Introduction
Disability and neurodivergence in speculative narratives are often explored through the trope of the cure, a technological or magical approach which ultimately seeks to “resolve” the experiences of disabled people by eradicating their disabilities and thus, all too often, erasing their lived experiences. In her introduction to Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure, editor Kathryn Allan writes, “the characterization of the disabled body as requiring cure...has become part of our larger cultural construction of disability. There is a great deal of pressure to rehabilitate, or to “make normal,” the disabled person or otherwise risk condemnation from both the medical and social communities” (Allan 2013: 9). The presence of a prominent disabled character in a narrative often prompts the expected storyline of cure—limiting the agency and thus personhood allowed to disabled people within such narratives. Scholars and activists have argued that cure is a violent and essentially eugenicist idea; “at the center of cure lies eradication,” writes Eli Clare in Brilliant Imperfection (26).
While cure narratives usually limit the agency of disabled characters, agency is afforded to others – often the able-bodied parents of a disabled child, whose desire to make their offspring “normal” may takes central stage in speculative cure narratives. This mimics the concerns of many able-bodied parents of disabled children: Alison Piepmeier (2012), investigating the genre of memoirs of parents of disabled children, discovered that many such memoirs emphasize parental grief as a reaction to diagnosis, and use a limiting, medicalized model of disability, thus representing “the child not as a person but as a problem with which the parents have had to grapple.” (DSQ)
The construction of the idealized, able-bodied and neurotypical norm of a person worthy of life and prominence in storytelling connects to the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism in the West – these ideas rise to prominence from the 19th century onward (Davis; Oliver). Able-bodied people are viewed as “capable of the normal physical exertions required in a particular system of labor” (McRuer 399). Speculative narratives are influenced by these societal constructs—able-bodiedness as useful and usable within the capitalist system of labor, and disability as something to be eradicated, already in childhood. Robert McRuer argues that able-bodiedness is compulsory in the industrial capitalist system. Being able-bodied gives one freedom to sell one’s labor, though it does not afford many other freedoms (McRuer 399).
Contrasting with the Western concepts of disability within capitalist systems of labor, Soviet legislature, culture, and literature present different models of both disability and able-bodiedness. Michael Rasell and Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova (7) call for a careful dialogue between Western and non-Western conceptualizations of disability. While many Western disability studies scholars tie the modern conceptualizations of disability to the rise of capitalism (Oliver and Barnes; Oliver), disabled people’s experiences in the countries of the Soviet bloc “suggest that non-capitalist forms of economic organisation can also be harsh and repressive towards bodily and mental difference” (Rasell and Iarskaia-Smirnova 7; Phillips).
Conceptualizations of disability involve ideas that disabled people constitute a specific category, as well as societal imagination of what disabled lives might be like – and even legal rights and protections afforded to disabled people by their societies. These conceptualizations are often distinct from the complex and nuanced realities of disabled lives – both in capitalist and non-capitalist societies. Under the Soviet regime, disabled people struggled with rights, access, and accommodations; disabled lives and experiences had often been rendered invisible. According to one Soviet bureaucrat, “there are no invalids in the Soviet Union” (Phillips). This conceptualization of disabled lives as nonexistent differs from the complex lived reality. While disabled people’s experiences and voices have often been silenced under the Soviet regime, literature and cinema emerged as healing agents for experiences of disability, mental illness, and trauma, especially in the post-WWII period (Krylova).
In this essay, I analyze two Soviet speculative classics which represent physical and mental differences and showcase complexities of cure and societal acceptance. The first work is the novel Roadside Picnic (1972) by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, widely recognized as the most prominent science fiction authors of the Soviet period (Khagi; Tammaro). Darko Suvin (162) argues that their work “has been at the heart of Soviet [science fiction].” During their thirty-year career (1958-1988), the Strugatsky brothers authored and published 27 novels in Russian. Marat Grinberg notes that the Strugatsky brothers' books were a feature of Soviet bookshelves. He writes (174), “Their books achieved a cult status for Soviet intelligentsia.” Their work was widely translated and discussed in the Communist bloc and beyond. Roadside Picnic is one of their most famous and influential works. It inspired numerous adaptations, translations, plays, television series, and video games. Roadside Picnic won second place in the John W. Campbell Award for the best science fiction novel, a prize primarily awarded for books originally written in English in the United States. Roadside Picnic also won the Swedish Jules Verne Prize (1978) and other international awards. Roadside Picnic’s main character is a father who hesitantly undertakes a dangerous quest for by a miracle cure for his disabled daughter, but this quest is ultimately abandoned in favor of a utopian approach to human yearning which emphasizes happiness for all.
The second work I analyze is Andrei Tarkovsky’s acclaimed film Stalker (1979), which is loosely based on the novel. Andrei Tarkovsky became renowned not just in the Soviet Union, but worldwide, and is often considered one of the most prominent directors in the history of world cinema (Johnson and Petrie; Skakov). Tarkovsky is known for cinematic narratives which explore the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of human life, with dreamlike imagery and slower pacing (Bird; Martin). In Stalker, the main character of Roadside Picnic is reconceptualized by Tarkovsky. Instead of the novel’s tough-guy Redrick, who conceals his philosophical inclinations behind a rough exterior, the titular Stalker of the film is a sensitive, dreamy, and at times mysterious person whose ethics form the backbone of the film. In this article, I suggest reading the Stalker as a neurodivergent character. The Stalker’s mobility-disabled daughter appears to be nonspeaking; the film’s narration centers themes of disability and neurocognitive difference.
Using disability studies approaches that combine cultural, historical, anthropological and literary analysis (Davis; Clare; Allen; Rasell and Iarskaia-Smirnova), as well as 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 rejected. Tarkovsky’s Stalker entirely rejects the idea of a cure for the same child (as well as for her neurodivergent father, the Stalker), alongside the film’s rejection of materialistic motivations and emphasis on the spiritual dimensions of human existence. Analyzing these Soviet classics highlights how Western cure narratives are intimately tied to the history of able-bodiedness as a capitalist value; yet the elevation of able-bodiedness is not unique to capitalist systems. While Soviet authorities and Soviet society often erased disabled people from public life, these two speculative works present complex counteracting narratives. Rejecting cure not just as a trope, but as a legitimate desire of a parental figure for their child, these Soviet classics refuse to embed disabled, neurodivergent, and mentally ill people in systems that dehumanize them, posing moral and philosophical questions about disability, mental illness, and societal compliance—which are in contrast with the official disability policies in the Soviet Union.
Imperial Russian and Soviet-Era Views of Disability
Predating the Soviet regime, folk cultural attitudes towards disabled people in the Russian Empire varied widely. The ambivalent attitudes towards disability included beliefs that disabilities are signs of divine punishment for transgression, maternal sins (Frolova; Belousova), or results of a curse, witchcraft, or the effects of the evil eye. On the other hand, contrasting beliefs also existed that disabilities signaled a special status—a disabled person could have a closer connection to the other world, and possess the gift of prophecy or healing (Dobrovolskaia).
Julie V. Brown argues that “[f]rom an early date, Russian culture fostered a perceptibly benign attitude towards unfortunates of all types and especially toward the insane” (14). A special niche was occupied by so-called God’s fools, holy fools, or iurodivye,1 who were often respected, treated with reverence, and believed to possess prophetic, divinatory, or healing powers (Philips). Holy fools could speak truth to power and criticize rulers; according to Perrie, historical holy fools were “sane individuals who chose to act as if they were insane, so that their behaviour and appearance provided a challenge to the worldly values and norms of society.” (Perrie 332). Other scholars view Russia’s historical iurodivye as mentally ill and/or intellectually disabled people (Brown 15-17). Historically, a shift in the conceptualization of the figure of the holy fool occurred during the 18th century, when Petrine reforms targeted holy foolery as a religious phenomenon. With growing Westernization and introduction of Western-style treatment for mental illness, “[h]oly foolery became a symptom of something else – madness, illness, social disorder” (Wilson 9). While historical shifts and interpretations of the phenomenon of iurodstvo (“holy foolery”) are important to trace, iurodstvo as a phenomenon could encompass a variety of personal situations and conditions, as it provided a cultural, as well as literary framework for people who did not fit into the traditional,2 ableist behavioral norms. While a neurodiversity framework (Rosqvist et al.) has not yet been applied to iurodstvo to my knowledge, many iurodivye in history and literature could be analyzed through that lens. Challis and Dewey in their 1977 essay drew an explicit connection between autistic features and the behaviors ascribed to Russia’s “blessed fools”; the link between iurodstvo and neurodivergence deserves to be explored further.
In pre-Soviet agrarian Russian and Ukrainian cultures, mentally, intellectually, and physically disabled people were not isolated, and were often integrated into the traditional village life (Philips). Responsibility for disabled people’s well-being primarily resided with the local community, family, and the Orthodox Church (Brown 14). Scholars based in Eastern Europe draw our attention to the fact that traditional attitudes towards disabled people varied widely—from acceptance and incorporation to blame, abuse, and neglect (Dobrovolskaia). Nosenko-Stein notes that the traditional agrarian Russian society viewed disability negatively—especially if a disabled person could not participate in agricultural labor; such a person would be considered a burden (37). However, a disabled person could be integrated if they could work alongside able-bodied people, for example making fishing nets or sewing (Philips); hard of hearing and/or developmentally disabled people could work as animal herders, blind people could weave baskets (Nosenko-Stein, 37). In folk belief, disability (especially congenital disability) was often viewed as an effect of an evil eye (Nurova); to ward off the effects of the evil eye and porcha or “spoiling” of the unborn child, pregnant women were subjected to many pregnancy primety, a word translated as omens, signs, or prohibitions, which restricted behaviors during pregnancy (Olson and Adonyeva; Perelmutter). One of the common pregnancy primety involved a prohibition against looking at scary and ugly things and people; this included disabled people (Schepanskaia and Shangina). Disabilities and illnesses were often not mentioned directly, but only in paraphrases or hints. These customs and beliefs are still observed in Eastern Europe present day (cf. discussions in Olson and Adonyeva; Perelmutter).
Disabled and mentally ill characters often played a major role in traditional folk narratives. Some enduring examples from Russian folk literature include Ilya Muromets, the hero of many oral epic poems about the medieval Kievan Rus. Ilya was bedridden for the first thirty-three years of his life, before he was cured by a miracle drink of water from three wandering holy men. In fairytales, physical disabilities often marked villains (Iarskaia-Smirnova and Romanov 68; Dobrovolskaia). Disability could be inflicted upon heroes through villainous actions; disabled heroes are often able to undo their disabilities (such as blindness, loss of limbs) and help other disabled people cure and/or undo their disabilities, through magical means. (Dobrovolskaia). These magical cures highlight the importance of the cure as a storytelling trope already in pre-industrial Eastern Europe.
When Catherine the Great established asylums for mentally ill people which were modeled after their Western counterparts, these institutions were regarded negatively: “most of the population, however, equated the institutions with prisons and continued to deal with the insane in accordance with time-honored traditions. Mild-mannered unfortunates were supported and cared for by their families, while raving lunatics were restrained to protect those around them” (Brown 19). Mistrust of governmental institutions for mentally ill and/or developmentally disabled people persisted well into the Soviet period.
Rasell and Iarskaia-Smirnova note that physical prowess, as well as participation in the labor force, was prioritized in Soviet ideology, reinforcing negative and discriminatory attitudes towards disabled people (5). Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova and Pavel Romanov argue that products of Soviet visual art and cinema “represented model citizens as healthy, virile and handsome. Such iconic – usually male – images were negatively juxtaposed against heroes whose bodies were damaged and mutilated,” contributing to othering of disabled people (67).
Soviet-era disability policy could be classified as a medicalized model of disability, as evidenced by the word for the Soviet paradigm for the study and rehabilitation of disabilities—defectology (Nosenko-Stein, “The Anthropology of Disability”; Rasell and Iarskaia-Smirnova 3). Earlier in the Soviet era, social policies encouraged disabled people’s participation in labor by creating specialized ateliers for people with certain categories of disabilities (such as blindness), where disabled people could be supported to participate in the labor force (Nosenko-Stein, “Coming Out”). Within Soviet newsreels and documentaries, there was a shift of focus from the themes of integration of disabled people into labor cooperatives during the 1920s and 1930s to representation of disabled people as recipients of assistance and care throughout the 1940s to 1970s. (Iarskaia-Smirnova and Romanov 68).
Within Soviet conceptualizations of disability, policies related to physical disabilities and especially mobility disabilities were prioritized after the Great Patriotic War (i.e. World War II) due to the sheer scale of the injuries and losses sustained by Soviet people during that time (Philips). Anna Krylova (2001) notes that “[w]ith 26 million dead, 25 million homeless, and 37 million away from their families and homes due to conscription, evacuation, and deportation ...virtually every individual had been involved in the war effort and was traumatized by the war experience” (309). While traumatic experiences encompassed both physical injury and mental and emotional trauma, services and accommodations focused almost exclusively on physical disabilities, perhaps due to the visibility of disabled war veterans after the war (Dunn and Dunn; Phillips). Veterans were privileged in gaining access to services. Soviet state-level mandated accommodations targeted people, especially war veterans who needed physical accommodations. The medical rehabilitation of disabled people focused on improving participation in social, labor, and household activities—but these services were often unavailable (Dunn and Dunn; Madison). Bernice Madison notes that the system was plagued by “persistent unresolved administrative problems” (Madison 169).
The period of visibility for disabled World War II veterans was short-lived. Nosenko-Stein notes the state-wide efforts to ““clean up” the streets” by removing disabled people and sending them to far-removed specialized institutions (38). Vera S. Dunham, discussing literary representations of disability in Soviet literature, notes that “[o]ne does not anymore see the lingering maimed World War II veterans on city streets in the Soviet Union. Nor is there such a thing as the image of the handicapped in state publishing house fiction, popular or otherwise. There are a few cripples one can find in the literature” (153). Even “legitimized,” heroic disability, such as war injuries, became increasingly invisible.
People struggling with mental illness, trauma, and developmental disabilities were often insufficiently supported. Madison (2017 180-1) notes that people who were considered “congenitally disabled” could in principle access institutional care, however, such care was often only sporadically available. In the institutions, the numbers of doctors and personnel were often insufficient, and housing and living conditions were poor. Some exceptional care facilities existed in the Soviet Union, further highlighting the uneven nature of available services. With no centralized social security administration, disability service administration was provided by republic ministries (Madison 167). The quality and availability of support varied widely. In interviews with disabled people during the post-Soviet period, Elena Nosenko-Stein uncovered the experiences of othering, isolation, and general “ghettoization”: many disabled people during Soviet and post-Soviet eras speak of being separated from their non-disabled peers through a series of institutionalizations, specialized schools, and even parental hypervigilance due to fear of bullying. Nosenko-Stein notes that such ghettoization, and lack of wider societal knowledge about disabled experiences, led able-bodied people to fear, misunderstand, and distance themselves from disabled people; this, in turn, contributed to feelings of inferiority among disabled people (“Coming Out”).
Both Roadside Picnic and Stalker were produced in the 1970s. In the decades following the Great Patriotic War, disabilities and traumas had briefly become visible in society, literature, and the arts, only to become almost invisible again. I argue that both texts use the speculative turn to re-engage in storytelling which explores disability and neurocognitive difference. Disability in both works is deftly interwoven among environmental and philosophical storylines; both works predate the Chornobyl catastrophe, but in many ways prophesy it (Green). Even though both works are acclaimed and have been heavily researched, their disability storylines received minimal attention from scholars. Some exceptions exist; for example, Amit (2022) points out how Stalker is watched and discussed in Kenzaburō Ōe’s novel Shizuka na seikatsu (Quiet Life, 1990), where the disabled child is also nicknamed after an animal—Eeyore, though the watching and discussion of Stalker is omitted in Juzo Itami’s film adaptation (1995).
Roadside Picnic
Written in 1971 and published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is arguably the Strugatskys’ most famous work, which has been translated worldwide and adapted in a variety of media – plays, films, TV, and video game series. In this work, an alien Visitation left behind six dangerous, polluted Zones which contain precious artifacts and unexplained phenomena. The Zones are tightly controlled and surveilled by their governments—and they are also studied academically. The narrative follows Redrick, or Red, a tough, down-to-earth young man who is a part of a subculture of stalkers—people who illegally sneak into Zones to retrieve artifacts for sale. Surviving even a short foray into a Zone is extremely difficult. Stalkers develop skills and experience that help them survive in their Zone; they are also frequently injured, maimed, and killed during Zone forays.
The children of stalkers are known to develop mutations. When Red’s girlfriend Guta finds out that she is pregnant with his child, she tells him that she wants to keep the child, even though her mother told her to have an abortion: “’She’s telling me,’ Guta says, ‘it’s a stalker’s child, why bring freaks into this world?’” (translation mine). Red and Guta’s daughter Maria is nicknamed Martyshka, meaning “little monkey, marmoset.” Even though her name is usually translated into English as Monkey, I use “Martyshka” throughout this article to better convey the multiple meanings of the name.
When Martyshka first appears in the novel, she is a talkative, cheerful child who has an atypical embodiment: she is covered in silky golden fur, and her eyes are entirely dark with no white. Red’s internal narration describes Martyshka using animal metaphors, but it is couched in grammatical diminutives, conveying feelings of endearment. The word Martyshka itself is diminutive in form: the standard word for monkey in Russian is obez”iana, a word which appears elsewhere in the novel but does not refer to the child. When Red thinks about his daughter, he uses grammatical diminutives for multiple words to describe her, such as little fur and little cheek, to indicate his positive emotions towards her.
Both Red and Guta dote on their daughter, and do not seek any medical interventions for her appearance, even though Red pays wistful attention to a different child, briefly met, whose cheeks are not covered in fur. Instead of attempting to change Martyshka, Red stages a series of social interventions He builds play structures for the neighborhood children in hopes that they would be inclined to play with Martyshka, and this plan works: she has friends, is gregarious and well-liked. This speaks to the parents’ concern for Martyshka’s social isolation, and in general the expectation of separating disabled children from their non-disabled peers, and the ghettoization which so many disabled people experienced in the Soviet Union (e.g., Nosenko-Stein).
When we encounter Martyshka a few years later, it becomes clear that she has a progressive developmental disability—she no longer speaks, and increasingly does not understand speech. Children no longer play with her, and in fact most families have moved away from the apartment building. It is not specified why the neighbors moved away, since Martyshka does not appear to be dangerous to others—yet this is consistent with Soviet attitudes towards disabled people as being best kept out of sight, and a source of fear and negative folk belief that drives other people away. Despite this negative social turn, Martyshka continues to interact nonverbally, and has a rich family life which involves another disabled family member, the grandfather who rises from the dead and returns home from the Zone to move in with the family.
Martyshka’s progressive developmental disability motivates her parents to seek medical interventions. They take the child to a local doctor who specializes in Zone injuries and mutations. However, this medical professional has no recommendations and declares that Martyshka is no longer human.
Martyshka is not the only stalker’s child in the novel. Burbridge, nicknamed Sterviatnik or the Vulture, is an older and experienced stalker, one of the founders of the stalker subculture. He has two children, Dina and Artur. The Vulture reveals to Red that during his forays to the Zone, he has discovered an artifact known as the Golden Sphere. This artifact has the power to grant heartfelt wishes. The Vulture claims that he did not succeed in wishing for wealth, but he has accomplished good health, the preservation of his life despite many dangerous moments in the Zone, and finally, “good children.” The Vulture’s daughter Dina is a strikingly attractive woman who appears shallow and openly detests her father. Artur is a student of law who seems on the brink of spectacular success in life. Both siblings are exceptionally beautiful and bear no resemblance to their parents. The Vulture has thus used the artifact not only to counteract the mutagenic effects of the Zone, but to interfere in his children’s development through a kind of eugenicist engineering.
In addition to non-disabled, “good” children, Burbridge 's trips to the Golden Sphere have given him significant financial success. While Red lives in a Soviet-style apartment building, Burbridge lives in a lavish single-family home—in stark contrast with other stalkers and other people in the town. Burbridge is also able to promise Red a payment of half a million dollars for the retrieval of the Golden Sphere from the Zone.
It is clear that the Vulture represents a more capitalist, individualistic and materialistic orientation within the world of the novel, which is set in an unspecified North American country (Le Guin). The Vulture's crass materialistic desires, his greed, self-interest, and his disdain for others stand out in the novel—and yet, this character is a trope in Soviet literature. The Vulture, who lives in an American-style single home while other characters live in apartment buildings, represents the corrupt materialism of the West; in the Soviet context, condemnation of materialism, often disparaged as “thingism,” was a feature of post-Stalinist cultural production (cf. discussion in Epstein's After the Future).3
During one of the Vulture’s stalking trips, the Zone destroys the bones in his legs. Red carries him out of the Zone, saving his life, but the Vulture’s legs are amputated. The Vulture struggles with his disability, and what it means for him personally and professionally.
Some years later, the Vulture, who can no longer venture into the Zone due to his disability, asks Red to retrieve the Golden Sphere. He mentions to Redrick that he is hoping that the Golden Sphere will restore his legs. The Vulture is interested controlling the Sphere—and he is also motivated by a cure. The Vulture also reveals to Red the dark secret of the access to the Golden Sphere: that of human sacrifice. An unpassable alien artifact known as the Meatgrinder lies on the path, and to reach the Golden Sphere, Red would need to take along an unsuspecting companion, who would die in the Meatgrinder and clear the path. The Vulture offers some candidates. However, Red, in secret from the Vulture, takes Artur, the Vulture’s perfect son. Red’s decision is motivated by his disdain for the Vulture, who had sacrificed many people to visit the Golden Sphere repeatedly, to accrue wealth and fulfill his eugenicist dreams.
Redrick's desire for a cure for Martyshka emerges during the journey, when he wonders why he has finally agreed to undertake Burbridge's quest. Red’s internal monologue makes it clear that he is indifferent to the monetary reward—and he disdains Burbridge. He has agreed to undertake the journey after he and Guta hear Martyshka's inarticulate, terrifying scream in the night; for the parents, this represents her continuing deterioration. He realizes that he has been motivated by this hope for a miracle for Martyshka. This is a quest for cure (cf. Turovskaya 106). Redrick plans to sacrifice the Vulture’s son for his own daughter. Red grows fond of Artur during their perilous journey but continues to conceal the true purpose of the trip from Artur.
During their journey through the Zone, Redrick asks Arthur to talk about his wishes. The young man is cagey, mentioning his father’s legs, and hinting at something which Red interprets as related to a potential love interest. The mention of the Vulture’s legs here is important: the Vulture’s own wish is for a cure, so undoubtedly Arthur feels compelled to mention his father’s desire. Red himself thinks about a cure for Martyshka. At the end of their journey, they see the Golden Sphere gleaming in the distance. Arthur rushes forward, yelling “Happiness! Happiness for all, for free, and let nobody leave unsatisfied!” It is this vision, not his father’s legs or a love interest, which is Artur’s heartfelt wish. As he runs towards the Golden Sphere, the Meatgrinder devours him.
The novel ends on an ambiguous note: Red has safely reached the Golden Sphere, but he does not understand what to wish for. He has an existential crisis. Instead of the cure for his daughter, he adopts Artur’s last, shouted utopian wish for happiness for everybody. We do not know whether Red survives, whether his new wish is granted, and what happens to Martyshka. The cure for the Vulture’s legs is no longer a possibility, if it ever was.
Animal Nicknames and Disability Representation in Roadside Picnic
Animal metaphors are often used to dehumanize people with disabilities. Lennard J. Davis writes that to be disabled is “to be an animal, to be part of the Other” (9). Larson asserts that in fiction, disabled characters, especially those with intellectual disabilities, are often depicted as animal-like. In the Russian and Ukrainian literary traditions, unusual personal names (e.g. first names, last names, nicknames) are often “speaking,” in that they give a hint about a person’s character, behavior, and/or literary trajectory (Mikhailov). Three disabled people in Roadside Picnic have animal nicknames, and it is important to explore this aspect of the novel. Martyshka, or Marmoset, is translated by both Bouis and Bormashenko as “Monkey,” however, as discussed earlier, the more common word for monkey in Russian is obez”iana. Martyshka is an endearing animal nickname which does not have a perfect English equivalent. Martyshka is a beloved children’s character in Soviet books and children’s animation, such as the popular 1976 animated series 38 Parrots. The animal nickname is used for the disabled character, but it is not exclusively negative. Another disabled character nicknamed after an animal is Suslik, or the Gopher (Bouis translates his name as Hamster). Suslik/the Gopher is a stalker originally named Dixon the Pretty. Dixon becomes Suslik after traveling with Burbridge to the Zone. He is the sole survivor of the Meatgrinder; however, he is maimed by the encounter, and credits Burbridge with his survival. Suslik is disfigured, gnarled, shaking, and seems unable to speak. When we encounter him, he is a servant of the Vulture at his villa and seems to be content with his subordinate position.As a part of the literary tradition of “speaking names,” scholars noted that the phonetic associations of a name can play an important role. Thus, Sloane shows that the hero's name in Gogol’s “The Overcoat” acts as a phonetic icon reflecting a range of behaviors (475). The repeated s-sounds of Suslik’s name might remind a Russian-language reader of a pre-revolutionary linguistic custom of lower-status people adding -s (a shortcut for sudar, meaning “sir”) to the ends of the words when speaking to a higher-status person. Suslik is described as “excitedly trembling with the desire to be of service” (translation mine). Later in the same scene, Suslik enthusiastically brings Red a drink. Thus, Suslik’s animal nickname might indicate not only his disability, but also, or even primarily, his servility. Burbridge, also known as the Buzzard (Bouis translation) or Vulture (Bormashenko translation), is the third and final disabled character with an animal nickname. In Russian his nickname, Sterviatnik, denotes a type of vulture. The word's root sterv- evokes two meanings. Sterva, fem.) or stervo, neut.originally meant carrion, dead animal carcasses that a vulture might feed on. Sterva is used as a swearword signifying an untrustworthy, vile person, and/or a woman who is nasty and mentally unstable.
Both the association with carrion and the interpretation of Sterviatnik/the Vulture as an unethical person are appropriate for Burbridge. We learn that the Vulture was nicknamed so due to his propensity to take junior stalkers into the Zone and return without them, since he sacrificed them to the Meatgrinder. Suslik is one such stalker, and the only one to survive the Meatgrinder. The Vulture metaphorically feeds on carrion—the dead bodies of other stalkers—and he is traitorous and despicable in nature, since he betrays his comrades' trust. Vulture acquires his animal nickname long before he becomes disabled. “The Vulture” is a descriptor of a negative moral quality rather than a descriptor of disability. Yet, it is significant that the Vulture, too, becomes disabled during the course of the story.
Other Stalkers, briefly mentioned, have a variety of nicknames. These include animal nicknames for two deceased stalkers: Bob Gorilla, mentioned only once in a list of dead Stalkers, and the Slug (slizen’), who perished in the Zone and whose clothes remain there. The Slug is described in negative terms – the Slug was “a shitty guy... greedy, stupid, and dirty; the kind of people who would associate with the Vulture” (translation mine). Other Stalker nicknames vary, including such examples as Pharaoh Banker, Norman Four-Eyes, Knuckles, and other non-animal designations. The Slug’s animal nickname alludes to his character—not disability. Thus, the negative connotations of certain animal nicknames are tied in the novel first and foremost to moral character.
All three animal-named disabled characters have additional layers of meaning encoded in their names: for Martyshka, endearment and tenderness; for Suslik, subservience; for the Vulture, his unethical sacrifices of other people’s lives for his own personal gain. Yet, animal names of these prominent characters also correlate with representations of disabilities, both congenital and acquired in adulthood.
Tarkovsky’s Stalker
While the Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky was inspired by the novel and worked from a script created by the Strugatsky brothers, the film and the novel diverge. Where the Strugatskys’ novel is a fast-paced action-adventure which is philosophical but does not mention religiosity, Tarkovsky’s Stalker is a slow-paced, philosophical, deeply religious, and intertextual work. The film and the novel have overlaps: the centrality of the mysterious alien Zone; an artifact or a place in the Zone that can fulfill heartfelt wishes; the Meatgrinder that needs to be bypassed on the way and the sacrifice which it demands; and the characters of the Stalker, his wife, and Martyshka. Martyshka’s disability, though different between the novel and the film, is central to the way both works construct their meaning.
Stalker has been particularly well studied, though little of the research addressed disability representation. Yet, Martyshka’s disability frames the film. In the opening shot, we see a bed pushed against a bare wall; to the left of the bed, leaning against on the wall, is a pair of crutches. The camera zooms to the three figures sleeping on the bed – the Stalker on the left, Martyshka in the middle, leaning against Stalker’s wife on the right. On the bedside table to the right of the bed are medical syringes and needles on a tray. Somewhere, a train is passing, making the whole room rattle. A drinking glass slides across the side table.
Fig. 1: One of the opening stills of the film. A large bed in a dark room; to the left of the bed, a pair of light-colored crutches leans against the wall.
Fig. 2: A close-up shot of bedside table with a glass of water, medical syringe, cotton wool, two pills, and other items.
Unlike in the novel, Martyshka’s face in Stalker is not covered in fur. According to one of Stalker’s companions: “His daughter is a mutant—victim of the Zone, as they say, rumored to be without legs” (translation mine). Later in the film, we see that the rumors are not true. The girl has legs. She uses crutches. It is not clear whether she can walk using crutches without the assistance of others—throughout the film, we see her sitting, reclining, or receiving assistance from her parents. In addition to her physical disability, Martyshka appears to be nonspeaking.
After the opening scene, Stalker and his unnamed wife argue. Stalker is about to leave to return to the Zone; his wife is upset he is leaving so soon. “God himself has cursed you with such a child,” shouts the wife; “and he cursed me because of you” (translation mine). In the novel, Red’s girlfriend and later wife Guta fully accepts the risk of giving birth to a disabled child, and after Martyshka is born, Guta does not complain. While Martyshka speaks, the parents do not seem to have conflict around her atypical embodiment—even though they experience stress related to society’s attitudes towards disability. Things shift for the family once Martyshka begins to lose speech and understanding—they look for medical advice, which does not result in any interventions. In Stalker, Martyshka is both physically and developmentally disabled from the start. When Stalker’s wife argues with him, he does not respond to her statements about Martyshka’s disability. Tarkovsky’s cinematic narration makes a sharp distinction between the mundane world and the Zone: the mundane world is shot in muted, monochrome colors, while the mysterious world of the Zone has full color. Leaving the mundane world and his family behind, the Stalker enters the Zone with two other characters, the Writer and the Professor, whom he is guiding to the Room of Wishes. The Room is a cinematic equivalent of the Strugatskys’ Golden Sphere—a place or an artifact that grants heartfelt wishes.
While a cure for Martyshka’s deteriorating condition is a motivator for Red’s quest for the Golden Sphere in Roadside Picnic, the Stalker in the eponymous film never mentions a cure for his daughter as a heartfelt wish, or even as a possibility for wishing. In fact, he has no plan to enter the room of wishes himself, serving purely as a guide for others. The Stalker explains that even though he charges money to take others into the Zone, he is forbidden to enter the Zone with materialistic goals in mind. He thus explicitly rejects capitalistic gain. From conversations between the characters, we learn about another stalker, Porcupine (Dikobraz) who sacrificed his own brother to the Meatgrinder, reached the Room of Wishes and became incredibly rich, only to hang himself a week later. Enrichment is not a worthy pursuit, and the Zone of Tarkovsky’s Stalker will not reward it.
During a charged conversation with the other characters, the Stalker says, “I’m a louse, did not manage to give anything to my wife, I have no friends ... they’ve already taken everything from me there, behind the barbed wire – all that is mine is here, do you understand? Here, in the Zone – my happiness, my freedom, my dignity – all of it here.” While the Stalker admits that he had let his wife down, his litany of personal failures and disappointments in life outside of the Zone does not include Martyshka or her disability. However, the Stalker’s self-description as a louse, which exists in the film but not in the novel, connects Stalker to other disabled characters with animal nicknames.
During the journey into the Zone, the Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor lay down on the watery, mossy ground of the Zone. The Writer and the Professor ask the Stalker about other people he had brought to the Zone in search of the Room of Wishes. What did they wish for? What did they hope to find? The Stalker responds that people do not like to speak about their innermost desires, and that he is not sure if any of the seekers found happiness. The Stalker himself does not want to go into the room himself, does not want to use it. The travelers fall asleep and experience a symbolic, poignant dream sequence. We see items in a stream which are covered in coins—a religious icon, a gun, and, importantly, a medical syringe and needles on their silver tray, which we’ve seen in the opening of the film, also covered in coins. In fact, images of syringes half-buried in silt occur three times in the sequence. The items in the stream are symbols of what is rejected in the search for the innermost wishes. Commercial religion, militaristic pursuits, and the medicalization paradigm with its search for a cure are thus presented as a corrupt, bad desire buried in silt and water, downstream from the image of the dreamer’s hand.
Fig. 3: During the dream sequence: a submerged metal box with coins and a medical syringe; the items are covered in silt or sand.
The folk cultural prohibition against mentioning disabilities and illnesses directly is at play here, as well as in Roadside Picnic. While Martyshka's disability is shown in detail, her condition and how to address it are only discussed in hints and paraphrases. Redrick's wife Guta in the novel and Stalker's wife in the film mention that they knew about “the children of stalkers,” but it is not spelled out, only implied and later shown, that children of stalkers are born with mutations. When Redrick finally, reluctantly seeking a cure, this is implied through descriptions of Martyshka's deterioration, and Redrick's desperate hope for “a miracle.” The Stalker, on the other hand, rejects cures entirely. This, too, is not verbally articulated (“people do not like to speak about their innermost desires”), but it is made clear through the Stalker's refusal to enter the Room of Wishes, and shown through the repeated symbolism of syringes covered in silt in the stream, which echo the medical syringe we saw in the opening frames of the film, by Martyshka's bedside.
Iarskaia-Smirnova and Romanov, in their discussion of Soviet cinematic representations of disability, argue that during the Stagnation period (1964–85), feature films and documentaries showcased and reinforced “themes of medicalization (with its emphasis on science and technology) and welfare provision in the conceptualization of disability” (87); they do not discuss disability representation in Stalker, and yet, the film’s speculative narrative rejects both the medicalized model and the welfare state.
Reading Tarkovsky’s Stalker as a Neurodivergent Character
Redrick in Roadside Picnic is a tough and shrewd young man who makes his living taking illicit trips to the Zone. He is a risk-taker who finds mundane lifestyle boring: the Zone’s dangers are an attraction for him, even though each foray represents a risk to his life. Red is willing to take the lead, to teach and to help others; he is enterprising, flawed, struggling with his ethics; he is a heavy drinker and a risk-taker, who can at times be violent. Tarkovsky’s Stalker is a very different character. He is not a leader, even though he serves as a guide in the Zone as he often asks the other characters to go first; he is self-deprecating, often cries and complains, does not appear to be a very present father and husband. Most importantly, the Stalker's differences in speech, behavior, and social connections, and his status as a Holy Fool figure all position him as different from other people—and in particular other men—in both the film and in Soviet society. He often speaks in riddles, and his companions in the Zone find it hard to understand what he means. At the end of the film, he lies on the floor in his apartment and suffers a breakdown, while his wife consoles him. The Stalker defies Soviet conceptions of masculinity, which center stoicism, heroic comportment, and labor. His involvement with the Zone places him outside the narrative tropes of Soviet industrial and agricultural production. The Stalker does not fit with Soviet-era cinematic representations of either able-bodied or disabled masculinity.
While it is both impossible and ethically undesirable to diagnose a fictional character, I suggest a reading of the Stalker as a neurodivergent character. His nonconformity, dreaminess, speech differences, discomfort with societal norms and expectations (including gender norms), and his desire to move to the Zone, away from society, all mark him as different, suggesting a reading of neurodivergence. In my ongoing research into East Slavic representations of the Fool figure in folklore, speech differences in particular emerge as a marker of neurocognitive differences. Like the Stalker, these folkloric characters often speak in riddles, use formulaic or unusual language, and are able to speak uncomfortable and often difficult truths.
While Redrick views the Zone as a dangerous and deadly site of adventure, Tarkovsky’s Stalker sees the Zone as his home. He expresses his desire to move to the Zone with his wife and Martyshka, and live there forever, where there are no people, and nobody can hurt them, implying that the lack of acceptance of Martyshka’s difference, and of his own, is a societal failing rather than a problem inherent in the disability itself.
The Stalker’s religious and spiritual trajectory is consistent within Tarkovsky’s body of work, but it too is in contrast with Soviet atheist policies. Alina G. Birzache notes that at the time Tarkovsky began to work on Stalker, he was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the Soviet authorities, disenchanted with the material world, and becoming increasingly interested in spiritual and religious themes, which show up in Stalker in multiple ways, including through direct citations from the New Testament (88).
The New Testament citations in the film include such stories as the Road to Emmaus and paragraphs from the Revelation according to John. The Revelation 6:12-17 is recounted as a voice overlay during the dream sequence; it is not clear whose voice is speaking the words, but some scholars suggested that this is the Stalker's wife. No context is given to the citation—only those familiar with the original would recognize it. The story of the Road to Emmaus (from the Gospel of Luke) is narrated by the Stalker immediately following the dream sequence. It is not unclear if he addresses the Writer and the Professor or is simply speaking out loud while the two companions are asleep. In the story the Stalker narrates, two disciples meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus, but do not recognize him. As he walks alongside them, he asks them why they are sad. Stalker's narration is interrupted mid-word when he turns to the Writer and the Professor, asking them, “Did you wake up?” (in English translation, “Are you awake?”). In the Russian original, the Stalker omits the names, such as the name Jesus, the name of one of the disciples, and even the word Emmaus, which is whispered so softly it is unrecognizable to people not already familiar with this story; however, both “Jesus” and “Emmaus” appear in the English translation. These omissions may be due to the Stalker's speech differences and his tendency to speak in riddles, as well as Soviet era limitations on religious expression, or they might enhance the mysterious, prophetic and otherworldly atmosphere of the dream sequence and its Biblical references. The transition from the dream sequence with its sepia-tone colors to wakefulness and action invites the reader to consider the Road to Emmaus story as a parallel to the Stalker, Writer, and Professor's journey through the Zone that welcomes contemplation and profound questioning.
The Stalker's connection to God, his differences, and his heightened spiritual, even prophetic powers are signaled through the word iurodivyi, or God's holy fool. As I discussed above, there exists a strong historical and folk cultural connection between the figure of the Holy Fool and neurodivergent, disabled and mentally ill people. Further research is needed to explore this connection both historically and in folk imagination (cf. Lemberg Perelmutter, in preparation).
The reference to Stalker’s status as iurodivyi is embedded in the film. The words iurodivyi and blazhennyi (“blessed one”), another word for the holy fool, are spoken repeatedly. The Writer calls the Stalker iurodivyi during one of the forays into the Zone; his wife calls him blazhennyi in the closing monologue of the film. Birzache juxtaposes the evolution of the main character from a tough guy of the novel to a holy fool of the film:
The affirmation of the wife of the Stalker: ‘You know, my mother was dead against it. He was a real tough, the whole street was terrified of him. He was handsome, and sure of himself . . .’ becomes: ‘You know, my mother was dead against it. You’ve probably realized how he’s like. One of God’s holy fools . . . The whole street used to snigger at him. He was so pathetic, such a mess’. Even the film’s text contains an explicit reference to the Stalker as an iurodivyi: After explaining his purely altruistic reasons for being a guide into the Zone for the desperate people, the Writer concludes: ‘You are just a God’s fool’. (88)
In this quote, we can see that Bizrache argues that the Stalker’s portrayal as a iurodivyi was a part of Tarkovsky’s intent, and it is discussed in the film itself. Tarkovsky insisted on presenting the Stalker as a holy fool through multiple changes of script. According to Nariman Skakov, there were nine versions of the script (140). In Comments on the Way Left Behind, Boris Strugatsky describes working with Tarkovsky, who did not like Redrick Schuhart, the main character of Roadside Picnic.
In the end, there were either seven, or eight, or maybe even nine versions [of the script]. We wrote the last one in a fit of complete and utter despair, after Tarkovsky declared with finality, “That’s it. I won’t shoot this film anymore with this kind of Stalker.” This happened in the summer of 1977. Tarkovsky had just finished filming the first version of the film, in which Kaidanovsky played the tough guy Alan (formerly Redrick Shuhart). The film was botched during development, and Tarkovsky decided to use this unfortunate turn of events to start everything all over again. [...] Then...we came up with the Holy Fool (iurodivyi) Stalker. Tarkovsky was pleased, and the film was reshot. (107; translation mine)
The quote shows that Tarkovsky, not the Strugatsky brothers, insisted on the change of the Stalker’s character from the original novel’s tough guy to a holy fool. The figure of the holy fool, or iurodivyi, recurs throughout Tarkovsky’s cinematic work. Tarkovsky’s holy fools become universal figures who provide sharp critique of modernity and society (Birzache). Efird, analyzing Tarkovsky’s second feature film The Passion According to Andrei, also known in the Anglosphere as Andrei Rublev (1966), writes “Like the eponymous Stalker, or Domenico of Nostalghia, Tarkovsky’s artists frequently exhibit the characteristics of the holy fool, a figure who in essence shares Rublev’s task of communicating a sense of the absolute by challenging routine notions of spirituality and the commonsense perception of the surrounding world” (85). The holy fools of Tarkovsky’s work expand on the tradition of “stylized holy fools” of Russian literature who disrupt narratives and societies and yet work within them (Thompson). In “The Holy Fool in Late Tarkovsky,” Robert Efird writes, “The eponymous Stalker, for instance, presents an easily recognizable, explicit transposition of the traditional holy fool into a more or less contemporary, albeit dystopian setting. ... [T]he paradoxical combinations of weakness and strength, foolishness and wisdom that commonly define the fool as a character come forth in especially vivid relief. By any standard, the protagonist of the film is a social outcast, a former prisoner living in wretched poverty at the edge of a railroad track with his wife and invalid daughter, herself another variation of the holy fool” (3). While Martyshka’s possible connection to iurodstvo is an interesting one, Efird does not explore her disability and its place in the narrative.
Martyshka’s Movement Sequence
Having reached the Room of Wishes, the three travelers—the Stalker, the Writer, and the Professor—refuse to enter the room and make a wish, each person for their own reasons. They return from the full-color world of the Zone, back to the mundane, ochre-toned world.
The film begins with Martysha’s disability in focus; to complete the frame, a sequence of pivotal scenes at the end of the film allows the viewer see Martyshka’s life, her relationship with her family, and her inner world. seethe sequence begins with Martyshka and the Stalker’s wife; the mother is helping her daughter transition from the bench to using crutches. The Stalker helps Martyshka as well.
A short time later, we see Martyshka’s head and shoulders, in a colorful frame. She is moving, and she seems to be walking. When the camera zooms out, we see that Martyshka is carried on the Stalker’s shoulders as he walks. The Stalker’s wife carries the crutches.
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Fig.4 – A girl in a yellow headscarf on the background of a river. This is Martyshka, and she seems to be walking |
Fig.5 – A family is walking towards the river. A man in a coat (the Stalker) carries Martyshka on his shoulders; his wife carries the crutches. |
The last scene of the film, we see the Stalker in the living room of his apartment; it is full of books. The Stalker complains about the Writer and the Scientist: they are members of the intelligentsia, and yet they are without faith. In the bedroom, the Stalker lies down on the marriage bed. The camera turns, and we see that this room too is full of books; we have not seen these books before, cleverly concealed by the camera angle. The crutches are no longer on the wall. I read this change as a movement away from the medicalized portrayal of disability, which we saw in the beginning of the film. During the dream sequence, the Stalker—as well as the viewer—sees needles and other medical devices covered in silt in the stream; the medicalized model is rejected in favor of a spiritual approach that focuses on each person. When the Stalker returns from the Zone, Martyshka seems to walk when he carries her on his shoulders – these are things beyond the wish for “cure,” beyond crutches and needles, emphasizing collectivity, care, and freedom. The color in these frames connects with the Zone, which he views as a place of his freedom and dignity. It is the place where he would like to move with his wife and daughter.
Stalker’s wife breaks the fourth wall and addresses the viewers. She tells us that her mother was opposed to the marriage, since the Stalker is a holy fool (blazhennyi). Her mother also warned her about the children of stalkers and their potential congenital disabilities. The wife’s final words are about how she never regretted her life choices. While the Stalker’s wife complains and argues in the beginning of the film, at the end of the film we see her embrace both Martyshka and Stalker, their disabilities and neurocognitive differences.
In the film’s final scene, Martyshka is reading at a table. She does not speak, but we hear her voice as she recites, in her mind, a poem by Fyodor Tyutchev, and uses telekinesis to move three drinking glasses across the table. Martyshka’s voice during the reading is very important. Her disabilities affect mobility and speech; but at the end of the film we see her walk (on the shoulders of Stalker), and she has a voice through Tyutchev’s poetic voice. People carry and support each other. These scenes, and the monologue of the Stalker’s wife, explore the possibilities of interdependence, acceptance, sacrifice, and community. Books add an additional layer to this reading: there are barely any books in the beginning of the film, and Martyshka has no voice; by the end, we see the apartment as full of books, and Martyshka is able to use a book of poetry to be heard. Books offer the Stalker, his wife, and Martyshka a spiritual path and a voice.
We could read the reveal of Martyshka’s special telekinetic ability as a supercrip feature (Shapiro; Schalk). Exceptional disabled characters, or supercrips, appear in speculative narratives to counteract the constructed negative perception of disability by emphasizing special, often magical talents that “compensate” for disability (Callus and Grech 18). Sami Schalk’s reevaluation of the supercrip trope discusses supercrip features beyond the exceptional ability: they include personal determination, positivity, and appeal to universally shared humanity (Schalk, 84). Martyshka does not easily fit into this category: she is neither positive nor personally determined. She appears passive throughout the film, either asleep, assisted, or carried by others. Only the ending scenes of the film feature her on her own and allow the viewer to discover formerly hidden aspects of her personality.
I suggest that Martyshka’s telekinetic ability gives her agency. In the opening scene of the film, we see a single drinking glass slide across the table, moved by the rattling of the train while Martyshka sleeps. All three family members sleep in the same bed, but Martyshka’s crutches are leaning against the wall farthest from where she is lying; she could not be able to reach them and would need help from her parents; she is voiceless, emphasizing her reduced agency. At the end of the film, Martyshka is just as disabled as before, but we can hear her voice, even though she does not speak, as she reads the poem; and her telekinetic ability serves no other purpose other than give her an ability to act in the world.
Animal names and allegories in Stalker
Like in Roadside Picnic, multiple characters have animal names. Martyshka is no longer covered in fur, and most importantly, she is longer Maria but Marta, as evidenced in her name in the credits. Thus, the name Martyshka becomes even more ambiguous here, since it could be read as a diminutive form of Marta, her given name, rather than only an animal name. The characters of the Vulture and the Gopher are not in the film; Martyshka of the film has a mobility disability similar to the novel’s Vulture. In the film, a stalker named Dikobraz, or “Porcupine,” who is remembered but never seen, takes the Vulture’s place as an older stalker who teaches others. The Porcupine’s original nickname was Teacher. The Porcupine makes a sacrifice to the Meatgrinder, his own brother. He emerges from the Zone unspeakably rich, only to kill himself a week later.
The Writer offers an interpretation of the Porcupine’s suicide: the Room of Wishes grants only the most heartfelt wishes; having sacrificed his brother, Dikobraz crawled into the Room of Wishes on his knees to prayerfully beg for his brother’s resurrection, but instead of that miracle, he got his unspoken wish—a pile of money. That’s what the Room saw in his soul: this was his most heartfelt wish, so the Porcupine could not receive anything else. This realization was so devastatingly shameful that Porcupine committed suicide. The Writer’s interpretation further emphasizes the undesirability and shame of materialistic aspirations lurking in human souls. It is an anti-capitalist message. As for the Porcupine’s nickname, it does not seem to have any connections to disability; there is no mention of the character’s disability in the film. Thus, the novel’s connection of animal nicknames to disability is weakened in Stalker. A “speaking name” interpretation could connect Dikobraz to the constituent meanings of the Russian word—dikii, meaning “wild, or frightening” and obraz, meaning “appearance, character”—hinting at the frightening, undisciplined, shameful desires which lurk within human souls.
Conclusions
In this paper, I argued that Roadside Picnic does not neatly fit into the corresponding Western tropes: it is both a cure narrative and an anti-cure narrative, presenting disabilities within a larger frame of choices that humans make, their wishes for their children and for the world, and the struggle to articulate a moral framework in an unjust, cruel, and inexplicable reality. Despite the silencing of disability representation in the Soviet Union, these narratives inscribe disabled, neurodivergent, and/or mentally ill people into the cultural landscape without providing easy answers. Disability representation becomes a part of speculative storytelling which does not “resolve” with a cure or a happy ending. Physically and developmentally disabled people contribute to complex, philosophical meaning-making about the human condition. In Roadside Picnic, Redrick abandons his individualistic quest after witnessing Arthur’s altruistic, utopian wish for happiness for all. Red has deceived and sacrificed Arthur just moments prior, which results in an existential crisis and Red’s new desire to carry Arthur’s wish for a collectivist, utopian happiness. This may never come to fruition; yet it is the novel’s last message. Red’s crisis of conscience leaves the reader contemplating the idea of happiness for all, a utopian dream which does not hinge on a cure for disabilities and in fact, involves the abandonment of cure as an individual aspiration: both for Red, who no longer wishes to cure his daughter, and for Arthur, who does not wish for a cure for his father.
In Tarkovsky’s Stalker, two characters play central roles in the narrative—the Stalker, whom I read as a neurodivergent character, and his daughter, who appears to be non-speaking. The Stalker’s quest does not culminate in a tidy resolution or a happy ending: at the end of the film, the Stalker has a breakdown. Lying on his back in his apartment, the Stalker laments to his wife about other people and their lack of spirituality and understanding. The Stalker’s wife tells the viewer that a life without misfortune and suffering is a life without hope. In the ending scene of the film, we discover Martyshka’s special telekinetic ability, which arguably aligns with Western speculative tropes of developmental and physical disabilities portrayed through the lens of exceptionality. However, Martyshka’s telekinesis does not serve the plot. Martyshka uses her powers to move three glasses while alone in a room; while many interpretations of the significance of the three glasses as a metaphor have been offered, these are not obvious. I read Martyshka’s telekinetic ability is first and foremost a manifestation of her agency. While she is dependent on other people for her mobility needs, her telekinetic ability gives her a way to act directly in the world.
These two Soviet-era narratives are produced in the cultural and historical context of the life in the Stagnation period under Brezhnev rule (1964–1982) which followed Khrushchev's Thaw (1953-1964). Post-WWII, during both the Thaw and the Stagnation periods, disabled people struggled with rights, access, and accommodations. Disabled lives and experiences were rendered invisible. In an atmosphere of silencing and othering, the two speculative classics reject eugenicist cure ideas and refuse easy resolutions. Set in an unnamed Western country imagined by Soviet authors, the Strugatskys’ Roadside Picnic pushes against the capitalist, individualistic approach to disability as something that can be fixed and controlled by a cure (especially by family members) to end on a utopian, collectivist note. The ambiguous end of Red’s journey suggests both an engagement with Soviet collectivist ideals, and an understanding that the dream of “happiness for all, free” has not been achieved, perhaps especially when it comes to disability.
The speculative aspect of Stalker allows Tarkovsky to both engage with and circumvent the obligatory disability tropes of care and dependence of the preceding Thaw-period Soviet cinema discussed in Iarskaia-Smirnova and Romanov. While post-WWII Soviet cinema produces more sympathetic, and more mundane rather than heroic depictions of disabled lives, “medicalist perspectives that subjected disabled people to various kinds of scientific research and treatment remained a universal trope in Soviet discourse. The bodies of disabled people were therefore not their own property, but rather objects for correction and manipulation by managers and doctors” (81). Rejecting the medicalized model, Tarkovsky’s Stalker represents two members of the same family, the neurodivergent Stalker and his disabled daughter, alongside other characters, to portray the complexities and pitfalls of human desire, and the ethical and spiritual search for meaning which involves disabled and non-disabled people alike.
Both works make space for visibility, incorporation, support, and resistance to eugenicist ideals. At the same time, these Soviet-era narratives still often do not afford disabled people much narrative agency, and may rely on ableist tropes, such as the use of animal nicknames for disabled characters. These multiple narrative and societal tensions are in contrast with what is happening in the Anglosphere. My research shows that narratives of cure (and their deconstructions) are not exclusively tied to capitalist production, highlighting the need for further research of speculative disability narratives outside of capitalist-industrial imaginaries.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful first and foremost to my spouse Bogi Takács Perelmutter, who discussed these texts and rewatched the film with me, and provided invaluable comments on the draft. They also patiently listened to me talk about Stalker endlessly for the last few years! I am grateful to my graduate students at the University of Kansas, and my colleague Vitaly Chernetsky, who discussed the work of the Strugatsky brothers with me. Thank you to the three anonymous peer reviewers and to Rachael Nebraska Lynch, the assistant editor of DSQ, whose insightful feedback helped me improve the paper. Any remaining mistakes are mine alone.
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