Soviet Space Culture
Title | Soviet Space Culture PDF eBook |
Author | E. Maurer |
Publisher | Springer |
Total Pages | 323 |
Release | 2011-08-16 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 0230307043 |
Starting with the first man-made satellite 'Sputnik' in 1957 and culminating four years later with the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, space became a new utopian horizon. This book explores the profound repercussions of the Soviet space exploration program on culture and everyday life in Eastern Europe, especially in the Soviet Union itself.
Into the Cosmos
Title | Into the Cosmos PDF eBook |
Author | James T. Andrews |
Publisher | University of Pittsburgh Pre |
Total Pages | 343 |
Release | 2011-09-25 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 082297746X |
The launch of the Sputnik satellite in October 1957 changed the course of human history. In the span of a few years, Soviets sent the first animal into space, the first man, and the first woman. These events were a direct challenge to the United States and the capitalist model that claimed ownership of scientific aspiration and achievement. The success of the space program captured the hopes and dreams of nearly every Soviet citizen and became a critical cultural vehicle in the country's emergence from Stalinism and the devastation of World War II. It also proved to be an invaluable tool in a worldwide propaganda campaign for socialism, a political system that could now seemingly accomplish anything it set its mind to. Into the Cosmos shows us the fascinating interplay of Soviet politics, science, and culture during the Khrushchev era, and how the space program became a binding force between these elements. The chapters examine the ill-fitted use of cosmonauts as propaganda props, the manipulation of gender politics after Valentina Tereshkova's flight, and the use of public interest in cosmology as a tool for promoting atheism. Other chapters explore the dichotomy of promoting the space program while maintaining extreme secrecy over its operations, space animals as media darlings, the history of Russian space culture, and the popularity of space-themed memorabilia that celebrated Soviet achievement and planted the seeds of consumerism.
Soviet Space Mythologies
Title | Soviet Space Mythologies PDF eBook |
Author | Slava Gerovitch |
Publisher | University of Pittsburgh Press |
Total Pages | 355 |
Release | 2015-06-18 |
Genre | Science |
ISBN | 0822980967 |
From the start, the Soviet human space program had an identity crisis. Were cosmonauts heroic pilots steering their craft through the dangers of space, or were they mere passengers riding safely aboard fully automated machines? Tensions between Soviet cosmonauts and space engineers were reflected not only in the internal development of the space program but also in Soviet propaganda that wavered between praising daring heroes and flawless technologies. Soviet Space Mythologies explores the history of the Soviet human space program within a political and cultural context, giving particular attention to the two professional groups—space engineers and cosmonauts—who secretly built and publicly represented the program. Drawing on recent scholarship on memory and identity formation, this book shows how both the myths of Soviet official history and privately circulating counter-myths have served as instruments of collective memory and professional identity. These practices shaped the evolving cultural image of the space age in popular Soviet imagination. Soviet Space Mythologies provides a valuable resource for scholars and students of space history, history of technology, and Soviet (and post-Soviet) history.
Kosmos: A Portrait of the Russian Space Age
Title | Kosmos: A Portrait of the Russian Space Age PDF eBook |
Author | |
Publisher | Princeton Architectural Press |
Total Pages | 186 |
Release | 2001-11 |
Genre | Architecture |
ISBN | 1568983085 |
The inherent contradictions of the Space Age -- the mixture of technologies high and low, of nostalgia and progress, of pathos and promise -- are revealed in Kosmos, Adam Bartos's astonishing photographic survey of the Soviet space program. Bartos's fascination with this subject led him to seek out places like the bedroom where Yuri Gagarian slept the night before his history-making flight into space, located in the Baiknour Cosmodrome, the one-time top-secret space complex in the Kazakh desert. Kosmos presents 94 of Bartos's photographs, rich with the incongruities of the history, science, culture, and politics of the Space Age.
Soviet Space Dogs
Title | Soviet Space Dogs PDF eBook |
Author | Olesya Turkina |
Publisher | Fuel Pub |
Total Pages | 237 |
Release | 2014 |
Genre | Art |
ISBN | 9780956896285 |
Tells the true stories of Laika, Belka, Strelka, and the other space dogs who were sent on experimental space flight explorations by the Soviet Union between 1951 and 1956.
Voices of the Soviet Space Program
Title | Voices of the Soviet Space Program PDF eBook |
Author | S. Gerovitch |
Publisher | Springer |
Total Pages | 305 |
Release | 2014-12-16 |
Genre | History |
ISBN | 113748179X |
In this remarkable oral history, Slava Gerovitch presents interviews with the men and women who witnessed Soviet space efforts firsthand. Rather than comprising a "master narrative," these fascinating and varied accounts bring to light the often divergent perspectives, experiences, and institutional cultures that defined the Soviet space program.
Soviet Space Graphics
Title | Soviet Space Graphics PDF eBook |
Author | Detlef Mertins |
Publisher | Phaidon Press |
Total Pages | 0 |
Release | 2020-04-01 |
Genre | Design |
ISBN | 9781838660536 |
A wonderful, whimsical journey through the pioneering space-race graphics of the former Soviet Union This otherworldly collection of Soviet space-race graphics takes readers on a cosmic adventure through Cold War-era Russia. Created against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty, the extraordinary images featured, taken from the period's hugely successful popular-science magazines, were a vital tool for the promotion of state ideology. Presenting more than 250 illustrations - depicting daring discoveries, scientific innovations, futuristic visions, and extraterrestrial encounters - Soviet Space Graphics unlocks the door to the creative inner workings of the USSR.