Journal archive

Abstract: The paper analyzes Alexey Fedorchenko’s 2005 mockumentary «First on the Moon» that depicts the fictional story of a Soviet landing on the Moon in the 1930s. Fedorchenko’s alternate history dwells on the fusion of different modalities and historically charged discourses. On the one hand, one may interpret this film as a revanche for the lost space race with the U.S., and, by default, for the defeat in the Cold War. The loving depiction of the 1930s through the prism of quasi-documentary footage, also contributes to this aspect of the film, as a testimony to the nostalgia for the past Soviet glory. On the other hand, the alternative history of the Soviet space program reveals same patterns that one may detect in its “real” counterpart, first and foremost, the self-destructive character of the Soviet system, its abandonment of its most exciting projects and extermination of its most talented representatives. Тhe alternative history in First on the Moon predominantly offers a «third path» between conflicting discourses of Soviet nostalgia and anti-Soviet critique through a logic of «replenishment» that attempts to restore the volume and complexity lost to either of the competing ideological discourses back to the Soviet past. From this standpoint, I will pose questions about the nature of the alternative history as a postmodernist genre and its correlation with mockumentary as a genre in post-Soviet film and literature.