Series: “The Russian Books Everyone Argued About in 2020.” Part 1 of 4.
By Irakli Gagua
The year 2020 is remembered for closed borders, empty streets and anxiety. Yet literature did not stop. In that year several Russian novels sparked the most heated debates among critics and readers. In this series I look at four of them: Newton’s Blueprint by Alexander Ilichevsky, The Invincible Sun by Victor Pelevin, Earth by Mikhail Elizarov and The Garden by Marina Stepnova. We begin with the novel that won the year’s most important literary prize.
The Most Unexpected Big Book
On December 10, 2020, the first prize of the Big Book (Большая книга), Russia’s leading literary award, went to Alexander Ilichevsky for Newton’s Blueprint («Чертёж Ньютона»). The magazine God Literatury called it the most unexpected Big Book in fifteen years: the jury’s choice completely diverged from the readers’ vote, which was led by Mikhail Elizarov, Dina Rubina and Alexei Makushinsky. The book appeared from Elena Shubina’s imprint at the turn of 2019–2020, but it became a real event in 2020.
What the Novel Is About
The hero is Konstantin, a physicist who studies dark matter — something that exists but cannot be seen. The novel is built around three journeys: across the Nevada desert to an American religious community, to the Pamir mountains in search of an abandoned Soviet laboratory, and to Jerusalem, where he looks for his missing father, a poet and a wanderer.
The title refers to a real piece of history: in the last years of his life Isaac Newton tried to reconstruct the layout of the Temple in Jerusalem. The great physicist, the father of classical mechanics, seriously believed that the Temple’s proportions held a key to the design of the universe. This image — science searching for God — becomes the key to the whole book.
Science and Faith
The publisher’s own description compares the search for the father with the search for a lost God. That, I think, is what makes the novel interesting for an Orthodox reader. Ilichevsky is not writing a theological treatise, but he asks a question every believer knows: can we see the invisible? Dark matter becomes a metaphor for what holds the world together while escaping our direct gaze. A scientist who has spent his life proving the existence of the unseen discovers the same question in his own family.
The strongest line in the book is that of father and son — a theme that runs through the whole biblical tradition, from Abraham and Isaac to the parable of the Prodigal Son. Jerusalem here is not a backdrop but a living city where history, faith and personal fate meet.
What the Critics Said
The award was controversial. Konstantin Milchin, writing for Gorky, called the book good and flawless in its details, but said that instead of a plot it offers only “a teaspoon of plot” and a predictable ending; in his view, the prize should have gone to Elizarov’s Earth. Asya Mikheeva in Novy Mir praised the complex composition and the image of the Temple but criticized the novel’s strictly male perspective, in which women are barely visible. At God Literatury, Sergei Belyakov defended the jury’s choice and called Ilichevsky a true intellectual, while Mikhail Vizel noted that the novel demands a special kind of reading.
My Verdict
Newton’s Blueprint is not a novel to relax with. It is slow, dense, lyrical prose, closer to a philosophical essay and a travelogue than to a classic story. The plot really is secondary: you read this book for its voice, its reflections and its Jerusalem. Readers who want intrigue will be disappointed. Readers willing to read slowly and think alongside the author will find a rare attempt in contemporary fiction to bring physics and metaphysics together.
I would recommend it to parents and older students interested in questions of faith and science. It is a good starting point for a conversation about why great scientists, from Newton to our own day, so often arrived at the question of the Creator.
About the Author
Alexander Ilichevsky was born in 1970 in Sumgait, graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and worked as a scientist in Israel and the United States. Since 2013 he has lived in Jerusalem. He won the Russian Booker Prize in 2007 for Matisse, second prize of the Big Book in 2010 for The Persian, and first prize of the Big Book in 2020 for Newton’s Blueprint.
The Series
- Newton’s Blueprint by Alexander Ilichevsky (you are reading it)
- The Invincible Sun by Victor Pelevin (October 13)
- Earth by Mikhail Elizarov (October 16)
- The Garden by Marina Stepnova (October 19)
Read this article in Russian: «Чертёж Ньютона» Александра Иличевского.
Sources: God Literatury, Gorky, Novy Mir, the official Big Book Prize website, Wikipedia.