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Gagarin, Yuri Alekseevich (1934-1968)
cosmonaut
The first man to orbit the earth in a space cap-
sule, Gagarin became the symbol of the spectac-
ular successes of the Soviet space program in the
late 1950s and early 1960s, beginning with the
launching of SPUTNIK in 1957. He was born near
Smolensk in western Russia, the son of a collec-
tive farmer, and joined the Soviet air force in
1955, eventually rising to the rank of major. He
graduated as a fighter pilot from the Chkalov
Military Aviation School in 1957, and in 1960 he
was selected as a possible future cosmonaut. He
competed with German TITOV for the distinction
of being the pilot on the first manned flight, win-
ning out, some said later, because his more
engaging personality and peasant background
reflected better on Soviet science for propaganda
purposes. On April 12, 1961, he made his his-
toric 108-minute flight aboard Vostok-1. A mem-
ber of the COMMUNIST PARTY since 1960, Gagarin
became a Soviet and international celebrity, a
member of the USSR Supreme Soviet, and an
ambassador for Soviet science and technology. In
1962 he published a book of memoirs, Till We
Reach the Stars. He continued his previous work
as a test pilot and helped train a new generation
of Soviet cosmonauts. He died in an air crash in
March 1968 while testing a fighter plane. After
his death, numerous monuments were built and
streets renamed in his honor across the Soviet
Union, including Gagarin Square in Moscow
with its gigantic monument to Gagarin. His
ashes are buried in the Kremlin Wall.
Galich, Aleksandr Arkadievich
(1918?-1977)
(born Ginzburg)
musician and writer
A popular singer of satirical ballads whose songs
circulated clandestinely, Galich was born in Eka-
terinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk). His family moved
to Moscow, and he attended the Stanislavsky
Studio. During World War II he toured the front
with theatrical troupes. After the war, Galich
Soviet cosmonaut Major Yuri Gagarin on his way to his
spaceship Vostok, 1961 (Hulton/Archive)
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