Conversations about Science Fiction: The Category of “Fantastic” in The Bibliographic Discourse of the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract

In the 1950s and 1970s, bibliographers made attempts to define the genre of fiction and offer a systematization of the available fiction literature. The purpose of the article is to trace the development of the category of “fantastic” in the recommendation indexes of Z. P. Shalashova “Adventures. Journeys. Science Fiction”, “Artificial Earth satellites. Interplanetary flights”, “Adventures and travel”. The problems faced by bibliographers were related both to the sharp increase in publications of fantastic literature, and to the weak development of the theoretical apparatus in literary studies and bibliography. The concept of “fantastic” has evolved from an adventure-related type of scientific and educational literature to a metaphorical “dream world” devoid of terminological clarity. The material of bibliographic indexes, de-
spite its limited functionality, nevertheless demonstrates that the processes that took place in the field of recommendation bibliography of children’s books reflect the significant difficulties that bibliographers experienced in finding a language for describing fiction.

Keywords: Science fiction, adventure, children’s literature, criticism, recommendation bibliography, Zoya Shalashova