
• 1988 - Burdened by Evil, or Forty Years Later
• 1990 - The Jews of the city of St. Petersburg, or Grim conversations by candlelight (play)

Collections of stories

• 1960 - Six matches
  • Outside (1960)
  • Deep Search (1960)
  • The Forgotten Experiment (1959)
  • "Six matches" (1958)
  • "Test of SKIBR" (1959)
  • "Private Assumptions" (1959)
  • Defeat (1959)

• 1960 - The Way to Amalthea
  • The Way to Amalthea (1960)
  • "Almost the same" (1960)
  • "Night in the Desert" (1960, another title of the story "Night on Mars")
  • "Emergency" (1960)

Other stories

The year of writing is indicated

• 1955 - Sand Fever (first published 1990)
• 1957 - Outside
• 1958 - "Spontaneous Reflex"
• 1958 - "The Man from Pasifida"
• 1959 - "Moby Dick" (story excluded from the reprints of the book "Noon, XXII century")
• 1960 - "In Our Interesting Time" (first published in 1993)
• 1963 - "On the question of cycling" (first published in 2008)
• 1963 - "The First People on the First Raft" ("Flying Nomads", "Vikings")
• 1963 - Poor Wicked People (first published 1990)

Screen adaptations

Translations by the Strugatsky brothers

• Abe Kobo. Just like a man: Story / Per. from japan. S. Berezhkova
• Abe Kobo. Totaloscope: Story / Per. from japan. S. Berezhkova
• Abe Kobo. Fourth Ice Age: A Story / Per. from japan. S. Berezhkova

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are famous Russian and Soviet prose writers, playwrights, brothers-co-authors, the undisputed leaders of Soviet science fiction over the past few decades, the most popular Russian science fiction writers abroad. They had an invaluable influence on the development of Soviet and world literature.

The books of the Strugatsky brothers made a kind of dialectical revolution and thus laid the foundation for the emergence of new utopian traditions of science fiction.

Creativity of the Strugatsky brothers

The Strugatsky brothers have been the main science fiction writers in the USSR for many years. Their diverse novels served as a mirror of the changing worldview of writers. Each published novel became an event that caused controversial and vivid discussions.

Some critics considered the Strugatskys to be writers who knew how to endow people of the future with the best features of their contemporaries. The main theme that can be traced in almost all works of the authors is the theme of choice.

The best books by the Strugatsky brothers online:

Brief biography of the Strugatsky brothers

Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky was born in 1925 in Batumi, after which the family moved to Leningrad. In 1942, Arkady and his father were evacuated; among all the passengers in the carriage, the boy miraculously survived. He was sent to the city of Tashl, where he worked in the delivery of milk, after which he was called to the front.

He was educated at an art school, but in the spring of 1943, shortly before graduation, he was sent to Moscow, where he continued his studies at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. In 1949 he received a diploma as a translator. Then he worked in his specialty, moving from one city to another. In 1955 he retired from the service, began work in the "Abstract Journal", and then got a job as an editor in Detgiz and Goslitizdat.

Boris Natanovich Strugatsky was born in 1933 in Leningrad, after the end of the war he returned to his homeland, where he graduated from the university with a degree in astronomy. At first he worked at the observatory, but since 1960 he began to write with his older brother.

Fame came to the brothers after the publication of the first science fiction stories. The Strugatskys' fiction differed from others primarily by its scientific nature and thoughtful psychological images of the characters. In their first works, they successfully used the method of constructing their own history of the future, which to this day will remain the basis for all science fiction writers.

Arkady Strugatsky, the eldest of the brothers, died in 1991. Boris Strugatsky, after the death of his brother, continued to write and published works under the pseudonym S. Vititsky. Having lived all his life in St. Petersburg, he died in 2012.

"It's hard to be god." Probably the most famous of the Strugatsky brothers' novels.

The story of an earthling who became an "observer" on a planet stuck in the late Middle Ages, and forced to "not interfere" in what was happening, has been filmed several times already - however, even the best film cannot convey all the talent of the book on the basis of which it was shot! ..

The fantastic story "Monday begins on Saturday" tells about modern science, about scientists and about the fact that already in our time a person makes the most fantastic discoveries and feats at first glance.

The Underworld Boy shows the doom of the dark forces of reaction.

This volume includes a classic work of the late period of creativity of the Strugatsky brothers - the novel "The Doomed City", a fascinating story of a handful of people from different countries and eras who agreed to participate in a strange experiment - and transferred to a mysterious city "out of time and space", where very and very unusual things, sometimes funny, sometimes dangerous, and sometimes frankly scary ...

“Probably not the most exciting of our stories are collected here. And, of course, not the most romantic and cheerful ones. And certainly not even the most popular ones. But on the other hand, they are the most beloved, most valued, and most respected by the authors themselves. and the perfect ", if you will, what they managed to create in fifty years of work.

We had a lot of collections. Very different. And excellent ones as well. But, perhaps, there was not a single one that we would be proud of.

Let it be now. "

Boris Strugatsky

1 snail on the slope

2 Second invasion of the Martians

4 Doomed city

5 A billion years before the end of the world

6 Weighed down with evil

7 The devil among people

8 Powerless of this world

A masterpiece by the Strugatsky brothers. A tough, endlessly fascinating and at the same time endlessly philosophical book.

Time goes on ... But the history of the mysterious Zone and the best of its stalkers - Red Shewhart - still worries and excites the reader.

"Snail on the Slope". The strangest, most controversial work in the rich creative heritage of the Strugatsky brothers. A work in which science fiction itself, "magical realism" and even some shades of psychedelics are intertwined into a surprisingly talented original whole.

"Happiness for everyone, and let no one leave offended!" Sign words ...

A masterpiece by the Strugatsky brothers.

A tough, endlessly fascinating and at the same time endlessly philosophical book.

Time is running…

But the story of the mysterious Zone and the best of its stalkers - Red Shewhart - still worries and excites the reader.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.
Monday starts Saturday. A tale-tale for young scientists.
1st edition 1965

"Laughter darted between floor and ceiling, bouncing from wall to wall, like a huge colored ball.
The editorial office read "Vanity around the sofa" - the first part of "Monday ...". It happened right away
after the release of the philosophical tragedy "It is difficult to be God", so they laughed with relief:
changed their minds, de Strugatsky, decided not to walk on the blade of a knife, but to do something fun and
safe. Writers finally allowed themselves to have fun from the heart ... ".
This is how one of the participants in its preparation describes the atmosphere that reigned around this story
to "going out".
The brilliant book of Russian science fiction writers is rightfully considered one of the pinnacles of their creativity. Time-tested, filled with humor and kindness, the story of everyday life in a fairytale research institute
will not leave indifferent any of the readers.

One fine evening a young programmer Alexander Privalov, returning from vacation, right in the middle of a dense forest, met two nice young people. And falling under their charm, he went to work in one mysterious and prestigious research institute, where they do not tolerate idlers and idlers, where enthusiasm and optimism rule, and the fairy tale becomes a reality.

Illustrations and cover by Evgeny Migunov.

Note:
The illustrations in this edition differ from those in subsequent editions.

Happiness for a newly released stalker is to lead others to the Room. This time he leads the Professor (Grinko), a researcher-physicist, and the Writer (Solonitsyn) in a creative and personal crisis. The three of them penetrate through the cordons into the Zone. The stalker leads the group carefully, in a roundabout way, probing the way with nuts. The phlegmatic Professor trusts him. The skeptical Writer, on the contrary, behaves defiantly, and, it seems, does not really believe in the Zone and its "traps", although the encounter with inexplicable phenomena convinces him a little. The characters of the heroes are revealed in their dialogues and monologues, in the thoughts and dreams of the Stalker. The group passes the Zone and on the threshold of the Room it turns out that the Professor was carrying with him a small, 20 kiloton bomb, with which he intends to destroy the Room - a potential performer of despots, psychopaths, scoundrels. A shocked Stalker tries to stop the Professor with his fists. The writer believes that the Room still fulfills not nice-looking deliberate wishes, but subconscious, petty, shameful ones. (By the way, perhaps, there is no fulfillment of desires at all.) The professor ceases to understand “why then go to her at all,” unscrews and throws out the bomb. They are coming back.

Publications of the section Literature

Life on the verge of fantasy

Two people - one writer - Arkady and Boris Strugatsky together created about 30 novels and stories, more than two dozen stories. Their works were filmed by such directors as Andrei Tarkovsky, Alexander Sokurov, Alexei German.

The Strugatsky brothers were guides for readers to another, fictional world. And no matter how parallel universes they come up with, the focus has always been on a person with his strengths and weaknesses. Because of this, fictional or predicted worlds suddenly became tangible, familiar, and therefore relevant.

Arkady Strugatsky wrote the first literary texts even before the Great Patriotic War. Unfortunately, all the manuscripts disappeared in besieged Leningrad. The first completed story, "How Kang Died," dates from 1946. It was published in 2001.

Fragment of the article by Alexander Mirer "Continuous fountain of ideas", the magazine "Measurement F" (No. 3, 1990):

“I met Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky in 1965. It was a time of storm and onslaught in science fiction, it was right after the story "It's Hard to Be a God" came out. Now it is difficult to imagine that we lived without Lem, Bradbury, Asimov and without the Strugatskys. Today it seems to us that the Strugatskys have always been, and now elderly people are telling me: "And I grew up on the Strugatskys!" And when I ask: "Sorry, please, but you are over fifty, how could you grow up on the Strugatskys?", He quite calmly replies: "They turned me over!"

“It's hard to be a god” was like a bomb. Although we had already read "Solaris" and "Invincible" then. Then two names immediately stood side by side: Stanislav Lem and the Strugatsky brothers. I remember very well how I ran around my acquaintances and shouted to everyone: “Did I tell you that“ The Country of Crimson Clouds ”is an application for great writers? Here - read! " Under this impression, I probably started writing science fiction. In a way, I am the "godson" of the story "It's Hard to Be God."

Having started writing science fiction, I quickly got to the seminar - no matter how ridiculous it sounds - "Young Guard". Then there was an excellent version of science fiction under the leadership of Sergei Zhemaitis, who, by the way, was the first to publish the Strugatskys in mass circulation, despite stamping their feet, partisanship and defeat. It was at this seminar that I met Arkady Natanovich.<...> Then I perceived him: "This is Strugatsky himself!", "These are the Strugatsky brothers!" - that is, already at that time for us they were classics, for me, in any case. After years,<...> Arkady Natanovich and I became friends.

I must say that, obviously, the main feature of Arkady Natanovich is chivalry. For many years I somehow could not find a better word. He is an amazingly gentle person, despite all sorts of external officer tricks and tricks.<...>

There is such a vile thing as a literary table of ranks. On this scoreboard, there is a completely different score ... let's say: a phantom score. According to the count of millions of people, the Strugatsky brothers are a huge phenomenon in Soviet and partly in world literature. That is, I personally believe that they are at least among the five best prose writers of the second half of the 20th century.<...>

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

They often ask how Arkady Natanovich and Boris Natanovich work together - are they meeting at the Bologoye station? Literature, like any other, has its own difficulties. The main difficulty is that this is an absolutely individual production, in which there is no quality control department (technical control department. - Approx. "Culture.rf"). One of the most important parts of any creative person is self-criticism. Look what happens: the Strugatskys are incredibly prolific writers, in the 60s they lent books to the mountain one after another, one better than the other, because within this duo there is an absolutely remarkable distribution of roles. One of the character traits of Arkady Natanovich is a continuously working imagination. He is constantly inventing. Kozma Prutkov said: "If you have a fountain, shut it up." Arkady Natanovich is precisely the fountain that no one could ever "shut up". And when they began to work together, it turned out, obviously, that Boris Natanovich is precisely the critical component that the fountain closes at the very minute when it is needed: “Stop. We write it down. "

This feature of Arkady Natanovich - the continuous generation of ideas by Arkady Natanovich - gives a lot of pleasure to the people around him. He can improvise in a fascinating way, for example, about his military past. I remember these stories - absolutely wonderful - he always played in them in some funny roles, not heroic at all. For example, there was a cycle of oral stories about how Strugatsky was forced to work as an adjutant and therefore he had to ride a horse. Accordingly, his horse threw off himself, respectively, she skinned him about the branches of trees. When he, unhappy, got on a one-wheeler, the stallion on which he was riding rushed over the fence, because there was a mare behind the fence ... and the one-wheeled horse hung on the fence with Strugatsky. When he was on duty at a military school - at that time all officers on duty were supposed to carry checkers and salute them - then on the morning report, he almost hacked to death his head of the school. And when Strugatsky retired AWOL, the consequences were absolutely devastating ... Some of these stories, obviously, were transformed from real incidents, and some were brilliantly and branched out on the fly.

Arkady Natanovich's irresistible literary origin is precisely felt in this fountain of ideas, which always works. Perhaps because of this, Arkady Natanovich immediately became uninterested in what had already been written. I don't know about Boris Natanovich, but Arkady Natanovich always loves his last thing. For a while he loves her - until a new one appears. But he is no longer interested in it - because there is something new ahead, something still needs to be invented, and now this fiction is underway. By the way, in my opinion, this trait is usually death for a creative person. For example, because of this, Lem switched to reviews of the unwritten: the plot and the main idea are presented in an absolutely concise manner, and that’s all: it’s invented and I won’t bother with it! And thanks to the duet, the Strugatskys were able to realize this whole thing! "

The Glass Bead Game with Igor Volgin. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. "It's hard to be God"

The Strugatsky brothers. Children of Noon

Soviet and Russian writer, screenwriter, translator, who, in collaboration with his brother Arkady Strugatsky, created several dozen works that have become classics of modern science and social fiction. After A.N. Strugatsky died in 1991, he published two independent novels.

Boris Strugatsky was born on April 15, 1933 in Leningrad, where his father Natan Zalmanovich Strugatsky had just been appointed as a researcher at the State Russian Museum. Boris's mother, Alexandra Ivanovna Litvincheva, was a teacher, taught Russian literature at the same school where Boris studied, after the war she was awarded the title "Honored Teacher of the RSFSR" and was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor.

During World War II, the Strugatsky family ended up in besieged Leningrad, and because of Boris's illness in January 1942, Arkady and Natan Zalmanovich Strugatsky went to evacuation alone, their father dies of exhaustion on the way to Vologda. Only in 1943 did the elder brother Arkady manage to take his mother and brother Boris to the village of Tashla in the Orenburg (then - Chkalovsk) region. They returned to Leningrad in 1945. In 1950 he graduated from high school with a silver medal and was going to enter the physics department of Leningrad State University, but was not accepted. Then he applied to the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics, which he graduated in 1955 with a degree in astronomer.

After graduating from the University, he entered the postgraduate course at the Pulkovo Observatory, but did not defend his thesis, the topic of which was discovered back in 1942 abroad. Then B. Strugatsky worked at the counting station of the Pulkovo Observatory as an operating engineer for counting and analytical machines. In 1960 he took part in a geodetic and astroclimatic expedition to the Caucasus as part of a program to find a place for the installation of the Large Telescope of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Since 1964 - professional writer, member of the USSR Writers' Union. For several more years he worked part-time at the Pulkovo Observatory. Since 1972 - the head of the Leningrad seminar of young science fiction writers (later became known as the "Boris Strugatsky seminar").

In 1974, the KGB was involved as a witness in the case of Mikhail Kheifets, who was charged with Art. 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda).

Founder of the Bronze Snail Prize. Since 2002 he has been the chief editor of the Noon. XXI Century".

He was married to Adelaide Andreyevna Karpelyuk (October 23, 1931 - December 20, 2013), daughter of Major General A. I. Karpelyuk, whom he met in his student years while studying at Leningrad State University. Son Andrey (born in 1959).

Boris Natanovich was known as a passionate philatelist, which was reflected in his work.

After a serious and prolonged illness (lymphosarcoma), Boris Natanovich Strugatsky died on November 19, 2012 at the age of 79. In accordance with the writer's will, his body was cremated and on April 5, 2014, the ashes of Boris Strugatsky and his wife were scattered over the Pulkovo Heights.

The main body of Boris Strugatsky's literary works was created by him in co-authorship with his brother Arkady. It is widely believed that most of their joint works are written in the genre of science fiction. BN Strugatsky himself did not think so and preferred to talk about "realistic fantasy", where the central role is assigned to man and his fate, and other planets or technology of the future are nothing more than "scenery".

Independent works

After the death of Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, by his own definition, continued to "saw through a thick log of literature with a two-handed saw, but without a partner." Under the pseudonym S. Vititsky, his novels "The Search for Purpose, or the Twenty-Seventh Theorem of Ethics" (1994-1995) and "The Powerless of This World" (2003) were published, which continued the study of inexorable fate and the possibilities to influence the surrounding reality.