Valentin Petrovich Viktorov’s *Glory to Courage, Work, and Intellect of the Soviet People!* (1962) celebrates Soviet space achievements at the height of the Space Race. Released less than a year after Yuri Gagarin’s historic first human spaceflight, this propaganda poster captures the euphoric optimism of the early Soviet space program. Created for the state publishing house Izobrazitel’noye Iskusstvo, the poster emerged amid fierce technological competition with the United States, when space exploration symbolised Soviet scientific prowess. The work exemplifies the fusion of political messaging with modernist design that defined Soviet visual propaganda in the early 1960s.

The composition integrates symbolic elements masterfully. At its centre is a smiling cosmonaut’s helmeted face against the Earth’s atmospheric curve. A vertical rocket ascends along the right, crowned with the hammer and sickle emblem, while its contrail spells "12 APR 1961," marking Gagarin’s flight date. Cyrillic text at the top, in a modernist typeface, provides a horizontal counterbalance to the rocket's verticality, while curved orbital paths echo the Earth’s shape, unifying the composition through repeated geometric forms.