Space is the ultimate canvas for the imagination, and in the 1950s and ’60s, as part of the space race with the United States, the solar system was the blank page upon which the Soviet Union etched a narrative of exploration and conquest. In Picturing the Cosmos , drawing on a comprehensive corpus of rarely seen photographs and other visual phenomena, Iina Kohonen maps the complex relationship between visual propaganda and censorship during the Cold War. Kohonen ably examines each image, elucidating how visual media helped to anchor otherwise abstract political and intellectual concepts of the future and modernization within the Soviet Union. The USSR mapped and named the cosmos, using new media to stake a claim to this new territory and incorporating it into the daily lives of its citizens. Soviet cosmonauts, meanwhile, were depicted as prototypes of the perfect Communist man, representing modernity, good taste, and the aesthetics of the everyday. Across five heavily illustrated chapters, Picturing the Cosmos navigates and critically examines these utopian narratives, highlighting the rhetorical tension between propaganda, censorship, art, and politics. "An interesting and insightful book about Soviet culture in the early Space Age of the late 1950s and 1960s. . . . Pictures do matter, and the contradictions of Soviet politics and ideology are made clear in Picturing the Cosmos . It is a good book, offering a different look at Soviet policy in the USSR’s Golden Age of space achievement." ― Isis: a Journal of the History of Science Society "The radical political and even metaphysical ambitions of the Soviet space effort generated contentious debates in Soviet visual culture between the 1950s and 80s, as is documented by Iina Kohonen in close and loving detail." ― Times Literary Supplement "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." ― Undark "A fascinating journey into the visual history of the early years of Soviet space travel. Based on a thorough analysis of illustrated stories published in the popular magazine Ogonek, paintings by cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov and other artists, films as well as archival material, the book examines in detail the various visualization strategies of the kosmicheskaya era." ― Slavic Review "This beautifully illustrated book provides compelling insight into the construction of the cosmonauts as idealised heroes of the Soviet Union...and shows the role that cosmic images played in the making of modernity."  ― LSE Review of Books "One of the first comprehensive studies of the imagery produced on the space exploration and its coverage in Soviet media. . . . An important visual-historical study of the representation of space in the Soviet Union, and significant in its attempt to decipher political messages of conquering nature with science and technology tools, designed and operated by Soviet citizens. . . . Picturing the Cosmos  provides a useful introduction to understanding the media representations of space exploration in the Soviet Union and is an important staging-post on the route for understanding the highly relevant topic of ‘ out of sight ’ experiences entering the material world and every day life of common citizens. The book is an easy read and visual-historical approach allows for some fascinating insights." ― Visual Studies Iina Kohonen is a scholar specializing in space-related visual propaganda and photojournalism in the Soviet Union. Picturing The Cosmos A Visual History of Early Soviet Space Endeavor By Iina Kohonen Intellect Ltd Copyright © 2017 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-78320-742-8 Contents Foreword, 7, Acknowledgments, 11, 1 Introduction, 15, 2 A Slash Across the Heavens, 27, 3 Travelers in the Void, 57, 4 Story of the Heroic Conquest of Space, 77, 5 A Completely Ordinary Hero, 101, 6 The Housebroken Hero, 111, 7 The Tormented Hero, 129, 8 Conclusions, 149, Endnotes, 165, Sources and Literature, 175, List of Figures, 200, CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Flying, actual, potential, and dreamlike, has always implied more than a mechanism for overcoming gravity. (Siukonen 2001: 11) In an archived photograph, we can see a woman in the middle of space debris. The landing capsule has hurtled into a field; it is charred and lying slightly on its side on the ground. The woman – I know that she is Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to just return from space – is sitting, looking confused and gathering things in an open bag. On the ground next to her is an open newspaper on top of which a bottle of milk and eggs have been placed.