Preview of Hard to Be a God Summary:

Although not unique to their works, or even to the Russian culture, several binary oppositions can be said to dominate the brothers' writings, among them: east versus west, individualism versus state, humanism versus Utopia, and past versus future. In the words of one Western critic, these themes "are given a particular slant by vicissitudes of Russia's twentieth-century history: the massive social upheaval of the revolution; Stalinism with its cultural amnesia and falsification of tradition; the crushing power of the State over any form of creativity, expressed in the institution of censorship with which the Strugatskys had to contend throughout their joint career; the sixties' "thaw"; and finally . . . the perestroika and the downfall of communism."

Hard to Be a God illustrates and evaluates several socio-historic theses, not all confined to the turbulent twentieth-century Russian history. It scoffs at the messianic impatience of revolutionaries who look for a quick fix...