In Soviet Space Mythologies Slava Gerovitch examines the tensions underpinning the key myths of the Soviet space age. These dynamics have less to do with the regime’s ideological demands or the political imperatives of the Cold War than with the vagaries of memory and the peculiarities of the sources that shaped and documented those memories. Focusing on the cosmonauts and engineers who were the human forces behind and representatives of a program shrouded in secrecy, the book engages the ironies of the identity crises that defined and still inform the cultural memory of the glory days of the manned spaceflight program: Were cosmonauts daring explorers, skillfully navigating the dangers of traveling in outer space, or were they merely human cogs in the automated system of their space craft? Was the space program’s primary purpose military or to explore new environments? Could the regime’s penchant for secrecy be reconciled with the imperative to celebrate Soviet technological prowess and the potential of the “New Soviet Man”?

Gerovitch presents a convincing case for answering the first two questions with “both” and the third with “yes.” The first cohort of cosmonauts were pilots of considerable skill who expected to “fly” their craft. Working with designers who saw automation as the ultimate safeguard against human fallibility, the cosmonauts continued to lobby for more control over essential mission operations, even as engineers pursued more technological solutions and opted for redundant automation. Challenging roles as heroes and celebrities awaited returning cosmonauts. As public representatives of the “New Soviet Man,” their skill and bravery seemed essential to mission success and the construction of communism. Yet at the same time official policy dictated that they deny much of the inherent risk of spaceflight, including the fact that equipment sometimes failed and very real dangers developed as a result. For their part, the chief designers labored in anonymity until Sergei Korolev’s death in 1966, relentlessly pressing forward, sometimes with contradictory agendas.

Gerovitch asserts that the rocket designers resented the flux and disorganization of the Thaw, preferring the order, discipline and wise management of the Stalin era, which they regarded as a “golden age” of Soviet rocketry (28). The fragmented and constantly evolving administrative structure of the space program pitted government agencies, the military, design firms and individuals against each other. Ironically, given the Soviet penchant for master narratives, one consequence of this ad hoc administrative structure is a contested legacy and memory grounded more in the memoirs and memories of the participants than in the program’s primary historical documents. Gerovitch makes especially good use of the memoirs of Boris Chertok, who designed control systems for ballistic missiles and spacecraft, and the diaries of Nikolai Kamanin, the celebrated aviator and war hero who oversaw cosmonaut training from 1960 to 1971. Not surprisingly, Kamanin’s preference for enhancing the role of cosmonauts in mission operations informs much of the discussion of cosmonaut identity, while Chertok’s work supports many of the author’s arguments about the professional culture of the engineers.

Gerovitch’s analysis is tightly focused and careful. It deals exclusively with the era of human space flight, but our understanding of the designers’ preference for automation and for engineering spacecraft that provided life support to their passengers while leaving them with little to do might have been strengthened by considering the origins of the manned spaceflight program in the vertical and orbital missions with dogs and other animals dating back to the early fifties. The book’s final chapter looks at the post-Soviet fate of the most salient Soviet space mythologies, focusing in particular on the ongoing resonance of Iurii Gagarin’s pioneering flight, an untarnished historical moment that still provides a touchstone to a usable past. Informative and well-researched, this study makes a valuable contribution to the cultural history of the Soviet space age by offering an important perspective on the interplay between public images, memory, and the iterative process of cultural identity.