High Theory of Upbringing (abbreviation HTU; in Russian: Высокая теория воспитания or ВТВ) is a term created by Boris Strugatsky, denoting the mechanisms for forming a person of the bright future described in the works of the Soviet writers the Strugatsky brothers. The concept exists only in the form of an artistic image and is not specified by the authors themselves.Djagileva, K. (April 14, 2023). "«Высокая теория воспитания»: в чем суть педагогической концепции Стругацких" ["High Theory of Upbringing": What is the Essence of the Strugatskys' Pedagogical Concept]. Pedsovet. Retrieved September 27, 2025 The concept of entrusting the upbringing of new generations of builders of communism to professionals appears in the correspondence of A. N. Strugatsky during his army service in the early 1950s. Already in early utopian works, especially Noon: 22nd Century (1962), as well as in critical speeches of the 1960s–1970s, the Strugatsky brothers repeatedly addressed the problems of future pedagogy, insisting on the existence of a system of boarding schools — "incubators" of the bright future. The problem of the conflict of generations —of the past and future as such— is most clearly shown in the novella The Ugly Swans (1967). The phrase "theory of upbringing" itself in the Strugatskys' artistic texts appears in the late novel Burdened with Evil (1988), while the term HTU was used by B. N. Strugatsky in the 1996 preface to the collection Time of the Disciples. In the offline interview conducted from 1998–2012, Boris Strugatsky repeatedly used the concept of HTU.
Background. Biographical subtext The Strugatskys' biographer, science fiction writer Ant Skalandis, attributed the High Theory of Upbringing to one of the highest achievements of the Strugatskys in the field of social science fiction (along with the Institute of Experimental History, the idea of progressorism, and the concept of homeostatic universe). HTU implies "a planetary system in which children are raised outside families by professionals of the highest class", which is "the only correct path to a harmonious happy future for humanity", described in the Strugatskys' works. However, the theory itself was never developed by its authors; it was "only named, as some effective and supposedly noble idea". At the same time, A. Skalandis assumed (without any written or oral evidence on this matter) that the Strugatskys' mother Alexandra Ivanovna—a teacher with forty years of experience—did not share their views. In A. N. Strugatsky's correspondence, the reasoning that family upbringing is an "unacceptably random" process appears in 1948 and was connected with communication with his father-in-law, professor of MPEI S. F. Shershov. According to the thoughts of 23-year-old Arkady Strugatsky, the main task of upbringing is "directing a person along the right path", identifying his main inclinations. This is possible only under conditions where children are separated from parents and placed in closed boarding schools in the best climatic conditions, where mentors divide them into "humanitarians and techies". Such a system is aimed primarily at forming an intellectual elite, to a lesser extent affecting workers. Ant Skalandis summarized the evolution of the HTU idea in the following way:From that distant 1948 to 1984, when the last novella about the future was completed, their theory of upbringing acquired elegance and persuasiveness of an artistic image, became a serious fact of literature, but as a theory did not advance an iota, only becoming more entangled in itself. For example, young Arkady clearly named the age of five, clearly borrowed from the Japanese tradition, where precisely from five years old children stop being indulged, allowing them almost everything, and begin to be drilled according to a strict samurai system. In the ABS books, the age of the beginning of collective upbringing is nowhere clearly marked; specific characters, as a rule, turn out to be the same age as the daughters of or the son of at the time of writing, which is characteristic of most writers who do not specifically develop a children's theme; and finally, BN already in the newest times, communicating on the site, suddenly declares that in the world they invented, children were taken from parents at the age of one (!) year.Literary scholar E. A. Velikanova, characterizing the High Theory of Upbringing, asserted that the Strugatskys proclaimed the "forced necessity of orphanhood". This corresponds to the details of the early biography of the co-author brothers. In January 1942, 16-year-old Arkady Strugatsky and his father were evacuated from blockaded Leningrad; after the death of Natan Strugatsky in Vologda from exhaustion and heart disease, Arkady had to survive alone (spending three months in the hospital), reaching the village of Tashla in Orenburg Oblast in the summer of 1942. Alexandra Strugatskaya, due to the impossibility of getting to work with 8-year-old Boris, first placed him in a departmental kindergarten, and then in an orphanage ("they feed... poorly—they steal"). Together with the orphanage, A. I. Strugatskaya and Boris were evacuated from Leningrad on August 4, 1942, reaching Arkady in Tashla by early autumn. The eldest son was drafted into the army on January 28, 1943 and thereafter until demobilization in 1955 rarely saw his mother and brother, communication with whom was mainly by correspondence.
System of Education and Upbringing in the Strugatskys' Fantastic World
The theme of upbringing, which is one of the cross-cutting themes in the Strugatskys' work, is inseparable from the depiction of children and adolescents. For the time of creation of the novel Noon: 22nd Century, the dominant in the authors' prose was the feeling of the coming bright future, filtered through "an intellect capable of detailed analysis of the given subject". It is in this novel that the theme of the destruction of the traditional family sounded, the assertion of educators in the place of fathers. According to A. V. Kuznetsov (Moscow State Pedagogical University), the Strugatskys' pedagogical interests coincided with the agenda of the USSR's internal policy. In the 1950s, a system of boarding schools was deployed and schools for gifted children appeared. The pedagogical content of the Khrushchev educational reforms was derived from the concept of upbringing ideal people of the future. Boarding schools were considered an effective tool for instilling love for public labor and as real places for the birth of communist society. This task was considered beyond the strength of parents, and therefore it should be entrusted to professional educators. Magnitogorsk teacher I. Pimshtein (School No. 65) from personal communication with A. Strugatsky recalled that the writer highly appreciated the novella by Rudyard Kipling Stalky & Co. as providing "a very interesting view 'from inside' on a privileged English school". In the boarding school described by Kipling, "strict, sometimes cruel requirements for discipline were combined with respect for the dignity of the individual, with the ability to help a young person realize their abilities, find their path, maximize the realization of their personality's possibilities in the world".
Philologist V. A. Grinfeld (Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design) highlighted in Return another aspect of the reality surrounding the authors in the sixties: in the terminology of K. Obuchowski, "the culture of object-people was replaced by the culture of subject-people", and the rebellion against the object civilization was led by representatives of youth who did not accept standardization, specialization, synchronization, maximization and other attributes of the industrial world. Naturally, the depiction of a world devoid of modern problems and antagonisms had to be built by the method of inversion, an implicit reaction to the surrounding world. V. Grinfeld considered the novella "Malefactors" one of the most important in the entire work. Boarding schools were a projection of the reality of the 1950s, in which higher and secondary school were accessible to not too large a part of the USSR population. According to the Strugatskys, the world of the future is inhabited by thinking people, brought up in respect for rational knowledge obtained by scientific methods. When Boris Strugatsky participated in geodetic and archaeological expeditions in the Caucasus and Central Asia, he repeatedly wrote to his brother about the catastrophic illiteracy of the young post-war generation: "It turned out that the titanic machine of the general education process, and even more so the machine of radio-newspaper-television propaganda — spun over their heads in vain?"
From the very beginning the Strugatskys proceeded from the psychology of the best part of Soviet people of the 1950s–1960s, this position as a principled one the co-author brothers expressed at the 1964 meeting of science fiction writers in the report The Man of Our Dream. The Strugatskys stated that already in our time there is a shift of the "pole of talent, genius" ("as now what was at the pole of genius 200 years ago is the norm") and therefore in two hundred or three hundred years most people will become such as now seem exceptional. The authors interpreted the future not as a result of random development of events, but as a fusion of two main trends: as the result of all previous ascending development of humanity and at the same time as the result of conscious influence of people. The transition to a knowledge society is possible only through targeted efforts in upbringing, the project of the system of which is characterized in the novella Malefactors. The students of the fantastic Anyudin boarding school have great freedom in choosing activities and prefer to spend leisure on studying the latest physical theories and chemical experiments, active games or scuba diving. Learning occurs through dialogue with the mentor (Teacher), but "television lessons" on economics and geography are mentioned. Algebra is studied together with the teacher. The Teacher is the highest authority, who must act as a specialist in all disciplines, but first of all he is engaged in the moral-ethical upbringing of children. According to Yu. Chernyakhovskaya, this refers to the pedagogical theories of utopians Ch. Fourier and R. Owen: theoretical training is combined with applied in training workshops. The Teacher deals with a small number of adolescents, whose life and morals he knows thoroughly, he is aware of how each of them spends free time and what habits they have. That is, he combines the functions of educator and psychologist. The Teacher has access to the students' room at any time of day, but rarely uses it, guidance is mainly carried out indirectly. Almost always the Teacher enjoys the love and respect of the students, lying to him is considered the gravest offense ("Lying to the teacher, you'll lie to anyone"; "All the worst in a person begins with a lie").
In the same novel, the life and structure of the Higher School of Cosmogation is characterized (novella Almost the Same). It includes four faculties: command, navigation, engineering, remote control. In the school for young people, education is joint, the program includes sports activities and endurance training, work with the waveguide computer LIANTO (analogous to modern informatics classes). Each stream of cadets has its own head, responsible to the faculty chief for discipline. Like the Anyudin boarding school, the building of the Higher School of Cosmogation is surrounded by a spacious park, in which cadets spend free time, they also eat together. According to the Strugatskys, as such socialization progresses, the probability of the appearance of individuals consciously striving to commit a crime against the person sharply decreases.