Hacking the Iron Curtain

A Media Archaeology of the Russian Internet

Natalia Konradova (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

208 Seiten

2026
University of Wisconsin Press (Verlag)
978-0-299-35400-8 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Januar 2026)
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For decades before the internet existed, scientists, technologists, novelists, and enthusiasts of all descriptions dreamed of instantaneous, worldwide communication systems. What forms such systems might take and what technologies could be used to accomplish this goal were open questions—questions asked by people around the world, including in the Cold War–era superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union.

Media archaeologist Natalia Konradova examines the history of the internet in Russia and its predecessor state, cutting through layers of technological history and dusting off conceptual artifacts of the past. Inspired by the fundamental question of how Soviets imagined future technologies, she investigates experiments with telepathy alongside the (then equally improbable) dream of a global, digitally connected computer network. The story of the Russian internet is inextricably wound up with Soviet society and the history of the Cold War. Hacking the Iron Curtain is therefore as much a cultural and political history as it is a technological one.

Natalia Konradova, a cultural historian and journalist, is a member of the project Andersdenken digital at the Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature at the Freie UniversitÄt Berlin. She previously published a Russian-language book on the same topic, titled Arkheologiia Russkogo Interneta.

A Note on Transliteration, Place-Names, and Terms
Introduction
Chapter 1. Soviet Power Plus the Digitalization of the Entire Country
Chapter 2. The Technology of the Future Is Telepathy
Chapter 3. Telepathy—Spacebridge—Internet
Chapter 4. User Revolution
Chapter 5. “The Russians Are Coming!” The USSR Is Connected to the USENET
Chapter 6. The Russian Colonization of the American Internet
In Lieu of Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	13.1.2026
Verlagsort	Wisconsin
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	454 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Mathematik / Informatik ► Informatik ► Web / Internet
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Kommunikation / Medien ► Medienwissenschaft
ISBN-10	0-299-35400-8 / 0299354008
ISBN-13	978-0-299-35400-8 / 9780299354008
Zustand	Neuware