This critical reader aims to provide precisely such a resource for students, scholars, and the merely curious who wish to delve deeper into landmarks of the genre, discover innumerable lesser-known gems in the process, and understand why science fiction came to play such a crucial role in Russian society, politics, technology, and culture for more than a century.

INTRODUCTION Anindita Banerjee. A Possible Strangeness: Reading Russian Science Fiction on the Page and the Screen I. FROM UTOPIAN TRADITIONS TO REVOLUTIONARY DREAMS Darko Suvin. The Utopian Tradition of Russian Science Fiction Mark B. Adams. Red Star: Another Look at Aleksandr Bogdanov Anindita Banerjee. Generating Power Asif A. Siddiqi. Imagining the Cosmos: Utopians, Mystics, and the Popular Culture of Spaceflight in Revolutionary Russia II. RUSSIA¿S ROARING TWENTIES Dominic Esler. Soviet Science Fiction of the 1920s: Explaining a Literary Genre in its Political and Social Context Eliot Borenstein. The Plural Self: Zamjatin¿s We and the Logic of Synecdoche Andrew J. Horton. Science Fiction of the Domestic: Iakov Protazanov¿s Aelita Yvonne Howell. Eugenics, Rejuvenation, and Bulgakov¿s Journey into the Heart of Dogness III. FROM STALIN TO SPUTNIK AND BEYOND Michael G. Smith. Stalinism and the Genesis of Cosmonautics Lynn Barker and Robert Skotak. Klushantsev: Russiäs Wizard of Fantastika Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. Towards the Last Fairy Tale: The Fairy-Tale Paradigm in the Strugatskys¿ Science Fiction, 1963¿72 Stephen Dalton. Tarkovsky, Solaris, and Stalker IV. FUTURES AT THE END OF UTOPIA Elana Gomel. Viktor Pelevin and Literary Postmodernism in Soviet Russia Vlad Strukov. The Forces of Kinship: Timur Bekmambetov¿s Night Watch Cinematic Trilogy Aleksandr Chantsev. The Antiuopia Factory: The Dystopian Discourse in Russian Literature in the Mid-2000s