-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [NABOKV-L] Colonel Gusev and King Alfin
Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2011 18:05:56 +0000
From: Fet, Victor <fet@marshall.edu>
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
References: <003701cbdffd$8a7e15f0$d07d15ac@ALEX1>,<9410DA6A792E4F99B4AFF9EC537A62AE@JANSY>


Re 'aerial adjutant,' Colonel Peter Gusev:

There is also another well-known Gusev (Alexey Ivanovich).

He was a Red Army soldier and a 'space adjutant' of the engineer Mstislav Los' in Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy's cult sci-fi novel, "Aelita" (1923), made into a famous film by Protazanov (1924), probably the first full feature film about spaceflight.

Los' and Gusev fly to Mars, where Los' falls in love with the Martian princess Aelita, and Gusev leads a popular uprising of Martian proletariat.

Tolstoy was influenced by H. G. Wells and E. Burroughs novels, but his talented (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) book became a model for generations of the best Soviet sci-fi writers.

See detailed plot in English at http://www.sovlit.com/aelita

Victor Fet


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