Fantasy, space exploration, and tales of the future COSMODRUM is the Russian term for a spaceport, derived from the Greek kosmos, meaning order or world, and the Russian drum, meaning road or path. This exhibition is part of an anthropological study exploring the meaning of the “future” in Bulgaria’s recent socialist past, with a focus on the frontier of outer space and hopes for interstellar travel. The study examines the experience of the Space Age and the Space Race within the Bulgarian context. Interwoven with the emotional history of the socialist past, Bulgaria’s role and experience in space exploration are themes that dominate the country’s cultural life. Since the 1960s, the symbolic presence of cosmonauts, spacecraft, and plans for a galactic future has been evident in political speeches, popular literature, and even scientific discourse, such as the science of forecasting. As space exploration advanced and the Moon landing took place, space futurism inspired architecture, fashion, music, cinema, and popular culture. In Bulgaria during the 1970s and 1980s, the colonization of space and stories about extraterrestrials were central themes in children’s literature, youth magazines, and comics, while science fiction attained unparalleled popularity through the Galaktika Library, a series of science-fiction publications from around the world. Beyond popular culture, space futurism was also an important theme in the ideology of the Communist Party, in which the bright future was always inevitable and seemed almost to guarantee the expansion of the communist order. Those in power, however, set their sights on the stars not only in words: Bulgaria was the only country to send two cosmonauts into space as part of the Soviet INTERKOSMOS space program. Bulgaria was the sixth nation in the world to send a person into space. Moreover, Bulgaria manufactured technical equipment for the Soviet space program and produced almost half—45%—of all robots made in the Eastern Bloc. Bulgaria was—and remains—a spacefaring nation! Cosmodrum is an attempt to explore the cultural legacy of the Space Age in Bulgaria. It offers an apolitical reading of the former regime’s “politics of the future.” It tells the story of Bulgaria’s history in space. More than that, it demonstrates the immense popularity of the future and outer space in Bulgarian art and culture. We will present some of the best-known references to the theme of tempo in popular culture, alongside several lesser-known examples. We present a selection of contemporary artist-cosmonauts: although we may not be in outer space, outer space is already within us. We hope to see you at Cosmodrum!
