Maxim Kammerer

Maxim Kammerer (2137 - after 2226) is a fictional character in Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's series of science fiction novels set in the Noon Universe.

It has been speculated that the character was based on Ivan Zhilin - a protagonist of earlier works of the Strugatsky brothers.

Fictional character biography

Kammerer starts out as an adventurer and space explorer, becoming involved in the politics of the local civilization of Saraksh and overthrowing the totalitarian regime of one of its states in 2157. However, his actions also resulted in a severe crisis (both political and psychological) on the planet, forcing him to stay there and help the progressors to sort it out. Approximately at that time he also discovered the canoid (dog-like) race of Golovans.

Later Kammerer became a prominent official in the COMCON-2, "Control Committee", which is a type of intelligence and security service. His career thereafter focuses on studying the Wanderers, an alien civilization that has left traces on many of the planets known to humans of Earth. In 2178 he was briefly acquainted with the "Stepchildren Case".

While gathering little meaningful information about intentions, history, or potential threat of the Wanderers to the human civilization of Earth, Kammerer eventually presided, as the head of the "Unexplained Events" department of the COMCON-2, over the Great Revelation involving the discovery of Ludens, a subgroup of humans capable of superhuman intelligence after certain medical procedures.

Censorship

Originally, Strugatsky brothers dubbed Maxim Maxim Rostislavsky (Максим Ростиславский). However, the Soviet censors demanded that Maxim's last name would be changed to something more Germanic (this was part of the censor's efforts to steer the novel away from its originally anti-Soviet undertones^[1]). When Strugatsky brothers got an opportunity to reverse the changes brought on by Soviet censors, they chose to retain the "Kammerer" last name. They felt that changing it back to the original would create a continuity problem for other Noon Universe stories where Maxim went by his altered last name.

See also

Kammerer appears in Prisoners of Power, Beetle in the Anthill and The Time Wanderers. He was briefly mentioned in Space Mowgli. He was also used as one of the main characters in "The Snake Milk" - a sequel to Strugatsky's The Kid from Hell written by E. Uspenskiy.

Screen adaptation

Kammerer played by Vasiliy Stepanov in The Inhabited Island.

References

1. ^ Off-line interview of Boris Strugatskiy: Originally Kammerer be our Rostislavsky and Sikorsky - Pavel Grigorievich (no surname). (See the magazine version, published in «Nevа» in 1969, or 70). However, the editor in chief of Detgiz categorically demanded: «There are no Russians! The less similarities with the Soviet Union, the better!»- And there Kammerer and Rudolph-Wanderer. (Изначально Каммерер был у нас Ростиславским, а Сикорски – Павлом Григорьевичем (без фамилии). (См. журнальный вариант, опубликованный в «Неве» в 1969 или 70-м году). Однако главный редактор Детгиза категорически потребовал: «Никаких русских! Чем меньше аналогий с СССР, тем лучше!» – и появились Каммерер и Рудольф-Странник.)