Science fiction writer, screenwriter, playwright, translator, orientalist, Doctor of Historical Sciences, laureate of the USSR State Prize (1982) Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko was born on October 18, 1934. But absolutely all readers of our country know him as Kira Bulychev. This sonorous pseudonym was put together by the writer from the name of his beloved wife – artist and book illustrator Kira Alekseevna Soshinskaya – and his mother’s maiden name. Initially it was “Kirill Bulychev”. Sometimes there was even the combination “Kirill Vsevolodovich Bulychev”. But then they began to write on the covers of books in abbreviation – “Kir.” And then she “left”, period.
Writer Kir Bulychev – historian Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko.
The writer managed to keep his real name a secret until 1982. He feared that the leadership of the Institute of Oriental Studies, where he worked, would consider science fiction a frivolous activity. Igor Vsevolodovich recalled: “I imagined that I would come to the institute… and they would say to me: “You, Comrade Mozheiko, didn’t come to the vegetable base, you didn’t treat Comrade Ivanova in a friendly manner, you were late for the meeting… and you’re also writing fiction!” When I imagined this “And you’re still writing!” I became so scared that I decided to hide behind a pseudonym.” The pseudonym was revealed when presenting the State Prize for the script for the full-length cartoon “The Secret of the Third Planet” and the feature film “Through Thorns to the Stars.” Igor Vsevolodovich’s fears turned out to be in vain. After all, he has earned universal recognition in the scientific community. By that time, Mozheiko had written many scientific works and popular science books…
Igor Mozheiko was born in the Grauerman maternity hospital. In his fictionalized autobiography, “How to Become a Science Fiction Writer,” he wrote about it this way: “At that time, all worthy citizens of Moscow were born in the Grauerman maternity hospital on Arbat Square.” The family of the future scientist and writer then lived on Chistye Prudy, then on Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane. Surprisingly for a science fiction writer, many of his science fiction works take place in Moscow, right on Sivtsev Vrazhek. And on Gogolevsky Boulevard, Kir Bulychev located a zoo for alien animals – “Cosmozoo”, described in his series of stories about Alice.
Already during his school years, Igor Mozheiko began to engage in literary creativity: together with his friends he published a handwritten magazine. They even organized a creative group “KtoVoChtoGorazd” – “Kovcheg” for short.
After graduating from school, Igor Vsevolodovich, according to the Komsomol order, entered the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages named after Maurice Thorez (today the Moscow State Linguistic University), where he continued his literary activity: Mozheiko actively took part in the creation of institute wall newspapers, wrote poetry. He completed his studies in 1957. He worked for two years as a translator and correspondent for the APN (Novosti Press Agency) in Burma, a state in Southeast Asia today known as Myanmar.
In 1959, the future science fiction writer returned to Moscow and entered graduate school at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He wrote historical and geographical essays for the magazines “Around the World” and “Asia and Africa Today”. Since 1963, he worked at the Institute of Oriental Studies, specializing in the history of Burma. In 1965 he defended his candidate’s thesis on the topic “Pagan State (XI-XIII centuries)”, and in 1981 – his doctorate on the topic “Buddhist Sangha and the State in Burma”. In the scientific community, Mozheiko was known for his works on the history of Southeast Asia.
His debut in fiction was the story “Maung Jo Shall Live,” written in 1961. Mozheiko’s first story in the fantasy genre was “The Debt of Hospitality” (1965), signed under the pseudonym Maung Sein Ji. The writer used this name more than once in the future. But the vast majority of his fantastic works were published under the pseudonym “Kir Bulychev”. The first such work was the cycle of miniatures “The Girl to Whom Nothing Happens,” published in 1965 in the anthology “World of Adventures,” inspired by the writer’s communication with his little daughter.
Kir Bulychev is one of the most popular domestic science fiction writers. He wrote more than a hundred works of fiction, which were used to make more than two dozen films (by the way, the writer also created the scripts for them himself). But until now, the most famous and beloved by many generations of young readers remains the cycle of works about the adventures of a charming girl from the future – Alisa Selezneva. The heroine’s name is not made up. The writer’s only daughter bears this name, and the writer “borrowed” Seleznev’s surname from his mother-in-law.
Alisa Selezneva became the main character in a huge number of novels, novellas and short stories by the writer. The most famous of them: “Alice’s Journey” (1974), “Alice’s Birthday” (1974), “The Girl from Earth” (1974), “One Hundred Years Ago” (1978), “A Million Adventures” (1982), ” Reserve of Fairy Tales” (1985).
Based on the story “One Hundred Years Ahead” in 1984, director Pavel Arsenov shot a five-part film “Guest from the Future”, in which Alisa Selezneva was played by young Natalia Guseva (Murashkevich). The film was a huge success. “Guest from the Future” is rightfully considered one of the most popular Soviet children’s films of the mid-1980s.
In 2024, the film “One Hundred Years Ahead” was released. The film’s script was written based on the story of the same name by Kir Bulychev, but without the participation of the writer. The film’s distribution was successful, and perhaps filmmakers will turn to Bulychev’s work more than once.
Kir Bulychev sometimes admitted that he no longer wanted to write about Alice. But the character turned out to be stronger than the author, and Alisa Selezneva became the same “eternal hero” as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Therefore, the writer still periodically returned to it. Shortly before his death, his last story about Alice, “Alice and Alicia,” was completed.
Few people know that the writer Kir Bulychev was also a poet. Sometimes – out of necessity – when it was necessary to voice an episode in a film adaptation – this is how “The Driver’s Song” appeared in the animated film “Two Tickets to India” based on Bulychev’s script. Among his poems there are many humorous, parody and imitations of great authors of different eras. But they were certainly talented, and those who heard them hardly thought that the author of the words was the same Kir Bulychev and at the same time a serious scientist, Doctor of Historical Sciences Igor Mozheiko.
But to think that Kir Bulychev wrote only about Alice is a delusion. His bibliography contains many completely diverse works. For example, a cycle about the fictional city of Great Guslyar, about the space doctor Vladislav Pavlysh, the prototype for which was the doctor from the ship “Segezha”, with which the writer sailed across the Arctic Ocean. A series of books about the adventures of InterGalactic Police agent Cora Orvat, a series of three books under the general title “Shadow Theater”, which describe the adventures of heroes in a parallel, “shadow” world that exists side by side with ours. Bulychev wrote in the genre of alternative history. The cycle of novels and stories “River Chronos” was written in the genres of alternative history, cryptohistory and detective. Many of his off-cycle novels and short stories are also known. In addition, Igor Mozheiko wrote several plays, a book about faleristics, and also translated fantastic works of American writers into Russian.
Kir Bulychev was a member of the Creative Councils of the fantasy magazines “Noon. XXI Century” and “If”, a laureate of the Aelita science fiction prize (1997), a holder of the Order of the Knights of Fantasy (2002) and simply a prolific and sought-after writer, whose works continue film What is the secret of his success among the reader? Kir Bulychev brought humanity to science fiction and made this direction in literature more humanitarian. No wonder one of his collections of stories was called “People as People” (1975).
Igor Vsevolodovich Mozheiko passed away on September 5, 2003. The writer is buried in Moscow, at the Miusskoye cemetery.
Source: rodina-history.ru
