By Aidan O’Sullivan
Deep in North Eastern Ukraine, in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear fallout, those who venture into the 1,000 square km exclusion zone are called stalkers (pronounced stullker in Russian).
What exactly drives these lone explorers to this now abandoned and contaminated region is unclear, the term however has its origins in a soviet science fiction book predating the catastrophe by nearly 2 decades.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky takes place in a world in the wake of an extraterrestrial visitation. Supernatural zones have been left behind filled with alien artefacts and abnormal anomalies.
Red Schuart is a stalker, one who illegally enters the zone in order to collect and sell on these artefacts.
These zones become a fulcrum point for the societies around them. They become a focus of existential angst, religious like revulsion, and the source of a black economy.
While the zones function as symbols of potential technological progress, they only make the characters question the importance of humanity and the role of progress in actually achieving a better society.
The name of the book itself is derived from a passage late in the novel. Two characters over drinks consider whether or not perhaps the zones, and all their futuristic potential may actually just be alien junk, leftovers from a roadside picnic.
The implication is that, this technology advanced beyond human comprehension is actually meaningless. That the human race, in the grand scheme of the universe, is neither that intelligent nor important.
Unlike traditional Sci Fi narratives centred around aliens which focus on the attempt by humans to communicate with similar if advanced species, Roadside Picnic features the aftermath of a visit, by a species that had no interest in engaging with us whatsoever.
Human ego is one of the first combatants the Strugatskys take aim at but they go on to challenge the idea that technological progress can actually change human nature rather than just be a companion to its lesser impulses.
According to Boris Strugatsky, the co-author of the Soviet science fiction classic Roadside Picnic, alongside his brother Arkady, the book was in no way meant to be anti-establishment.
On the contrary, Boris, in the afterword of the 2012 edition insists that the book if anything conformed to the ideological anti-bourgeois stance of 70s Soviet Union. Nonetheless the book was not permitted to be published for several years.
At one point the protagonist rants,
‘What’s so great about your Europe? The eternal boredom? You work all day, watch TV all night; when that’s done, you’re off to bed with some bitch, breeding delinquents. The strikes, the demonstrations, the never-ending politics….To hell with your Europe.’
However it can be hard to believe for a modern day reader that the book in no way indicates Soviet Russia. The social decay of the town, as the characters get caught in an uncaring system, driving them towards illicit activities in order to provide a higher quality of life for their families can be seen as much as a critique of Communism as it can capitalism
Perhaps, that’s simply the effect of ideology however. In a story of systemic corruption and societal failure one imprints their own labels befitting their own well worn ideological background.
And while Roadside Picnic is endlessly critical of the idea that sudden technological progress can really bring about a better society, it doesn’t reject the idea of wanting one.
If anything, the characters, while sometimes violent and corrupt, can also be incredibly idealistic. They dream that the supernatural quality of the zones’ artefacts can bring happiness even as their lives provide the very evidence of the contrary.