The Anatomy of Spaceflight: Rockets and Other Mechanical Eggs in Russian Modernism

In this article the author discusses the image of mechanical ova (eggs) in early Russian science fiction as one particular manifestation of ideas about the role of technology, which in Soviet history and political culture played the role of political-industrial catalyst. However, quite often technology also served as a utopian means of myth-creation. Special attention is devoted to Konstantin Ciolkovskiiʼs novel Beyond the Earth and Aleksei Tolstoiʼs Aelita, which both feature egg-shaped spacecraft and also activate the symbolic values of the egg.