Using imagery from its Moon-orbiting Luna 3 probe, the USSR had begun mapping the dark side of the Moon, naming previously unseen lunar features with terminology that was later officially accepted by the International Astronomical Union, the authority in charge of naming all celestial bodies. The caption reads, “Happy New Year, comrades!” “Even Ogonyok admitted this: Gagarin had been closer to God than anybody else and was therefore a saint,” writes Kohonen. But Gagarin’s mythic status also afforded a prime opportunity to exploit the tragedy to maximum effect with an elaborate state funeral.
The major exception was the death of Yuri Gagarin in a 1968 flight training accident. “In Ogonyok, the case was glossed over with a brief obituary the accident was not front-page news,” notes Kohonen. But truth could still be de-emphasized and details obscured. Although “accidents or failures did not belong to the narrative of the victorious space program,” and those that were met “by those candidates still out of the public eye remained hidden from public view,” it was impossible to ignore the deaths of already publicized Soviet heroes, such as Vladimir Komarov, who died in a re-entry accident in 1967. Yet reality could sometimes usurp the official mythology. Meanwhile, Tereshkova’s sister cosmonauts, none of whom ever flew, were never photographed or revealed to the public - hidden figures of the Soviet space program.
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And although women supposedly enjoyed full equality in Communist society, Soviet image makers had trouble dealing with the fact that female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was single - at least until she was finally married off to another cosmonaut. Consider Grigori Nelyubov, who might have been the first man in space instead of Yuri Gagarin until he was drummed out of the cosmonaut corps for “bad behavior.” Kohonen shows how Nelyubov’s image was erased from photos after his fall from grace. Those who failed to live up to these ideals were purged from public existence. He was a stalwart military pilot, a devoted family man, a dedicated Communist. Instead, the public image of the cosmonaut had to be honed to a fine edge of idealized reality. The imagery connected to space in the Soviet Union cannot be examined as neutral photos taken for the press.” “From the viewpoint of the present observer,” writes Kohonen, “the material … colored and modified the truth, covered faults, hid, and abjectly lied. If not always “fake news” in the 21st-century American sense of the term, the reportage of magazines such as Ogonyok was political propaganda, social control, and collective psychological anodyne all at once. Visual: From "Picturing the Cosmos" (Intellect Books)Ī cultural anthropologist and expert on the visual history of the Soviet space program, Kohonen concentrates on the archives of the popular weekly photo magazine Ogonyok, the Soviet equivalent of Life. The sign reads, “Glory to the Communist Party!” The book examines how visual media served to construct an overarching heroic mythos of the conquering Soviet man, bravely exploring the depths of space, for the glory of the USSR and all mankind, and how that narrative was crafted to emphasize the values that Soviet leaders wanted to instill in their citizenry - while hiding uncomfortable realities and preventing attitudes at odds with the official line.Ī two-page spread in Ogonyok celebrating Gherman Titov’s 17-orbit flight in August 1961. The answer demonstrates Kohonen’s major thesis: the importance and power of imagery in the space race, both politically and culturally, in the Soviet Union.
So why was this awkward chink in the shining armor of the Soviet hero not edited from the film? “The cosmonauts were described … as ideal men, both physically and mentally…” Kohonen writes. The public perception of the Motherland’s space efforts was the product of a painstakingly curated narrative of Soviet triumph and exploration.
The people would laugh - ‘he did not fall from space, but instead tripped on flat ground…’”Īs Iina Kohonen points out in her fascinating new book “ Picturing the Cosmos: A Visual History of Early Soviet Space Endeavor,” Soviet media was controlled down to the smallest detail. In his autobiography, Gagarin later described his thoughts: “What if I stepped on them and I fell on the red carpet? That would be really embarrassing. It’s a random human moment in the midst of a meticulously planned spectacle. Above, a 1961 portrait of the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in Ogonyok magazine. BOOK REVIEW - “Picturing the Cosmos: A Visual History of Early Soviet Space Endeavor,” by Iina Kohonen (Intellect/University of Chicago Press), 205 pages.
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