The Voice of the Universe (1991)
The Voice of the Universe (1991)
Pulp fiction meets Scientology meets QAnon in post-Soviet Russia
The last two Fridays (1, 2), we’ve looked at “satirical journals” of the First Russian Revolution (1905—1907), which addressed their tumultuous time with a mix of art, poetry, dark humor, and literary fiction.
Today we’ll take a look at the one-of-a-kind newspaper of 1990s, The Voice of the Universe. A brainchild of the hypergraphic sci-fi writer Yuriy Petukhov, it used a mix of science fiction, conspiracy theory, demonology, art, and low-brow, xenophobic politics to express the hopes and anxieties of a period that could be called the Fourth Revolution (February and October of 1917 being, respectively, the Second and the Third).
The Voice of the Universe is sui generis. When I try to think of similar projects, what comes to mind is the Church of Scientology: both Hubbard and Petukhov were mediocre writers, but their stories still managed to captivate people, because they were put in very unusual contexts—Hubbard turned his into religious texts, delivered to true believers as a part of a secretive ritual, and Petukhov turned his into “the first independent newspaper in the Soviet Union,” the very first issue of which had 500,000 copies. (The story goes, he somehow got ahold of a truckload of paper—state property was easily stolen in the 1980s and 90s—and built his publishing business using that capital.)
The way I see it, The Voice of the Universe didn’t print many articles that would deserve your attention outside of this context. It wasn’t individual texts or images that were Petukhov’s art form, but the collage he made out of them—the newspaper itself. In a given issue, you might see an announcement from a “commission for contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations” next to “a prophecy” (a regular feature), a letter from “a victim of psycho-terrorism,” an account of somebody who was killed and then resurrected after spending 1.5 years in hell, and an interview with a real, prominent ultranationalist—all illustrated, sometimes with a bit of erotica, and on the same news stand as Pravda. Pulp fiction meets Scientology meets QAnon in post-Soviet Russia.
Below, you will find my translations (edited by Daniel Hojnacki) of the first two pages of the paper’s very first issue: a “prophecy,” a note on the nature of such prophecies, and a call to capture and bring in a live alien in exchange for financial reward.
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A PROPHECY
The second millennium since the birth of Christ and the twelfth millennium of the Tertiary Terrestrial civilization are coming to a close. Ten years separate Earth from the moment it will enter the nodal level of the space-time pulse chain, The Chain That Binds the Cosmos.
It is only once in a thousand years that the Earth’s clock, which defines the course of events in the noösphere, goes into superspace resonance with the Clock of the Universe, and Earth itself rolls over from one groove of the Universal Hyperwheel into another.
The roll-over moment holds the mysterious within it.
Earth has been on the brink many times. Twice, the terrestrial civilizations—the Primary and the Secondary—have perished.
Space is deaf to the cries of the suffering, Space doesn’t know how to forgive. It never explains why this or that society or world is going to die. It doesn’t notice the deaths of those who violate its laws, because It is infinite and indifferent.
The Higher Forces that have created Space cannot slow down or stop the movement of the Hyperwheel—this would be tantamount to destroying Space itself.
And this is why They do not intervene, and wishing for Their help is futile. One can call for Them, pray to Them, repent, give pledges, make excuses—all will be in vain. The Higher Forces reject all words and excuses, because, as Тhey have established, all will be judged by their deeds.
And Earth’s affairs
are lamentable.When Earth rolled into the previous extranodal microlevel of the hundred-year cycle, an unexpected and disastrous event occurred: the defensive inferno-barriers and psychofields, installed by the Higher Forces, were damaged, and as a result, a hole connecting Earth to the Otherworld appeared in the protective layer above Russia. Inferno energy rushed into the Superspace tunnel created by the Forces of Evil.
Though this puncture was microscopic, almost nonexistent for Space itself, it was enough to destroy a third of the planet and eliminate hundreds of millions of people: in the affected areas, which fell into the gaps between the microlevel and the approaching nodal level of the Binding Chain, not a single inhabitant died from natural causes, and in all cases living flesh was killed by inferno matter.
Nonetheless, the base of the Evil Forces was destroyed as a result of the interhuman massacre—two negatives made a positive. Earth’s polarization—the foundation for the existence of any world or community—was restored. The threat of the death of the Tertiary civilization retreated.
But as it turned out, this was only temporary, because the main cause of the flow of Evil onto Earth has not been eliminated.
Shaman-scientists and half-literate, self-taught astrologists that measure the flow of events by the movements of illusive planets, have been giving false hope to Humanity, which has already put one foot above the Abyss.
There is no return from the Inferno Abyss. Humanity is one light, almost imperceptible movement away from it. It’s been given an infinitely short and immeasurably long period of time to make this last movement: ten years.
The Superspace tunnel hasn’t been closed; the hole is expanding. The Evil, flowing onto this huge territory, is unstoppable, because infernomatter infiltrates people’s bodies and souls, leading to self-destruction and fratricidal wars.
The Forces of Evil are immaterial, they act through those they possess, and anybody who fails to reject them is bound to be possessed by them. The drive for self-destruction and self-extermination, which hides behind bombastic slogans, becomes pathological, deadly. Those that stand on the sidelines are triumphant: their potential enemy is destroying herself, and is that not a cause for celebration?
But this celebration is premature, because destroying one part of the whole inevitably leads to the death of the whole itself—the Terrestrial civilization. The world, as of yet untouched by the Forces of Evil, is rejoicing, watching how the once Great and Powerful Russian Realm is falling apart, dying, and getting sucked into the hellish funnel. But the hellish winds are already circling around this passively watching and rejoicing world—it doesn’t have a path of its own: to cut Russia off means to bleed out and die, and to not cut it off means to follow it in its fall into the Black Hole of the inferno.
To keep it from falling! The only answer is to keep the dying land, conquered by the Forces of Evil, from falling, and to give it strength for healing… But the world is deaf, the dying Tertiary Terrestrial civilization is deaf. By finishing off the bloodless, dying Russia, the civilization is finishing itself off.
The dreadful funnel of the Superspace tunnel is widening, Horror and Darkness are flooding Earth—only a blind man can’t see this! The moment of entrance into the nodal level, which is coming in only ten years, will amplify the resonance oscillations, the transitory push will weaken the already weak inferno-barriers and psychofields, the Superspace tunnel will widen, and a collapse, from which Humanity will never recover, will finally come to pass.
The last massacre will be the harshest one in humanity’s history.
Natural disasters—earthquakes, floods, and pestilence—will aggravate conditions and intensify the agony of the self-destructing civilization. The depolarization of the global community will cross out all things in existence on Earth by rejecting the Foundational Law of Space. There is almost no chance for salvation, the self-destruction process has already gone too far.
A few thousand zealots stand against the Universal Evil, trying to close the hellish funnel by using their own psychofields; but there is a limit to what they can do; the people are turning away from their country, condemning it to die, and through this, condemning themselves to die as well. A terrifying black ulcer is spreading through the continent.
Even the Higher Forces cannot predict the future in the nodal levels of the space-time pulse chains, because fully programmed systems are not self-sustainable. And yet… The outcome appears to be an extremely unfavorable, dark one.
TO OUR DEAR READER
The newspaper you hold in your hands now is an unusual one. Why? Do not jump to conclusions!
It is unusual not because it is made for smart and honest people, and not because a fool and a dirtbag would throw punches at it, stomp it with his feet, and demand it to be banned immediately. That’s happened to ordinary newspapers and magazines too.
What makes our newspaper unusual is it’s not entirely human-made. Do you see?
You might have noticed the piece above is not signed. An experienced reader will say: that’s an article from the editorial board. This would be a mistake. This “article,” this Prophecy, was not written, was not composed by anybody at all. That’s right. It was dictated from Above.
The Universe has Its own Voice. This Voice belongs to the Higher Forces. The Universe can talk to any one of us. But not everybody will hear It. Not everybody is ready to hear It. That’s why we took it upon ourselves to deliver Its Voice to you.
It’s okay if, at first, it will be a bit imprecise, would lack some expressivity and color, wouldn’t quite paint a picture—please forgive us for this. When the Voice of the Universe speaks in the mind of the human-psychoreciever, it does not use the language we’re used to. It is simply impossible to convey the entire ineffable range, the entire palette of this Voice; it is more than what an earthly creature is capable of. Earth’s greatest geniuses have not been able to express even the hundredth part of what they have heard from Above.
Still, we will try, because we firmly believe, in contrast to the opinions of the powers that be, that people, and especially our countrymen, have matured enough to hear the voices of otherworldly, transcendental spheres.
The materialist, Marxist worldview has collapsed under the weight of its own leaden stupidity—the dreadful dome that covered us is no more; above us are buzzing and thunderous choirs and music of the Space spheres. And these spheres are higher than all governments—our own wise government should not be offended by this, because the spheres are higher than communists, fascists, democrats, renegades, pluralists, conservatives, internationalists, chauvinists, and even ourselves—they are higher than everybody, and to take offense with them would be a sin.
Instead, we would do well to listen to what they are saying—he that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
The editorial board doesn’t quite agree with the statements found in this Prophecy (the extrasensory receiver might have misheard something or made a few errors), and, unlike the progressivist foremen, thinks that Russia can still stand up for itself, that the Great Realm cannot be easily put on its knees and turned into a handful of Bantustan-reservations, regardless of how enticing that might sound to the foolhardy go-betweens, ready to trade in Russia’s land and people. Russia will stand up for itself and its sons, thrown to the nationalist gangs by the powers that be.
Seventy years ago, Russia was tortured by gangs of internationalist vermin. On the face of it, isn’t today’s situation the complete opposite? And yet, the essence is the same—the genocide, the destruction of an undesirable nation. And here, we agree with the Voice: they’re shooting themselves in the foot
, the fool-hardy and hasty hangmen will fall into the same hellish funnel as their predecessors—good riddance! And Russia will keep itself on the edge, take a breath, get up, and fill the vile hole with dirt, to keep the smell of dead flesh away.And yet, let us heed what the Voice has to say. It is scary stuff. But it’s also a scary world that we live in. Let’s listen and try to make sense of it. We need to understand this Unearthly Voice. The very fact that It is trying to talk to us should give us some hope—it means Space is not deaf after all, is not quite so indifferent.
Most of the words and terminology, epithets and definitions that the Voice uses have neither direct translations nor analogs in the languages of Earth. This is why one of the most important goals our newspaper has set for itself for the very immediate future, before the dreadful catastrophe happens, is to reach contact with the four extraterrestrial civilizations that, according to our sources, are present on Earth. We don’t have time to avoid one another and to wait for the other one to bow down first. We must act! The language of the humanoids of the Universe will help us to decode the Voice, to understand it.
After all, there must be some reason the Unearthly Transcendental Forces have founded our newspaper now, when Earth is at the very edge of the Abyss! This can’t be a simple coincidence! We must stave off the approaching Catastrophe together.
That said, our editorial board wants to make clear that we flatly reject all attempts to reach contact with infernal creatures and residents of non-humanoid civilizations—no compromise is possible here! What we do whole-heartedly agree with the Voice about is that the immaterial Forces of Evil that burst into our world through the Superspace tunnel are now possessing the bodies and souls of many seemingly decent and progressive characters that are attacking everything that they see, smearing and shaking their fists at the people they have to, for now, live among.
It is what it is: when the destroyers and the debunkers are more numerous than the creators, when nobody is fighting them off, and even to the contrary, everybody is mesmerized by them, then death and destruction become inevitable. This law is as true as the Foundational Law of Space.
We ask you, our dear reader, to not succumb to panic prematurely. The Cosmic Direct Channels are not yet closed off, and we hope to hear something kind and hope-inspiring from Space.
We must live in Hope and Faith in Kindness!
WANTED!
10 000 rubles
To all Russians and people of the Earth!
It’s time we sort things out with them aliens!
DEAR FRIENDS! THE CIA, KGB, FBI AND MIA, INTERPOL AND SECURITATE, THE COVERT SERVICES OF THE FREEMASONS AND THE SECRET OFFICES OF THE NATIONAL PATRIOTIC FRONT “MEMORY,” NOT TO MENTION OTHER GOVERNMENTAL AND NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE WORLD, HAVE SHOWN THEIR COMPLETE INABILITY
TO TRACK DOWN AND CAPTURE EXTRATERRESTRIAL RESIDENTS THAT ARE INFILTRATING THE CIVILIZATION OF EARTH3. SHAME! AND THIS IS AFTER THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE, IN DIFFERENT [MENTAL AND PHYSICAL] STATES, HAVE BEEN ON BOARD OF THE “SAUCERS” AND TALKED TO ALIENS!THE VOICE OF THE UNIVERSE, TOGETHER WITH THE NON-GOVERNMENTAL TRANSCENDENTAL EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL COMMISSION FOR CONTACT (READ ABOUT THE COMMISSION IN THE NEXT ISSUE) ANNOUNCES AN ALL-PLANETARY SEARCH FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIALS.
WANTED!
10 000 TO THOSE WHO WILL FIND AND BRING A LIVE ALIEN TO THE OFFICE OF THE NEWSPAPER OR A DIFFERENT PRE-DETERMINED PLACE. ATTENTION! ANY VIOLENCE TOWARDS THE RESIDENTS OF ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS IS UNACCEPTABLE! THERE MIGHT BE REPRESENTATIVES OF NON-HUMANOID CIVILIZATIONS AND NATIVES OF OTHER-SIDE WORLDS AMONG THE ALIENS — ANY CONTACT WITH SUCH ENTITIES CAN LEAD TO THE HARSHEST OF CONSEQUENCES. PRACTICE EXTREME CAUTION! THE GOALS OF THE SEARCH AND CAPTURE INITIATIVE ARE SOLELY HUMANITARIAN.
Note: The Voice of the Universe considers its duty to make it known to all messengers from other worlds and their missions on Earth that it harbors only the friendliest feelings towards them, and is not intending to harm them in any way. Apologies in advance for any excesses.
“Deeds“ and “affairs” is the same word in the Russian original. — NP
The Russian proverb is “cutting the bough on which they are sitting.” — NP
“According to other reports, which can’t be verified, government services have made contact with extraterrestrials and signed secret treaties with them behind the people’s back. VOU is not confident these reports are true. At the same time, they haven’t been refuted either.“ — VOU
The previous entries were fascinating, but this is especially impressive. It feels like something PK Dick might produce. Thank you for introducing us to it.