Into the Cosmos: Space Exploration and Soviet Culture

343 Pages·2011·2.181 MB·English

by  James T. Andrews, Asif A. Siddiqi

Into the Cosmos
Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies
Jonathan Harris, Editor
Into the Cosmos
Space Exploration and Soviet Culture
Edited by James T. Andrews
and Asif A. Siddiqi
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15260
Copyright © 2011, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Into the cosmos : space exploration and Soviet culture / edited by James T. Andrews and
Asif A. Siddiqi.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8229-6161-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Astronautics—Soviet Union—History. 2. Astronautics and state—Soviet Union.
3. Astronautics—Social aspects—Soviet Union. 4. Popular culture—Soviet Union. I.
Andrews, James T., 1961– II. Siddiqi, Asif A., 1966–
TL789.8.S65I58 2011
629.40947—dc23 2011020849
The research and writing of chapter 6, Amy Nelson’s “Cold War Celebrity and the Coura-
geous Canine Scout: The Life and Times of Soviet Space Dogs,” was supported by a Sum-
mer Humanities Stipend and a Jerome Niles Faculty Research Award from Virginia Tech
and by the Summer Research Laboratory on Russia and Eastern Europe at the University
of Illinois. Portions of this chapter appeared previously in “The Legacy of Laika: Celeb-
rity, Sacrifice, and the Soviet Space Dogs,” in Beastly Natures: Human-Animal Relations at
the Crossroads of Cultural and Environmental History, edited by Dorothee Brantz (Univer-
sity of Virginia Press, 2010), 204–24.
“Our space epic has convincingly revealed to the world the upbringing
of a new person—spiritually beautiful, courageous, devoted to
communist ideals, and having a high sense of internationalism.”
—Pravda, November 4, 1968, describing
the profession of the cosmonaut

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Space Exploration in the Soviet Context 1
James T. Andrews and Asif A. Siddiqi
Part I. The Space Project: Cultural Context and Historical Background
1. The Cultural Spaces of the Soviet Cosmos 15
Alexei Kojevnikov
2. Getting Ready for Khrushchev’s Sputnik: Russian Popular Culture
and National Markers at the Dawn of the Space Age 28
James T. Andrews
Part II. Myth and Reality in the Soviet Space Program
3. Cosmic Contradictions: Popular Enthusiasm and Secrecy
in the Soviet Space Program 47
Asif A. Siddiqi
viii  Contents
4. The Human inside a Propaganda Machine: The Public Image and
Professional Identity of Soviet Cosmonauts 77
Slava Gerovitch
5. The Sincere Deceiver: Yuri Gagarin and the Search
for a Higher Truth 107
Andrew Jenks
6. Cold War Celebrity and the Courageous Canine Scout:
The Life and Times of Soviet Space Dogs 133
Amy Nelson
Part III. The Soviet Space Program and the Cultural Front
7. Cosmic Enlightenment: Scientific Atheism and
the Soviet Conquest of Space 159
Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock
8. She Orbits over the Sex Barrier: Soviet Girls and
the Tereshkova Moment 195
Roshanna P. Sylvester
9. From the Kitchen into Orbit: The Convergence of Human Spaceflight
and Khrushchev’s Nascent Consumerism 213
Cathleen S. Lewis
10. Cold War Theaters: Cosmonaut Titov at the Berlin Wall 240
Heather L. Gumbert
Notes 263
Contributors 317
Index 321
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to first and foremost thank Peter Kracht, edi-
torial director of the University of Pittsburgh Press. Peter read the entire
manuscript and offered insightful organizational and editorial commen-
tary on the work that was invaluable. Dr. Jonathan Harris, professor of
Russian politics at the University of Pittsburgh and the series editor of
the press’s Series in Russian and East European Studies, also read the
manuscript carefully, offering critical advice at the early stages of revi-
sion. We thank him for his support of the project and for bringing it to
the attention of the editorial board.
This project was first conceived as an edited volume at the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) convention
in Washington, D.C., in 2006, when both editors began a conversation,
as a result of several panels, about the possibility of deepening the litera-
ture on the cultural history of the space age. We thank the tremendous
diligence of our contributors and commend their patience with our sev-
eral rounds of editorial commentary and revisions. We wish to thank two
anonymous reviewers for the press whose lengthy and supportive critical
ix