Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

news.lettersofnote.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 122 posts

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#11

Post by LeoPanthera »

floren wrote: post #3

> I fully trust the technology. It should not fail. But it sometimes happens that a man falls and breaks his neck with no reason at all. Something may happen here too. I do not believe it will happen. "How do I write a letter to tell my wife I died because the rocket blew up, without sounding like I doubted the glorious Soviet rocket?"

It launched on top of a "Vostok-K" rocket, which ultimately launched 13 times, 11 successfully.

I don't know if an ~85% success rate is actually good, but given that this was the very early days of the exploration of space, I'm willing to accept that it's not bad.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#12

Post by chx »

wpwpwpw wrote: post #8
ctrlp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I wish to dedicate this flight to the people of the new communist society, which we are already entering, to our great Motherland, and to our science" And make sure the secret police have no reason to suspect you

What makes you think he didn't mean what he wrote?

Of course he didn't. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough to write it truly in the farewell letter of their families. He wrote this to protect his family, if the state believes Yuri was not a true Soviet man they might take away their pension. The reason it's laid down so heavily because the risk was very great as he might be blamed posthumously for a failure. It's easy to understand the desperation from this if you know how to read these...

In books, it was called the "red tail" where you added a section sounding like this to appease the censors.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#13

Post by bee_rider »

chx wrote: post #12
wpwpwpw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think he didn't mean what he wrote?

Of course he didn't. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough to write it truly in the farewell letter of their families. He wrote this to protect his family, if the state believes Yuri was not a true Soviet man they might take away their pension. The reason it's laid down so heavily because the risk was very great as he might be blamed posthumou…

Doesn’t it seem possible he’d have a different view of the Soviet Union than you? He was born near the beginning, spent most of his formative years in the Soviet Union that had just made a big contribution to taking down the Nazis and was now launching a him, a former farm-boy, into space. It seems like a pretty compelling story from his point of view!

Unless you are 90 years old, I guess you were born in a Soviet Union on a more obviously bad trajectory.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#14

Post by noduerme »

floren wrote: post #3

> I fully trust the technology. It should not fail. But it sometimes happens that a man falls and breaks his neck with no reason at all. Something may happen here too. I do not believe it will happen. "How do I write a letter to tell my wife I died because the rocket blew up, without sounding like I doubted the glorious Soviet rocket?"

yeah, the whole letter sounds like it was coded with a gun to his and his wife's head.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#15

Post by noduerme »

bee_rider wrote: post #13
chx wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course he didn't. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough to write it truly in the farewell letter of their families. He wrote this to protect his family, if the state believes Yuri was not a true Soviet man they might take away their pension. The reason it's laid down so heavily because the risk was very great as he might be blamed posthumou…

Doesn’t it seem possible he’d have a different view of the Soviet Union than you? He was born near the beginning, spent most of his formative years in the Soviet Union that had just made a big contribution to taking down the Nazis and was now launching a him, a former farm-boy, into space. It seems like a pretty compelling story from his point of view! Unless you are 90 years old, I guess you were born in a Soviet Un…

A cursory reading of the history of Stalin's mass murders and deportations puts paid to this. No one living through the Terror mistook this bullshit for a Captain Kirk Iowa boy in space fantasy. And his usefulness isn't lost on the current FSB animals who wear Yuri pins inside their jackets.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#16

Post by bee_rider »

noduerme wrote: post #15
bee_rider wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t it seem possible he’d have a different view of the Soviet Union than you? He was born near the beginning, spent most of his formative years in the Soviet Union that had just made a big contribution to taking down the Nazis and was now launching a him, a former farm-boy, into space. It seems like a pretty compelling story from his point of view! Unless you are 90 years old, I guess you were born in a Soviet Un…

A cursory reading of the history of Stalin's mass murders and deportations puts paid to this. No one living through the Terror mistook this bullshit for a Captain Kirk Iowa boy in space fantasy. And his usefulness isn't lost on the current FSB animals who wear Yuri pins inside their jackets.

That is a good point. People can compartmentalize or be surprisingly shielded from some pretty horrifying things, though…

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#18

Post by rodary »

pacaro wrote: post #9

I love that he name checks and quotes Chkalov. Not that I expect anyone to know who Chkalov was, but there's a Chkalov Drive in Vancouver WA, and I went down the "how do I pronounce that, who is it named for" rabbit hole a few years ago, so his name always makes me smile. The Vantucky locals typically say Chuckalov or similar, and look blankly at anything close to ˈtɕkaləf

You don't need a t there (native Russian speaker), it's a clear ch like in check.

This is a common mistake when transliterating the Russian ч (ch), t doesn't add anything. In fact, t makes it more difficult to pronounce it while it's an easy sound for most people to say.

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#19

Post by pacaro »

rodary wrote: post #18
pacaro wrote: post #9

I love that he name checks and quotes Chkalov. Not that I expect anyone to know who Chkalov was, but there's a Chkalov Drive in Vancouver WA, and I went down the "how do I pronounce that, who is it named for" rabbit hole a few years ago, so his name always makes me smile. The Vantucky locals typically say Chuckalov or similar, and look blankly at anything close to ˈtɕkaləf

You don't need a t there (native Russian speaker), it's a clear ch like in check. This is a common mistake when transliterating the Russian ч (ch), t doesn't add anything. In fact, t makes it more difficult to pronounce it while it's an easy sound for most people to say.

I just cut and paste the IPA from Wikipedia! For actual pronunciation guidance I asked a native Russian speaker!

[Edit: I think it's possible in the IPA that the t is there to make it a harder ch sound like in check, rather than soft as in chagrin or chalet, kindof like the d in Django makes it the hard j common in English, as opposed to the soft j natural in French]

Re: I hope you will never see this letter (1961)

#20

Post by rodary »

chx wrote: post #12
wpwpwpw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think he didn't mean what he wrote?

Of course he didn't. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough to write it truly in the farewell letter of their families. He wrote this to protect his family, if the state believes Yuri was not a true Soviet man they might take away their pension. The reason it's laid down so heavily because the risk was very great as he might be blamed posthumou…

> no one, not even high level party members took this bullshit seriously enough

Don't know when you were born (I was in the 1960s). You're wrong. A lot of people, especially Gagarin's generation, took what you call bullshit seriously and believed in it. Hence, were willing to lay down their life for the cause.

Post reply on HN