Cold War, 'Thaw' and 'Everlasting Friendship': Soviet Mountaineers and Mount Everest, 1953–1960

In 1953, two events affected the community of Soviet mountaineers each in their own way. Stalin died and the world's highest summit, Mount Everest, was climbed for the first time. This article traces how the story of Everest's conquest was transmitted to the Soviet public: a slow process reflecting the transition from Stalinist isolation to Khrushchev's 'Thaw'. Between 1954 and 1960, the first personal contacts with Everest expedition leader John Hunt then opened up a window to the world (not only) for Soviet mountaineers, while at the same time the blossoming Sino-Soviet friendship of the mid1950s enabled Soviet mountaineers to prepare for their own, however unsuccessful, Sino-Soviet Everest Expedition. Everest acted as a catalyst for increasing contacts between East and West, capitalist and communist climbers, which provided new chances for comparison and self-reflection and thus contributed to the emergence of new discourses of identity and community within Soviet mountaineering. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down