A Strange Case of Prof. Efremov, or The Bull's Hour As a Communist Dystopia

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of The Bull’s Hour (Chas byka) by Ivan Efremov, a final novel in a series of his science fiction works about a remote communist future of the Earth. In the description of the terrestrial astronauts’ mission to a planet named Tormans, utopia and dystopia merge: the utopian communist society of the Earth is contrasted with a sinister dystopian reality of Tormans, where terror, violence, and repressions flourish and where the totalitarian mechanism of the State rejects any idea of human life valour. The description of Tormans recalls explicitly the realia of the 20^th century, with particular references not only to the USA, China and the Nazi Germany, but – and, may be, mostly – to the Soviet Union. The Bull’s Hour therefore can be read as a literary act of resistance against the regime and an expression of a hope of possible changes of the Soviet system.