To the 55th anniversary of the first man space flight: The exhibition “Forward! To the stars” in Saint-Petersburg

The exhibition "Forward! To the Stars!" is opened at the Museum of Political History of Russia (St. Petersburg). 

The exhibition of Soviet political poster is dedicated to the achievements of the USSR in space exploration, and is timed to the 55th anniversary of the first manned space flight. In addition to the posters, visitors will see the personal belongings of the astronauts: Yuri Gagarin’s jacket, stopwatch and headset of V. I. Rozhdestvensky, watch of V. N. Kubasov, glasses of V. N. Volkov, knife and flashlight of V. I. Patsaev and other exhibits.

The theme of space in the 50-80s of the XX century was extremely popular and occupied an important place in the art, especially in the genre of political and festive poster. Rocket becomes a symbol of progress and power, pushing aside the image of a steam locomotive.

The posters fixed all the significant stages of the "cosmic history" - the first successful launches of satellites, flights by Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the person spacewalk, sending unmanned interplanetary spacecraft to the Moon, Mars and Venus, flights of joint international crews.

Space exploration has carried out the age-old aspirations and dreams of humanity, so many posters tend sublimely romantic perception of events. Since the mid-1970s, flying into space become heroic everyday life, and space component began to combine in the posters with other topical themes: the friendship of the peoples of the USSR and the socialist community, loyalty to the ideas of the revolution, the struggle for peace. The exhibition presents a unique poster dedicated to Soviet-Vietnamese flight on July 23, 1980 on board of the "Soyuz-37", autographed by the spacecraft commander, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Victor Gorbatko and researcher cosmonaut, Hero of the Armed Forces Lieutenant Colonel Pham Tuan of Vietnam.

During perestroika the relevance of the theme of space is greatly reduced, and in the 1990s it leaves the poster art. Handling the museum to the great cosmic epic intended to recall the important role of our country in the study and development of the universe. Today-poster artists again turn to the history of astronautics and its heroes. In addition to the posters from the museum, the exhibition presents works by young artists - winners of the contest organized by the St. Petersburg Union of designers.