Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

FrOM the CradLe tO the GraVe:
COSMONaut NOStaLGIa IN SOVIet aNd pOSt-SOVIet FILM
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of the Nep was the freest time of intellectual experimentation in the Soviet
union. among the many experimental movements active at the time was
aleksandr rodchenko’s Constructivist group that emerged from the Moscow
Institute of artistic Culture (INKhuK). 18 the group sought to map out the role
of material objects after the revolution eliminated the last vestiges of capitalism.
rodchenko and his group experimented with the modernist design of everyday
objects, using geometric shapes and images of machines as the main themes of
their designs. their experimentation continued for some time into the 1930s,
but it did not meet with any degree of success. Modernist preoccupation with
stylistic innovation and machines contrasted with the central tenet of Socialist
realism that focused on the nature and concerns of the people. 19 Leaders
within the architectural community favored neoclassicism since it appeared to
resemble russian national ideals. 20 the protracted competition for the design of
the palace of the Soviets is one example of the manner in which architects and
designers pulled away from modernism. 21 these actions paved the way for the
creation of monumental art works in which sculptors and painters collaborated
with the architect. 22 Over the ensuing years, constructivist designs lost their
associations with progress in the Soviet union until the death of Stalin.
protazanov’s Aelita sparked an immediate ideological response over his portrayal
of Nep Soviet society. It also sparked a cinematic response. the same year
that Aelita came out, Soviet animators Nikolai Khodataev, Zenon Komisarenko and
Yuri Merkulov released an eight-minute animated short, Mezhplanetnaia revolutsiia
(Interplanetary Revolution). 23 this short,too,was loosely based on tolstoy’s Aelita.In this
case, the revolutionary cosmonaut was red army Warrior Comrade Kominternov.
his name is eponymous with the Communist International—the organization for
the international spread of the revolution.the flm began with the Bolshevik revolution
that motivated the capitalists to fee earth for Mars. Kominternov chased
down the capitalists, following them on his own spacecraft. On Mars, he pursued
the grotesque capitalists, emerged victorious, and then sent his message to an earth
receiving station decorated with a portrait of Lenin (see illustration). Khodataev’s
revolutionary message is not remarkable, but his techniques for portraying this
18. Kiaer, Imagine No Possessions, pp. 1-2.
19. Cynthia Simmons,“Fly Me to the Moon: Modernism and the Soviet Space program in Viktor
pelevin’s ‘Omon ra’,” Harriman Review 12, no. 4 (November 2000): 4.
20. arthur Voyce, “Soviet art and architecture: recent developments,” Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 303, “russia since Stalin: Old trends and New problems”
(January 1956): 107.
21. Vladimir paperny, Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two, trans. John hill and roann Barris
(Cambridge, uK: Cambridge university press, 2002), pp.1-8.
22. Voyce,“Soviet art and architecture,”: 114.
23. Nikolai Khodataev,Zenon Komisarenko,and Yuri Merkulov,Mezhplanetnaia revolutsiia (Interplanetary
Revolution), animation (Biuro gosudarstvenno tekhnicheskogo kino, 1924), 7:40 min.