posted 10-19-2011 09:55 AM               

Why did Yuri Gagarin smile?

Perhaps the Soviet cosmonaut who orbited the earth in his Vostok spacecraft on April 12, 1961, smiled about the lifelong celebrity he enjoyed until his death in 1968 when a MiG 15 training jet he was piloting crashed. Perhaps he smiled about an air of mystery that came from movement between secret military bases and main street parades. Those questions are receiving new light in a recent biography by History's Andrew Jenks.

The Cosmonaut Who Couldn't Stop Smiling: The Life and Legend of Yuri Gagarin is on its way to publication by Northern Illinois University, which also brought out his book, Russia in a Box: Art and Identity in an Age of Revolution. Jenks recently concluded his first semester sabbatical compiling research that took him from the spaceman's home town to his landing site to the museums established in his memory.

"For Russians, what Gagarin is remembered for most is his smile," explained Jenks, who joined the university in 2006. "Anyone who visits Russia knows that Russians don't smile in public nearly as much as Americans. It isn't because Russians are not nice. They just see the idea of smiling at people they don't know as utterly ridiculous, which makes Gagarin's iconic smile all the more significant. Gagarin replaced the cult of Stalin with a smile. He was the head of the Russian waterskiing society, an avid hunter and sports enthusiast. He was one part socialist realist icon, like the official heroes before him, but he was also one part Russian playboy. And that made him, and the Soviet system, seem more human."

Jenks's goal was to do more than tell Gagarin's life story. "I wanted to write a biography about the cult of Gagarin," he said. "I wanted to understand why Russia worshipped this man. I wanted to open a window not only onto his life but onto the perceptions and ideas of the people who constructed so many stories about him. I had a dual mission. On the one hand, I want to write a conventional biography. On the other hand, I want to write the story of a legend, both the official one and the one of urban myth, which reflected the fantasies, perversions, hopes and dreams of Gagarin's acolytes..."

posted 12-08-2011 12:40 AM               

"Let's go!" With that, the boyish, grinning Yuri Gagarin launched into space on April 12, 1961, becoming the first human being to exit Earth's orbit. The twenty-seven-year-old lieutenant colonel departed for the stars from within the shadowy world of the Soviet military-industrial complex. Barbed wires, no-entry placards, armed guards, false identities, mendacious maps, and a myriad of secret signs had hidden Gagarin from prying outsiders – not even his friends or family knew what he had been up to. Coming less than four years after the Russians launched Sputnik into orbit, Gagarin's voyage was cause for another round of capitalist shock and Soviet rejoicing.

The Cosmonaut Who Couldn't Stop Smiling relates this twentieth-century icon's remarkable life while exploring the fascinating world of Soviet culture. Gagarin's flight brought him massive international fame – in the early 1960s, he was possibly the most photographed person in the world, flashing his trademark smile while rubbing elbows with the varied likes of Nehru, Castro, Queen Elizabeth II, and Italian sex symbol Gina Lollobrigida. Outside of the spotlight, Andrew L. Jenks reveals, his tragic and mysterious death in a jet crash became fodder for morality tales and conspiracy theories in his home country, and, long after his demise, his life continues to provide grist for the Russian popular-culture mill.

This is the story of a legend, both the official one and the one of myth, which reflected the fantasies, perversions, hopes and dreams of Gagarin's fellow Russians. With this rich, lively chronicle of Gagarin's life and times, Jenks recreates the elaborately secretive world of space-age Russia while providing insights into Soviet history that will captivate a range of readers.

About the Author

Andrew L. Jenks is associate professor of history at California State University, Long Beach, and the author of The Perils of Progress: Environmental Disasters in the Twentieth Century and Russia in a Box: Art and Identity in an Age of Revolution.

• Hardcover: 318 pages
  
• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press (May 15, 2012)
  
• ISBN-10: 0875804470
  
• ISBN-13: 978-0875804477

posted 01-18-2012 01:17 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by RichieB16:
I have been interested in picking up a book about the life of Yuri Gagarin but have not been able to find one.

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posted 03-13-2012 06:26 PM            

My biography on Yuri Gagarin is finally out (I just got a copy in the mail). It is available at the University of Chicago website. Amazon lists it as available for pre-order only. I’m told it will be available as an ebook in about three weeks.

posted 07-04-2012 09:00 PM            

Jenks not only gives a great description of Gagarin's life and flight, he also makes a concerted effort to get behind the myths that have grown up since around the man. Plus, even more interestingly, he looks at how calculated Gagarin's public face was. It's hard to know what the truth is for sure, something Jenks himself examines in detail, but this book rang true to me.