Where to get a dream. Utopia is a model of an ideal state

There are two versions of the origin of the word utopia. This is a place, according to the first of them, that does not exist (u - no, topos - place, Greek). And according to the second - a blessed country (eu - good, topos - place). The term itself was first used in the title of T. More's book. Subsequently, it became a household name, denoting various fictional countries with ideal and unrealistic plans contained in essays and treatises on various social transformations.

Utopia is an expression of the interests of certain social strata that, as a rule, are not in power. It performs important cognitive, educational and ideological functions. Often served as a form of expression of revolutionary ideology.

Also, utopia is a kind of utopia aimed at comprehending the social ideal, attempts to anticipate the future, and criticism of the existing system. In the Renaissance, it was expressed in the description of perfect states that seemed to exist somewhere or existed previously. It became widespread in ancient and (works) as well as among the peoples of the Middle and Near East (Ibn Baj, Al-Farabi).

In the 17th and 18th centuries, utopian treatises and projects for political and social reform were common. And starting from the mid-19th century, utopia became a specific genre of literature about a problem and a social ideal. Many utopian works in the 20th century were written by G. Wells.

In the broadest sense, utopia is a certain universal scheme that, according to its supporters, will help resolve the contradictions existing in society. It is characterized by: ahistoricism, a tendency toward formalism, separation from reality, an exaggerated role of education and legislation, and hope for the support of those in power.

As a contrast, there is a dystopia, which calls for the abandonment of the social ideal and reconciliation with the existing system in the state, in order to avoid a worse future. Often, dystopia is expressed by depicting the social ideals of opponents (often in caricature form).

Plato's social utopia is one of the first concepts of this kind. According to his theory, the state represents a conscious strengthening, a concentration of justice and beauty. In order to achieve this, people must perform strictly defined functions that correspond to the properties of their soul and natural abilities.

The soul includes three components - volitional, rational and affective. Depending on the predominance of certain parts, the distribution of government functions occurs. The strong-willed part of the soul predominates among warriors who protect the population from enemies. The rational part is among philosophers who deal with government. Affective - among peasants and artisans engaged in material production and providing the state with necessary products.

Social utopia, according to Plato, is based on the fact that as a result of assigning virtues to each class (for warriors - courage, for rulers - wisdom, for artisans and peasants - moderation) and thanks to the existing rigid hierarchy in the state, the highest virtue is realized - justice, leading to harmony. Thus, individual interests are sacrificed in the name of the common good.

Currently, the concept of utopia carries a number of positive aspects. In particular, it makes it possible to predict what will happen in the future, as well as to avoid a number of negative social consequences of people’s activities. It has not lost its significance in many fantastic literary works.

Utopia (from ancient Greek οὐ “not” and τόπος “place”; according to another version: ου – “good”, that is, “good place”) is a genre of fiction, close to science fiction, describing a model of the ideal, with the point of view of the author, society. Unlike dystopia, it is characterized by the author’s faith in the impeccability of the model.

Name

The name of the genre comes from the work of the same name by Thomas More - “The Golden Little Book, as useful as it is amusing, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia” (1516), in which “Utopia” is only the name of the island. For the first time in the meaning of “model of an ideal society” this word is found in the travel book of the English priest Samuel Purches “Pilgrimage” (Pilgrimage, 1613). The adjective “utopian” is also used there for the first time. Despite such a late strengthening of this term, the first utopia in the history of European literature is considered to be the model of an ideal society in Plato’s dialogue “The State” (he also first used the word Utopia in the meaning of “a place that does not exist” in the treatise “The State” (427–347). BC.).

Detailed history of the genre

The genre began with the works of ancient philosophers dedicated to the creation of an ideal state. The most famous of them is Plato’s “Republic”, in which he describes an ideal state built in the image and likeness of Sparta, with the absence of such disadvantages inherent in Sparta as endemic corruption (even kings and ephors took bribes in Sparta), the constant threat of a slave uprising , constant shortage of citizens, etc.

The genre reappears in the Renaissance, which is associated with the name of Thomas More, who wrote “Utopia.” After this, the utopian genre began to flourish with the active participation of social utopians. Later, with the beginning of the industrial revolution, individual works in the dystopian genre began to appear, initially devoted to criticism of the existing order (see utopian socialism). Even later, works appeared in the dystopian genre, dedicated to the criticism of utopias.

Main features of utopia

Utopian literature has its roots in archaic myths about visiting the underworld and in the genre of folk tales, in a figurative and compositional system in which an important place is often occupied by certain blissful magical lands, where good finally conquers evil, “milk rivers with jelly banks” flow and etc. In the process of historical development in literature, a number of stable plot devices have been developed that ensure the movement of the hero from the everyday world to the fantastic reality of utopia: dreams, visions, travel to unknown distant countries or to other planets, etc. The world of utopia is located, as a rule, outside the usual time and space. It is placed either in countries on the other side of the Earth (sometimes beyond its borders), inaccessible to mere mortals, and “accidentally”, “in a fantastic way” is revealed to an outside guest, or is transferred to a “wonderful future” that brings to life the bright aspirations of modern humanity. The principle of contrast between the present and the future in utopias is often realized through a dialogue between an outside visitor, who is amazed by everything around him, and his “cicerone,” that is, a guide through the new world, explaining to the stranger the structure of an ideal society.

Characteristic features of utopias:

The society that writers portray is frozen in motion; Not a single utopian depicts the world he invented in time.
All utopias presuppose complete unanimity, they have a simplified view of man, there is no individualization of characters, and there is schematism in their depiction.
Utopias do not have any internal conflicts. The plot of a utopia involves a description of the world, its laws, and the relationships of people based on reasonable principles and therefore not prone to conflict.
All processes occurring in societies proceed according to a pre-established pattern.
These perfect societies are completely fenced off from the outside world. Space in utopia is closed and isolated.
Utopias tend to depict their world, focusing on a certain ideal, divorced from reality.
There is no satire in utopias, since there is an affirmation of the ideal and the opposition of this ideal to actually existing reality.

Famous works

"State", Plato.
"Utopia", Thomas More.
"City of the Sun", Tommaso Campanella.
“History of the Sevarambs”, Denis Veras.
"The New Atlantis", Francis Bacon.
“What to do”, Nikolai Chernyshevsky (Vera Pavlovna’s fourth dream).
"The Island", Aldous Huxley.
“Andromeda Nebula”, Ivan Efremov.
“Noon, XXII century”, A. and B. Strugatsky.
"And There Were None Left" by Eric Frank Russell.
“Culling”, Oleg Divov.
Cycle “Meganesia”, A. Rozov.

The genre of utopia in Russian literature

Origin

In the history of Russian literature, there is also a fairly strong tradition of creating utopian works, associated with such names as Sumarokov, Radishchev, Odoevsky, Chernyshevsky, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, etc. In Russia, utopia appeared only in the 18th century - during the era of the creation of new Russian literature time and from this period began to actively develop, meeting the needs of Russian social thought. Russian utopia was often dissolved in literary works of other genres - social novels, fantasy stories (for example, utopian motifs in Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”). Russian literature is richer in utopian works than is commonly thought. Moreover, these works are diverse both in their social content and in their genre characteristics. Here we find utopias in the spirit of the “state novel” popular in the 18th century, and Decembrist, and Enlightenment, and Slavophile utopias, and works in the spirit of utopian socialism, and satirical utopias that anticipated the genre of dystopia that became popular in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries , and other types of utopian literature.

Most European utopias were built as a journey or an unexpected visit to an unknown country that is not indicated on the geographical map. Actually, this traditional plot device is borrowed, for example, by Mikhail Shcherbatov, describing his “land of Ophir” (“Journey to the land of Ophir”). But more often than not, Russian literature talks about the future that the hero sees in a dream. This technique is used to build Sumarokov’s story “The Dream of a Happy Society”, the famous description of a dream from Radishchev’s “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (“Spasskaya Polest’”), Ulybyshev’s “Dream”, Vera Pavlovna’s fourth dream from the novel “What is to be done?” Chernyshevsky, “The Dream of a Funny Man” by Dostoevsky, etc.

In 1858, A. Herzen published two works in one book in London - “On the Corruption of Morals in Russia” by Shcherbatov and “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” by Radishchev. It was not by chance that he combined these two works, since both of them were, in essence, documents of Russian critical thought and political radicalism. Among the Decembrist utopias are, first of all, the story “The Dream” (1819) by the writer and literary critic Alexander Ulybyshev, who was associated with the Decembrists, and “European Letters” by Wilhelm Küchelbecker. The latter were written from the perspective of an American traveling through Europe in the 26th century and talking about the past and present of European countries. In terms of the breadth of history, in its educational pathos and faith in the great future of Russia, Kuchelbecker's utopia. Anticipates the later utopia of Vladimir Odoevsky “4338”.

Development

When characterizing the development of Russian utopian literature, one cannot ignore the problem of dystopia. Most often, negative utopias in Russia in the 19th century described all sorts of negative consequences of technical and scientific progress, mechanization of labor and lifestyle, and warned of the danger of world wars that could turn history back. Motives of utopia are clearly present in Saltykov’s stories: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Gnashing of Teeth”, where dreams appear in ironic contrast with reality. Some pages of “The History of the City of Foolov” can also be considered a satirical utopia. The story “The Life of a Man in a Hundred Years” by Grigory Danilevsky is also a satirical utopia. The further evolution of Russian literary utopia is closely connected with the social atmosphere in Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The defeat of the first Russian revolution (1905-1907) caused serious ideological confusion among the Russian intelligentsia and aggravated pessimistic sentiments in the public consciousness and literature. These sentiments also make themselves felt in the development of Russian utopian prose. Indicative in this regard, for example, is Nikolai Fedorov’s story “Evening in 2217” (1906). Labor is devoid of joy and is reduced to meaningless, mechanical operations. The population is divided into hundreds and thousands, and everyone must wear their own work number. People's personal lives are also subject to standardization. Even such an intimate area of human relationships as love is subordinated to a single goal - raising full-fledged and healthy offspring. The family does not exist; it died out long ago as a funny and romantic relic.

Motives associated with utopia are increasingly heard in the works of famous Russian writers. Valery Bryusov writes several utopian works. Among them are “Earth”, “Republic of the Southern Cross”, “Seven Earthly Temptations”. Here the reader encounters impressive descriptions of scientific and technological progress: high-rise buildings, cars, airships, electric and even “radioactive” lighting. Negative utopia predominates in Bryusov’s work. This is, for example, the “Republic of the Southern Cross”. The socialist utopia is represented by the novel “Red Star” by Alexander Bogdanov. In it, the writer depicted a society of the future based on communist principles, which the hero, a professional revolutionary, finds on Mars.

Soviet utopia absorbed those traditions of Russian utopian literature that emerged already at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. On the one hand, the craving for socialist utopia is urgent for Russian literature, on the other hand, it is dystopia. Apparently, it is no coincidence that two important utopias were published in the same year of 1920 - the dystopian novel “We” by E. Zamyatin, which, in fact, marked the beginning of the development of this genre in world literature of the twentieth century, and the novel “My Brother’s Journey” by Alexander Chayanov Alexei Chayanov to the land of peasant utopia”, which continued the traditions of Russian and European literary utopia. By the way, both writers were subjected to repression for their novels.

In many socio-fantastic and utopian novels of the 20s - V. Itin’s “Country of Gonguri”, Y. Okunev’s “The World to Come”, A. Belyaev’s “Struggle on the Air”, V. Nikolsky’s “After a Thousand Years”, Y. Larry “ Land of the Happy" and others - contain attempts to paint the future as the impending victory of communist society throughout the world. However, the social image of the future in them, as a rule, was replaced by scientific and technical forecasts and futurological predictions. After the rapid rise and development of utopian literature in the 20s, there was a sharp decline, and starting from the 30s, utopias appeared quite rarely on book shelves. The revival of this genre in recent years has been greatly facilitated by the development of science fiction.

Utopia as a film genre

Utopia, as we know, is an ideal model of a society built on the basis of impeccable orders, while dystopia is the complete antipode of the first concept, that is, a state that has gone far along the most negative and disastrous paths of development. But this is where the main issue arises - every person, and especially a creative person, has different ideas about ideals and vices. In our case, however, this only gives the viewer a huge variety of artistic compositions for every taste.

Utopia in cinema

The classic film “Captain Nemo and the Underwater City” of 1969, based on the work of Jules Verne, tells the story of a beautiful fantastic habitat in the depths of the ocean.
Gary Ross's excellent Pleasantville, in which American teenagers from the nineties are thrown into an ideal society in the style of a fifties soap opera. Not so long ago, the same director was entrusted with filming another dystopia, which died down in cinemas around the world - the first part of the Hunger Games.
The television film "Brave New World", which clearly depicts an incredibly orderly state, without crime and war.

Some paintings are not so clear-cut, and the worlds depicted in them can be called both utopia and dystopia at the same time. Is it difficult to understand how two complete opposites can coexist in one creation? The easiest way to understand this is with a specific example - the philosophical action film Equilibrium with Christian Bale. This film depicts an impeccably ordered society, devoid of flaws, but at the same time the author asks the question - is the goal achieved by a fantastic government justified by its price? After all, from a completely different angle, the life of ordinary people in the film looks worse than the worst horror. Tariq Saleh’s masterpiece cartoon “Metropia” leaves approximately the same impression, where a state close to an ideal state is depicted in a completely unchildish way, the reverse side of which is completely different.

When communicating with people, sometimes, when discussing a particular topic, we hear, or maybe we ourselves assert, that we are talking about utopia, without fully understanding the meaning of this word. What is utopia, in what cases can we safely use this concept, understanding its meaning?

What does the word "utopia" mean?

The word utopia appeared in Ancient Greece, where it was designated as follows: “Topos” - a place, “u-topos” - not a place. In a broader sense, a place that does not exist. Today, this word has several meanings and is used in relation to:

Fiction, describing a model of a fantasy world, socially ideal as conceived by the author. Impeccable social order. Examples of such works are: the novel by J. Verne “The Mysterious Island”, the novel by J. London “The Valley of the Moon”.
There are variations in the use of the term in a political sense, when describing social projects designed to make the life of the population better, but unrealistic to implement in practice. For example, some critics called V.I. Lenin’s theories about the future industrial development of Russia utopian.
Another colloquial meaning of the word is a dream that cannot be realized, unrealizable. For example, when you tell a person that his idea is unrealistic, say: “You can’t do it - it’s a utopia!” Thus, reinforcing the fact of the failure of the upcoming event.

In any of the listed cases, we can observe the definition of the word as a denial of the real state of affairs.

Classification and signs of utopia

Many literary specialists divide different utopias according to their inherent characteristics:

Technocratic, the essence of which is to describe a social system where every person is provided with everything necessary thanks to technological progress. This model implies a lack of money among the population as it is unnecessary. Life support and the economy are built on the resources available to humans.
Social, implying the possibility of people changing their own society, which ultimately came to social equality and justice. Simply put, to communism, when a person is a comrade and brother to another, regardless of income. This is a myth about the possibility of abolishing private property, market relations, and even the state and religion. Everyone is equal before communism, a person’s work is only for the good of society, and not for his own earnings.
Egalitarian- utopias that presuppose the equalization of everyone in relation to oneself. Accordingly, an egalitarian society is a society of mass equalization. For example, parents treat their children not as little people, but as adults with corresponding responsibilities.

The main feature of a utopia is that when creating it, the author does not need to take into account the boundaries of the real world. Here everything will depend on the imagination of the creator.

What is utopia and dystopia?

In contrast to utopia, there is dystopia. Its direction can be understood from the prefix “anti”, meaning opposite. This is a type of fantasy genre that envisages negative trends in the existence of the world or state.

Dystopia is characterized by consideration of dangerous options for the social structure of society, leading to a crisis. From this we can conclude that no utopia can be created without a dystopia, which implies its criticism, and therefore helps to lead to an impeccable image of the social system. What examples of dystopia can be found in the literature?

Nikolay Nosov “Dunno on the Moon.”
Victor Pelevin "Yellow Arrow".
Jack London "The Iron Heel"

The success of dystopian novels is enormous, this is due to the fact that they assume the worst case scenario, not like a fairy tale, the author of which does not suggest doing anything, just wait for its outcome. Utopia presupposes the work of man in the name of man, for man.

Utopian theory of immortality

Modern utopia has gone further and now it presupposes not just an impeccable society: a scientific, technical, moral and psychological one with a perfect person at the head, creating something for the benefit of society that will provide for it. It implies a biological society that has learned to make life endless, to clone its own kind.

This theory of impeccability presupposes a perfect society that will not need high-tech machines and endless resources and labor. After all, immortals have nowhere to rush, nothing to fear, no need to work. But here questions arise from the dystopian side. What will happen to us in this case?

If a person does not need to eat, develop industry, engage in science, invent new medicines, build, study, that is, self-improvement, he will begin to degrade and return to the species Homo sapiens. We will forget how to read and write, grow crops - everything that we needed to maintain life and provide for it. Returning millions of years ago, we will have to go through this path again.

Or maybe this is a chance to once again try to improve ourselves. To come to a superman and a supersociety. This means that the utopian theory of immortality cannot be refuted by dystopia, since in the end, time after time, it will really lead us to an impeccable system. All that remains is to bring our scientific and technological knowledge to the point where we can live forever.

What is utopia in philosophy?

Here we should talk about Plato - his contribution to the foundation of utopian thought. He was the first to formulate utopian models, from which the authors then proceeded.

Plato proposed a scheme of the state in which social relations are transformed through their criticism.
The world created by Plato is divided into two levels: visible and invisible. The visible one is the real society and state, and the invisible one forms the higher world, existing along with the material body, but cognizable through perception. The visible world is only an example of the invisible world, the ideas of which are models of visible things.
The essence of Plato's state: does an ideal society exist initially, based on circumstances independent of time and place?
Plato does not provide for happiness for a person, only the truth of the correspondence of an object to its purpose. This is where he sees the perfection of society.

Thus, Plato formulates the main meaning of utopia, its problem: what society should be like in order to correspond to its true concept. Future utopian projects will be based on this.

Utopia and religion

No religion can do without utopia. Accordingly, the very first grandiose utopia was Christianity. After all, if you re-read the Bible, you can understand that its goal is to create an impeccable person and thus form perfect society. What the commandments teach us:

Don't steal.
Do not envy.
Don't make yourself an idol. That is, everyone is equal in front of each other.
Dont kill.
Respect your parents and loved ones.

Could it be that such points could become the basis of the constitution of an ideal state?

You can talk about utopia for a long time, drawing conclusions and justifications, giving examples. This topic has not yet been fully disclosed. What a utopia is can probably be disassembled to its core only by coming up with your own version of the development of events. Maybe then we will still be able to create an ideal, flawless version of the social system.

Video: is loving everyone a utopia?

UTOPIA IN LITERATURE(from the Greek ou - not, no and topos - place, i.e. a place that does not exist; another explanation: eu - good and topos - place, i.e. a blessed place) - a literary and artistic work containing a picture of the ideal a society inhabited by absolutely happy people living in conditions of a perfect government system.

Utopian consciousness in the broad sense of the word is characteristic of any society in which developed contradictions exist. Its essence lies in the mental “removal” of these contradictions, in the idea of what society and life should look like ideally.

In traditional society, utopia was retrospective in nature: the ideal state belonged to the “times of our ancestors”; there were legends about happy countries (for example, “The Land of the Hyperboreans” among the ancient Greeks, “Belovodye” and “Oponskaya Kingdom” in Russian legends).

In modern times, these ideas were superimposed on the intellectual and philosophical traditions of constructing an “ideal system”, coming from Plato ( State).

However, philosophical utopia remained only a kind of intellectual game. The crisis of traditional society and modernization, on the one hand, led to a real transformation of society on a rational basis, and on the other, an aggravation of all sorts of contradictions. This situation turned out to be extremely favorable for the emergence of the phenomenon of mass utopian consciousness. The utopian no longer dreamed of the best system as an unattainable ideal, but firmly knew and believed that life must be - and will definitely be - rebuilt on certain principles.

The implementation of utopia became a matter of will. Naturally, in social terms, utopian consciousness is characteristic primarily of the lower classes of society, who suffer most from the existing contradictions.

One of the first attempts to realize utopia can be considered the Jacobin dictatorship; for the first time she expressed a claim to destroy the old world to its foundations and erect a new one.

A new, much more decisive attempt to build a utopian society was made in the 20th century. socialists and fascists (especially the two extreme manifestations of these ideologies - communists and Nazis).

The “realization” of universal happiness on Earth killed the dream: the City of the Sun turned into a concentration camp. In the new conditions, even books that constituted the classics of the utopian genre and delighted many generations (Plato, T. More, T. Campanella) began to be perceived as descriptions of a terrible mechanism of personality suppression.

In modern literature, utopia is considered among the science fiction genres. In utopias, a certain “second reality” is constructed, which is contrasted with the surrounding reality and contains sharp criticism of modernity. The flourishing of utopian literature coincides with periods of acute cultural crises and fundamental changes in the life of society. Utopian literature has its roots in archaic myths about visiting the underworld and in the genre of folk tales, in the figurative and compositional system of which certain blissful magical lands often occupy an important place, where good finally conquers evil, “milk rivers with jelly banks” flow, etc. d. In the process of historical development in literature, a number of stable plot devices have been developed that ensure the movement of the hero from the everyday world to the fantastic reality of utopia: dreams, visions, travel to unknown distant countries or to other planets, etc. The world of utopia is located, as a rule, outside the usual time and space. It is placed either in countries on the other side of the Earth (sometimes beyond its borders), inaccessible to mere mortals, and “accidentally”, “in a fantastic way” is revealed to an outside guest, or is transferred to a “wonderful future” that brings to life the bright aspirations of modern humanity.

The principle of contrast between the present and the future in utopias is often realized through a dialogue between an outside visitor, who is amazed by everything around him, and his “cicerone,” that is, a guide through the new world, explaining to the stranger the structure of an ideal society.

At the origins of utopia stands Plato as the author of dialogues State, Politician, Timaeus, Critias. An important role in the formation of the utopian worldview in Europe was played by the early Christian chiliast heresies - teachings about the coming thousand-year Kingdom of God on earth. Chiliasm was embodied most clearly in the philosophy of history of the 12th century Italian monk-theologian. Joachim of Flora, who predicted the imminent advent of the era of the Third Testament - the Testament of the Holy Spirit, when Christ's truth will finally be established on earth and material life will be clothed in ideal forms.

Joachim of Flor's concept influenced idealistic ideas about the future in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It was also tested by the English priest Thomas More, the author of the work to the name of which the very term “utopia” owes its existence - A golden book, as useful as it is amusing, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia (1516).

Thanks to T. More in Western European literature of the 16th–17th centuries. The genre structure of the utopia and its main thematic principle—a detailed description of regulated social life—are finally formed. The line of T. More was continued by the book of the Italian utopian T. Campanella City of Sun(1623). Here the author offers the reader a navigator's story about an ideal community living without private property and family, where the state supports the development of science and education, ensures the upbringing of children and monitors the mandatory 4-hour working day. In 1614–1627, the English philosopher F. Bacon wrote a book New Atlantis– about the fictional country of Bensalem, which is led by a certain “Solomon’s House”, uniting a collection of wise men and supporting the cult of scientific, technical and entrepreneurial activity. Bacon's book expresses the historical optimism of the emerging bourgeoisie and for the first time the motives of scientific and technological progress arise, with which in subsequent utopias idealistic dreams of a “wonderful future” will almost invariably be associated.

In the book 1657 Another Light, or States and Empires of the Moon S. Cyrano de Bergerac attempts to give a utopian interpretation of the biblical plot and thereby exposes the religious roots of the genre - it tells the story of a journey to a utopian state on the Moon, where Enoch, the prophet Elijah, the Old Testament patriarchs, etc. continue to live.

In the 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment with its dominant cult of comprehensive reason, utopian projects were perceived as quite serious and real models for the structure of a future society. For this reason, they are mainly expressed not in artistic form, but in the genre of journalistic treatises (J.-J. Rousseau, W. Godwin, etc.). Among the few exceptions Code of Nature(1755) Morelli and the novel by L. Mercier 2440th year, which laid the foundation for a genre subtype of utopian books about the state of society at a certain, clearly dated moment in the distant future.

In the first half of the 19th century. the ideas of utopian socialism are rapidly spreading in Europe (R. Owen, C. Fourier, Saint-Simon). Basically, they are still expressed in philosophical and journalistic works, however, in the fiction of romanticism, individual pictures of a “bright future” may appear ( Queen Mab, Prometheus Unbound P.B. Shelley, Island J. Byron, Monsieur Antoine's sin J. Sand, Les Miserables V.Hugo, Mardi G. Melville and others). One of the classic utopias of the mid-19th century. – Travel to Ikaria(1840) E. Cabet, who influenced J. Verne ( Mysterious Island, 1875). In general, the utopian consciousness of the 19th century. continues the traditions of superficial humanism of the Enlightenment. He is also characterized by obvious anti-historicism, a tendency to create universal schemes for solving any social issues, a vision of the society of the future in a frozen form, and an inability to take into account the irrational nature of man, which cannot be regulated.

At the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. the general crisis of social institutions in Europe, the awareness of the imminent end of the “old world”, the feeling of an approaching world war and a revolutionary explosion lead to the emergence of numerous utopias and theoretical understanding of this literary phenomenon (critical works by A. Vogt, E. Kirchenheim, A. Sventokhovsky, article by Lesya Ukrainka Utopia in a fictional sense, 1906, etc.). Often, utopias try to capture the social contours of the “new world,” the advent of which is “just around the corner.” Some artistic utopias - for example, A look back(1888), E. Bellamy - were perceived as a call to action, as practical recommendations for the real implementation of the ideal. W. Morris entered into a polemic with E. Bellamy, who in the novel News from nowhere(1891) oriented his project of a communist utopia to the example of the Christian Middle Ages. E. Zola's utopian quests are expressed in a series of novels Four Gospels(1899–1903). In 1905, A. France writes another socialist utopia in the novel On a white stone. In 1908 the first utopian drama appeared - Dawns E.Verharna.

In Western literature of the 20th century, utopia increasingly takes on a “technical” slant. Since the middle of the last century, social illusions have been gradually falling in value and at the same time attention to man-made factors in the development of civilization has been increasing. This leads to the fact that the center of utopias is not so much the political organization of the future society, but rather the forecasting of scientific achievements and, most importantly, their social and psychological consequences (A. Azimov, S. Lem, etc.).

The first Russian utopias ( Dream. Happy Society A.P. Sumarokova, 1759, Journey to the land of Ophir M.M.Shcherbatova, 1783–1784, 3448 Manuscript by Martyn Zadek A.F. Veltman, 1833, 4338 Petersburg letters V.F. Odoevsky, 1840) depict the social ideal realized within the framework of an enlightened monarchy. In Russian literature of the 19th century. Pictures of a “bright future” that have no analogues in the West appear, associated with the people’s dream of a “peasant’s paradise” (in L.N. Tolstoy, N.N. Zlatovratsky). In the 1860–1880s, populist ideology finds artistic expression in the utopian sketches of S.M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, G.I. Uspensky, P.V. Zasodimsky and others. N.G. Chernyshevsky in the “dreams” of Vera Pavlovna from the novel What to do?(1863) gave artistic descriptions of life in a future communist society, characteristic of revolutionary democrats, which can be considered unconvincing, intellectually and aesthetically untenable.

At the beginning of the 20th century. In Russia, interest in science fiction and social forecasts is growing. A number of artistic utopias appear in literature: Half a century later(1902) S.F. Sharapova, Republic of the Southern Cross V.Ya.Bryusova, Red Star(1908) and Engineer Manny(1911) A.A. Bogdanova. In the first of his novels, A.A. Bogdanov depicts the communist way of life on Mars. This turn of the topic is very typical for a representative of the revolutionary intelligentsia of the early 20th century, infected with extreme radicalism and striving for the speediest reconstruction of the universe on a cosmic scale.

The revolution of 1917 gave a new impetus to the development of fantastic and utopian literature, thanks to which Inonia(1918) S.A. Yesenina, My brother Alexey's journey to the land of peasant utopia(1920) A.V.Chayanova, The World to Come Y.M.Okuneva, Road to the ocean(1935) L.M. Leonova and others. The most noticeable utopia of literary emigration of the first wave was the book Behind the Thistle(1922) by P.N. Krasnov, which predicts the gradual transformation of Russia, isolated from the rest of the world, into an exotic popular monarchy.

Further, the development of utopia as a genre in Russian literature is interrupted until 1956, when it was published Andromeda's nebula I.A. Efremova. This break is due to the fact that the functions of artistic utopia were transferred to the official literature of socialist realism, which reproduced the features of a non-existent, speculatively constructed society, depicting it as it is must be.

A peculiar variety and at the same time a mirror reflection of the genre of utopia is dystopia (from the Greek anti - against, utopia - utopia). Dystopia is a parody of utopian works of art or a utopian idea. Like satire, dystopia can be embodied in a variety of genres: novel, poem, play, story.

If the utopians offered humanity a recipe for salvation from all social and moral ills, then the anti-utopians urge the reader to figure out how the common man in the street pays for universal happiness. The dystopian genre flourished in the 20th century, when, in the wake of revolutions, world wars and other historical upheavals, utopian ideas began to come true. The first country of “realized” utopia was Bolshevik Russia, and therefore dystopian impulses are especially characteristic of Russian literature. The first Russian dystopian novel - We(1920, published in 1924 in England) by E. Zamyatin, followed by Leningrad(1920) M. Kozyreva, Chevengur(1926–1929) and Pit(1929–1930) A. Platonov. Zamyatin in his novel described the United State, which had not yet been built and was only outlined in communist projects. In the United State, everyone has a job and an apartment, people should not think about tomorrow, state art is developing, state music flows from loudspeakers, people listen to poems by state poets, children, as if by choice, are healthy and slender (the state denies others the right to life), learn, absorb the basics of state ideology and history. Zamyatin saw the main thing that the United State brings with it: absolute suppression of the individual, all-pervasive surveillance, transparent (for Zamyatin - in the literal sense) walls of houses, universal worship of the Benefactor-sovereign, and, in the end, a fantastic operation to separate the soul and body of each of the citizens-"numbers". The conflict in dystopian works is associated with the hero’s rebellion against the authorities. The eccentricity and “strangeness” of many heroes of dystopias is manifested in their creative impulse, in the desire to master a gift that is not subject to total control. Usually the severity of the conflict depends only on the behavior of the hero, on the degree of his resistance.

The structural core of dystopia is anti-carnival. The world of dystopias is a parody of the free element of folk laughter culture, a parody of a carnival. If the basis of the usual carnival described in literary criticism of the 20th century. M.M. Bakhtin, lies the so-called. ambivalent, dual, denying-affirming laughter, then the essence of a totalitarian pseudo-carnival is absolute fear. But this fear can also be called ambivalent: it is always accompanied by reverence for power and admiration for it. If in an ordinary carnival any social barriers are abolished, the entire social hierarchy collapses, laughter completely equalizes the rights of the “upper” and “lower”, then in a pseudo-carnival the distance between people at different levels of the social ladder is an irrevocable norm. In a carnival everyone laughs at everyone - in a pseudo-carnival everyone is watching everyone, everyone is afraid of each other

The experience of building a new society in the USSR and Germany was mercilessly ridiculed in classic English-language dystopias Brave New World(1932) O. Huxley, Fur farm(1945) and 1984(1949) J. Orwell. These works, along with the rejection of communist - and any other - tyranny, express a general feeling of confusion at the possibilities of a soulless technocratic civilization.

The appearance of classical dystopia was preceded by warning novels, the authors of which sought to show what fruits the disturbing phenomena of our time could bring in the near future: The Coming Race(1871) E. Bulwer-Lytton, Caesar's Column(1890) I. Donelli, Iron heel(1907) J. London.

In the 1930s, a number of dystopian novels and warning novels of a grotesque satirical nature appeared, indicating the fascist threat: Mr Parham's Autocracy(1930) by H. Wells, This is impossible for us(1935) S. Lewis, War with the salamanders(1936)K.Czapeka et al.

In Russian literature of the 1980–1990s, several varieties of the dystopia genre were formed: satirical dystopia ( Nikolai Nikolaevich And Disguise, both – 1980, Y. Aleshkovsky, Rabbits and boas, 1982, F. Iskander, Moscow 2042, 1986, V. Voinovich), detective dystopia ( French Soviet Socialist Republic, 1987, A. Gladilina, Tomorrow in Russia, 1989, E. Topol), dystopia-“catastrophe” ( Laz, 1991, V. Makanina, Pyramid, 1994, L. Leonova) and others.

Vadim Polonsky

Utopia

Utopia
Initially, the expression meant a fantastic, imaginary, non-existent country. The word became popular thanks to the English thinker, Chancellor of England Thomas More (1478-1535), who published (1516) in Latin an essay entitled “On the Best State of the State and the New Island of Utopia.” In it, the writer painted a picture of a society of social harmony and general well-being.
The name of the island is formed from two Greek words - the negation of "not" and the noun "place" - and is translated either as "non-place" or "a place that does not exist anywhere."
A common noun for all kinds of unrealistic, ideological, complacent social projects (ironic).

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: “Locked-Press”. Vadim Serov. 2003.

Synonyms:

See what “Utopia” is in other dictionaries:

- (from the Greek ?? no and place, i.e. a place that does not exist; according to another version, from ?? good and place, i.e. blessed country), an image of an ideal society. structure, devoid of scientific justifications. The term "U." originates from the name. books... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (from the Greek u not, no, and topos place). 1) a fabulous country, described by Thomas Moore, with an ideal way of government, in which people are blissful; an unprecedented, fantastic country. 2) everything unrealistic, dreamy, dreams of happiness. Dictionary… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Utopia- Utopia ♦ Utopie That which does not exist anywhere (literally “in no place”: u topos). So, utopia is an ideal? In a sense, yes, but the ideal is programmed and organized, planned out with manic precision of detail. This… … Sponville's Philosophical Dictionary

Cm … Synonym dictionary

Utopia- UTOPIA is a special way of social foresight, the result of which is the idea or image of a perfect state, designed to serve as a model of social order. As a special genre, Wu exists on the border between literature itself... Encyclopedia of Epistemology and Philosophy of Science

Utopia- (gr. “u” “no” + “topos” “place”: a place that does not exist – zhok oryn) – idealdyk kogam, sol kogamnyn ozі nemese onyn ideas suretteletin philosophy adebi shygarma forms. “Utopiyalyk” is not “utopia” sozderi iske aspaytyn, realdy emes reformalardy... ... Philosophy terminerdin sozdigi

Grammatical definition of utopia: future perfect tense. Maxim Zvonarev It is better that humanity perish than the system, that is the motto of all utopians and fanatics. Pierre Joseph Proudhon The traces of many crimes lead to the future. Stanislav Jerzy Lec V... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

- (from the Greek u no and topos place, i.e. a place that does not exist; according to another version, from eu good and topos place, i.e. a blessed country), an image of an ideal social system, devoid of scientific justification; genre of science fiction; ... ... Modern encyclopedia

- (from the Greek u no and topos place, i.e. a place that does not exist; according to another version, from eu good and topos place, i.e. a blessed country), an image of an ideal social system, devoid of scientific justification; science fiction genre; designation... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Greek: ou negative particle, topos place, i.e. ‘place that does not exist’) a concept to denote descriptions of an imaginary/ideal social order, as well as writings containing corresponding plans for social transformation. Leads... ... History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia

Books

Utopia. This book will be produced in accordance with your order using Print-on-Demand technology. Most of More's literary and political works are of historical interest to us...