Hacking the Iron Curtain

A Media Archaeology of the Russian Internet

Natalia Konradova

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780299354008
• eBook ISBN:
  9780299354039
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Social Sciences

For decades before the internet existed, scientists, technologists, novelists, and enthusiasts of all descriptions dreamed of instantaneous, worldwide communication systems. What forms such systems might take and what technologies could be used to accomplish this goal were open questions—questions asked by people around the world, including in the Cold War–era superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union. 

Media archaeologist Natalia Konradova examines the history of the internet in Russia and its predecessor state, cutting through layers of technological history and dusting off conceptual artifacts of the past. Inspired by the fundamental question of how Soviets imagined future technologies, she investigates experiments with telepathy alongside the (then equally improbable) dream of a global, digitally connected computer network. Since the story of the Russian internet is inextricably wound up with Soviet society and the history of the Cold War, Hacking the Iron Curtain is as much a cultural and political history as it is a technological one—a history that illustrates how collective dreams can challenge geopolitical ambitions and inspire world-changing technologies.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• A Note on Transliteration, Place-Names, and Terms
• Introduction
• 1. Soviet Power Plus the Digitalization of the Entire Country
• 2. The Technology of the Future Is Telepathy
• 3. Telepathy—Spacebridge—Internet
• 4. User Revolution
• 5. The USSR Is Connected to the USENET
• 6. The Russian Colonization of the American Internet
• In Lieu of Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index