«Screening» the memory of Soviet cosmonautics: the (re)production of space images in contemporary Russian cinema

This article is devoted to the analysis of the content and pragmatics of the memory of the Soviet space program in contemporary Russian cinema. The relevance of the problem is connected with the fact that in recent years the «cosmos» has again become a stable object of social imagination and an attractive setting for the mass media. Memories of Soviet cosmonautics feature prominently in modern Russian culture. This article, referring to full-length Russian films of the 2010s, considers the cinematographic representations of the Soviet space past as memory practices. Studying them with an emphasis on the semiotic, narrative, and discursive realities of films and images offers interpretations of the past that are relevant in the concrete historical conditions of socio-cultural production. The materials of the study showed that the film history of Soviet cosmonautics has two memory frames. The heroic image of Soviet cosmonautics embodied in a specific formula of historical cinema produces a kind of restoration of the Soviet patriotic canon turning the image into an inspiring symbol of history. The revision of images of the past also leads to the release of symbolic meanings attached to the Soviet space program, which allows film memory to become not a static snapshot of the past, but a dynamic cultural force.