If you look at what was written in the twentieth century about the ways and images of the future, the picture turns out to be rather hopeless. Continuous nightmares. From the comparatively soft ones - "Brave New World" by Huxley, "Return from the Stars" by Lem, to the very harsh ones - "Kallokain" by Karin Boye, "We" by Zamyatin, "Animal Farm" and "1984" by Orwell. The only exception is that of Ivan Efremov with his "Andromeda Nebula". But let's not forget that Efremov wrote this book in a society not too different from that described by Orwell in his novel 1984. Turn around here. But only a few years passed, and even Efremov made a turn, as they say, one hundred and eighty degrees. He created the "Hour of the Bull" - no longer visions of "milk rivers and jelly banks", but the same gloomy forecast.
On both sides of rose-colored glasses
But earlier, in the past centuries, the future, as a rule, was depicted in a pink light. Not that the authors themselves believed in this rose molasses, but rather opposed the reality that did not suit them. And their imaginary social ideals usually were not located in time, but in space, if only somewhere far away. For Thomas More, who can be called the ancestor of the genre with certain reservations, it was “an island that does not exist” - Utopia (1516). Tommaso Campanella has the island of Taprobana (published 1623). Francis Bacon in 1626 placed his earthly paradise on the "island of Bensalem in the unexplored part of the ocean", the French Gabriel de Fuani and Denny Veras (1676-1677) - on a certain "southern continent". You can add a dozen more names and locations. All authors have one thing in common: they did not climb into the future. Nobody, except one - thatwho will be discussed. In 1770, he did the same thing that Orwell did more than a century and a half later. He showed the world a book about the future. And he titled it, as Orwell much later, the year of action - 2440. Comparisons with Orwell are far from arbitrary, we will return to them, but for now, in an old-fashioned leisurely style, present our hero to the reader. This is the French writer Louis-Sébastien Mercier.
Year of validity - 2440
The names of Campanella or Thomas More will not puzzle anyone, after all, they were passed in school. Mercier is now much less known, and in his time the name thundered, and how. True, this thunder did not please everyone, and that's why it was thunder.
Louis-Sebastien was born in Paris in 1740, in the family of a wealthy gunsmith, so the classic beginning of the writer's biography - “I tried many professions, in the sweat of my brow” and so on - does not suit him. There was more than enough money in the family, no one bothered the young man to choose his path, and nothing interfered. He graduated from the College of the Four Nations, one of the best in France, studied ancient languages, taught, and then devoted himself entirely to writing. But his relationship with the powerful of this world did not work out, and until the end of his days it did not work out. Louis-Sebastien's freedom-loving writings attracted the unwanted attention of the French authorities, and he had to move to Switzerland. Here Mercier did not stop writing, and at the beginning of 1786 he returned to Paris. From the first days of the revolution, he joined the Jacobins, but did not find a common language with them. Under the Jacobin dictatorship, he was sent to prison. After the fall of the Jacobins, they were released, and Mercier became a member of the Thermidorian "Council of Five Hundred", but gradually cooled to politics. When Napoleon came to power, Mercier, who had previously admired him, quickly became disillusioned with him, which is why he almost ended up in prison again. And the reading public, along with fellow writers, began to turn away from him. How many contemptuous epithets were awarded! "A scribbled scribbler", "an open-air Rousseau", "a trained monkey in Didrot's booth" … And Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the uncle of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and his first literary mentor, directly wrote to Karamzin from Paris in 1803: "Mercier is nothing but a madman. ".but he gradually cooled to politics. When Napoleon came to power, Mercier, who had previously admired him, quickly became disillusioned with him, which is why he almost ended up in prison again. And the reading public, along with fellow writers, began to turn away from him. How many contemptuous epithets were awarded! "A scribbled scribbler", "an open-air Rousseau", "a trained monkey in Didrot's booth" … And Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the uncle of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and his first literary mentor, directly wrote to Karamzin from Paris in 1803: "Mercier is nothing but a madman. ".but he gradually cooled to politics. When Napoleon came to power, Mercier, who had previously admired him, quickly became disillusioned with him, which is why he almost ended up in prison again. And the reading public, along with fellow writers, began to turn away from him. How many contemptuous epithets were awarded! "A scribbled scribbler", "an open-air Rousseau", "a trained monkey in Didrot's booth" … And Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the uncle of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and his first literary mentor, directly wrote to Karamzin from Paris in 1803: "Mercier is nothing but a madman. ". How many contemptuous epithets were awarded! "A scribbled scribbler", "an open-air Rousseau", "a trained monkey in Didrot's booth" … And Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the uncle of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and his first literary mentor, directly wrote to Karamzin from Paris in 1803: "Mercier is nothing but a madman. ". How many contemptuous epithets were awarded! "A scribbled scribbler", "an open-air Rousseau", "a trained monkey in Didrot's booth" … And Vasily Lvovich Pushkin, the uncle of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and his first literary mentor, directly wrote to Karamzin from Paris in 1803: "Mercier is nothing but a madman. ".
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Material well-being has evaporated. Died closest friend and like-minded writer Retif de la Bretonne. The new generation treated Mercier with some curiosity, but no respect. The forces were leaving. The only thing that, according to the writer himself, kept him in this world, was the hope of seeing the end of Napoleonic tyranny. And saw. On April 6, 1814, the defeated emperor abdicated, and on April 25, Louis-Sebastien Mercier passed away.
Mercier has outlived his fame. It sometimes seemed to his younger contemporaries that there was no glory either, so the old man's fantasy. And she was, wide, European fame. And connected primarily with the fantastic novel "Year 2440. A dream that may not have been."
The recipe for universal happiness
It is customary to refer to any literary works that tell about a bright future as utopias with the light hand of Thomas More. Dystopias, accordingly, works about the future are not so bright. These definitions are imprecise and approximate, but we will use them, others are even worse. And let's start not with Mora, not with Mercier and not even with Orwell, as the one closer to us in time, but with Campanella. Why from him? Because his example is indicative, he completely generalizes the picture. Utopia, earthly paradise and all that. And what, in fact, was meant by this?
In 1598, the Italian Dominican monk Tommaso Campanella was captured in Naples and imprisoned. We will not specify who and for what, it is not important for us. In prison, he created the epoch-making work "City of the Sun", in which he described a society of universal justice, happiness and prosperity. So where did Campanella invite people and what, in his opinion, should an ideal society, a kingdom of sciences and arts look like? Quite peculiar.
"Solaria" (citizens of a happy city) live under the totalitarian rule of a dictator with the significant pseudonym Zero. The mischief-makers face the death penalty, and the executioner does not execute the condemned (where are the executioners from in paradise?), But together happy citizens are stoned. Marriage as such does not exist, women and men are selected for each other by a special commission, on the basis of eugenics (here you can see that this idea of the great humanist was actively implemented by Heinrich Himmler in his "racial reserves"). Infertile women are given away for general use. Human sacrifice is practiced (apparently voluntary, but argue with Zero and his omniscient and omnipotent secret police!) Well, reader? Have you lost your desire to apply for a visa to Campanella's Eden? And they didn’t forget that this is not another futuristic horror movie,and the recipe for universal happiness?
Sergey Korin