3 novels about DINOSAURS by classic Russian writers

The understanding of whose giant skeletons archaeologists and geologists keep finding and what time period they belong to was formed only in the first third of the 19th century. However, at that time it caused a sensation primarily in the scientific community. Dinosaurs only penetrated into popular culture much later. One of the leaders of this movement was English writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His novel ‘The Lost World’ about a plateau where dinosaurs roam, pterodactyls fly and apes misbehave was a very successful attempt to introduce the general public to the ancient animals.

The novel ‘The Lost World’ was published in 1912, immediately became a bestseller and was translated into the main world languages, including Russian. Famous Russian geologist and traveler Vladimir Obruchev simply could not pass by this work. He read it with all attention, noted some scientific errors and… wrote his own book.

‘Plutonia’ by Vladimir Obruchev

In the preface, Obruchev writes that, from his point of view, two novels of world literature fully give a wide range of readers an idea of ​​previous forms of life. These are ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ by Jules Verne and ‘The Lost World’ by Conan Doyle. They inspired him to write his own work, in which he, as a serious scientist, was also able to correct the mistakes made by his predecessors-fiction writers.

‘Plutonia’ was written in 1915, hot on the heels of ‘The Lost World’, and first published in 1924. The novel tells the story of how a scientific expedition discovers an underground world illuminated by the core of the planet as a luminary. In it, scientists meet animals from different geological eras, including dinosaurs, mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.

‘A Leap into Nothing’ by Alexander Belyaev

The "father" of Russian science fiction also did not remain aloof from the growing interest in dinosaurs. True, he did “move” them to another planet – Venus. At the beginning of the 20th century, almost nothing was known about the planet, except that it existed. Therefore, the science fiction writer could allow himself to come up with anything. So, he populated it with giant dinosaurs and monstrous insects from the Mesozoic era. He also added fantastic, six-armed ape-like creatures. The heroes end up on Venus as a result of an attempt to escape from a victorious world revolution and fall from the frying pan into the fire. The novel was first published in 1933.

‘The Purple Ball’ by Kir Bulychev

A children’s story from a series about a very smart and resourceful girl named Alisa Selezneva. This time, she and her friends are trying to save the Earth from a deadly epidemic that is supposed to spread from a purple ball left by aliens. Alice travels to the past in a time machine to find the ball and prevent a catastrophe. Since the book is for children, the deep antiquity in it is called the Age of Legends and dinosaurs are more like the fairy-tale Serpent Gorynych and are contemporaries of wizards, but some scientific chronology is present in the work. It was first published in 1983.