How in the USSR in the 1960s, the authorities were preparing for a meeting with aliens

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In 1963, the ballet The Distant Planet was staged in Leningrad. It told about the journey of earthlings to another planet and about its conquest. A little later, the official opinion of the censors about the ballet appeared. It condemned the consumer attitude towards aliens.

The censor wrote: “The ideologists of imperialism affirm the idea of hostility among the civilizations of the Universe, they talk about the war of the worlds, that in space relations between civilizations will be established by force. We reject this concept, we say that civilizations will extend their hands of fraternal help to each other. The aliens will meet the earthling like a brother."

The main global theme remains the coronavirus. Humanity turned out to be not ready for a pandemic, and therefore a natural question arose - how would we react to a tragedy of a larger scale? To an asteroid crash, limited nuclear war? Or a meeting with aliens? And the point is not in technical preparation for such events, but in the absence of a planetary level thinking in humanity.

To a similar question - about the reaction of mankind to a meeting with extraterrestrial civilizations - in the 1960s, with the opening of the era of space flight, in the same USSR they tried to give an answer.

In 1962 Boris Meisel and Konstantin Sergeev began work on the ballet Distant Planet. The first performance, of course, took place on April 12, 1963 at the Kirov Theater in Leningrad. The ballet was also interesting because for the first time “electric instruments were introduced into the ballet score. The abstract score of Distant Planet sounded like this:

“Characters: Man. Land. Planet. Sun rays. Waves. Fog. Meteorites. Boys.

Man's dream has come true, he can fly to the Distant Planet. But Man is the son of the Earth, and the Earth, like a kind mother, takes care of Man. She foresees the dangers and difficulties that will arise in front of her brave son in flight. The Earth is trying to keep Man from taking a risky step. But Man is adamant. The earth blesses its son for a feat.

The man takes off into space.

He reaches the Distant Planet, but the planet does not admit the daredevil to its secrets. Blocking the path of a Man, she sends vortices towards him, dazzling rays of counting, fogs, meteor showers. However, elemental forces cannot stop the hero of the cosmos.

He conquers nature. A distant planet has been conquered by Man. Like Prometheus, Man takes possession of a ray - a symbol of new knowledge, a key to the secrets of the Universe.

A person returns to Earth to give what he has learned to people. The earth lovingly welcomes its brave son. Man gives the Earth a ray - a precious gift from the Distant Planet, triumphing over what was unknown yesterday.

Almost immediately after the premiere of the ballet, on April 30, 1963, the censor Lipatov wrote a "review" of the performance. In fact, this note reflects the official position of the Soviet government on contact with extraterrestrial civilizations:

“To the head of Lenoblgorlit, Comrade Arsenyev Yu. M. from the senior censor Lipatov V. F.

Opera and Ballet Theater SM Kirov staged the ballet "Distant Planet". The libretto of the ballet, written by People's Artist of the USSR N. M. Sergeev, is ideologically weak. The role of the Earth is not clear. How should this image be understood? The Earth is not a symbol of an inert force, an inert planet, which by the force of gravity prevents a person from leaving its limits. No, this is a symbol of human civilization, she, like a mother, worries about the fate of her son, who is in danger in flight. But why is the Earth trying to keep him, not to let him fly? Unclear. We know that space flight is not an aspiration of lone individuals, but a conscious purposeful act prepared by society. Society sends its sons into space.

There is a struggle between Man and the Distant Planet, the planet is conquered, defeated, conquered. This interpretation of surrender is affirmed by the play. There, the Distant Planet, defeated by Man, bends down at his feet like a clearing. And this is a serious ideological miscalculation of the libretto. Yes, we know that the ideologues of imperialism affirm the idea of hostility to the civilizations of the Universe, they talk about the war of the worlds, that in space relations between civilizations will be established by force. We reject this concept, we say that civilizations will extend their hands of brotherly help to each other, and if a man on Earth reaches a planet with a different, higher civilization, he will be greeted like a brother, he will not have to fight for mastering the "ray-symbol of new knowledge", he will not have to conquer other peoples, he will be given this "ray".

A man on a Distant Planet fights, wins, conquers a beauty. Submissive, she bows before him. It would seem that the guest who gave away the "ray-symbol of new knowledge" should have been greeted joyfully, thanked, but she was greeted with hostility. A person is alarmed, frightened, dissatisfied, he tries to get rid of an unnecessary guest and literally kicks her out, throws her away. Where, why does a Man have such a consumerist, inhuman attitude that does not fit in with the norms of communist morality towards a woman from another planet?

The libretto of the performance was not previously presented in Gorlit, so we did not have the opportunity to point out his ideological mistakes. I think the libretto needs to be corrected."

As a result, the ballet "Distant Planet" was released several more times and removed from the show. As far as we know, it has not been staged even in our days.