People and Dogs, Fantasy and Reality: The “Thaw” Rehabilitation of Emotions in the Short Story “Chetyre Chetyrki” by Nikita Razgovorov

In the present article, a narrative of space dogs is discussed in terms of shaping the new non-mobilization ethics during the Thaw period. The author focuses on Nikita Razgovorov's science fiction story “Chetyre Chetyrki” (1963) inspired by both vibrant public debates of the late 1950s and early 1960s and by the Soviet animal space flight programme (an arrival of a dog to Mars is a key event of this story). In “Chetyre Chetyrki”, a dog, which was usually associated with the discourse of emotions/senses in different national traditions, turns out to be an indicator of the emotional state of Soviet society and its (in)sensibility to the Other. Unlike literary works on canine cosmonauts that often ignored painful moral problems of animal experimentation or adapted them to norms of anthropocentric rhetoric, “Chetyre Chetyrki” was an attempt to interpret emotional and, implicitly, ethical dimensions of the space dog flights. In a sense, Razgovorov's story tried to challenge the mobilization message of the Soviet project and reveal new-in relation to the Stalin era-principles of social communication. The author of the article treats “Chetyre Chetyrki” as a kind of quasi-science fiction: this implies that Razgovorov uses science-fiction cliches (first of all, an encounter with aliens and the first contact with them) in order to discuss topics relevant for the Khrushchev Thaw. Therefore, the story's plot is organized around issues important for the cultural identity of the Soviet people over the late 1950s and early 1960s. These are harmonization of the “rational” and the “emotional” for the successful movement towards communism (Razgovorov, for instance, refers to the physicists-lyricists debate (1959) and examines limitations of the strict scientific method), assimilation of new self-presentation strategies and appropriate emotional standards, and, finally, an intention to view another being as a subject with unique experience. However, Razgovorov is most interested in the emotional nature of contact, including interspecific contact. Any communication, according to the writer, is based on empathy, as well as on spontaneous, free from ideological constraints, solidarity with the Other. As a result, Razgovorov refuses to describe the space dog travel in terms of scientific and technological achievements and gives a new meaning to the four-legged cosmonaut's “heroic deed”. From his point of view, the dog named the Living is primarily a message of love from Earth to Mars, so the dog's contribution to the development of the extraterrestrial civilization should be explained in the language of empathy and affinity. Having described the set of Razgovorov's story key motifs, the author of the article assumes that the Thaw, its cultural and social practices, particularly concerning human-animal relations, can be characterized through the “discourse of inclusion” that is established on an idea of affinity of humans and animals and criticizes the repressive social hygiene of the Stalin era.

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