By Andrew L. Jenks
“Let’s go!” With that, the boyish, grinning Yuri Gagarin embarked on area on April 12, 1961, turning into the 1st man or woman to go out Earth’s orbit. The twenty-seven-year-old lieutenant colonel departed for the celebrities from in the shadowy global of the Soviet military-industrial complicated. Barbed wires, no-entry placards, armed guards, fake identities, mendacious maps, and a myriad of mystery indicators had hidden Gagarin from prying outsiders—not even his pals or kinfolk knew what he were as much as. Coming under 4 years after the Russians introduced Sputnik into orbit, Gagarin’s voyage was once reason for one more around of capitalist surprise and Soviet rejoicing.
The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t cease Smiling relates this twentieth-century icon’s extraordinary lifestyles whereas exploring the interesting international of Soviet tradition. Gagarin’s flight introduced him big foreign fame—in the early Nineteen Sixties, he used to be almost certainly the main photographed individual on the earth, flashing his trademark smile whereas rubbing elbows with the various likes of Nehru, Castro, Queen Elizabeth II, and Italian intercourse image Gina Lollobrigida. outdoor of the highlight, Andrew L. Jenks unearths, his tragic and mysterious loss of life in a jet crash turned fodder for morality stories and conspiracy theories in his domestic kingdom, and, lengthy after his loss of life, his existence keeps to supply grist for the Russian popular-culture mill.
This is the tale of a legend, either the authentic one and the single of fantasy, which mirrored the fantasies, perversions, hopes and desires of Gagarin’s fellow Russians. With this wealthy, energetic chronicle of Gagarin’s existence and instances, Jenks recreates the elaborately secretive international of space-age Russia whereas supplying insights into Soviet heritage that would captivate a number readers.
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Extra info for The Cosmonaut Who Couldn’t Stop Smiling: The Life and Legend of Yuri Gagarin
Sample text
The shaping and alteration of the Gagarin story continued long after his death—indeed, up to the present—as more and more people created an image of Gagarin that suited their various personal, political, and aesthetic agendas. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, the new tabloid press of the 1990s, centered in Moscow, had constructed a new Gagarin: Cosmonaut Number One as an alcoholic and dim-witted rube (versions of which had circulated unofficially in the form of jokes and anecdotes since the 1970s, no doubt inspired by his odd-looking fake eyebrow).
14 He was the hero of socialist-realist novels come to life. Photography specialists smoothed over the blemishes and wrinkles that began to appear on his face as he grew slightly longer of tooth and bigger of paunch. He was even outfitted with a fake eyebrow after a drunken mishap fractured his skull and nearly killed him. The shaping and alteration of the Gagarin story continued long after his death—indeed, up to the present—as more and more people created an image of Gagarin that suited their various personal, political, and aesthetic agendas.
Living in a secret world taught Gagarin to wear masks and create cover stories. His closest friends after his flight were his KGB bodyguards. He led a bifurcated existence—one life behind the fences of the “Do Not Enter” zones and another life outside those fences. He cultivated an image of candor and openness, yet he was secretive and had a penchant for telling lies. He seduced the public with a bewitching smile and seemingly boundless optimism, but privately he experienced moments of intense sadness, grief, and disillusionment.