Cosmonaut: A Cultural History

How the public image of the Sovietcosmonaut was designed and reimagined over time Inthis book, Cathleen Lewis discusses how the public image of the Sovietcosmonaut developed beginning in the 1950s and the ways this icon has beenreinterpreted throughout the years and in contemporary Russia. Compilingmaterial and cultural representations of the cosmonaut program, Lewis providesa new perspective on the story of Soviet spaceflight, highlighting how the governmenthas celebrated figures such as Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova through newspapers,radio, parades, monuments, museums, films, and even postage stamps and lapelpins. Lewis’s analysis shows that during the SpaceRace, Nikita Khrushchev mobilized cosmonaut stories and images to symbolize theforward-looking Soviet state and distract from the costs of the Cold War. Publicperceptions shifted after the first Soviet spaceflight fatality and failure toreach the Moon, yet cosmonaut imagery was still effective propaganda, evolvingthrough the USSR’s collapse in 1991 and seen today in Vladimir Putin’s governmentcooperation for a film on the 1985 rescue of the Salyut 7 space station. Lookingclosely at the process through which Russians continue to reexamine their past,Lewis argues that the cultural memory of spaceflight remains especially potent amongother collective Soviet memories. Read more