Historical and cultural heritage of cosmonautics in Kuban: “places of memory” and commemorative practices

The article analyzes the practices of preserving and transmitting the historical and cultural heritage of cosmonautics in Krasnodar Krai in the period from the 1960s to the present, and determines the significance of these activities in the formation of cultural memory. Kuban has a rich “space” heritage: scientists, test pilots, and cosmonauts lived and worked here, and dozens of Soviet and Russian cosmonauts, including Yuri Gagarin, visited the region in different years. The main sources of the research were documents of the regional public movement Kuban and Cosmonautics, and the Krasnodar Regional Public Organization Kuban Cosmonautics Federation; materials of museums, periodicals, Internet sites, publications that captured the memory of space exploration, monuments and memorable places, toponymic data, works of fine art. Among the research methods are comparative-historical, typological, retrospective, as well as the method of included observation, due to the long-term activity of one of the authors in Kuban Cosmonautics Federation. New facts about the Kuban cosmonauts and scientists of the space industry are presented. The authors classify “places of memory”. The memorial complexes of cosmonautics in Kuban villages (to Yu.V. Kondratyuk in Oktyabrskaya, to N.G. Chernyshev in Kazan, to G.Ya. Bakhchivandzhi in Brinkovskaya); monuments and busts, commemorative plaques to the figures of cosmonautics (Yu.A. Gagarin, D.I. Kozlov, V.V. Gorbatko, V.I. Sevastyanov, N.G. Chernyshev); museums, including specialized ones (the Museum of Cosmonautics in village Arkhipo-Osipovka, the memorial museum of Yu.V. Kondratyuk, and others); planetariums and observatories; natural objects (memorial trees, alleys). The article describes the activities of Kuban's public organizations created for the popularization of the legacy of cosmonautics. The influence of space exploration on regional toponyms and names of institutions is noted. The main actors, stages, content and trends in the development of “space” commemoration, its all-Union (all-Russian) and regional components, the continuity of Soviet and modern approaches are considered. The authors conclude the “space” heritage is transmitted through the interaction of public organizations, government agencies, museum and educational institutions, representatives of scientific and artistic intelligentsia. The popularization of the space heritage is essential for patriotic education, for the formation in society of a sense of pride of Russian scientific and technological achievements, and for the dissemination of knowledge about the contribution of the natives of Kuban to space exploration.