Vasyl Berezhnyi

Abstract

The article examines the intellectual and literary evolution of Ukrainian science fiction writer Vasyl Berezhnyi (1918–1988) as a reflection of the broader decline of Soviet techno-communism. By contrasting his early utopian novel В зоряні світи [To the Starry Worlds, 1956] with his final collection Лабіринт [Labyrinth, 1986], the study traces a trajectory from the optimistic, state-sanctioned positivism of the early space age to a disillusioned, postmodern irony. The author argues that Berezhnyi’s transition from depicting science as a tool for socialist triumph to portraying it as a fragmented, forgotten relic mirrors the historical exhaustion of the Soviet ideological project and the failure of “the Moon Race”. Utilizing historical-biographical contextualization and comparative genre analysis, the research situates Berezhnyi within the repressive postwar literary environment and demonstrates how his later works, specifically the story Формула Космосу [The Formula of the Cosmos], serves as a tragic elegy for the techno-communist utopia.