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Останній Ейджевуд
Проза Смолича 1920-х років прикметна експериментами й шуканнями в галузі мистецької форми, оригінальністю й гостротою сюжетної будови. Смолич став одним з основоположників фантастичної прози в українській літературі, поклавши початок цьому жанрові романом «Останній Ейджевуд» (1926)
204 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 30, 2022
This is the debut novel of a Soviet Ukrainian author, originally written in 1925 that mixes SF, action thriller, and communist propaganda. The English title is Last of Agewood. It is considered one of the earliest Ukrainian SF novels and despite the author avoided repressions (more about it later), this novel was published only twice in the USSR – in 1926 and 1929.
The book starts with a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars (the equivalent of the Cabinet in the USSR), where members are informed that the imperialist world declared war on the Soviet state. The main issue is the lack of gas masks for all population (it is assumed that gases for sure will be used). Here we, readers, can glimpse an interesting attitude of the times:
Now to the matter of defense, which is gaining particular importance in today's conditions, when we are not expecting a positional war, but a war from the rear, chemical and aviation war. The first, the most important thing is that we do not know what gases they are going to poison us with. […] Our factories produced a huge number of gas masks, but there are not enough of them for the entire population of the Soviet republics. they will be enough for only 60 percent of the entire population, or otherwise — for 100% of the entire working population. The question arises about the principle of distribution: should they be divided among all, or should only the working people be provided for, and the non-working element and hostile social groups should be given over to obliteration?
And while in this novel he assumes the technical superiority of capitalist countries and that a war will be extremely hard with great losses (in the 30s such opinions even in fiction were enough to be arrested, and all mil-SF moved to “we’ll beat enemy on his territory and with minimal losses of our men), it assumes that sacrificing ‘non-working element’ is perfectly fine.
In line with Marxist-Leninist doctrine, any imperial war will/should turn to a civil war and proletariat revolution. To quicken such a revolution, a group of communists from the USSR are sent to the USA, where they unite with the US communists (among others giving us one of the earliest positive representations of an African-American man in a minor but important role in a SF genre) to either stop the war or turn it into a revolution. There are adventures mixed with representing American political culture, a daring infiltration to the main chemical plant producing poison gases in Agewood, fighting sell-outs from US trade unions, a leader capitalist named Uberalles and a lot more.
One of the things that surprised me is that there are several times in the story when otherwise positive characters take part in lynching – I mean grabbing a supposed traitor and literally tearing him to pieces (in most cases lynchers are mistaken) – I strongly suspect that this is from the real life of the author in the 1917-1920.
The novel is interesting more as an artifact of the period and an early attempt of the Ukrainian SF novel, I doubt that a lot of modern SFF fans will enjoy it.
About the author: Yuryi Korniyovych Smolych (1900- 1976) was a Ukrainian Soviet writer, journalist, editor and theater critic. As it turned out in the 1990s, he was also a secret informant of the repressive bodies of the USSR (NKVD-MGB-KGB between 1935 and 1953), supplying them with information about other Ukrainian Soviet writers, including Oleksandr Dovzhenko - a Ukrainian Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director, often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers.
The book starts with a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars (the equivalent of the Cabinet in the USSR), where members are informed that the imperialist world declared war on the Soviet state. The main issue is the lack of gas masks for all population (it is assumed that gases for sure will be used). Here we, readers, can glimpse an interesting attitude of the times:
Now to the matter of defense, which is gaining particular importance in today's conditions, when we are not expecting a positional war, but a war from the rear, chemical and aviation war. The first, the most important thing is that we do not know what gases they are going to poison us with. […] Our factories produced a huge number of gas masks, but there are not enough of them for the entire population of the Soviet republics. they will be enough for only 60 percent of the entire population, or otherwise — for 100% of the entire working population. The question arises about the principle of distribution: should they be divided among all, or should only the working people be provided for, and the non-working element and hostile social groups should be given over to obliteration?
And while in this novel he assumes the technical superiority of capitalist countries and that a war will be extremely hard with great losses (in the 30s such opinions even in fiction were enough to be arrested, and all mil-SF moved to “we’ll beat enemy on his territory and with minimal losses of our men), it assumes that sacrificing ‘non-working element’ is perfectly fine.
In line with Marxist-Leninist doctrine, any imperial war will/should turn to a civil war and proletariat revolution. To quicken such a revolution, a group of communists from the USSR are sent to the USA, where they unite with the US communists (among others giving us one of the earliest positive representations of an African-American man in a minor but important role in a SF genre) to either stop the war or turn it into a revolution. There are adventures mixed with representing American political culture, a daring infiltration to the main chemical plant producing poison gases in Agewood, fighting sell-outs from US trade unions, a leader capitalist named Uberalles and a lot more.
One of the things that surprised me is that there are several times in the story when otherwise positive characters take part in lynching – I mean grabbing a supposed traitor and literally tearing him to pieces (in most cases lynchers are mistaken) – I strongly suspect that this is from the real life of the author in the 1917-1920.
The novel is interesting more as an artifact of the period and an early attempt of the Ukrainian SF novel, I doubt that a lot of modern SFF fans will enjoy it.
About the author: Yuryi Korniyovych Smolych (1900- 1976) was a Ukrainian Soviet writer, journalist, editor and theater critic. As it turned out in the 1990s, he was also a secret informant of the repressive bodies of the USSR (NKVD-MGB-KGB between 1935 and 1953), supplying them with information about other Ukrainian Soviet writers, including Oleksandr Dovzhenko - a Ukrainian Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director, often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers.
September 8, 2024
Funny how the book tries to be pro-communist on paper but when you read it you feel like “white” and “red” are just different gangs with different ideas both struggling for the power and domination at the cost of other people, both killing, manipulating and consistently disregarding the voices of the very people they claim to lead (the India episode is a great example). I also assume the angry blind mob repeatedly lynching people is reflecting the realities of the communist “revolution” times. The book is interesting as a testament of times and an artifact of early Ukrainian-Soviet “science fiction” (1925) as well as an example of the Ukrainian language spoken back then but I didn’t find much literary value in it.
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