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Children of the Cold War in the market for political emotions
In the summer of 1983, three-year-old Rasa Prascevičiūtė was in trouble – her father accidentally cut off both of her legs during the hay harvest. She was flown from Radviliškis district to Moscow, where surgeon Ramazis Datyashvili performed the operation. Three weeks later, when the operation was declared a complete success, the first publication appeared, launching a long media campaign. Images of the girl circulated in the media, a film was made, a book was written, and the photographs were entered into international competitions. One of the significant contexts of this circulation of images of the child is the order and regulation of emotions during the Cold War. The images and story of Samantha Smith, an 11-year-old American girl who visited the USSR in the same summer, were important primarily on an international level, while those of Rasa Prascevičiūtė were important on a domestic level. Their photographs will become a starting point for considering how the images of a child and the political meanings of emotions are linked.