Journal of East China Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences) ›› 2021, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (3): 124-133.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5579.2021.03.010

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Science Fictions and Empire:The Popular Landscape in the Literature of Russian Silver Age

Jing-hua LIN   

  • Online:2021-05-15 Published:2021-05-24

Abstract:

As a strong empire with the largest territories in the world at the turn of 19-20th centuries, Russia continued colonial expansion externally and conducted colonized governance within its territories. Just like the countries such as the UK, France and Germany, Russia developed science and technology with great momentum and applied widely its achievements, which unexpectedly stimulated thought and expanded aesthetic space. In these circumstances, the Silver Age came into being, in which culture prospered and science fictions became the most important literature landscape. This trend did not cease due to the Bolshevik’s ideology of anti-West and anti-capitalism. The new-born Soviet Union realized the importance of scientific and technological progress, and continued to expand its territories as a red empire on the base of advanced technology accumulated in the Russian empire period. As a result, science fictions continued to prosper in the early 1920s, showing features of poetry different from those in Western Europe.

Key words: empire, the silver age, science fiction, scientific and technological advances, (anti-) Utopia