Rejecting Cure: The Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky’s Stalker as Disability Narratives

Abstract

Cure narratives are a major trope of Western science fiction. Such stories prominently feature a speculative cure for physical and developmental disabilities (Allan 2013). I analyze two Soviet classics – the science fiction novel Roadside Picnic (1972) by the Strugatsky brothers, and the film Stalker (1979), loosely based on the novel and directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Using disability studies approaches combined with close readings, I argue that Roadside Picnic presents both a cure and an anti-cure narrative: a child’s disability is a motivator for a parent’s quest for her wellness, but this motivator is ultimately abandoned in favor of a utopian approach to human yearning which emphasizes happiness for all. Tarkovsky’s Stalker entirely rejects the idea of a cure for the same child, alongside its rejection of materialistic motivations. Analyzing these Soviet classics highlights how Western cure narratives are intimately tied to the history of able-bodiedness as a capitalist value. Rejecting cure not just as a trope, but as a legitimate desire of a parental figure for their child, these Soviet speculative classics refuse to embed disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill people in systems that dehumanize them, and envision alternate possibilities – which are often in contrast with the lived experiences of disability in the Soviet Union.

Keywords: science fiction, Strugatsky brothers, Roadside Picnic, Tarkovsky, Stalker, Cure narratives, Neurodiversity, Soviet Union

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