The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters
The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters is an 1835 novel by Vladimir Odoyevsky. It is a futuristic novel set in the year 4338. According to calculations of the 1820s, 4338 was one year before Biela's Comet would collide with the Earth; in reality, the comet burned up later in the nineteenth century. The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters was originally conceived as the third part of a trilogy, which was also to have featured depictions of Russia in the time of Peter the Great and in the author's contemporary period, the 1830s. The first part was never written and the second and futuristic parts remained unfinished. Fragments were published in 1835 and 1840, with the fullest version appearing in 1926.
The main character of the story transfers his conscience into the body of a Chinese student, Ippolit Tsunguev. Tsunguev attends St. Petersburg's "Main School". His letters to his fellow students constitute the novel. The world described in Odoevsky's work is in some respects similar to the 21st century and yet differs significantly from the actual present. Some of the technological advances included in the Petersburg Letters are air and space travel, the telephone, artificially controlled climates and the ability to photocopy. Hallucinogenic and truth drugs, in the forms of gaseous drinks and "magnetic baths" remove hypocrisy from social life. In this envisioned future, Russia and China are the centers of global power. Russia and China united their efforts to avoid Earth's collision with another planet. In the novel, China is described as having experienced a "deadly stagnation" which came to an end with the rule of Hin Gin in the 39th century.