Unfinished novel by Galina Nikolaeva

Among the books that Maxim Gorky called textbooks of life, novels and short stories are of particular importance, the characters of which are inseparable from their profession. These are geologists in Oleg Kuvaev's "Territory", engineers in Garin-Mikhailovsky's similarly-named novel; if to talk about writers, then "A holiday that is always with you" comes to mind, in the center of the story is the young Hemingway, who had already gave up journalism and firmly decided to devote himself to literature.

"Live with Lightning" by Mitchel Wilson first of all, of course, comes to mind among books about physicists, "I'm Going into a Thunderstorm" by Daniil Granin - among ours. There were also novels and stories by Boris Bondarenko, as well as a story by Nikolay Asanov "The Goddess of Victory", written partly on Dubna material. And that's almost all, except for Galina Nikolaeva's novel "The Strong Interaction" that was announced in the early 1960s but remained unfinished.

Galina Nikolaeva by that time was widely known for her novels about the working class and the collective farm peasantry; she has recently started to write about the working intelligentsia - about scientists that then meant about physicists. Shortly before this, the 22nd Party Congress had been held, at which a program for building communism in the Soviet country had been adopted. Science is at the heart of communism and scientists are the future. And Galina Nikolaeva wished to see the world through the eyes of the people of this future.

Galina Nikolaeva at a meeting with readers (1959). The novel "Battle on the Road", better known to the Soviet audience from the similarly-named film, is being discussed. On the left - A.A.Tyapkin.

The vice-president of the Academy of Sciences sent her to Academician L.A.Artsimovich. Lev Andreevich, a man of aphoristic thinking, popularly explained that the material for a novel about physicists should not be sought at the Academy, where people thought more about health than about science, but where a big accelerator operated and people did a great job. That is, in Dubna. And in the writer's notebook there appeared an entry: "Two ships are moving along the new river, one on the hull ahead, all the discoveries are its!"

Maksim Sagalovich, her husband and guardian angel, later spoke about how she worked on the novel. She was in no hurry to Dubna. She had to immerse herself in the topic, to feel the material, to try the hard granite of the science of physics by heart. Days passed; as Maksim Sagalovich later wrote, a stack of popular science books, textbooks, memoirs of great physicists of the 20th century and biographies of prominent scientists from the "ZhZL" series grew on Galina Nikolaeva's desktop. The result was three thick notebooks of notes on the history of physics.

She went to Dubna with a solid store of knowledge. She already had her own circle of readers and admirers in Dubna. An article "Galina Nikolaeva in Dubna" was published in the newspaper "For Communism" signed by V.S.Shvanev that was the deputy head of the international department at that time. The Institute allocated a temporary apartment for her and Sagalovich near the Dubna railway station from the housing stock. Excursions to JINR, conversations with physicists, searches started - this is how the heroes of the future novel drew out. From the notebook of Galina Nikolaeva: "Why do you look so bad? How can a person who thinks about the M?ssbauer effect look good?"

She returned to Moscow with a pile of notes and impressions. The main character of the writer saw the Soviet Marie Curie, the daughter of a prominent Soviet scientist, also a physicist. Prototypes were already outlined, including Maria Shafranova and Evgenia Kladnitskaya. Meanwhile, Maksim Sagalovich wrote a play and the prototypes of his heroes, the young physicists Misha and Masha were the Shafranov spouses...

The novel was difficult, the resistance of the material affected. She managed to write the beginning, the rest remained in drafts; the first chapter under the controversial title "I love neutrinos" was published in the fourth issue of "Science and Life" in 1968. "These are people of rigid focusing," the writer said about her characters, and the same could be said about herself under other circumstances - she would have brought the novel to the end, there is no doubt about it.

But a delicate question remains. "Every profession is a conspiracy against the profane," Bernard Shaw said, "it has hidden springs that are not evident, yet they are the main ones. Many people stumbled over this. Let's take, for example, the film "Nine Days in One Year". After it had been released on screens, the guests of Dubna asked if the Dubna physicists looked like the heroes of the film? Alas! The hero, played by Aleksey Batalov, is just a good Soviet man, nothing more, there is nothing from a physicist in him. But Smoktunovsky is a spitting image of a theoretical physicist. And one believes the engineer-physicist Evgeny Evstigneev, but no one believes the responsible worker of the invisible front Lev Durov (not his fault - the screenwriter clumsily worked).

Could Galina Nikolaeva penetrate the world of physicists? According to the passage published in the journal, it is impossible to answer this question. But here is how A.A.Tyapkin, who organically did not tolerate any falsehood, spoke about what she managed to do: "The serious study of science performed by her shows how responsibly Galina Evgenievna treated the work and duty of the writer, what amazing abilities she possessed... In her notes, we find everything - from descriptions of current methods of particle registration to notes that surprisingly correctly convey the essence of Einstein's outstanding original works... The acquired extensive knowledge allowed her to freely navigate when discussing the complex issues of contemporary physics, to skillfully direct the conversation with scientists, to receive from them the material required for the new novel..."

So, she wrote for real...

Aleksandr RASTORGUEV