Kirill Bulychev
Kirill Bulychev, born Igor Vasevelodovich Mozheiko on October 18, 1934, in Moscow, was a prominent Russian writer known for his contributions to children's and adult science fiction. Bulychev was raised by his mother and stepfather after his parents divorced, and he later trained as a translator, graduating from the Moscow Teachers Training Institute of Foreign Languages in 1957. His literary career flourished with his delightful children's series, particularly the "Alice: The Girl from Earth" series, which enjoyed immense popularity and was adapted into television formats. Bulychev also authored adult science fiction stories, showcased in collections like "Gusliar Wonders," characterized by humor and adventurous themes. In the 1980s, he transitioned into film production, contributing to several notable animated and live-action films, some of which found international audiences. Despite his health challenges, including hypertension and diabetes, Bulychev's creative output remained significant until his passing on September 5, 2003. His work continues to resonate with readers, reflecting the imaginative spirit of Russian science fiction.
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Kirill Bulychev
Writer
- Born: October 18, 1934
- Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
- Died: September 5, 2003
Biography
Kirill Bulychev is the name used in adulthood by the Russian writer whose given name was Igor Vasevelodovich Mozheiko. Bulychev was born in Moscow on October 18, 1934. His father, Vsevolod Mojeiko, was a lawyer, and his mother, Maria Stepanovna Bulycheva, had served in the military before becoming an industrial chemist. His parents divorced while he was still a young child, and he was brought up by his mother and his stepfather, whose surname he took. He attended the Moscow Teachers Training Institute of Foreign Languages and graduated as a translator in 1957. He married Kira Soshinskaya before being sent to Burma to assist in the establishment of a technical institute; they had one daughter, Alisia.
Following his return from Burma, Bulychev worked for the travel magazine Vokrug Sveta (around the world), which also published short fiction, especially science fiction. In the meantime, he continued his academic work at the Institute of Eastern Studies—from which he received a Ph.D. in 1981—and worked as a translator at academic conferences. As a writer, Bulychev became very well known in his homeland for his zestful and witty children’s science fiction stories, including a series partly translated into English as Alice: The Girl from Earth, which ran to more than a dozen books in the original versions—some of them adapted for TV—and sold millions of copies. A similar spirit of calculated but diplomatically moderated irreverence is manifest in the adult science fiction stories translated in Gusliar Wonders. The stories in Gusliar Wonders are also excerpted from a long-running series whose hero—an adult counterpart of Alice—finds himself frequently involved in exotic encounters that are as amazing as they are amusing.
The success of his magazine stories and the books collecting them facilitated the development of a new phase in Bulychev’s career in the 1980’s, when he helped in the production of numerous films, some of them animated, and several TV serials. A few of the movies were shown in the West in subtitled versions, including The Secret of the Third Planet and By Thorny Paths to the Stars (also known, in an abridged version, as Humanoid Woman). Bulychev wrote numerous satirical stories that he dared not attempt to publish while the Soviet system prevailed, but he was equally troubled by developments following its collapse. He suffered from hypertension and diabetes for many years and survived one cardiac arrest in 1987, but he died of a similar heart attack on September 5, 2003.