Behind the Iron Curtain: Female Composers in the Soviet Bloc

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
Elaine Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain

Goods and States: The Political Logic of State-Socialist Material Culture

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 426-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztina Fehérváry
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Socialism ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
The City ◽  
State Socialist

In the two decades since the fall of state socialism, the widespread phenomenon ofnostalgiein the former Soviet satellites has made clear that the everyday life of state socialism, contrary to stereotype, was experienced and is remembered in color. Nonetheless, popular accounts continue to depict the Soviet bloc as gray and colorless. As Paul Manning (2007) has argued, color becomes a powerful tool for legitimating not only capitalism, but democratic governance as well. An American journalist, for example, recently reflected on her own experience in the region over a number of decades:It's hard to communicate how colorless and shockingly gray it was behind the Iron Curtain … the only color was the red of Communist banners. Stores had nothing to sell. There wasn't enough food… . Lines formed whenever something, anything, was for sale. The fatigue of daily life was all over their faces. Now… fur-clad women confidently stride across the winter ice in stiletto heels. Stores have sales… upscale cafés cater to cosmopolitan clients, and magazine stands, once so strictly controlled, rival those in the West. … Life before was so drab. Now the city seems loaded with possibilities (Freeman 2008).

Fighting Religious Persecution behind the Iron Curtain

2020 ◽  
pp. 95-123
Author(s):  
Lauren Frances Turek
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Network Building

This chapter examines evangelical interest groups on behalf of persecuted Soviet Pentecostals and Baptists during the Reagan administration. It shows how evangelicals combined human rights activism at home with focused network building in the Soviet bloc in order to support their suffering brethren and lay the foundation for expanded evangelistic opportunities in the communist world. It also describes the evangelical organizations and missionary groups that ensured the postcommunist states would guarantee religious liberty for their citizens and allow foreigners to evangelize as the Soviet Union began to collapse during the Bush administration. The chapter discusses how effective were Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favoured regimes and to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that persecuted Christians and stifled evangelism. It also investigates why U.S. evangelicals lend support to repressive authoritarian regimes in the name of human rights.

Cold War on the Airwaves

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Berlin Wall ◽  
The People ◽  
Information Operations ◽  
East West

Founded as a counterweight to the Communist broadcasters in East Germany, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became one of the most successful public information operations conducted against the Soviet Bloc. This book examines the Berlin-based organization's history and influence on the political worldview of the people—and government—on the other side of the Iron Curtain. The book draws on broadcast transcripts, internal memoranda, listener letters, and surveys by the U.S. Information Agency to profile RIAS. Its mission: to undermine the German Democratic Republic (GDR) with propaganda that, ironically, gained in potency by obeying the rules of objective journalism. Throughout, the book examines the friction inherent in such a contradictory project and propaganda's role in shaping political culture. It also portrays how RIAS's primarily German staff influenced its outlook and how the organization both competed against its rivals in the GDR and pushed communist officials to alter their methods in order to keep listeners. From the occupation of Berlin through the airlift to the construction of the Berlin Wall, this book offers an absorbing view of how public diplomacy played out at a flashpoint of East–West tension.

The Soviet Bloc's Answer to European Integration: Catholic Anti-Germanism and the Polish Project of a ‘Catholic-Socialist’ International

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
PIOTR H. KOSICKI
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Human Person ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Intellectual Engagement ◽  
Global Peace ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Weekly Journal ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article explores an attempt by one Polish organisation – known until 1952 by the name of its weekly journal Dziś i Jutro, thereafter as PAX – to assemble a ‘Catholic-socialist’ international in the decade following the Second World War. This transnational project was predicated on co-operation across the Iron Curtain by Catholic thinkers and activists opposed to the rearmament and incorporation of (West) Germany into an integrated European community. The project's author Wojciech Kętrzyński deployed a discourse of protecting the ‘human person’ based on the prioritisation of global peace. Polish encounters with francophone Catholic activists from across Western Europe – especially with the French journal Esprit – bred serious intellectual engagement across the Iron Curtain at the level of Catholic philosophy and theology. Paradoxically, however, these activists accepted that the dignity of the human person would be best served by transnational anti-Germanism, at the price of complicity with – or outright participation in – Stalinism. The self-styled Catholic-socialist project thus failed, yet, surprisingly, it failed neither immediately nor completely. It thus reveals that possibilities existed throughout the cold war – even at the height of Soviet-bloc Stalinism – for intellectual, cultural and political exchanges and partnerships across the Iron Curtain.

The Woolf Behind the Iron Curtain: The Reception of Virginia Woolf’s Works in Romania, 1947–1989

2019 ◽  
pp. 202-207
Author(s):  
Adriana Varga
Keyword(s):  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain

This chapter explores the presence of Virginia Woolf in Soviet Bloc Romania, where translations of her work were largely intact despite anticipated censorship. Varga questions the possibility of publishing Woolf under a communist, totalitarian dictatorship.

Travel and Exposure to Western Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 66-86
Keyword(s):  
Western Culture ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The West ◽  
Travel Restrictions ◽  
Travel Constraints ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Western Ideals

There are various reasons countries sometimes choose to regulate travel both in and out of their borders. During the Communist Era, countries in the Soviet bloc restricted travel mainly to prevent defection, and out of fear that people would realize life might be better outside the iron curtain. This chapter examines the impact travel restrictions had and shows they were largely unsuccessful in preventing exposure to Western ideals and culture. Many examples are given that show that without even having to travel people in Czechoslovakia and Hungary were learning through radio, television, books, and film how life was different in the West. Through personal remembrances, this chapter illustrates the effect of travel constraints and why people view the ability to travel freely as one of the main advantages of communism falling.

scholarly journals A Case of “New Soviet Internationalism”: Relations between the USSR and Chile's Christian Democratic Government, 1964–1970

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 4-25
Author(s):  
Rafael Pedemonte
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Global Approach ◽  
Democratic Government ◽  
Testing Ground ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
State Relations

After Iosif Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union emerged from its isolation and began to show an interest in traditionally marginalized foreign societies. As the example of the Chilean-Soviet rapprochement under Eduardo Frei's administration (1964–1970) shows, Soviet leaders viewed state-to-state relations with “progressive” Latin American regimes as an appropriate means of undermining U.S. influence in the region without risking an armed confrontation with “imperialism.” The reformist project of the Chilean Christian Democratic government, which included a diplomatic opening to the Soviet bloc, provided a testing ground for the suitability of Moscow's new global approach. The surge of cultural and political exchanges indicate that the Soviet authorities were keenly interested in the Chilean experience. In addition, the considerable growth of travel and official missions beyond the Iron Curtain also demonstrates that Santiago wished to benefit by diversifying its international partners.

NATO in Balkan’s Late Twenties Tide

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Xhavit Sadrijaj
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
The Cold War

NATO did not intervene in the Balkans to overcome Yugoslavia, or destroy it, but above all to avoid violence and to end discrimination. (Shimon Peres, the former Israeli foreign minister, winner of Nobel Prize for peace) NATO’s intervention in the Balkans is the most historic case of the alliance since its establishment. After the Cold War or the "Fall of the Iron Curtain" NATO somehow lost the sense of existing since its founding reason no longer existed. The events of the late twenties in the Balkans, strongly brought back the alliance proving the great need for its existence and defining dimensions and new concepts of security and safety for the alliance in those tangled international relations.

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