"You Are Our Pride and Our Glory!" Emotions, Generation, and the Legacy of Revolution in Women's Letters to Valentina Tereshkova. Issue 3 (7th June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: SYLVESTER, ROSHANNA P.
• Is Part Of: Russian review. Volume 78:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 392
• Page End: 413
• Publication Date: 2019-06-07
• Subjects: Soviet Union -- Periodicals; Russia -- Periodicals; Russia (Federation) -- Periodicals; 947
• DOI: 10.1111/russ.12237
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0036-0341

Abstract

Abstract : Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (known as the "Seagull") became the first woman in space on June 16, 1963. Female fans of all ages wrote letters to the twenty‐seven‐year‐old cosmonaut expressing their pride and admiration. This article provides a close reading of two such letters, one from an octogenarian who witnessed the revolution first hand, and the other from a woman who, like Tereshkova, was a member of "Stalin's last generation." Exploration of these two generational perspectives provides insight into how individuals responded to Tereshkova's flight and what the female cosmonaut's triumph meant to Soviet women as a community. Letter‐writers connected personally with Tereshkova, embracing her victory as their own. But the seagull's ascent had wider resonances for them as well, reaffirming women's shared belief that equality still mattered as a core revolutionary value. Moreover, because those writing to Tereshkova described how they felt about the female cosmonaut's feat, the letters provide analytical access to women as an emotional community–a textual and relational space that afforded women an intimate sense of belonging as well as avenues for self‐actualization that were otherwise sparsely available in Khrushchev's male‐centric party/state and its associated (and highly gendered) emotional regime.