Interview dated April 13, 2012, dedicated to his 79th birthday.

Have you re-evaluated your own works over time? Is there a “favorite” and “unfavorite” work?

— There has been no revaluation (over the last 50 years). My favorite is “Snail on the Slope”, my least favorite is “Land of Crimson Clouds”.

- Do you have any desire today to write a sequel to “The World of Noon” yourself?

- No.

- Is man a good or evil creature? What did you think 50 years ago and what do you think today?

— Man is a diverse creature. I thought so before, and now too.

Boris Natanovich, you once wrote that the reality described in your works did not come true. That is, the development of the social system took a completely different course, and hopes for an optimistic option were not justified. Why, why didn’t the best types of the Strugatsky worlds take root? As Tatyana Nikitina said in Kharkov a year ago, “...we are again doomed to a solitary struggle, without support and a guarantee of success.” But for me, the heroes of your books are much more significant than many “real boys” of our time. Health, creative years and optimism!

- Thank you. And why “the best types didn’t take root”... Well, they don’t take root at all. None and no one. “For a thousand years,” literature has been teaching man good (books that teach evil are rare), and man has remained a being, to put it mildly, “diverse,” since the Paleolithic. It seems that the role of literature in education is small. Friends, the yard, school, unhappy parents (who can teach a little man only one thing: “do as I do”) - these are the true educators. And then, depending on your luck.

Do you consider the construction of the world of noon to be the main meaning of human history, and is this possible in principle? Do you think it is acceptable to influence the human brain to make people kinder, destroy the aggression department in the brain with ultrasonics, use hypnosis for education, etc.? In your unwritten novel "The White Queen" there was an idea of ​​dividing people according to moral qualities! Do you think this is possible in reality on a large scale? Is it permissible to mass produce people with predetermined moral qualities (in special factories from test tubes) in order to make everyone well-mannered?

— The World of Noon is not “the meaning of human history.” The story has no meaning. And MP is “just” a world in which we, the authors, wanted to live and work. You are absolutely right: this world seems unattainable, because it must be inhabited by a Well-Educated Man, for whom the highest pleasure and meaning of existence is successful creative work. Where such a Person will come from, how it will be possible to turn the current person into him - a Skilled Man (whose meaning of life is to increase the variety, quantity and quality of consumption), I do not know. The “technologies” you named look somehow unappetizing. I am a supporter of the creation of a High Education System, the most important element of which is the discovery by professionals (Teachers) of the child’s main talent and the creation of conditions for the development of this talent. This position is easily questioned and criticized, but that’s not even the problem. Not only are even the most general principles of such a system still unformulated, but there are absolutely no visible social forces that would be interested in the emergence of an Educated Man. There are no such parties in sight, no classes, no even religious teachings (and they are so diverse!). A Skillful Man suits absolutely everyone. And although MP islands are not so rare in our lives (as a rule, these are teams united by a common creative task), the chances that some (unknown) social force will create a single continent out of them are not visible today and are not expected in the future .

The idea of ​​the unwritten novel “The White Queen” is known, about the division of people along moral lines. In reality, something similar is sometimes observed and happens in real life! Do you think it is possible and necessary to strive for such an organization of society?

- Look above.

- Is “The Doomed City” now perceived as a dystopia? Or was he originally?

— No, civil defense is not a dystopia and was not intended to be a utopia. This is, rather, the story of a man who is ideologized to the limit, who has lost his ideals “under the breath of life” and is trying to find some new ground under his feet. A fairly typical story of the Soviet sixties.

- How futurological are your dystopias (for example, “Predatory Things of the Century”, “Doomed City”)?

- GO - no. And the HVV, indeed, was conceived as a dystopia (a world of victorious philistinism), but it soon became clear that the social system described there was by no means the worst imaginable. For all its moral wretchedness, clumsiness, and “anti-heroism,” this world retains the most important condition for development and complexity: freedom. Roughly speaking: you can plunge headlong into the illusory existence given to you by the super-drug - slug, or you can devote all your strength and your whole life to the fight against slug, for the creation of a world worthy of a real Man - or even the same World of Noon. But what’s interesting is this: the world of HVV turned out to be (against the will of the authors!) a fairly accurate prediction. We can now observe with our own eyes how humanity, country after country, is moving into this state, into the state of the Consumer Society, and it seems that there is no force that could (or wanted) to force us to turn away from this path. The Consumer Society turned out to be the very goal towards which the notorious ("Leo Tolstoy's") "early-acting millions of human wills" is aimed.

I am interested in whether you are satisfied with the film adaptations of your works, and please name the most unsuccessful one in your opinion.

- It's difficult. In my opinion, almost all of them are “strong average” and there are none at all bad among them.

Good day! Please accept my congratulations - this is first of all. Thank you for what you have - I read and watched all the film adaptations that were made. But...that was so long ago. However, this has not lost its relevance. You didn’t ask yourself whether imitation of someone could be the basis for being visible on the literary stage. And also, what do you read yourself?

- Imitation is, in my opinion, bad. Even if you imitate yourself. Our main working principle was: every new thing should be unlike anything published before. The best thing - in the whole world, of course - is in Russia, and, of course, the one written by you. But things are not going well for me with reading. As a member of several literary juries and the editor-in-chief of the almanac, I am forced to read a huge number of “obligatory” texts, most of which, other things being equal, I would not read. Of course, I try to follow the latest news from the mainstream and do not miss the opportunity to read the new Ulitskaya, or Bykov, or Pelevin, or Weller. But firstly, not everything that should be, and secondly, I practically stopped rereading, that is, I stopped being a qualified reader. Which is disappointing.

I would like to congratulate the great writer and wonderful person on his birthday! Wish you happiness and long years! I love your books, I read and re-read them, people are already laughing at me, “How long can you read the same thing?” — Endlessly, good works can be read endlessly. It is a pity that we have not yet come to a bright communist future, to a time in which people will be honest, open, selfless, courageous and humane. People without borders, a world without borders. I'm waiting for these times. Are you still waiting for them? Thank you.

“I realized a long time ago that I wouldn’t see such times.” God grant that there are no wars and riots-coups - everything else is bearable.

- Boris, how would you formulate your mission on this planet?

- I don't have any mission. Where? For what? Why?

Do you have anything to say about the facts of the existence of a high-tech civilization on our planet?

“I strongly suspect that this is just a beautiful fiction.” A fruitful story. Thoroughly already, however, dirty.

Dear Boris Natanovich! I noticed that in “The World of Noon” most of the characters are knowledge workers, representatives of the intelligentsia - doctors, teachers, scientists, researchers, psychologists... But what about more “mundane” professions - salesmen, entrepreneurs, etc.? Is there no need for them in the world of the future? Does this mean that the World of Noon is, as it were, the world of victorious socialism? And do you yourself believe in the possibility of such development of humanity? Thank you very much!

— In the World of Noon there is a completely different, “communist” system of distribution of goods and services. There can be no sellers there because there are no goods. Entrepreneurs, of course, exist - these are the organizers and implementers of projects related to production - only they receive their profit not in money, but in the form of pleasure from their work, “enjoyment of successful creative work” - by God, there is nothing sweeter than this for a person it cannot be (in my opinion, of course, and in their opinion too). There is no need (in our sense of the word) in this world: super-powerful and continuously improving production, based on the achievements of science and technology, ensures a uniform flow of necessary material goods... In a word, classical communism as imagined at the beginning of the last century. “To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities.” By the way, this is a completely unfair system, because everyone receives, regardless of what benefit he brought to society, but society is rich (super rich!) and can afford this. Moreover, it is implied: you have more “properties” or less, but you give them all to society, without a trace. The possibility of a super-rich world is not easy to imagine, but looking at the crazy pace of technology development in our post-industrial world, it is still possible. It is much more difficult to imagine a person who is ready (with joy!) to consider the pleasure from the results of his successful creative work as a full-fledged “salary”. Of course, such people have always been, are now and will certainly be tomorrow, but are they in sufficient numbers to form a full-fledged society?

Boris, good afternoon! When you first started writing, was it difficult for you to force yourself to sit down and actually write, and not just come up with ideas? Did you make a plan in advance about what you would write about, and if so, how detailed was it? Or did you follow the heroes?

— Forcing yourself to “sit down and write” is, in general, in my opinion, the most difficult thing in writing. Someone called it: "fear of the blank slate." Plus natural laziness. Plus the temptations surrounding you that have nothing to do with work. When you work with a partner, it is much easier to overcome all these difficulties. And “inventing” together is generally a real pleasure. Including writing detailed plans. The main thing in these plans is the ending. Until the end is figured out, it’s better not to sit down to work. You will suffer “like a galley slave” and quit on page thirty, in despair. And when the ending is determined, the text is “fixed” to it episode by episode, and you know exactly which episode is necessary and which is optional; you don’t have to write it.

- What are you doing now? What is your current hobby?

— I am now mainly engaged in reading the “obligatory”, and writing journalism. Typically an interview like this. I am answering the questions. I've been answering questions all my life. Only earlier these questions were carefully selected and mine, but now they are from the pine forest and other people’s. And I have an old, well-deserved hobby, which will soon turn 65 years old - philately.

Your early works describe communism very “tastefully”. And then you came to the conclusion that in these conditions a person will go to the crystal glass shop in the morning, and from there to ... a snack bar. Unfortunately, I forgot the exact quote. When did the change of milestones occur?

— All this was not quite as you think. We wrote about communism until the end of our lives - the last novel was “Waves Quench the Wind.” Another thing is that modernity has drawn us into itself more and more over the years, and communism has begun to turn out to be more complex than before, not so cloudless. And our first “non-communist” thing was “Snail on the Slope”, 1965 - our most beloved and most respected story.

Hello! Everything that the Strugatsky brothers did seems to me not only extremely interesting, but also unique. Tell me, do you really exist?

- Hm. Rather yes than no. Not yet. And this is not said about you: “Isn’t it because he was an “infidel” because he was silent when he was tortured?”

Thank you for your creativity, Boris Natanovich! What do you recommend reading? How do you feel about modern Russian writers? Pelevin, Akunin, Bykov...

- Read these. You won't miss. Read Prilepin, Mikhail Uspensky, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Andrei Rubanov (among the youngest)... Lord, there are many of them! God bless.

I sincerely congratulate you on your birthday and wish you good and smart readers! I grew up reading your books and to this day, many of your works remain in the category of constantly re-reads for me. There is no doubt that not only I, but also an entire formerly powerful country grew up on your books. How do you imagine your future readers? And the second question - for you to this day, Monday begins on Saturday (are you working on something now?)? Thanks in advance for your answers.

“I’m afraid that imagining your future readers is quite a sad task. ABS may hold out for another ten or two years, but in the middle of the century they will be read only by bibliophilic fans, the type who today manage to get a thrill from such hits of the past as “The Burning Abyss” or “Doctor Lern ​​is a Demi-God” ".

- What will the world of grandchildren be like?

- Stranger. Not bad and not good. Not evil and not good. Stranger. But it would be possible to get used to it.

Dear Boris Natanovich, in what percentage of “Strugatsky-Tarkovsky” was the script for perhaps the most cult Soviet film “Stalker” written? And if possible, a few words about Andrei Arsenievich to. Thank you.

— Tarkovsky was an ordinary Soviet genius. Powerful imagination. Great ability to see a frame that does not yet exist. And a complete inability to convey your vision to the screenwriter. Therefore, there were nine scenarios. They were written using the method of successive approximations. "That's not it." "What do you need?" “I don’t know. But this is not it.” After the 8th version, he decided to shoot a two-part series. At the same time, he stated that “he will not make a movie with this stalker bandit of yours.” “The stalker must be different” “Which one” “I don’t know. Different” And we came up with a holy fool stalker. Arkady could probably tell more about Tarkovsky - he communicated with him regularly throughout the filming period. I met with him only two or three times, and not on the set, but at AN’s house, over tea, and the conversations were rather general in nature. As for the “percentage”, I don’t undertake to calculate it. There are two or three episodes from Tarkovsky. Poems by Arseny Tarkovsky. Black Mephistophelian dog in the Zone. And of course, the brilliant passage of the stalker with the girl on his shoulders at the very end of the film.

Hello! Is our future developing according to scenarios “predicted” by science fiction writers (i.e., a word written later materializes) or are writers unconsciously “voicing” future discoveries (predestined path, chalk of fate, etc.)? Thank you!

- Sorry, but I don’t accept this way of putting the question at all. Science fiction writers are worthless prophets and “heralds of the future.” Everything they manage to predict is either obvious banality or completely random hits. The maximum that the most insightful of them are capable of is to guess the “spirit” of the future, its aura, as Wells and, to some extent, Zamyatin succeeded. Yes, prophecies are not required from them. The task is to show worlds in which a person wants to live (utopia), or those that cause disgust and fear. They are simply spokesmen for the hopes and fears of the society of which they happen to be members. This, they tell the reader, is what the world you live in could be like, and what it can become if you don’t take action. In essence, they write about the present, about that present that is invisibly present here and now, with which our reality is fraught. And they do it right! A writer cannot have a more noble task than to talk about the present.

In your interview at the “Council of Elders” with Lev Danilkin on February 8, you spoke about the creative person and the consuming person. In conditions of “shameless hedonism,” the first “bookworms” have little chance of managing the global situation. But while remaining in a clear minority, humanists can influence minds that crave the “strange” through their creations on the Internet, for example. Today's meeting confirms this. If someone on their website can gather a circle of thinking, honest and caring people around issues that are important for the preservation and development of the humanistic component - this will be a real step towards not giving up the dream that you sowed in us, which has stuck in the subcortex and not going anywhere. Would you participate in such a project? Again, there is one for whom. The “indigo” generation - after all, they were already mentioned in your “Ugly Swans”.

— I’m too old to participate in projects that require time and effort. But if I can do it, of course!

Is it possible to restore the monarchy in Russia? If yes, then who is preferable - one of the Romanovs, or Prince Charles GB?

- Don't know. But the implementation of a “20th-century monarchy” is entirely possible. But the prince will not be from GB, but from GB.

Good afternoon Do you believe that our soul is immortal and after death it flies somewhere (at some energy level, higher than heaven, something like hell), or returns to earth (incarnation). I would very much like to know your opinion on this matter.

“Unfortunately, all this is nothing more than a beautiful poetic legend generated by the fear of death. There is nothing “there”, and they go “there” forever. Sorry.

- How difficult do you think it is to be a god?

- It is difficult to fulfill his duties. But it cannot be difficult for the Almighty, Omniscient and Omnipresent One himself. Even when he is asked if he can create a stone that he cannot lift.

Tell me, please, who would you call the “wetties” of our time and is it worth fighting against them or should they exist?

- Our biting midges (not everyone catches this from the text of the story) are aliens from the future. It is impossible and pointless to fight them. As for the “biting midges of our time,” these are, perhaps, the same “educated people” about whom I wrote above and who would be able to populate the World of Noon, if such a thing existed. They have been fought against since the time of Prometheus, but rather unsuccessfully. However, in the twentieth century they proved that without them there would have been neither the atomic bomb nor the “green revolution”, and they were left alone. Moreover, they began to be paid well. As Schwartz's hero would say: "Why u. when you can ku.?"

- What is your attitude to the role of religion in modern Russia?

— I don’t like the obvious interference of the Russian Orthodox Church in secular life. This is contrary to the Constitution and, moreover, looks like an absurd archaism. By God, we have enough bosses without these monks in gilded robes.

Boris Natanovich, hello! How do you feel about film adaptations of your books? Which directors can you mention? Perhaps there are directors whom you would like to entrust with the film adaptation?

— I don’t know enough about the modern world of cinema to answer this question in any depth. The experience that I have shows that the chances of seeing a film adaptation (and even more so an “author’s movie”) based on our story that can please me are negligible. But I'm not a prude. I sell the film rights easily and willingly.

- I’ve been reading the Strugatskys since I was 13 years old, but the question is: the 21st century is already in the yard, but things are still there...

- What about the Internet? What about mobile phones? What about nanotechnology? And the thermonuclear fusion, which is about to be discovered (or maybe has already been discovered?).

- Which of the modern Russian science fiction writers could you call “the successor of the Strugatskys”?

“It’s not my business to “determine a successor.” And what is this - a successor? What exactly should he “succeed”? Manner, style? Mentality? Moral criteria? Who needs it?

- Is the hero of the story “Monday Begins on Saturday” a collective image or did he have a prototype?

— Sasha Privalov did not have a prototype. And Simeon Simeonovich had it. And Vibegalla had it. And the witch Stella had one - such a cute, charming prototype.

- What is the secret of your longevity?

— And this is what you call longevity?! Yes, I haven’t even started yet!

- Which of the modern science fiction writers - possibly foreign - do you read yourself?

— I don’t read foreigners at all. From ours - all the best that comes out.

- Is it possible to somehow compare the work of the Strugatsky brothers, say, with the work of Stanislav Lem?

- Why not? Many people compare with great eagerness. An amazing parallelism in their work has long been discovered. Lem "Astronauts" - ABS "Land of Crimson Clouds". Lem "Magellanic Cloud" - ABS "Return". Lem "Eden" - ABS "Attempt to escape." Lem “Manuscript Found in a Bathtub” - ABS “A Billion Years Before the End of the World”... And so on. Lem is 2, 3, 5 years ahead each time, but ABS didn’t read Polish, and the translation reached them when their “parallel” piece was already finished. I don’t know how to explain this amazing phenomenon. And no one seems to know. I can only note the undeniable, almost absolute similarity of the mentalities of Lem and the ABS. On all fundamental issues of philosophy, cosmology, and futurology, their views coincided completely. Although Lem, of course, was always an order of magnitude more erudite in cybernetics, information theory (not to mention medicine), and his literary tastes were incomparably more “classical.”

- What is the difference between science fiction and fantasy?

— Fantasy is a modern author’s fairy tale. This means that miracles are not explained here and, moreover, do not need explanation. Why does Baba Yaga's stupa fly? How does a self-assembled tablecloth work? How did evolution give birth to the Dwarven people? How do magicians and sorcerers overcome the laws of conservation and the principles of thermodynamics? This is all GIVEN in the fairy tale, and no (normal) reader would think of questions like those formulated above. And in science fiction, miracles (any kind!) are present as real elements of the real world. If we have a photon starship, then it comes with an explanation of how it works (completely fantastic, of course, but looking quite realistic). And even if an explanation is not attached, it is always implied that it exists. Invisible Man. Flying man. Mechanical man. Explanations are either offered or implied. Telepaths, intergalactic aliens, even “people like gods.” Either explanations or some general philosophical considerations.

Why were many fantastic plans (submarine, laser weapons) described in literature implemented in real life?

- Why not, actually? Whatever one person comes up with, another can come up with. The usual thing. And then, if we take your examples: a submarine already existed under Jules Verne - he only “improved” it, so much so that even today the Nautilus looks like a miracle. But the Wells heat ray has nothing in common with a laser. Where is the estate and where is the water? This is the same as comparing a flying carpet with a Boeing and considering that the Boeing is a “realization” of a flying carpet. Although, of course, we can consider them relatives: both the flying carpet and the “flying house” are the children of a person’s dream of flight.

The books of the Strugatsky brothers have been filmed several times. How do you evaluate the film adaptation of your works? Are you satisfied with the director’s presentation of the material? Which adaptation, from your point of view, is the most successful?

— A film adaptation is (by definition) a translation of a literary text into a sound image. The best of the ABS film adaptations is Bondarchuk’s “Inhabited Island.” And only the first episode - the second was not a success. And if we talk about the so-called auteur cinema (when the text of the book is only material for the director’s self-expression), then, of course, Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” is beyond competition. Most of the film adaptations - some better, others worse - are not close to me. I would like to see something different, but what exactly is not easy to say. In any case, I will never work with cinema again: it’s not my thing.

- Where do you get inspiration for your works today? What will your new hero's world be like?

“Apparently I will never write fiction again.” It became uninteresting for me to invent. I’m not even interested in reading “about fictional things” - I prefer non-fiction.

Have you ever wanted to change science fiction and create, for example, a historical work? What era, what historical period would be most attractive to you and why?

— I’ve wanted to write a historical novel for a long time. We finally made an attempt in our “Burdened with Evil.” And once upon a time they planned to write about the Albigenses; I remember they even tried to select the material.

- Which heroes, from your point of view, are missing in modern literature?

— If there’s one thing modern literature lacks, it’s a good mass readership. I didn't notice any problems with the characters.

- Who is your reader today? What age audience are you targeting now?

— I have never targeted any age category. Although it was always clear that our audience was not children. However, there was a case once when we tried to write a modern fairy tale for the magazine "Koster". It turned out mediocre. The editor, I remember, said—offensively, but accurately: “The story was written by a tired man.”

— Works of literature should not teach, but evoke maximum empathy. A book is a stimulant for the work of the soul. "The soul must work - day and night." Life is also such a stimulant, but merciless. And the book is careful and kind.

And in general, a question that is relevant for everyone who is trying to write or co-writes: how does such collaboration differ from when you write alone - technically and psychologically?

“Either I should write a whole hundred-page memoir about this, or I’ll try to limit myself to a comparison.” Have you ever had to cut wood? Those who have had to will understand me. Writing alone is the same as sawing a hefty log with a two-handed saw alone. Together, both technically and psychologically, it is much easier and more effective to do this.

In the story "It's Hard to Be a God" a man from the future finds himself in the past. This plot has already been used by many science fiction writers (for example, the classic book "A Yankee in King Arthur's Court"), but this theme was quite rare. And your hero tried not to make any changes that could change the further development of society. Now in Russian science fiction there is a whole area, hundreds of books, devoted to such transference. And very often it happens only to change, correct, our history. These books are in great demand. Why? Is it because this is another sign that society is not satisfied with history and the current state of affairs and wants change?

- No society in which freedom of speech and thought exists is satisfied with its history and the current state of affairs. This is the key to all social changes, both revolutionary and evolutionary. Fiction only reflects this state of affairs. Like all other literature too.

To everyone who congratulated me here and wished me well - thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Briefly about the article: In an interview article written in 1967 for Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Strugatskys talk about the danger of a consumer society, the need to create an Educated Man, the importance of the figure of a teacher, the construction of an open information society and the inevitable confrontation with the “grays” who, alas, , they hide not only in the Arkanar gateways.

“INTELLIGENT IS A WORLDVIEW CONCEPT...”

Unpublished interview with the Strugatsky brothers

This interview was written in 1967. The Strugatsky brothers have long been the leaders of Russian science fiction. Despite the abundance of criticism, they enjoyed the undisguised and enduring love of readers. A dozen stories they had written by that time took first place in reader ratings (at that time their role was played by club and library questionnaires).

Some of the wording and theses of the interview (more precisely, articles - although the brothers answered the host’s questions, the text was structured in the form of a monologue) will inevitably seem outdated. However, observing the rhetoric accepted at that time, the Strugatskys repeat the same thing that they always tried to talk about: about the danger of a consumer society, about the need to create an Educated Man, about the importance of the figure of a teacher, about the need for an open information society and about the inevitable confrontation with the “grays” who, alas, they hide not only in the Arkanar gateways.

CHRONICLES OF A FAILED PUBLICATION

The history of this article begins with an entry in the Strugatskys’ work diary, made on January 12, 1967, while working on “Ugly Swans”: “They called from KomsPr, asking 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 at Koms. Pravda,” spoke to the guys. They are expecting an interview from us on the topic of the young intelligentsia. They will prepare questions, and we will answer them.”

“I’m sending you everything I sprinkled. As you will see, there is little in common 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 generality*. Work with God. Cut and edit, write well, be the master.”

Boris to Arkady

“I am sending you materials. You wrote well, and I added little. I crossed out some things. If in ink, then absolutely, and if in pencil, then whatever you want. Actually, of course, it didn’t turn out exactly like that, but I think that it won’t be published anyway (issues of the intelligentsia are decided at the level of Pravda, as we know), so it’ll do.”

Arkady - Boris

“I’m glad that our article in Komsomolskaya Pravda is over. Now I’ll retype it and deliver it, and that’s the end of it.”

“Our article for Komsomolskaya Pravda did not raise any objections, they only asked us to meet again and supplement it with a live conversation, since this still goes under the “Our Dialogues” section. I’ll go this week.”

Boris to Arkady

“Will the article in Komsomolskaya Pravda go without significant changes? I can't believe it. In any case, I beg you: send the final text to me for review. This is a serious matter, you have to be very precise if they really want to print.”

Arkady - Boris

“With the article in Komsomolskaya Pravda, not everything has been decided yet. Three days ago I was there again, we talked for two hours, they will supplement and develop it based on the transcript, and then give it to us for excavation with the hand of a master. This will apparently happen during your presence in Golitsyn.”

As a result, this interview article was not published, as Boris Natanovich expected. It was found in the Strugatsky archives and carefully restored from drafts by members of the Luden 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 Fantasy”.

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 only proceed 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 the intelligentsia? Actually, intelligence is more of a worldview concept than a sociological one. An intelligent person is characterized, first of all, by a certain attitude towards the world around him, and 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 reluctance to learn anything beyond a very narrow circle of needs. Therefore, there are very unintelligent assistant professors and members of the Writers' Union and quite intelligent, say, workers.

However, such an approach, as is clear to us, contradicts the intuitive idea that exists among readers and can cause confusion. Therefore, we will talk about an intellectual as a creative mental worker, and we will limit ourselves only to 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 demonstrates most clearly 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 fairly large groups, often very large.

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 acutely experiences all the phenomena of the domestic and foreign policy of his country.

e) He is a skeptic and a revolutionary: he hates stagnation and routine, is merciless towards fools and is inclined to test any authority.

Like the working class, like the peasantry, the scientific intelligentsia represents 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 own spiritual and material needs, its own heralds in the world of literature and art. She is influenced by other social groups, influences them herself and is not sharply delimited from them. Nor is it protected from the influence of petty-bourgeois ideology: the figure of a good worker, but a petty bourgeois and a scoundrel, is just as common among intellectuals as, say, among workers and peasants.

2. The modern mass scientific intelligentsia is a phenomenon unprecedented 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 other working classes. If we agree that the petty-bourgeois, bourgeois worldview, fueled by the lowest biological and social instincts, really poses a threat to communism, then the scientific intelligentsia can serve as a kind of approach to the humanity of the future, and its attitude to the world, to work, to culture - as a model attitudes towards these categories of communist man. And from here follows the need to cultivate in every member of modern Soviet society the traits inherent in an intellectual.

Let's be honest: too little is being done for this. We don't know what needs to be done to improve the situation. Probably, we need to start with education, because experience shows that education lies at the very basis of upbringing. And in education, everything starts with the teacher, with the teacher. The state should put forward and support in every possible way, propaganda and materially, legislatively and morally, the thesis: the teacher is the most important profession in the country, the teacher receives all kinds of material incentives, all party and administrative workers are primarily responsible for education, and then for the rest, including including production. This is the first half of the problem. The second half is the figure of the teacher himself. The level of qualifications and intelligence of teachers among the masses should be brought to the level of an advanced scientific intellectual. An intellectual is the best, ideal example of an educator: with a huge outlook, doubtful, searching, mocking and attentive. Most of all, he loves his work and therefore is 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 education 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 of psychology, pedagogy, and sociology. Raising a person has always been a great art, with its masterpieces and its geniuses like Ushinsky, Korczak and Makarenko. Now the task comes down to transforming art into science, and we must begin to solve this problem now.

The role of mass education means: literature, cinema, television is obvious to everyone. There is no place for half-educated people, cowards, and gray people here. Here, too, we need real intellectuals. If only in order to correctly translate Marx’s famous saying: not “art should be understandable to 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 philistine infection, that is, for an intellectual, especially a young one, there is no place for authority. He sensitively catches any falsity and any illogicality of a poorly convinced or gray “powerful” and at best he will laugh quietly, and at worst he will be disappointed and spit.

For the scientific intelligentsia, only the authority of knowledge and passion for 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 by reference 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 he 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 confident in his integrity.

In general, solidarity and integrity, mutual assistance and mutual support are characteristic of the scientific intelligentsia more than the rest of the population. They intuitively and consciously exercise these traits - just pay attention to the massive participation of the intelligentsia in various kinds of risky tourist expeditions, as well as 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 to my comrades?”

4. The intelligentsia, as the most greedy consumer of spiritual food, needs information like no one else. She understands perfectly well that public access to information is a necessary condition for the development of an advanced society and the formation of an Educated Person. Justification of judgments, a healthy critical attitude to reality, readiness to eliminate dirty tricks and shortcomings - all this largely depends on the ability to arm yourself with the most complete information. Moreover, blocking information channels is offensive as an expression of unjustified mistrust. Here is the source of nihilism, generated both by an information vacuum and by resentment. Nihilism instead of healthy skepticism, which grows from great knowledge and moves to action - and hence the neglect of social work, hostility towards the administration, a mocking attitude towards any attempts to organize to support mass social movements. This can often be observed in young intellectuals. 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, that void that information should have filled.

5. There is much in the way of thinking and in the way of life of the intelligentsia that sets the average man and the bourgeois against her. This is natural, it has always been and will always be as long as there remain ordinary people and philistines who are incomprehensible, and therefore hostile, to everything that goes beyond primitive ideas about the purpose of life and the essence of man. In the backward strata of the population there is a myth about the parasitism of the intelligentsia (this myth, disgusting as it may be, is sometimes supported even by the youth press) and about their crazy earnings: “They don’t have enough 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 there is a merciless ideological struggle going on in the world, it is as if they do 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 are a huge creative and revolutionary force. The front of the ideological struggle does not take place along borders, but within each of us. Doubts, a critical attitude, and the desire to continuously expand one’s horizons are 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, go so far as to call them “spiritual Vlasovites.” There are “bosses” who close exhibitions. There are “grays” who are terrified that something will come of the youth’s desire for knowledge and culture.

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

Owned by Dmitry Vatolin, creator of the Russian Science Fiction website. Even at the very beginning of the site’s work, Dmitry was inspired by 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, in principle, did not object to this, but he was absolutely not ready, personally, to master some sophisticated scripts with the help of which he could send his answers directly to the site. Now, if someone takes over the entire technical side of the matter... The energetic Dima immediately “took the bull by the horns” and at the next Interpresscon he puzzled the Ludeny group. It so happened that I was the most active member of the group working with the Internet at that time, and it fell to me to deal with this technical side. The wise Boris Natanovich, having looked through the ABS pages in the living room and discovered that questions were often repeated there, immediately entrusted us with the entire responsibility of the primary selection of questions to be answered, which, naturally, at first (now everyone is already accustomed to this) was accepted by individual representatives of the general public as a usurpation of information freedoms, cutting off oxygen and generally violating the democratic foundations of the universe. Nevertheless, the initial roughness was still smoothed out, and on June 13, 1998, the first 12 answers of Boris Strugatsky were published in this long and interesting conversation.

Quite quickly, somewhere through trial and error, somewhere after correspondence with Boris Natanovich, the basic principles for selecting questions were developed. So, frankly boorish and insolent letters, texts that did not contain questions (except for congratulations on holidays and birthdays), and repeated questions were rejected. It was with these people, and especially now, that it is especially difficult. Firstly, what is considered a repetition? The author of the question believes that he has asked a new twist on the topic, that he is asking 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, I perceive every such answer as my serious mistake. Judge for yourself: he took up Strugatsky’s time, he himself spent some time processing this question, and finally, he stayed in line and did not go to the master for another, more interesting question... Well, okay, over time it seems that he began to make fewer mistakes. But the flow of answered questions is constantly growing, and after a while I simply physically could not keep all the abundance of information that passed through the interview in my head! And the questions come and go, some impatient visitors to the page begin to duplicate their letters... In general, the punctures, of course, continued and continue. To the point that it happened that Boris Natanovich had to answer the same question twice.

Another subtlety of conducting this interview. Quite often, those asking questions use the guest book not so much to ask Strugatsky, but to speak out themselves on one or another 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” presupposes asking questions, and for disputes there are other events... Here you have to rack your brains. I haven’t 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 the work of the Strugatsky brothers or the problems of our time, which ends with the routine question: “What do you think about this?”, then the likelihood 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; you just need to look at who won the Bronze Snail or the ABS Award.

But the master allowed sending him fantastic stories (not exceeding one printed page - 40,000 characters), although he stipulated in advance an additional condition: he would respond to such a letter only if he liked the story. And you know, in the stream of works sent, there were several pearls that later saw the light in Boris Strugatsky’s magazine “Noon, XXI Century”. I am glad that with the help of this interview I was able to expose new authors and their creations to the light, and although I have no merit in this, it is nice to be aware of my “complicity”...

You can read about why Boris Natanovich has not stopped this interview for 8 years, which undoubtedly still distracts a busy person from other, equally important matters, in this book (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 were able to learn many 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, 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.

It’s also interesting to compare my answer options (which, as a researcher of ABS creativity, arise involuntarily) with what the master will answer. 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 is an incomparable pleasure to be the first to read these answers. True, I must admit that the state of “Koshchei wasting away over gold” is alien to me, and I am trying 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 pleased to announce new answers on LiveJournal.

What amazes me is Boris Natanovich’s commitment and his constant kindness towards those who ask. Even if it is clear from the question that a person does not share the political or literary preferences 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 he receives almost instantly?! With the exception of those unfortunate cases when Boris Natanovich is unable to respond due to illness, you can guarantee that answers from him will come the next day or even earlier! I maintain an extensive correspondence, but I simply don’t know other examples of such commitment, such organization.

Now (September 2006) the offline interview of Boris Strugatsky 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)