Błąd pomiaru przesunięcia ku czerwieni. Polityczne i niepolityczne korzenie utopijności w twórczości fantastyczno-naukowej Stanisława Lema

Redshift uncertainty. Political and non-political roots of Utopia in science fiction works of Stanislaw LemThe article focuses on the origins of Eutopian and Dystopian aspects of selected works of Stanislaw Lem, which were divided into pre- and post-Thaw ones (due to the differences in their relation with the tradition of that genre). Eutopian characteristics can be found in the first science fiction stories of Lem (both quasi-social realistic ones, set in the Communist Bloc countries, and their darker counterparts, set on the other side of the Iron Curtain). Technology seems to be more important there than politics. Similarily, science and technology form the basis of Eutopian visions of communist paradise in The Astronauts and The Magellanic Cloud (as well as Dystopian images of the enemies of communism in both novels, Venusians and long-dead “Atlanteans”, i.e. NATO members). Their very creation seems to be an effect of Lem’s own desire to write about space travels, which – in Stalinist era – wasn’t possible any other way. After the Thaw, both Dystopian and Utopian elements in Lem’s fiction gradually lose their political characteristics, corresponing with the grow of Lem’s interest in more universal matters. His later utopias still seem to origin primarely from the field of science and technology, and not of politics or philosophy. Their tone reflects the author’s loss of faith in the possibility of creating the paradise (on Earth, or interplenatary one) through either political or technological means. This can be observed as well in what could be called ‘broken utopias’, like the world of short stories about Pirx the Pilot