The First Men on Venus: Space Travels in Russian Cinema of the 1930-1960s

The purpose of the article is to introduce unknown archive documents and footage into scientific use, to give historians new factual material on sci-fi cinema. Based on the experience of those film directors whose work did not find adequate representation in Russian cinema-tology, the author argues that the first film about conquering Venus was conceived and partially shot in Russia in the late 1930s. The vast archive material cited in the article is aimed at changing the existing conception of the development of sci-fi genre in the worlds cinema.