Plutonies

Plutonia (OT: Russian Плутония , transcribed Plutonia ) is a novel by the Russian writer Vladimir Afanassjewitsch Obruchew from 1924.

content

Nikolai Innokentjewitsch Truchanow organizes an expedition with the supposed aim of finding previously unknown islands or mainland north of the Chukchi Peninsula and Alaska . Since Trukhanov himself cannot take part in the expedition on land due to a missing leg, he asks the geology professor Pyotr Ivanovich Kaschtanov, the zoologist Semjon Semjonowitsch Papotschkin, the meteorologist Ivan Andreevich Borowoj and the botanist and doctor Mikhail Ignatievisch Gromeko to take part in the expedition.

With the expedition ship Polarstern , the crew set out on May 4, 1914, to the previously unexplored area where the new country is believed to be. On the way, the dog handler Ilya Stepanowitsch Igolkin and 30 dogs as well as the mining engineer Jawow Makschejew happened to be taken on board the Polarstern . You will also be part of the land expedition.

After the new land was discovered and named Fridtjof-Nansen-Land, the six-person, well-equipped land expedition, supported by the sled dogs, began heading north. After a while, inexplicable phenomena arise. The compass refuses to work, the temperature rises and the changes in air pressure do not correspond to the gradient. At times the air pressure increases so strongly that it corresponds to a depth of over 9000 meters below sea level. Even a new sun, permanently at its zenith, appears.

Only through a letter that the organizer Truchanow gave them and which they are only allowed to open in a hopeless situation do they find out that they have passed an entrance into the interior of the earth and are on the inside of the earth's surface.

After the end of the snow cover has been reached and the first primeval animals have been discovered, the group separates. Borowoj and Igolkin stay behind with the winter equipment and the dogs, while the other four set out to explore the interior of the earth, which they named Plutonia. In doing so, you will encounter prehistoric flora and fauna in which there is a multitude of adventures to be had.

Scientific reference

Plutonia takes up the theory of the hollow earth . The new "sun" forms the still glowing center of the earth. There is no real horizon, only the limitation of the view prevents a view of the opposite side. When describing the flora and fauna, Obruchev uses the knowledge of the history of the earth that existed in his time. During the expedition, the protagonists pass through the different ages in reverse order. No animals and plants from different epochs meet.

Since the author had received a series of inquiries about a new expedition to Plutonia, Obruchev stated in the afterword that the theory of the hollow earth had long been refuted. He only used it as a literary tool to deepen the youth's interest in geology and geological history.

expenditure

The book was first published in 1953 in a translation by Herbert Strese and with illustrations by Gerhard Goßmann in Verlag Neues Leben , Berlin, series Exciting Narration , Volume 4. It saw several editions and was published in 1962 as a takeover by Verlag für Fremdsprachige Literatur, Moscow. In 1988 it came out in a new translation by Oksana Bulgakowa and Dietmar Hochmuth (again as Volume 4 of the series Excitingly told ). The new edition 2005 ( ISBN 3-355-01711-6 ) reverted to the old translation and the illustrations from the first edition.

In 1980/81, Plutonia appeared as a so-called picture story (today one would rather call it a comic ) in the magazine Die drum , drawn by Heinz-Helge Schulze . This version was published in 2007 in the series Klassiker der DDR-Bildgeschichte from Dresdener Holzhof Verlag (Issue 7, ISBN 978-3-939509-06-6 ) with a new cover picture by Hagen Flemming and editorial contributions.

Plutonia reached a wide audience in the GDR and is still offered in Ostalgie shops today .