Who Is Ivan Yefremov's The Nur-I-Desht Observatory

Ivan Yefremov’s The Nur-i-desht Observatory conveys ideas of spirituality and other worldly powers; however, when discovered that the source of renewal and everlasting joy comes not from the temple-esque observatory, but instead from worldly and rational radium, it becomes not a place of serenity and human development, but instead, one of scientific discovery. The battle between a spiritual awakening or a stimulant inducing elation forces a question about the existence of divine encounters, which in turn restricts human experience and invalidates emotion.
The short story provides a scientific understanding for the idea of exultation, a feeling that is typically abstract and subjective. The story follows Ivan Timofeyevich in his pursuit of an excavation of the Nur-i-desht, or “light in the desert”, observatory. He follows Tanya to the site and is immediately encapsulated into the beauty of the site and its ethereal impression. He describes the site through its “[c]alm, expanse, pure mountain air, and the blue of a heavy sultriness overhead”, trailing off as if words were not enough to describe the beauty and the feeling that it invoked (208). The site, according to Tanya, fills her with a radiant joy, and it “seems […] that this ancient observatory is a temple… I can’t really express it clearly… the earth, the sky, the sun, and something mysterious and beautiful that imperceptibly permeates this ungoverned space”, and she continues with her vindication, stating “I’ve seen plenty of much more beautiful …show more content…
The feeling emitted, or the light in the desert, is only due to radium. The radiant joy that the characters experience is solely because they are under the influence of not a spiritual awakening, but a chemical. The story gives a wider scope to a phenomenon, explaining a seemingly transcendent experience through science, limiting the human experience