“Diabolic rays” in the novel of M.A. Bulgakov “The Fatal Eggs”: about one modern literary topic in science fiction of the 1920s

Science fiction literature of the 1920s connected with the topic of heat rays is studied. Begun in the novel of Herbert George Wells “The War of the Worlds” (1897) and in the novel of A.F. Ossendowski “Brig “Horror” (1913), in the decade after October Revolution it became more widely distributed. In each work heat rays got its name: “death rays” in the novel of H. Dominik (1921), “violet rays” in the novel of V.P. Kataev “The Island of Erendorf” (1924), “red ray”, or “life ray” in the novel of M.A. Bulgakov “The Fatal Eggs” (1924), heat rays in the novel of
A.N. Tolstoy “The Garin Death Ray” (1926–1927), “orange ray” in the novel of A.F. Paley “Gulfstream” (1927). In all literary works, including pre-revolutionary ones (except for the last one – “Gulfstream”), the heat ray played an extremely negative role in the development of humanity and civilization. The Martians were the first to use weapons to destroy humanity, then the ray fell into the hands of brilliant scientists. The ray, created by brilliant scientists, most often end up in the hands of self-interested and obsessed people, and Russian writers brought a serious doubt to the scientistic aspirations of the human mind. This theme ran parallel to the road of modern research and discoveries in the field of science and technology: in the world laser weapons were being developed as weapons of mass destruction for the future wars of a planetary scale. In the Soviet press, it was “baptized” as the “diabolic rays”, and most important – they tried to implement into the field of social transformations in society, which brought the October Revolution, plans on establishing a socialist system on the entire planet. The central place is given for the novel M.A. Bulgakov’s “The Fatal Eggs”, which absorbed not only the achievements of modern science and technology, not just fantasies of writers – predecessors and contemporaries, but also allusions on the occult motifs in literature and culture: black magic of doctor Faust from the drama-miracle play of J.W. Goethe “Faust”, spells from the “Egyptian Book of the Dead”, old Russian ritual “Troyetsyplyatnitsa”, the egg motif “ad ovo”. Numerous occult details in the story tell about the mechanism of the “red ray”.

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