Turning Cold War Tragedy into Celebration

The Cold War has a distinct and decided legacy both in the media and in the minds of the American people. The terms instantly evokes images of nuclear bombs, Soviet tanks, machine gun guerilla fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, and sentiments of fear and political tension. Yet, one of the most popular and celebrated figures from the Cold War defies this iconography by being adorable, loveable, and completely canine. Laika was the name given to the Soviet stray dog sent up to space in the Sputnik II mission, famous for her death and sacrifice to space exploration. Since 1957 when the Soviets launched the Sputnik spacecraft, Laika has been at the center of Cold War conversation, the subject of toys, children’s books, protests, and media headlines. While her story is undeniably tragic, and arguably inspiring, in the larger scheme of Cold war horror and controversies, why do we care so much about Laika? The answer partially lies in government propaganda, by both the American and Soviet governments, but Laika’s celebrity goes beyond that. By celebricizing Laika, we honor and pay tribute to her, allowing us to come to terms with our grief and pain over her tragedy. While this may seem ignorant in the face of a myriad of Cold War tragedies, particularly human tragedies, because the individual was so powerless during this era; the oppressive communist regimes purged those against the government and even those in the U.S. were jailed under suspicion of being a communist, or condemned for anti-war protesting. In other words, people were universally powerless to the horrible acts their governments were imposing, the killings of millions. To speak out against it was dangerous, and sometimes not possible with censorship. However, love for Laika was uncontroversial, an outlet to express sadness over the innocent lives lost, a vehicle for our collective grief. Indeed, the universal love for Laika was a miraculous and necessary display of turning tragedy into celebration, and continues to be today.

On November 3rd, 1957, the Soviets launched the Sputnik II into outer space, a notable step in the space race. In order to test the effects of space travel on living creatures, the Soviets sealed a small stray dog found on the streets of Moscow in the vessel. Laika the street dog was never meant to return home from this trip, and died due to overheating and panic just a few hours into the flight. While she was the first of many Soviet dogs sent into space, she was the only one deliberately sent to her death. This fact caused much concern and upset at the time, specifically from westerners. Many protested the Sputnik mission and the mistreatment of Laika, most notably the British League Against Cruel Sports in London. The League made a statement about their November 11th, 1957 protest, calling the situation “more hideous than anything the barbarity of the medieval torturer could devise… it is earnestly to be hoped the world will not tolerate again so foul an experiment on a living animal.” While most probably did not share such a melodramatic attitude towards the circumstances, the League’s statement does underscore the shock and horror people felt towards Laika’s death. To many, Laika’s death was a genuine tragedy that needed more attention and pushback.

Yet, to some, attention to Laika’s story and death seemed misplaced in the grand scheme of everything else happening in the world: an understandable reaction. To insinuate Laika’s death was the most barbaric and inhuman event of the Cold War seems to minimize all the other tragic wrongdoings the Soviets committed. But more importantly, it was hypocritical of a Western organization to blatantly ignore Western wrongdoings and involvement in human death. One op-ed from the Times of India expresses this sentiment, discussing the Western protests for Laika: “One cannot understand why, when Japan and other countries protested against the H-bomb and atom bomb tests, these western countries did not pay any heed to them.”¹ Indeed, it is curious the way westerners, picking and choosing which causes to fight for during the Cold War, picked to fight for Laika, a singular dog from Moscow. Whether or not Laika should be protested for in general, the op-ed points out a flaw in protests for Laika. For surely, if those protesting Laika are against foul treatment towards living animals, they should not only be protesting Laika, but atomic bomb testing, war, and other human abuses. While there were in fact Western protests against these causes, and some immensely successful ones, like the Earth Day protest in 1970, there is almost a comical effect to the comparison of a far-reaching issue likethe environment to a dog. The author underlines this idea, saying, “Surely the suffering of that dog Laika is not worse than that caused by the H-bomb tests.”² It is not that there is confusion around why people care about Laika, it is understandable to feel pity and upset for the dog. Rather, the question at the heart of this discussion is why do many seem to care about Laika just as much as other, arguably more important issues?

To answer this question, it is important to first establish the role of the media in the cold war. As scholar Tony Shaw states in the beginning of his academic article on Cold War culture: “All wars, especially cold wars, are fought in part through words and images. Propaganda…was central to the forty-year battle fought between East and West.”³ As the Cold War was an ideological conflict as well as a physical and geopolitical one, swaying public opinion was necessary to garner support for both sides of the issue. Propaganda was one way to influence and subvert public opinion, and “virtually everything…could be deployed as a weapon to shape opinion at home,” even a dog.⁴ Part of understanding Laika in the Western sphere lies in understanding Soviet propaganda about the dog. The Soviet space dogs were depicted to mirror Soviet socialist qualities: “Among factors influencing this trend was an ethos of utility, which stressed the practical value of dogs as “workers”… socialist ideology also valued dogs’ contributions.”⁵ Soviet propaganda utilized Laika and other space dogs to affirm the socialist agenda of utility, work, and sacrifice. This is a sharp contrast to the way dogs were used in American propaganda at the time, shown as loveable members of the perfect nuclear family. By showing opposition to the treatment of Laika, through public statements in the news, the U.S. and other Western countries were also showing opposition to what Laika stood for in Soviet propaganda: an affirmation of socialist and Soviet ideology. Nelson underlines this, saying, “Clearly political agendas in Moscow and Washington drove a considerable part of the dogs’ fame.”⁶ Thus, it can be said that part of the reason Laika was so prominent in the media was due to propaganda or influence used by the Soviets to affirm Soviet ideology and by Americans to create public resentment towards the Soviets. This ideological manipulation of Laika’s image begins to explain why people cared so much about Laika at the time.

Even still, Laika’s popularity far surpassed what government influence and propaganda could have perpetuated. Laika was not just a tool of politics for the opposing powers of the Cold War; the stray dog took on a life of her own. This is specifically visible through the mass popularity of Laika paraphernalia. Officially, Laika was commemorated in many of the countries in the Soviet Union through postal stamps with her face on them, even reaching North Korea in 1987. In 1958, the Soviet Union began producing cigarettes with Laika’s name and image on the wrappers.⁷ While this may appear to be another example of propaganda as it was pushed by the Soviet Union, Laika paraphernalia also took off in the Western sphere. Laika plushies and toys hit markets in the late ’50s, one such toy complete with a rocket to match a plastic version of the dog.⁸ There were Laika wall clocks, Laika Russian dolls, Laika dish sets, and more⁹. The demand for Laika paraphernalia demonstrates how our love for Laika surpassed government propaganda—we didn’t just want to hear about her story, we wanted to honor her by incorporating her into our daily lives, by celebricizing her. Thus, government propaganda and media coverage pushed Laika into the limelight, but it was the people who championed her celebrity. The fact that both the East and the West, communists and anti-communists, all took to celebrating Laika through everyday items shows how much people truly cared about and loved her. She defied all preconceived boundaries by providing a point of common ground from all around the globe during arguably the most divided and tense period in world history. While the East painted her as a martyr and the West as a victim, both sides could agree on the tragedy of Laika’s death as an innocent dog. This ultimately shows the sheer power of this small dog.

In understanding why people loved Laika so much, why she had such a unique and successful ability to transcend the black and white notions of the conflict, the good versus evil mentality, we can better understand Laika’s role in Cold War history. By the time Laika’s story started getting attention in 1957, the Cold War was in full swing. The advance of nuclear testing and technology was seen both by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, a constant reminder of total catastrophic destruction, particularly emphasized by the Mayak nuclear disaster in 1957. There was undoubtedly a sense of helplessness growing amongst people, caused by the tragedies they could not help, and the fear that there would be more to come. The story of Laika was indeed a tragedy, one that created commonality East and West in their grief over the dog. In fact, the very scientists who sent Laika to her death were upset over this decision, one taking her to play with his children the day before the launch of the Sputnik II, citing that he “wanted to do something nice for the dog,” and others scrambling to give her extra love and pets in her last moments on Earth.¹⁰ Still, what was different about the tragedy of Laika was that the people weren’t powerless in their grief for her. Other human tragedies constricted people in their grief as political and physical fears prevented mourning. For example, an American could not fully process and share the experience of learning American troops killed Soviet soldiers, as the political propaganda and nationalism of the time discouraged this. However, those inhibitions do not hold up when talking about a dog (after all, dogs can’t be communists). In creating Laika paraphernalia, both sides were able to celebrate her life, mourn her death, and ultimately, reckon with the effects of the Cold War in a way they were unable to do with other tragedies. Though Laika was definitely not the only or worst tragedy to come from the Cold War, she was unique in the sense that she unified people and allowed them to turn her tragedy into a celebration. 

Yet, if the Cold War is over, why is Laika so popular today? Unpacking this question prompts the further inquisition of whether the Cold War is actually over. There is no longer the constant threat of nuclear attack, but tensions between the U.S. and Russia remain, as well as a watered down version of Cold War psychology. Russians are often still depicted in U.S. media as the bad guys of superhero movies, in films such as Marvel’s “Black Widow,” “Atomic Blonde,” and “John Wick.” Certainly the sentiments of collective fear and tragedy remain in the media, with tragedies surfacing everyday of shootings and racial attacks. Furthermore, division runs rampant in our everyday lives and in politics, remnants of a time when our world was literally split in two, east and west, good and evil, capitalist and communist. Could Laika’s current celebritization reflect how the global climate has never really found solace since the technical end of the Cold War? Indeed, people are still memorializing and celebrating Laika, though not through paraphernalia. When searching “Laika the space dog” on Google, some of the first titles of articles to pop up are “The Sad, Sad Story of Laika, the Space Dog and Her One Way Trip into Orbit” and “RIP, Laika: ‘Space Dogs’ Will Break Your Heart”.¹¹ Both articles, written in 2018 and 2020 respectively, are among a myriad of news outlets paying tribute to Laika. While they are undoubtedly melodramatic to attract attention and views, people are genuinely heartbroken about Laika, all these years later. In the first article, historian Alice George writes that today there are “websites, youtube videos, poems, children’s books,…museum exhibitions…(and) a vegan lifestyle and animal rights magazine” all dedicated to or in the name of the dog. In the latter, Kate Knibbs writes of the emotional reaction Laika’s story elicits, saying it makes one want to, “Scoop up your pooch and hysterically sob Oh my God, I promise to never send you to space!” On the social media platform Tiktok, user @geckomusic made an animated video edit to his own song, titled “Laika,” which honors the dog, with over 867,000 views. One comment reads, “Laika and her story never fail to make me cry” and another, “IM CRYING ANGRY TEARS…THAT IS SO MESSED UP AND ITS SO SAD.” There are hundreds of videos under “Laika the space dog,” some of which are just people crying to the song, with thousands of views, comments and shares, emphasizing that not only is Laika’s story having a resurgence, but it is going viral. It is evidence that while Laika paraphernalia is not as popular as it used to be, we can now trace Laika’s celebrity through social media. 

Laika’s story going viral today may not seem to be anything more than kids lamenting on the internet, but within this, there is much to be understood about the way we perceive the Cold War and continue to reckon with it. During the Cold War, Laika was an example of finding unity and celebration in tragedy. For a time filled with hatred, tension, fear, and violence, this is miraculous and beautiful. The Cold War as we think about historically is over, but that doesn’t mean we don’t continue to need to turn tragedy into celebration, dark into light. In fact, we may need it more today than ever. While the Cold War as we know it, an ideological conflict between communists and anti-communists, Soviets and Americans, is over, we still live in a confusing and fearful time with an overload of tragedy stories in the news. More so than before, news stories now have us confronting both current and long-standing ideological issues. For example, tragic stories from the war in Ukraine surface everyday, such as the accounts of Ukranian women and children being raped and assaulted by Russian soldiers. Naturally, these stories are very hard to read, as the war crimes currently being committed in Ukraine are horrific and unimaginable. They are also hard to read as they force us to confront long standing and complicated ideological beliefs not fully reckoned with from the Cold War. Questions emerge from these stories such as, why can’t America, the protector of freedom, do anything about the war in Ukraine? Can we even trust our country to do anything about the atrocious war crimes when news stories such as the numerous rapes being committed in Ukraine evoke memories of American soliders doing the same in Vietnam? 

The bottom line is, though the Cold War may be over, we are still dealing with its consequences and the lasting impact of Cold War ideology and propaganda. Generally speaking, it is incredibly frustrating to live in a perpetual state of grief and anger, and within an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. We need a story we can release our pain and anguish on, a story that allows us to reckon with this new coming of the Cold War, and reckon with a Cold War we never really put to rest, without reminding us of our powerlessness and of our guilt. That story is Laika the space dog.

Laika’s story is by far not the most significant or arguably tragic story to come out of the Cold War. She is one of thousands, possibly millions, of animals to be harmed by human action during the Cold War, let alone the millions of humans harmed or killed by events and hot wars during the Cold War. But Laika’s story is universally tragic. All can pity the dog without underlying political motivations, all can feel sadness when looking at the picture of the small Moscow stray, innocently and happily sitting in the capsule she later died in. In this way, Laika is a unifier, bringing us all together in our grief and love for the dog. There can never be a sense made of the Cold War. There can never be meaning found in the senseless deaths of millions around the world over an ideological conflict we made up. There certainly cannot be understanding over the fact that it continues today, and that we the people are powerless over it yet cannot avoid the graphic news stories shoved down our throats. Laika gives us an outlet. The Cold War is still happening in the sense that we are still reckoning with it and our understanding of it. In the midst of all that chaos, in our grappling with everything our country did and didn’t do, does and doesn’t do, we can mourn and celebritize this dog. Collectively, we can attempt to come to terms with the consequences of the Cold War, through Laika the space dog. 

1. Esak Jeewanjee, “Laika,” Times of India, November 18, 1957, ProQuest.
2. Jeewanjee, “Laika.”
3. Tony Shaw, “The Politics of Cold War Culture,” Journal of Cold War Studies 3, no. 3 (2001). JSTOR. Accessed 4 May 2022. P59
4. Shaw, “The Politics of Cold War Culture.” P59
5. Amy Nelson, “The Legacy of Laika,” Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the Study of History, ed. Dorothee Brantz (University of Virginia Press, 2010). P217
6. Nelson, “The Legacy of Laika.” P217
7. Nelson, “The Legacy of Laika.”
8. “Toy ‘Laika’ Draws Protest,” New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1959, ProQuest.
9. Martin Parr, “Objects – Soviet Space Dogs,” Accessed 4 May 2022.
10. Nelson, “The Legacy of Laika.”
11. Alice George, “The Sad, Sad Story of Laika, the Space Dog, and Her One-Way Trip into Orbit,” Smithsonian, April 11, 2018,; Kate Knibbs, “RIP, Laika: Space Dogs Will Break Your Heart,” WIRED, September 7, 2020.