Dystopia is a genre that describes a world or state order, which, in contrast to utopia (an ideal, happy world), develops according to a scenario that is negative for ordinary people. It is difficult to call some books the best, but there really are not so many special ones.
What is dystopia in literature
The term "dystopia" appeared in literature at the beginning of the 16th century, along with the concept of "utopia", which was introduced by the Englishman Thomas More, who called his book about an impeccable state on an ideal island. Soon, all books about a wonderful future began to be called utopias, in contrast to which anti-utopias appeared, which today are also called dystopias, this is one and the same thing.
Usually, a dystopia describes a society in which everything looks quite harmonious on the surface, but behind this glossy cover there is a terrible world of suffering and deprivation created by a ruling government that is aggressive towards the person, and the main character opposes himself to the regime.
Dystopian events take place either in the near future or in an alternate world. Therefore, such fiction is often referred to as the genre of social fiction. It reflects humanity's fears of the future, tyranny or destructive ideas. And quite often it happened that classic dystopias turned out to be prophetic. Even some modern problems were predicted in the earliest dystopias of the 18th century.
Classics of the genre
As a genre, dystopia was finally formed in the middle of the 17th century in England - the first novel of this genre is considered to be Leviathan, a book by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who likened the state to a biblical monster and described the emergence of a state where people voluntarily renounce natural rights and freedoms, empowering government. After publication in 1651, Hobbes's work was banned, and each copy was to be burned.
Fortunately, the work of Hobbes has survived to this day, although the translation into Russian already in 1868 ended with another ban on the work and the prosecution of the publisher.
Another "ancestor" of the genre is Voltaire, who published his story "Candide" in 1759. This book awaited no less trials than "Leviathan" - instantly becoming a bestseller in many European countries, the work of Voltaire was consistently banned in them for many years. Disguised as an ironic novel, cynical social satire served as a role model for Pushkin and Dostoevsky.
Dystopias of Russian-speaking authors
1. "It's Hard to Be God" is a science fiction novel written by the Strugatsky brothers in 1963. The events of the book take place in our cosmic future. Earthlings found an inhabited planet Arkanar, the development of which corresponds to the late Middle Ages, and the inhabitants are practically indistinguishable from humans. Agents of the Institute of Experimental History are introduced into all spheres of life on an alien planet, and with their level of technology they could arrange large-scale wars and monstrous catastrophes, but this is prohibited, besides, the morality of an earthling of the 22nd century does not allow the killing of a rational creature.
The main character of the book is Anton, traveling through the Arkanar kingdom disguised as an aristocrat. Love and incredible adventures await him. He is trying to turn the history of this planet, almost bloodless by local strife, on the right path, but his possibilities are extremely limited. Observing society, Anton realizes that any coup will leave everything in its place - the most arrogant will be at the top, destroying the current masters, and will also oppress the common people.
2. "Moscow 2042" is a socio-political satire written by Vladimir Voinovich in 1986. Shortly before his death, the writer admitted that he ridiculed the tendencies of society, wrote about the future, which, he hoped, would never come. And with horror he realizes that he turned out to be a prophet in many ways, but he could not foresee all the "stupidity and vulgarity that have become today signs of the times, the publication of stupid laws." Everything that democracy has turned for Russia, Voinovich believes, surpasses any satire in its monstrous absurdity.
Voinovich's protagonist is the Soviet dissident Kartsev, who was deprived of his party card and exiled to Germany. There he found a travel agency capable of sending a client back or forward in time, and traveled to the Moscow of the future to find out what had become of the Soviet Union. He discovers that communism has been built by 2042 - but within the only city, Moscow.
The rest of the state is divided into "rings of communism" (with different social status of the inhabitants of the "rings"), ensuring the prosperity of the Moscow Communist Republic (Moskorepa), which is fenced off from the whole world by a six-meter fence bristling with automatic weapons. The world is spelled out in detail and distinctly, filled with cynical and cruel nonsense, many of which, unfortunately, have been embodied in modern Russia.
3. "We" is a fantastic dystopia written in 1920 by the Russian prose writer Yevgeny Zamyatin. Few people know that the famous dystopian novels "1984" by J. Orwell and "Brave New World" by Huxley are practically just variations of Zamyatin's work.
“We” is a description of a state, created in the form of a personal diary of the protagonist, in which strict totalitarian control over people is exercised. Everything is regulated here, including intimate life. There are no personalities, as well as names - all citizens are called numbers, in fact, assigning numbers to them. People are deprived of the right to decide something on their own or to differ from each other; they live in houses with glass walls. The United State is governed by the Benefactor, and everything is subordinated to one goal - the glorification of his exploits and merits in achieving personal happiness of citizens.
4. “We Live Here” is a dystopian dilogy of well-known Kharkiv residents Ladyzhensky and Gromov, writing under the common pseudonym Oldie, created in co-authorship with Andrey Valentinov (pseudonym Shmalko A. V.) in 1998.
The idea of the book is that the Apocalypse took place, but people did not notice it, continuing to live with their everyday problems, not noticing strange changes. Here you need to light the gas, after praying to the icon of a certain saint and offering a piece of bun to the domo, there are peculiar centaurs, half-people, half-motorcycles, here officials elevate themselves to the rank of saints, and the mafioso even decided to become a god. And he has everything to make the idea a success. And almost no one remembers how it was "before." Until that very large man-made disaster at NIIPri, which plunged some zones on the planet into the hell of obscurantism.
The action takes place ten years after the disaster. Agents of a large and powerful world organization are working illegally in the city, trying to find the so-called Legate - a person who is capable of creating worlds in essence. The leader of crime Panchenko believes that it is about him and is trying to reincarnate into a god in order to dictate his terms to the whole world. But he is mistaken, the real Legate is Oleg Zalessky, who for the time being is not even aware of his gift. And he is not at all alien to the sense of justice …
Of course, these are far from all the dystopias that appeared in the great Russian literature. You can remember for a long time no less interesting and diverse books - "Laz" by Makanin (1991), "Refugee" by Kabakov (1989), "Disguise" by Aleshkovsky (1980). And even "Dunno on the Moon" by Nosov is a distinct dystopia that meets all the canons of the genre.
Foreign dystopias
1. "The Maze Runner" is a series of books in the genre of youth dystopia, written by American James Deshner in 2009-2012. Young people, deprived of their memory, find themselves in a labyrinth, in a safe part of it, which closes at night. During the day, they try to scout all the roads and make a map of the labyrinth in order to get out of it one day.
None of them understand why or how they ended up here in the Glade. The new ones are delivered by a box, a kind of elevator, the shaft of which is closed the rest of the time. The guys have shared responsibilities, survive and are engaged in a simple household. Everything changes when a girl first gets to them, and this becomes an incentive for solving the riddle of the labyrinth. But getting out, the prisoners of the stone walls discover a world that is not at all the one they expected to see …
2. "Atlas Shrugged" - a unique book by American Ayn Rand, published in 1057. The idea of the book is that the world is supported by strong and talented loners, capable of free creativity and unusual solutions. It is they, like the Atlantes, who do not allow the "sky to fall" on humanity - that is, slide into degradation and perish in the end.
But in society, dissatisfaction with this state of affairs is gradually arising, everyone imagines himself to be a creator, and politicians, responding to the aspirations of the masses, begin to put forward demands similar to socialist ones. The country is gradually plunging into chaos. The main characters, the inventor Rearden and Taggart, the owner of the railway company, notice that the "creators" disappear without a trace and silently, and try to figure out what is really going on.
The list of the top 10 best foreign dystopias is certainly worth including other books: the philosophical novel Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury (1953), The Running Man by Stephen King (1982), the terrifying Night of the Swastika by an Englishwoman Catherine Burdekin (1937) and many others. The rating of films based on dystopias is usually quite high. By the way, there are also independent films-dystopias, for example, the brilliant 2006 Idiocracy.
You can download books in electronic libraries, and a detailed description of each is in Wikipedia. The list of works of this genre is practically inexhaustible, and each of these books can serve as a warning and a lesson for us, the readers.
