“The Right to be Wrong": Science fiction, gaming, and the cybernetic imaginary in Kon-Tiki: A path to the Earth (1985-86)

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

11-2019

Abstract

Our understanding of the 1980s in the Soviet Union is inextricable from the period's status as the last decade of the country's existence—any other approach would require a fancy leap of the imagination. Mikhail Pukhov's science fiction novel Kon-Tiki: A Path to the Earth performs just such a leap in the strict sense of the term. Pukhov's novel combines a futuristic setting of space travel and electronic gaming, with an eye to promoting the enlightenment agenda of the national computer literacy campaign. This imbrication of literary, digital, and social elements does not square with the received historical account of computing, according to which the Soviet failure to mass-produce personal computers was both a marker of and a contributor to the political failure of the system. Serialized in 1985–86, just before the advent of glasnost´ and perestroika, Kon-Tiki's visions also do not closely match the dominant chronology of political ruptures.

Discipline

Modern Literature | Philosophy

Research Areas

Humanities

Publication

Kritika

Volume

20

Issue

4

First Page

755

Last Page

781

ISSN

1531-023X

Identifier

10.1353/kri.2019.0065

Publisher

Slavica Publishers

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1353/kri.2019.0065

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