I am not on purpose

Under the curtain of the meeting, Stalin, talking with Truman, in his laconic manner, suggested discussing all the problems associated with the moon section between the victorious powers ... American historian and political scientist Robert Milin, who was at that time as a translator Truman, ... so described ... This is a highly strange conversation. At first, Truman seemed to rustled or the words “Uncle Joe” were incorrectly translated to him. "Sorry, Mr. Stalin, do you mean, of course, the German section?" He asked. Stalin dragged on his famous tube and repeated very clearly: “The Moon. After all, we have already agreed on Germany. I mean the moon. "

The above is a quote from the book of philologist Rustam Katz “The History of Soviet Fantasy”. Similar manuscripts, relishing knowingly absurd hypotheses and publishing “declassified” historical documents, is full of bookstore shelves and even more on the Internet. The lion's share of such masterpieces is known exclusively by fans of alternative history and lovers of conspiracy versions of reality. The book of Katz is no exception: the interpretation of the Soviet past is seriously presented in it at several forums, and even mentioned in the so-called “popular science” films REN-TV and DTV, which are famous for the phenomenal concentration of delirium for a minute of screen time.

The story of the Moon’s section Stalin stood out against the background of dozens of other stories that “everything was wrong, and for years they hid the truth for years”, last year, when the author unexpectedly discovered at the mystification. Philologist Katz with his research was invented by the science fiction writer Roman Arbitman, who published in 1993 the history of Soviet science fiction. The small circulation of the book was a thousand copies, and another thousand came out 11 years later. The work of Ar-Bitman, as the author himself admits, became “widely known in narrow circles” and even awarded several highly specialized awards, but the mass audience about the “History of Soviet Fantasy” did not learn anything.

And suddenly, after more than 10 years after the first publication, the author discovered that some of those familiar with the book still accepted his joke seriously and cited excerpts from the “history”, citing it as irrefutable proof. This fact was so struck by the arbitman-katsu that he wrote in the newspaper Moscow News as many as two rather long columns with a difference of a year. The writer’s claims to ordinary readers and journalists were quite typical: the author complained that none of Stalin who had believed in the lunar ambitions did not work out to call him, but at least find a review of the book or look through the afterword, in which the arbitraman directly denotes the genre of his work.

All these considerations are certainly fair. But, on the other hand, the book was originally written in such a way as to mislead the reader. Yes, in the “History of Soviet Fantasy” real and fictional characters are shuffled and confused, it is full of small and large historical mistakes, but in form it is strictly sustained in the genre of fundamental research - an extensive list of cited literature is even attached to the text. Moreover, the first edition was published in the Saratov University publishing house, and such a solid “support” probably additionally embarrassed the minds of gullible readers.

It was deliberately done or not, but the book turned out to be a kind of bait - and when flies, i.e. Fans of “cranberries”, and not bothering, at one time reading textbooks, journalists fell into her, the author began to warmly assure that he did not want to be “the progenitor of the next idiotic myth”. It seems that there is no reason to suspect a “philologist” of insincerity. But to believe in the ingenuous naive of Katsu, who did not understand that someone will certainly swallow such a delicious bait (especially given the general level of education in the country). And his post-fact-firmation on this occasion look, rather, belated excuses. ♦