KURCHATOV'S PIGEON: FIGURATIONS OF (POST)SOVIET NUCLEAR PEACEFULNESS
Keywords:
peaceful atom, Cold War, propaganda, nuclear ethics, nuclear sublime, sociotechnical imaginary, discursive figure, figurations, fiction of authorship, USSRAbstract
The article discusses the rhetorical, political and ethical entanglements of the atomic age, embodied into a new understanding of the world, as well as into new fragilities and responsibilities. The author notes the epistemological challenges of exploring the discursive production of the peace in the USSR, which is identified as one of the most indoctrinated practices of late socialism. Through the lens of a single slogan, the author analyzes the indirect transitions between ethics and propaganda. The statement “Let the atom be a worker, not a soldier”, which appeared on the banners of demonstrators in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was attributed to the atomic supervisor Igor Kurchatov, became a Soviet atomic imperative and a key figure in the discourse of (post)Soviet atomic peacefulness. The author describes the figuration of the slogan in the context of the confrontation between two systems, nuclear diplomacy and the establishment of a global agenda for the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The USSR participated in this struggle by promoting the significance of the peaceful atom and defending its moral priority in the propaganda of this brand. The author focuses on the authorship of the statement and reveals its entanglement with the genealogy of morality and the development of an ethical position for a Soviet nuclear scientist between nuclear war and the peaceful atom. The article pays attention to the contribution of the science journalist Vladimir Gubarev to the retrospective restoration of the authorship of the Soviet atomic imperative. By creating this discursive fiction, one of the main chroniclers of the Sredmash project simultaneously engaged in both propaganda and ethical work.References
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