Of all the impressive inventions of the 20th century, none has had such a strong and lasting impact on the human imagination as the airplane. The aircraft has inspired the creative observation of many artists and intellectuals. It attracted a great deal of public attention by presenting a popular authentic image of the nation and at the same time challenging it to adapt to the modern world. The airplanes passed swiftly over the mountain tops and crossed the continents and in this way changed the traditional perceptions of time and space.
Along with these physical changes, aviation created new symbols and images that glorified the experiences of speed and movement, created and transmitted new meanings of power, quality, authority and belonging and forever enriched the range of human expression. IT helped most of all the sobriety and development of nations. It created the modern sensitivity, the core of modern life.
This is also because military intensification in the field of aviation is a multi-year and very complex process, which may stand the test against the enemy within a very short period of confrontation. For this reason air forces often fail. The general sense of failure has, as a result, became one of the salient features of postmodern society.
Of course the airplane is not the only cultural symbol of the period. It is in a list with other technologies such as the car, radio and cinema. But it serve as a representative of human control over the forces of nature and characterize progress unmatched compared to the other symbols of culture and technology that combine the medium and the message.
"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan and means that a physical means also imprints itself in consciousness as having meaningful content through its characteristics, while creating a value relationship with a person not through the purposes for which it was created.
The danger is that a medium that has become a medium will be distracting. The airplane has no content like a book has, but it has a social impact as it redefines space. As a result, the content itself is of secondary importance. A crime committed using an airplane gets less attention compared to the airplane. People tend to focus on content, but during the transfer of information to them a large part of the content is lost because of the complex physical means in which it is involved.
Once society's values and ways of doing things change due to technology, we understand the social significance of the medium. These changes may seem indirect as a secondary derivative of the hustle and bustle of everyday life of which we are unaware, but in retrospect they are often direct and touch on the principles of culture, religion and historical precedents.
At the heart of the psyche is the experience of flying. Aviation was initially seen as a revolutionary symbol of personal renewal in the style of the French Revolution. Later it was adopted by modern countries as having unparalleled technological and economic leverage. It eventually became a means of expression for national heroism through fighter pilots. It is not surprising that about the plane there is an extensive work that explores and depicts the image from every possible angle.
Central to the approach that explores the aircraft as a comprehensive phenomenon is the practice of the terms "aerial awareness" and "aerial consciousness". The term "aerial awareness" was coined by American researchers to explain the American nation's initial enthusiasm for the flying machine. Following this, historians began to use the term to describe the interest of a nation, group or individual, in everything related to aviation. The term originally refers to enthusiasm for flying in flying machines, but its use also refers to all the traditions and symbols that make up the approach to the subject, as well as the diverse practical pursuits of it. The term "aerial consciousness" means the intelligent use of aerial awareness to create a complete worldview. Simply put, this is a unique culture based on the concepts of aviation.
A comprehensive study of aviation culture has been conducted regarding Russia. Numerous studies on Russian and Soviet aviation point to its great economic and technological importance. But in Russia the airplane played a much more important role, as part of the broadest conception of national development. The personal and public treatment of the aircraft, air and space crafts in this nation was as a whole culture. Generations of Russian and Soviet leaders understood it that way. They promoted images and symbols and in this way realized their political vision.
Russia is a touchstone on this issue, which is researched in depth in the book "The Dictatorship of Aviation". About Russia There are many studies that deal with aviation as a national economic, technological, and military product. They thus describe an extensive air awareness, which was a practical activity stemming from the needs of the hour. But from them one can also identify broader and more comprehensive cultural and political conditions that contributed to the creation of Russian air consciousness.
20th century Western culture, American and European alike, from the outset combined the practical with the symbolic in their reference to the world of aviation. Aviation researchers expressed their views from a combination of the technological and the mythological. The legend of Icarus and Daedalus served as a connecting thread in this context. The evolution of the aircraft symbolized the eternal and Sisyphean struggle against gravity.
It so happened that the Russians tried to rewrite history as if they were the first in the world to make proven attempts at aviation. These attempts are documented in Russian folklore, but their scope and significance are subjective. Every other nation, whether it be the French or the English, the Spanish or the Italian, the Americans or the Chinese, boasts a similar folklore.
Attempts in Russia to take advantage of the amateurish and one-time efforts of peasants and monks were intended to give Russia its priority in aviation affairs. They reveal the main motivation in the Russian aviation culture, which is the claim to differentiation and thus to the ability to compete against the West. This aspiration for differentiation and prominence was integrated with the Russians' broad aspirations for imperial expansion, Slavic theories and communist ideology.
Russian statesmen and citizens measured themselves according to advanced European standards, but they sought to bridge them with Russian national identity. This ambiguity promoted a unique vision of the nation and its future. As the central feature of the 20th century, the aircraft clarified more than anything else the connection between national aspirations and technological progress. Because it promised a military advantage along with control of gravity, the aircraft has become the clearest, best and most effective standard of all for personal, social and national success. As a result, the aircraft in Russia and other aviation dictatorships of the 20th century, Germany, Italy and Japan, became more than just a flying machine. Compared to statesmen from the Western powers, who saw the airplane as a key technological component and a measure of progress only, the Russians also attributed to it symbolic qualities as the forerunner of national pride.
In Russia, the plane became almost a religious icon of the Russian-Orthodox religion. It represented God and the salvation of man as incarnation of Jesus. The airplane was designed to free the Russian nation from the shackles of the past, where most Russians were poor and slaves of the emperor and nobility. The elite society used it to expect a rapid transition to the most advanced and powerful nation in the world.
The Russians were indeed very successful in their achievements in the field of aviation, but these were also characterized by the inefficiency and injustice of the Soviet authoritarian regime. Ironically, during the crushing industrialization of the 1930s that led to most of the technological achievements of the Soviet Union, an outdated culture was also established there, based on hostility and a struggle between the individual and the government where all means are kosher. The petty citizen who did not get enough of his needs did not in any way stopped trying to achieve his needs, while the state resorted to unprecedented punitive measures to achieve social order. The result was a continued Russian dependence on the more dynamic, creative and productive West, on advanced technology issues. The dictatorship of aviation that Soviet leaders sought to create collapsed and became a monumental human tragedy.
Peter Fritsche [1955-] is a professor of modern history, specializing in the history of Germany in the 20th century in general and during the Third Reich in particular. He has written several books on these subjects, focusing mainly on the analysis of the social forces operating in Germany. In addition, Fritsche wrote a book about the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and other books dealing with social processes in modern history.
The first of his books on Germany deals with the social processes in the Weimar Republic that contributed to the phenomenon of Nazism. The second is called: "Germany - a nation of pilots". This book describes the Germans' obsessive preoccupation with aviation, from the beginning of the 20th century with the Zeppelin to the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship, which was an aviation dictatorship in which aviation became a major tool in mobilizing the masses for the regime's needs. Fritsche did not continue his research into the years after the Nazis came to power. The book "Holocaust and Aviation" was created to fill in the gaps.
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