By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
“Russia launches a… ‘cosmonette’” Another brief look at how the francophone press of Québec covered an aspect of the Soviet space program, in this case the journey into space of Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, part 1
Junior lieutenant Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova in street clothes and space clothes. Anon., “Un 3e Russe dans l’espace? Il irait rejoindre le couple qui s’y trouve.” La Presse, 17 June 1963, 1.
Yes, yes, you read correctly, my reading friend, in translation: “A 3rd Russian in space? He could join the couple present there.” It was with that headline that the daily La Presse of Montréal, Québec, the most important daily in Québec, let us not forget, informed its readership that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had just proceeded to put into orbit the first female cosmonaut / astronaut in history. The name of Junior Lieutenant Valentina Vladimirovna “Valya” Tereshkova, an officer of the Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily SSSR, in other words the air force of the USSR, was mentioned nowhere in that headline.
The name of the female cosmonaut was in fact mentioned only on the 5th line of the text of the article which accompanied said headline, and that while her male companion, Lieutenant-Colonel Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky, another officer of the Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily SSSR, the 5th Soviet Homo sapiens in orbit and the 9th Homo sapiens in orbit, was mentioned on the 4th line of said text.
Who remembers Bykovsky in 2023, you ask, my perplexed reader? A good question. Was Tereshkova a second-class cosmonaut because she was not male? Asking the question might be to answer it and…
Yes, yes, the 9th Homo sapiens in orbit. Alan Bartlett Shepard, Junior, and Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom made only suborbital flights, in May and July 1961. You will recall, my assiduous reading friend, that Shepard was mentioned in a June 2019 issue of our incomparable blog / bulletin / thingee. Grissom, on the other hand, had been mentioned there several times since July 2018, but back to our cosmonaut.
It should be noted that the corrected 17 June edition of La Presse replaced the headline allocated to Tereshkova’s flight by another which concerned a preoccupation that could not be more local, the site of the Exposition internationale et universelle de Montréal, or Expo ‘67, which was to take place from April to October 1967, in… Montréal, an amaaazing world fair mentioned in many issues of our tremendous blog / bulletin / thingee since November 2020, but I digress.
The main lines of Tereshkova’s space flight being well known, yours truly will fly over them at big S speed. Tereshkova was born in March 1937, in the village of Bol’shóe Máslennikovo, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. As delighted and proud as she was of Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin’s flight into space in April 1961, that textile industry employee and amateur parachutist did not dream of becoming a cosmonaut. Nay. It was because of her membership in the Dobrovol’noye Obshchestvo Sodeystviya Armii, Aviatsii i Flotu, in other words the voluntary society for cooperation with the army, aviation and navy, that Tereshkova unknowingly saw her name added to the list of potential female interplanetary perambulators.
Perambulators, you ask, my amused reading friend? Yes, perambulators. Cur simplici vocabulo uti si tam bene complicatum verbum facit officium? In other words, why use a simple word if a complicated word does its job so well? Is that not the motto of museum curators around the world – and the bane of exhibit planners? (Hello EG, EP, VW, etc.!) Sorry, sorry. I digress.
As appalling as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was, there was still someone there, in 1961, willing to push and shove, politely of course, to send a woman into space, for propaganda purposes of course, an action that no one in the United States, the great bastion of democracy, seemed able (or willing?) to duplicate. Just sayin’.
That someone, by the way, was apparently Colonel General Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin, the head of the Soviet cosmonaut training program. He was the one who convinced the most important nogoodnik in the USSR, the first secretary of the Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, a nogoodnik mentioned many times in our blog / bulletin / thingee since February 2019. Kamanin, on the other hand, was mentioned in a March 2023 issue of that indispensable publication. Before I forget, Gagarin was mentioned there many times since July 2018.
And do not get me started on the 13 American women involved in the non official 1959-62 Woman in Space Program. The First Lady Astronaut Trainees / Mercury 13, as they were sometimes / often called, got a raw deal, but back to our story.
Temporarily disregarding their compulsive and paranoid attachment to secrecy, the Soviet authorities indicated no later than 15 June 1963 that the putting into orbit of a female cosmonaut, a world first, let us not forget, was imminent. That person’s surname, Solovyova, was even mentioned. The news was not a bombshell in Québec, however, as evidenced by the translated titles of articles published on 15 June:
Le Nouvelliste, Trois-Rivières, Québec: “A woman could join him there today – Russian cosmonaut in orbit,” pages 1 and 19.
La Tribune, Sherbrooke, Québec: “Another team space trip?” page 1.
L’Action, Québec, Québec: “A 5th Soviet cosmonaut whirls through space,” page 1.
L’Événement, Québec: “Russia sends a fifth cosmonaut,” pages 1 and 19.
Le Soleil, Québec: “A Soviet woman in space!” » pages 1 and 39.
Le Devoir, Montréal, Québec: “The flight of the Russian cosmonaut is a success,” pages 1 and 2.
Montréal-Matin, Montréal: “Another Russian in Orbit,” pages 14-15.
La Presse, Montréal: “First cosmic date? A woman could soon join cosmonaut Bykovsky in space,” page 33.
Yes, yes, pages 14-15 and 33.
In all fairness, yours truly must admit that the reaction of anglophone Québec dailies was very similar to that of their francophone counterparts:
The Gazette, Montréal: “Russian in Orbit of Earth,” page 1.
The Montreal Star, Montréal: “‘Space Sister’ Orbit Hinted by Soviets,” pages 1 and 4.
Sherbrooke Daily Record, Sherbrooke: “Man in space,” page 1.
Incidentally, the article in the Sherbrooke daily was small enough to be easily missed. The top story was very much a regional story: “South Durham bank held up – Man, 77, gives chase – shot at by bandits.” Josaphat Couture gave up his high speed automobile chase when one of the five bandits put a bullet in the side window behind him.
Yours truly would be remiss if I did not point out that, to fire through a side window of an automobile, on a country road, the shooter might have been close enough to shake hands with Couture. And he seemingly only fired once. On top of that, the hole was remarkably circular and clean. Just sayin’.
Before I forget, Solovyova or, to use her full name, Irina Bayanovna Solovyova, was a mechanical engineer and amateur skydiver. She would have replaced Tereshkova had the latter found herself unable to get in her space capsule. Solovyova ultimately never left terra firma.
Rumours of a female cosmonaut being put into orbit had actually been circulating in Moscow since 12 June at the latest. Articles to that effect had appeared in half a dozen Québec dailies. The Soviet authorities, however, refrained from commenting.
Some commentators linked the likely launch date of the first female cosmonaut to the Fifth World Congress of Women to be held in Moscow from 24 to 29 June. The congress was organised by the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), one of the most important and influential international women’s organisations of the Cold War era, an organisation which campaigned for women’s rights and peace. In the eyes of many, however, the WIDF was a pro-Soviet, even communist organisation based in East Berlin, East Germany, for which the United States and its allies were dangerous warmongers, unlike the USSR and its allies of course.
Junior Lieutenant Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova and Lieutenant Colonel Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky several / many days before their spaceflights, Moscow, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Anon., “V. Terechkova, la 1ère femme cosmonaute.” L’Événement, 17 June 1963, 1.
Tereshkova’s rocket took off on 16 June. She was alone aboard the Vostok 6 space capsule. And yes, Tereshkova was / is the youngest woman to have flown in space and the only one to have done so alone. The capsule in which she took place was, however, involved in the first group flight of two spacecraft, Vostok 6 and Vostok 5, the latter housing Bykovsky, who had left for space on 14 June.
The term grouped flight did not mean that Tereshkova (radio call sign: chaika / seagull) and Bykovsky (radio call sign: yastreb / falcon) shook hands, however. Nay. The two cosmonauts were not even sure they saw each other’s space capsule. Indeed, the two spacecraft were never closer than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from each other.
Like other Soviet cosmonauts of the time, Tereshkova ejected from her space capsule during descent on the morning of 19 June. Bykovsky in turn ejected from his space capsule during descent about 2 hours 45 minutes later.
As you can imagine, Tereshkova’s spaceflight was celebrated with joy by the USSR’s propaganda machine, perhaps more so than Bykovsky’s, who should not have been too surprised. A typical example of the propaganda photographs follows…
A Soviet propaganda photograph showing Lieutenant Colonel Valery Fyodorovich Bykovsky and Junior Lieutenant Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova surrounded by children, 1963. RIA “Novosti,” 619144.
Let us now see what the more or less large translated titles of several / many Québec dailies which appeared on 17 June looked like:
Le Devoir: “The USSR launches the first woman in space.”
Montréal-Matin: “Russia launches a… ‘cosmonette’”
La Presse: “A 3rd Russian in space? He could join the couple present there”
L’Action: “A woman of Russian nationality hovers in space”
L’Événement: “V. Tereshkova, the 1st female cosmonaut”
Le Soleil: “There will be no meeting of the 2 cosmonauts in space”
La Tribune: “A Russian woman, first woman in space”
Le Nouvelliste: “Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova joins Colonel Valery Bykovsky in space”
You will notice that the most important dailies, or those which wished to become so, namely La Presse, Le Soleil and Montréal-Matin, seemed to be the most condescending. Before I forget, another article published on 17 June by the latter daily was entitled “Who is that Valentina?” The subtitle of that text read: “Gentlemen, she is single.”
In all fairness, yours truly must admit that anglophone Québec dailies did not seem to show more enthusiasm than their francophone counterparts:
The Gazette: “Russian Space Rendezvous Seen As First Woman Shot Into Orbit”
The Montreal Star: “Space Pair May Try Hook-up”
Sherbrooke Daily Record, Sherbrooke: “Space rendezvous unlikely – Reds continue dual flight”
It should be noted that the term cosmonette was not the prerogative of Montréal-Matin alone. Nay. In June 1963, it was used at least 1 600 times in the United States, for example. By way of comparison, the term cosmonette was used at least 50 times in Canada during that same period, including about a dozen times in francophone newspapers – which roughly corresponded to the proportion of Francophones within the population. Before I forget, given that Canada’s population was 10 times smaller than that of the United States, one could argue that Canadian newspapers did not use the term cosmonette as often as their American counterparts.
And what about the content of the articles published on 17 June and after in Québec dailies, both francophone and anglophone, you ask, my keen on information reading friend? Well, the thing was, it was very similar. Said content came after all more or less directly from the same foreign press agencies (United States, United Kingdom, USSR and France).
The titles of the articles were not simple translations of the titles of the texts written by foreign journalists, however, assuming of course that said texts had titles. If most of those titles were quite… down to earth, no pun intended, there was one, translated here, which was rather admiring, namely the one which accompanied a text published on 19 June in Montréal-Matin: “The two Russians smash all records of spaceflight – The ‘cosmonette’ beats all the Americans.” Another non-down to earth title, also translated, published the same day in La Presse, played in another register: “The spatial couple is back.”
Yours truly must mention that Tereshkova and Bykovsky did not form a couple in everyday life. The family status of the latter was in fact well known: he was married and had a 3-month-old son, Valery Valeryevich Bykovsky.
The Canadian content released during and after Tereshkova’s stay in orbit was somewhat limited, however. It differed in that from the plethora of Canadian content released during the flight into space of the aforementioned Gagarin. Said content related to Tereshkova’s stay in orbit will not be available until next week, however. Sorry.
Rénald Fortier
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