The scent of a former life: The Czech adaptation of the Strugatskiis’ story The Kid

Arkadii and Boris Strugatskii’s story Malysh (The Kid; 1971) is often analysed as the text in which the authors first turn from adventure sf to social sf, which focuses on problems of alienation and dehumanisation and on questions of private and social identity. The contextual analysis of the novel and its adaptation Nesmluvená setkání (Unexpected Encounters; Czech Republic 1994), directed by Irena Pavlásková, reveals a serious discrepancy between the postcolonial focus of the Czech adaptation and a more elaborate and multilevel philosophical reading of the Strugatskiis’ story. This article develops the role of the Strugatskiis’ texts as part of the post-Soviet phenomenon of nostalgia for the future within neoconservative intellectual circles. In this interpretation, the Strugatskii brothers’ legacy is included in a new politico-technological and ideological context of imperial sf and transhumanism.