Authors

Yana Prymachenko¹;  ¹ Princeton University, United States

Discussion

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, shocked the world despite prior warnings from Western intelligence. Many still struggle to accept that Putin's actions marked the end of the post-war global order. However, Russian and Ukrainian political science fiction had long predicted the war's outcome.

In 2007, Mikhail Yur’ev, a former Russian politician, published The Third Empire: Russia, Which Should Be, a utopian novel that envisions Russia's future as the dominant global power after defeating the United States in World War III. In the novel, Russia reclaims its former Soviet territories, including Ukraine, and becomes the world's largest empire, thriving as a Russian Orthodox state. This book merges the ideology of Alexander Dugin’s Orthodox fascism and Vladimir Putin’s concept of the "Russian World" (Russkiy Mir), which has been used to justify Russian neo-imperial ambitions and expansion.

The novel has been highlighted by some media sources as influential within Russian political circles. It is said that a copy of Yur'ev's novel is preserved in Vladimir Putin’s personal library, potentially influencing the revanchist worldview of the Russian elite. This narrative framework has allegedly played a role in shaping the aggressive foreign policy seen in Russia’s actions, particularly its invasion of Ukraine.

In 2011, Ukrainian diplomat Yuriy Shcherbak published The Time of Christ's Death: Mirages of 2077, a dystopian novel set in a fragmented post-apocalyptic world after World War III. The story centers on a corrupt and struggling Ukraine, which has become the focal point of international conflict, with superpowers vying for control over its resources and strategic location. Unlike the utopian vision in Mikhail Yur'ev's The Third Empire, Shcherbak presents a dark vision for humanity, highlighting the moral and political decay leading to global catastrophe.

However, the novel offers a pathway out of this dystopia. In the finale, Christian morality is revived, and Ukraine becomes a cornerstone of a new international security system, symbolizing a hopeful message that if humanity restores its moral values, world peace can be achieved.

These two novels represent contrasting futures, reflecting the diverging values and political aspirations of Russia and Ukraine. While both were written within similar political contexts, the authors' backgrounds and perspectives differ, leading to fundamentally different portrayals of their countries' futures. Yur'ev's novel promotes the imperial idea of "Moscow as the Third Rome," a concept deeply embedded in Russian Orthodox ideology, while Shcherbak's work reflects the Ukrainian vision of Kyiv as "the Second Jerusalem," emphasizing spiritual renewal and moral leadership.