{{Short description|Fantasy subgenre about being transferred to another world or time}} thumb|right|An accidental time travel classic
'''Accidental travel''' is a speculative fiction plot device in which ordinary people accidentally find themselves outside of their normal place or time, often for no apparent reason, a particular type of the "fish-out-of-water" plot.
In Russia, the genre is known as ''popadanstvo''; it became very popular in the early 2000s. In Japanese fiction, the genre of accidental transport into a parallel universe or fantasy world is known as ''isekai''
==Types== The accidental time travel trope is specifically known as time slip. A classical example of time slip is Mark Twain's ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' (1889), which had considerable influence on later writers.<ref name="JamesMendlesohn2012">{{cite book|author1=Edward James|author2=Farah Mendlesohn|title=The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zWzlAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA106|date=26 January 2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-49373-5|pages=106–}}</ref>
Other kinds of accidental travel include space travel (e.g., through accidental wormholes, portals (portal fantasy) or other spatial irregularities, or a catastrophic spatial event), travel to an alternative universe, an RPG universe (litRPG), or into an alternative history.<ref name=bone/> All of the listed examples, however, classify as accidental travel only when the plot involves a broadly considered accident, and is not done purposefully.
An early example of catastrophic space travel is ''Hector Servadac'' (1877) by Jules Verne, where a piece of the Earth with several Earthlings is ripped off by a comet. In ''Les Robinsons du cosmos'' (''{{ill|The Robinsons of the Cosmos|ru|Робинзоны космоса}}'') (1955) by Francis Carsac, pieces of France and the US with plenty of population are ripped off and planted on an alien planet during a collision of two galaxies.
In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs invented John Carter of Mars, who mysteriously lands on Mars from a sacred cave where he was hiding from the Apaches.
Still another way to land somewhere is to be abducted or invited by aliens to live in an advanced star-faring civilization. Common cliches of this type include becoming a slave, or a warrior, or a dying person getting a second chance, with the subsequent social advance.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}
A particular kind of effortless accidental travel is finding oneself in some other place or time occupying someone's else mind, via identity transfer, body swap (mind swap) or mind/body sharing.<ref name=bone/> Carsac wrote the story with the trick of this type as well: in ''Terre en fuite'' (1960) a scientist hit by lightning suddenly becomes a genius and before his death he reveals that his mind melded with the mind of a scientist from far future. However most of the novel is the description of the future of the Earth expecting the Sun to turn supernova. Three years earlier John Dickson Carr used this version of the device in the detective genre in his ''Fire, Burn!'', which transports a 1950s detective's consciousness to the early days of the Metropolitan Police in 1829.
== In Japan == In Japanese fiction, the genre of accidental transport into a parallel universe or fantasy world is known as ''isekai''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Why Are There So Many Parallel World Anime? |url=https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/advertorial/2017-01-31/why-are-there-so-many-isekai-parallel-world-anime/.111576 |accessdate=March 9, 2023 |work=Anime News Network |date=January 31, 2017 |quote="Isekai" means (roughly) parallel world, and has come to denote the sub-genre of story in which a person from the real, mundane world finds him or herself in a radically different world; this parallel reality}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cbr.com/kings-avatar-quanzhi-gaoshou-chinese-anime-not-isekai/ |title=The King's Avatar Is the Chinese Anime Sensation for Gamers Sick of Isekai |last=Sowa |first=Alex |date=October 12, 2020 |website=CBR.com |access-date=March 9, 2023 |quote=both of those shows are what are called isekai, or "accidental travel" stories, in which the protagonist is transported to a fantastical otherworld}}</ref>
==In Russia== In Russian fandom, the trope is known under the terms {{lang|ru|попаданчество}} ''popadanchestvo'' or {{lang|ru|попаданство}} ''popadanstvo'', derived with suffixes -ство, -ество from the neologism ''popadanets'',<ref name=cha46>Challenges in Strategic Communication and Fighting Propaganda in Eastern Europe: Solutions for a Future Common Project, [https://books.google.com/books?id=AbWIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46 p. 46]</ref><ref name=eksmo>[https://eksmo.ru/slovar/popadanstvo/ Попаданство]</ref> a person who accidentally finds themselves elsewhere/elsewhen.{{efn|''Popadanets'', plural: ''popadantsy'', female: ''popadanka'', is a Russian neologism derived from the verb ''popast'', "to get or land into (something)".}} The Russian term bears ironical flavor, because ''popadantsy'' have become a widespread cliche in Russian pulp science fiction.<ref name="bone">[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304085749/http://old.mirf.ru/Articles/art5368.htm "Попаданцы: Штампы и Открытия"], Boris Nevsky, ''Mir Fantastiki'' ("World of Science Fiction"), no.109; September 2012.</ref> Russian critic Boris Nevsky traces this plot device to at least ''Gulliver's Travels'' (18th century).<ref name=bone/> According to the Russian publishing house Eksmo, typical actions of a ''popadanets'' include efforts to adapt to the world they landed into, to save it, to strive to return, or to transform it to their own needs.<ref name=eksmo/>
Around the break of the millennium ''popadanstvo'' gained an immense popularity in Russian science fiction and fantasy. Responding to the demand, the supply of the novels of this type skyrocketed, with an inevitable drop of the overall quality and degeneration of the inventiveness of the writers into a series of clichés.<ref name=cha46/><ref name=kppp>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mirf.ru/book/knigi-pro-popadancev-problemy-shtampy|title=Книги про попаданцев: проблемы и штампы | Книги | Мир фантастики и фэнтези|website=www.mirf.ru}}</ref>
A significant number of ''popadanstvo'' occur at a key moment in the Russian past. Armed with modern knowledge, they turn the tide to the glory of the Motherland, i.e., a ''popadanets'' becomes a progressor, creating an alternative history.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sumlenny |first=Sergej |date=2022-06-17 |title='Comrade Hitler' and Other Russian Fantasies |url=https://cepa.org/article/comrade-hitler-and-other-russian-fantasies/ |access-date=2022-12-30 |website=CEPA |language=en-US}}</ref> It was suggested that this phenomenon of Russian science fiction is characterized by two motivations: "Mary Sue"-type drive to self-fulfillment and patriotic nostalgy over the times of Soviet superpower (Communist nostalgia).<ref>[http://old.lgz.ru/article/15731/ Марш «попаданцев», или Ностальгия по альтернативе] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304035140/http://old.lgz.ru/article/15731/ |date=2016-03-04 }}, Pavel Vinogradov, ''Literaturnaya Gazeta,'' No. 13 (6316), April 6, 2011</ref><ref>[http://izvestia.ru/news/362106 "Попаданцы у Сталина"] ("''Popadantsy'' Visiting Stalin"), Sergey Lukyanenko, ''Izvestiya'', May 26, 2010</ref> Russian political scientist Boris Vishnevskiy considers the phenomenon of ''popadanstvo'' to be the manifestation of post-Soviet Russian revanchism, which, he thinks, has become the cornerstone of Russian politics under Vladimir Putin.<ref>Boris Vishnevskiy, [https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2023/08/10/match-revansh-s-istoriei Матч-реванш с историей. Как «попаданческая» фантастика стала младшей сестрой пропаганды и подготовила общество к немыслимым ранее сценариям], ''Novaya Gazeta'', August 10, 2023</ref>
In 2024 Eliot Borenstein, published a book ''Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny'' about Soviet nostalgia in Russian literary fiction. Chapters 1 and 2 are devoted to ''popadantsy'' who want to change the future. He calls these "Time Crashers". (''Cornell University Press'' offers a free e-book online).<ref>[https://cornellpress.manifoldapp.org/projects/unstuck-in-time ''Unstuck in Time. On the Post-Soviet Uncanny'', by Eliot Borenstein], free ebook</ref>
A typical Russian popadanets is one of the three types: an everyman, a commando, or a reenactor, with all undergoing a social lift after travel.<ref name=maga/><ref name=kppp/>
While a Russian popadanets used to be a male, since 2000s a flood of pulp fiction emerged featuring female ''popadanka'' hero, typically in the form of romance fiction, where popadanka becomes a mighty sorceress or becomes a bride of a mighty man: a king, a sorcerer, an elf, a vampire, etc., often via an "academy of magic". The livelib.ru website featured 360 books about females landed in a magical world published in 2016, 422 in 2017, and 433 in 2018.<ref name=maga>Maria Galina, Ressentiment and post-traumatic syndrome in Russian post-Soviet speculative fiction: Two trends. In:The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia : Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Russia, [https://books.google.com/books?id=W8OkDwAAQBAJ&dq=popadanets++-wikipedia&pg=PT51 p.51]</ref>
In 2016 Sergey Lukyanenko wrote a parody short story, ''Vitya Solnyshkin and Iosif Stalin'' {{lang|ru|Витя Солнышкин и Иосиф Сталин}}. Young pioneer Vitya chances to meet Joseph Stalin and explains that he is in fact from the future. Stalin is not at all surprised: for years now time travelers swarm to advise Stalin, but comrade Stalin does not rush to follow their advice: he is quite sure that Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt have similar "advisors" as well, and with all these conflicting advices, the history stays in old tracks.<ref>Eliot Borenstein, ''Unstuck in Time: On the Post-Soviet Uncanny'', [https://cornellpress.manifoldapp.org/read/unstuck-in-time/section/62361555-c81f-42fe-8352-959d0967f62b#3050-3440_ch001 Chapter 1: WORLD WAR ME Hello, Stalin!]</ref>
===In film=== Russian films about ''popadantsy'' include ''Black Hunters'' (the original Russian title translates as "We are From the Future") (2008) and {{ill|lt=its sequel|Black Hunters 2|ru|Мы из будущего 2}} (2010) about treasure hunters called "black diggers" in Russian, who find themselves in the 1942 of the World War II Eastern Front, {{ill|The Mist (2010 film)|lt=''The Mist''|ru|Туман (фильм, 2010)}}, Russian TV film about three Russian soldiers, ''popadantsy'' into the 1941 of the Eastern Front,<ref>Sergey Lukyanenko, [https://iz.ru/news/362106 Попаданцы у Сталина]</ref> {{ill|lt=Frontier|Frontier (2018 film)|ru|Рубеж (фильм, 2018)}} about ''popadantsy'' into the Nevsky Pyatachok frontline during the Siege of Leningrad and ''Mirror for a Hero'', a combination of ''popadnstvo'' with "time loop" in late 1940s.
==See also== * Dream world (plot device) * Chuanyue * Imaginary voyage * Isekai * Rip van Winkle, an archetypal story of a man who fell asleep and woke up in a different time many years later. * Robinsonade * Time travel in fiction
==Notes== {{notelist}} ==References== {{reflist}}
{{Fantasy fiction}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Accidental travel}} Category:Science fiction themes Category:Fantasy tropes