A Ticket to the Stars by Vassily Aksyonov

First published:Zvezdnyi bilet, 1961 (A Starry Ticket, 1962; better known as A Ticket to the Stars)

Type of work: Social criticism

Time of work: The summer of 1960

Locale: Moscow and the Baltic coast

Principal Characters:

• Dimka, a seventeen-year-old who has recently been graduated from high school
• Yurka, and
• Alik, Dimka’s classmates
• Galya, Dimka’s girlfriend and classmate
• Victor, Dimka’s older brother, a space scientist

The Novel

A Ticket to the Stars is the story of four young Russians who, after graduation from high school, find themselves at a crossroads, undecided about their future. Dimka, Yurka, Alik, and the only girl among them, Galya, all seventeen years old, are tired of school and so are not interested in attending college, at least for the present. Yurka is a good athlete, Alik writes poetry, Galya has acting ambitions, and Dimka is a well-rounded young man without any special aspirations. Dimka’s older brother, Victor, is a space scientist who would like to help him decide about his future. Victor would like to see Dimka go to college because he firmly believes in Dimka’s abilities.

The young people spend their days wandering around, doing nothing constructive, and discussing the possibility of going away from Moscow; it does not matter where, as long as it is away from home. The apartment house where they live, their parents, older relatives, and the authorities all fill them with boredom and a desire to rebel. Dimka does not want to follow in his successful brother’s steps. His words speak for the group as a whole:

Victor, it was Pa and Ma who planned your life for you while you were still kicking in your cradle.... In your whole life you’ve never even once taken an important decision, never accepted a serious risk. To hell with that! Before we’re even born, everything is worked out for us, our whole future is all mapped out.... I’d rather be a tramp and suffer all sorts of setbacks than go through my whole life being a nice little boy doing what others tell me.

The group finally decides to go west, toward the Baltic coast, leaving everything to chance and to their lucky star. Victor realizes that he cannot change their minds and reluctantly resigns himself to their decision. They become “kilometer eaters” and in a few days on a train reach a small Estonian town on the Baltic Sea. Enjoying full freedom for the first time in their lives, they feel exalted and intoxicated by the fresh sea air; the provisions from home are still plentiful. Nevertheless, pangs of homesickness and anxiety begin to gnaw at them. They meet all types of people: some dubious characters, some honest workers. They take on menial jobs, more out of boredom than out of necessity, although their money is slowly running out. In addition, Galya and Dimka admit for the first time that they are emotionally involved, which complicates matters because they are living as a group. The three boys eventually find jobs with a fishing trawler and go out to sea every morning, coming back late in the afternoon. In the meantime, Galya has made the acquaintance of a middle-aged actor who promises to help her start her acting career. Dimka is visibly unhappy about this change, yet he is unable to prevent her from becoming involved with the actor.

Back in Moscow, Victor is debating whether to defend his dissertation in nuclear physics even though he has discovered new material that would render his dissertation subject obsolete. His advising professor urges him on, in order to get the diploma, but Victor, for the first time in his life and undoubtedly under the influence of his younger brother’s independent spirit, decides to forgo the official title and pursue his independent research instead.

Dimka is also pleased with his freedom despite his setback with Galya, the hard work in the fishing co-op, and being too busy to enjoy the company of his friends. He is aware that this is not exactly what he and his friends had hoped for, yet he realizes that this is real life and that he has finally experienced it. He does not want to go back to his life in Moscow. Galya soon decides to come back to him, having been disappointed by her actor friend, who was apparently a fraud. Just as life begins to seem settled, Dimka receives a telegram informing him that his brother has been killed in an air crash while pursuing his duties as a space engineer.

Dimka returns home alone, having said good-bye to his boyhood and his adolescent dreams of freedom and independence. His brother’s death has forced him to grow up overnight. He realizes now that his brother has left him a legacy that he cannot ignore. There are ways one can be both independent and dutiful without obeying others’ commands. As he looks at the evening sky from the window of their home, he sees the same stars that his brother must have seen for the last time. He knows that Victor has left him a ticket to the stars, which he must pursue even though he does not know yet where that ticket will take him.

The Characters

Dimka, the hero of the novel, is a representative of the generation of Russian youth born during World War II, who have little firsthand knowledge of the hardships which their parents experienced. He shows a healthy mixture of boldness and independence of mind, willing to buck the trend and to follow his own path no matter where it might lead him. Dimka is basically honest, though rebellious. He does not mind telling his parents and his older brother that he will not settle for being a hypocrite. At the same time, he is not sure of himself and does not know what he really wants in life. He wonders:

Was it possible that the answer was—nothing? Was it possible that I could wish for nothing beyond standing at a bar and admiring the gleam of artificial stars on the ceiling? Wasn’t I capable of anything more daring than rock ’n’ roll, the Charleston, calypso, the smell of coffee and brandy.... No, hell, I know what I want. Or rather, I feel that knowledge is hiding inside me. But I’ll get to it.

Even though his first attempts at independent life are not an unmitigated success, he has moved toward that unknown goal, and the reader is convinced that eventually he will reach it.

In this respect, Dimka and Victor are similar. Victor seems to follow obediently the path mapped out for him by his elders, as Dimka protests, yet Vassily Aksyonov suggests that there is nothing wrong in becoming a space engineer and working for a meaningful goal. Victor, too, displays integrity of character when he refuses to play the game of official titles and privileges, convinced that what he is doing is much more important than professional benefits. Victor and Dimka are reaching for the same stars but trying to get there by different paths. Aksyonov suggests that both the official and unofficial paths are honorable as long as they are followed without selling one’s soul.

Other characters are somewhat less developed, though they too play a role in the author’s vision of reality in the Soviet Union. All three young people who leave home with Dimka are woven of the same fabric. They all have their dreams—Yurka as a success in the world of sports, Alik as a budding young writer, and Galya as an actress—and they are all willing to sacrifice the comfort and security of their sheltered lives in order to achieve their goals. Alik is more withdrawn and art-oriented; Yurka has his feet placed more firmly on the ground; and Galya is much more naive in her belief in success, but it is symptomatic of their common bond that they understand one another and seek one another’s company. They have rejected the herd morality of their peers, who have allowed themselves to be led without questioning.

One cannot help but be impressed with these young people. Their aspirations do not seem any different from those of the youth in other parts of the world. Their existence vouches for the simple truth that the human desire for freedom and self-fulfillment cannot be eradicated by the intense pressure of a politicized education and environment.

Critical Context

When Aksyonov published A Ticket to the Stars in 1961, he was one of many young writers dedicated to blazing new paths in Soviet literature, introducing themes and styles which until then were considered taboo. To be sure, the freedom emerging in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s was a relative one—writers could still not express themselves as freely as they wished—but the change was noticeable. Aksyonov played a significant part in this process with several short stories and novels, A Ticket to the Stars being perhaps the most important among them. His contribution included the use of a livelier and freer style. The dialogue is much more true to life and full of previously impermissible slang, although it is toned down considerably in translation. The author did not feel compelled to pattern his plot or characters after the prescriptions of Socialist Realism. Most important, the novel is not a period piece; it has lost little of its charm and pertinence with time.

Aksyonov eventually paid the price for his efforts to free Soviet literature from its confines. Forced to emigrate in 1980, he settled in the United States. Although Aksyonov’s later works are bolder, more experimental, than A Ticket to the Stars, this novel retains its significance as the first successful work of an unmistakable talent.

Bibliography

Clark, Katerina. The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, 1981.

Gaev, A. “The Decade Since Stalin,” in Soviet Literature in the Sixties, 1964. Edited by Max Hayward and Edward L. Crowley.

Meyer, Priscilla. “Aksyonov and Stalinism: Political, Moral, and Literary Power,” in Slavic and East European Journal. XXX (Winter, 1986), pp. 509-525.

Mozejko, Edward, Boris Briker, and Per Dalgard, eds. Vasiliy Pavlovich Aksenov: A Writer in Quest of Himself, 1986.

Richardson, Maurice. “Dragooned,” in New Statesman. LXIII (1962), pp. 804-805.