Off with your heads: isolated organs in early Soviet science and fiction.
In the summer of 1925, a debutant writer, Aleksandr Beliaev, published a 'scientific-fantastic story', which depicted the travails of a severed human head living in a laboratory, supported by special machinery. Just a few months later, a young medical researcher, Sergei Briukhonenko, succeeded in reviving the severed head of a dog, using a special apparatus he had devised to keep the head alive. This paper examines the relationship between the literary and the scientific experiments with severed heads in post-revolutionary Russia, which reflected the anxieties about death, revival, and survival in the aftermath of the 1914-1923 'reign of death' in that country. It contrasts the anguished ethical questions raised by the story with the public fascination for 'science that conquers death'.
Krementsov
Nikolai
N
Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Victoria College, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada. n.krementsov@utoronto.ca
D000818:Animals; D003643:Death; D004285:Dogs; D032984:Ethics, Research / Q000266:history*; D005197:Famous Persons; D006257:Head; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern / Q000266:history*; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D014586:USSR