Introduction: What does ‘space culture’ mean in soviet society?

Abstract

In December 2009, an official Russian organizing committee met to discuss the celebrations planned for the year 2011, which - in honour of Iurii (Yuri) Gagarin’s spaceflight - had been declared the ‘Year of Russian Cosmonautics’.1 In his address to the committee, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressed his concerns about the ‘falsification’ of history. Even in Russian shops, he argued, you could buy books ‘without a word either on the first Sputnik of the earth or about Gagarin’s take-off’. The 50th anniversary of the latter achievement would provide a good opportunity to point out ‘to the world public the key role of Russia in the conquest of the cosmos’.2 Only a few months later, a Russian-made 3D animation movie entitled ‘Star Dogs: Belka and Strelka’ was first shown in cinemas across the country.3 The state-of-the art animation technique used in the film, however, did not meet the taste of one blog commentator who thought that there was no need to imitate Hollywood, as this was, he said, ‘our animation film about our, and only our, history’.4 Thus, in different ways, Russian politicians and ordinary people remember the Soviet ‘space age’ as an important and memorable part of their own history and culture. In different cultures of memory various stories about the Soviet space exploration programme are told and its protagonists, be they animals, objects or people, are still remembered today (see Figure 1.1).