(The author, a famed scientist, was a leader of Soviet sci...)
The author, a famed scientist, was a leader of Soviet science fiction and his book Andromeda launched a decade that has been called the Golden Age of Soviet science fiction, but he also was an inspiration to scores of gifted young authors.
(Ivan Yefremov (1907-1972) was a well-known Soviet scienti...)
Ivan Yefremov (1907-1972) was a well-known Soviet scientist, a professor of paleontology and a talented writer of science fiction. "No writer did as much as Yefremov for science," wrote one reader, "and no scientist did as much as Yefremov for literature." Andromeda is a novel about the future of mankind. It depicts with truly fantastic scope the unparalleled bloom of science and technology and the rise of a new social order, and portrays the Universe in the so-called Era of the Great Circle, when Earth will have constant communication with space. Written in 1956, on the eve of the first attempts at space exploration - when the word "cosmonaut" still belonged exclusively to the domain of science fiction - the novel has long since become widely known throughout the world. It is symbolic that, on the day of the launching of the first Earth satellite, readers congratulated Yefremov on the dawning of the Era of the Great Circle.
(Professor Ivan Yefremov (born 1907) is well known both as...)
Professor Ivan Yefremov (born 1907) is well known both as a tireless fossil hunter and a talented science-fiction writer. His fantasy ranges between the mysteries of times long bygone and the distant future. His novels include The Land of Foam, where the scene is set in ancient Egypt and Greece, and the world-renowned Andromeda, in which his fantasy roams two thousand years ahead. The Heart of the Serpent, given in this volume, was written in 1959. Its subject is related to that of Andromeda. Anatoly Dnieprov (born 1919), the author of Siema, which he wrote in 1958, is a distinguished physicist who works at an institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. His first book appeared in 1946. His favorite subject is cybernetics - its amazing achievements to date and its breathtaking potentialities. Scientific authenticity is a salient feature of his writings. Victor Separin (born 1905), a journalist by profession, is editor of the Soviet popular geographic magazine Around the World. His fiction, which treats of present-day scientific and technical problems, is amazingly realistic. In this volume he is represented by The Trial of Tantalus, a story dealing with prospects of microbiology. Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, authors of The Six Matches, are frequent contributors to Soviet popular science periodicals. Few readers know, however, that the two brothers are not professional writers. Boris Strugatsky (born 1933) is an astronomer and works at the computer laboratory of Pulknovo Observatory. Arkady (born 1925) is a linguist and translator specializing in Japanese. Valentina Zhuravleva (born 1933) is a comparatively recent graduate of the Azerbaijan Medical Institute. She was probably prompted to try her hand at scientific fiction by the almost fantastic possibilities offering in the field of medicine. The bold flights of fancy in her scientific thinking make her stories particularly noteworthy.
(Ivan Yefremov (1908 – 1972) was a Soviet writer and paleo...)
Ivan Yefremov (1908 – 1972) was a Soviet writer and paleontologist. In addition to introducing a new paleontological field taphonomy – the study of fossilization patterns, Yefremov has written a series of novels and short stories, including science fiction, historic fiction, adventure and drama. Yefremov is frequently ridiculed for his enthusiasm and faith in the viability of a communist society, as described in his best known science fiction novel "Andromeda Nebula". What is frequently overlooked is Yefremov's tremendous knowledge of history and profound understanding of psychology. His future society, while highly evolved, is not impervious to mistakes. His future humanity, having learned and discovered much, is not pausing to rest on its laurels - it continues to learn and explore. It is not widely known that his more mature works such as "Hour of the Bull" and "Razor Blade", had the writer blacklisted by the Soviet government, as Yefremov's interpretation of a fair and balanced society deviated sharply from the government propaganda of the time. To Yefremov's fans he is known for his thorough scientific analysis, study of art and history, emphasis on physical and intellectual balance and strong female characters.
(The beautiful hetaera Thais was a real woman who inspired...)
The beautiful hetaera Thais was a real woman who inspired poets, artists and sculptors in Athens, Memphis, Alexandria, Babylon and Ecbatana. She traveled with Alexander the Great's army during his Persian campaign and was the only woman to enter the capitol of Persia - Persepolis. Love, beauty, philosophy, war, religion - all that and more in a historic masterpiece by Ivan Yefremov.
Ivan Antonovich (real patronymic Antipovich) Yefremov was a Soviet science fiction writer, palaeontologist, creator of taphonomy, philosopher and social thinker, who in his works showed both the past and the possible communist future of mankind.
Background
Ivan Antonovich Yefremov was born on April 22, 1908, in Vyritsa, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation (then Saint Petersburg Governorate, Russian Empire). His father, Antip Haritonovich (then Anton Haritonovich) was a tenant of the Vyritsa sawmill. However, during the Russian Revolution, Yefremov's parents divorced. His mother married a Red Army commander and left the children in Kherson to be cared for by an aunt who soon died of typhus.
Yefremov's abilities to write and study shew up early enough: at the age of four he was able to read and at the age of six he became acquainted with the works of Jules Verne and fell in love with books about explorers, navigators and scientists. During his childhood, Yefremov also "added" a year to his age to start working earlier.
Education
In 1914, Yefremov entered the gymnasium in the city of Berdyansk. After graduating from it, he joined a Red Army and in 1921, he was discharged and went to Petrograd (today's Saint Petersburg) to study. He completed his education there while combining his studies with a variety of odd jobs.
In 1924, he became interested in palaeontology and entered the Leningrad State University (now Saint Petersburg State University). He dropped out later and took part in several paleontological expeditions to the Volga region, the Urals, and Central Asia.
In 1935, he took exit examinations and graduated from the Leningrad Mining Institute (now Saint Petersburg Mining Institute). The same year he got his Candidate of Science degree in biological sciences. In 1941, he got his doctorate degree in biological sciences.
Yefremov joined a Red Army unit as a "son of the regiment" and then went to Perekop. In 1921, he was discharged from the army and started his education.
In the mid-1930s, he took part in several palaeontological expeditions to the Volga region, the Urals, and Central Asia.
Since 1940, Yefremov worked primarily as a writer. He wrote his first work of fiction, a short story, in 1944 and his first novel The Land of Foam was published in 1946. However, during that time, he also developed a new scientific field called taphonomy, making a number of researches in this field. His book Taphonomy was published in 1950. He applied many taphonomic principles in his field work during a paleontological expedition to the Gobi desert in Mongolia. His most widely recognized science fiction novel Andromeda Nebula came out in 1957.
During his career, Yefremov also held the position of a professor of palaeontology at the Palaeontological Institute in Moscow.
Achievements
Ivan Yefremov is best known as the originator of the concept of taphonomy, the study of fossilization patterns. He has written more than 100 scientific works, especially about Permian tetrapods found in Russia, and on taphonomy.
A minor planet 2269 Efremiana discovered in 1976 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh is named after him.
The library in Vyritsa village is named after him, as well as the street of Yefremov.
The Integral club of science fiction, heuristics and prognostics Ivan Yefremov was named after him. It was created in 1974 and works today. It is the oldest club in Eastern Europe.
Since 2009, the literary conference "Yefremov Readings" is held annually in the village Vyritsa.
The Yefremov's literary prize is named after him for his contribution to the development and propagation of fiction.
The mineral Yefremovite is named after him due to Ivan Antonovich's attitude to the minerals, as well as for his professional achievements as a geologist.
In 2016 Krasnodonskaya street in Berdyansk was renamed into the street of Ivan Yefremov.
On April 25, 2017, in Moscow at the house where from 1935 to 1962 lived Ivan Yefremov, the memorial plaque was opened.
Yefremov's world outlook is remarkable for its integrity. The main sources and components of the Yefremov's worldview: socialist thought - the dialectic of Marxism, N. Chernyshevsky, A. Bogdanov, G. Wells; romantic and adventure literature - G. Haggard, A. Green; Russian poetry of the Silver Age - Nikolai Gumilev, Maximilian Voloshin; "Nomogenesis" of the outstanding biologist Lev Semenovich Berg; humanistic psychology of K. Rogers and E. Fromm; Indian philosophy; the ideas of Russian cosmism - K. Tsiolkovsky, V. Vernadsky and the Living Ethics of the Roerichs.
Yefremov spoke out against pessimistic views on the nature of man, according to which man is imperfect and guided by low instincts; with such a position, any social order, such as capitalism or socialism, can become unbearable for life. For him faith in the perspective of the anthropological revolution is important and the evolutionary possibilities of man are unlimited. Accordingly, the task of communist education for him is to disclose the moral qualities inherent in man.
Quotations:
The world is torn apart with a great number of big and small contradictions, the solution of which is beyond the power of a person who is not socially educated ... If humanity does not understand this and does not become irreversible on the way to creating a higher communist society, it will not be able to decently re-educate itself - then it will be plunged into abysses hunger and extermination the world has not heard yet... For me, the question is: either there will be a planetary communist society, or there will be no one, but there will be sand and dust on a dead planet.
Membership
Yefremov was a member of the All-Union Paleontological Society, Moscow Society of Naturalists, the USSR Union of Writers, American Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Geographical Society and Linnean Society of London.
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
During the World War II, Yefremov was evacuated to Alma-Ata (then Kazakh SSR), thence to Frunze (then Kirghiz SSR). There he suffered a severe form of typhoid fever, having received a serious heart disease. The illness confined Yefremov to bed for a long time.
Connections
During his life, Yefremov was married three times. His first marriage in the early 1930s, to Ksenia Svitalskaya, was short-lived and ended in divorce. In 1936, he married palaeontologist Elena Dometevna Konzhukova, with whom they had a son, Allan Ivanovich Yefremov. After his wife died on 1 August 1961, he married Taisiya Iosifovna Yukhnevskaya in 1962 and lived with her till his death in 1972.
