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Through the Thorns to Where? The Politics of Alternative Appropriations of Soviet Space Culture in Contemporary Russia
Södertörn University, School of Social Sciences, Political Science.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1278-3941
2022 (English)In: Space policy, ISSN 0265-9646, E-ISSN 1879-338X, Vol. 61, article id 101488Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article investigates the political implications of contemporary Russian cultural artifacts that appropriate Soviet space culture. Scholarship on Soviet and post-Soviet space history, increasingly interested in cultural production, highlights the transformation of Soviet space into usable history for the Russian regime. Nostalgia for Soviet space facilitates nation-building, allows political and economic capitalization on behalf of many state-affiliated actors, and lubricates the commodification of Soviet space heroism. In this article, such appropriations are discussed in terms of a neo-heroic Soviet space narrative characteristic of Russian space culture. This narrative, which principally performs a function of legitimation, has significantly progressed in recent years. This becomes clear from the recent release of Russian historical space blockbusters. However, other attempts to use Soviet space are also present. This article suggests two other narratives that attempt to appropriate Soviet space culture: the globalized Soviet science fiction (SF) narrative, and the “futuristic realist” narrative of constructing a new USSR. In both cases, there seems to be an attempt to change a nostalgic orientation of post-Soviet space culture, offering futuristic visions instead. While such attempts are not unproblematic, this article argues that they also deserve attention, especially if we want to better understand Russia's present stance and future alternatives in the new space race. Places such as Russian space museums are especially interesting in how they appropriate Soviet space culture and history, given that they seem to integrate narratives and maneuver between them. Performing both legitimizing and futuristic functions, Russian space museums are places where a new master narrative of Russian space, connected to the Soviet one, might appear.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2022. Vol. 61, article id 101488
Keywords [en]
Space, Utopia, Futurism, Soviet culture, Russian culture, Russian policy
National Category
Political Science History of Science and Ideas
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies; Politics, Economy and the Organization of Society
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-48673DOI: 10.1016/j.spacepol.2022.101488ISI: 000848219200002Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85127343032OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-48673DiVA, id: diva2:1647927
Part of project
Russia in Space: Continuity and Change in Russian Space Policy, The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 65/2017Available from: 2022-03-29 Created: 2022-03-29 Last updated: 2025-02-21Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. After Space Utopia: Post-Soviet Russia and Futures in Space
Open this publication in new window or tab >>After Space Utopia: Post-Soviet Russia and Futures in Space
2023 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Alternative title[sv]
Efter rymdutopin : Postsovjetiska Ryssland och framtider i rymden
Abstract [en]

Since the early 2000s, new projects of space expansionism have emerged, including the commercial-, military-driven and scientific projects to colonize the Moon and Mars. The new space expansionism followed a period of comparatively lower attention to space in international politics, and it is sometimes called the New Space Race by analogy to the 20th century Space Race between the USSR and the US. With the first Space Race, outer space became explicitly politicized and served as a locus of futuristic utopian social and political imagination, not least in the USSR and the socialist bloc. In this dissertation, I investigate the possible ways of constructing alternative social and political futures in and through space in post-Soviet Russia. Drawing theoretically on postcolonial critique of space expansionism, the concepts of biopolitical production and of assemblage, and methodologically on narrative analysis, I argue that social and political futurism in and through space today presupposes changing attitudes to space and time in a way that challenges analyses from the angles of political science and IR. In this thesis, I highlight socially and politically futuristic practices which exist on the margins of political power and have greater autonomy from official discourse, arguing for the understanding of utopia in postmodernity as an assemblage.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Huddinge: Södertörns högskola, 2023. p. 210
Series
Södertörn Doctoral Dissertations, ISSN 1652-7399 ; 214
Keywords
space, Russia, utopia, postcolonialism, assemblage
National Category
Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalisation Studies)
Research subject
Politics, Economy and the Organization of Society; Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-51323 (URN)978-91-89504-27-1 (ISBN)978-91-89504-28-8 (ISBN)
Public defence
2023-05-12, MA624, Alfred Nobels allé 7, Huddinge, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 65/2017
Available from: 2023-04-20 Created: 2023-04-12 Last updated: 2023-12-12Bibliographically approved

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