scholarly journals Women in noir style: the soviet version

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personality Cult ◽  
Soviet Cinema ◽  
Soviet Literature ◽  
The Cold War

The paper is devoted to a comparative analysis of the popular culture of the Cold War in the United States and in the USSR, namely, to the genres, which were stimulated by the public moods of the Cold War (noir, spy detective, etc.). It is argued that despite the refusal of Soviet critics to use Western terminology, the genres of noir and spy detective existed in the Soviet literature and cinema, but had their own national and cultural content. In particular, the images of “fatal women” and “female adventurers”, who were central in the noir poetics, were not typical in the Soviet popular culture, excluding works devoted to the life abroad (in particular, novels by A. Tolstoy “Emigrants”, “Hyperboloid of engineer Garin”, etc.), however, noir motifs have appeared in the Soviet literature and cinema since the mid-1950s, when the official optimism of the Soviet public culture has been replaced by emotions of disappointment and tragic past (after J. Stalin’s death and denunciation of his personality cult). The novels of the little-studied writers L. Ovalov (“The Copper Button”) and H.-M. Muguev (“Doll of Mrs. Bark”, “The Quiet City”, “Fire Paw”) were analyzed in the context of the biographies of their authors, gender politics of the novels and the Soviet concepts of “freedom” and the opposition of “friend” and “enemy”. It is proved that the images of “adventurers” and style in the spy novels by Ovalov and Muguev reproduce the poetics of “noir” in the Soviet literature, which looked as authentic view in depicting war, emigration, espionage, captivity, conspiracies, and other existential situations. It was argued that the noir motifs in the late Soviet cinema were used in depicting the bipolar and hostile world in the spy genre (“The Secret Agent’s Blunder”, “17 Moments of Spring”), and also in depicting the postwar period of Soviet culture, losses of ideals and destroying a large number of people’ destinies. It was argued that the “Soviet project” was not separated from the cultural mainstream of the 20th century, it experienced the influences of Western popular culture and its values.

Who Is Trying to Keep What Secret from Whom and Why? MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case

2005 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Goodman
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Witness Testimony ◽  
The Public ◽  
Klaus Fuchs ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Security Standards ◽  
The Cold War

Klaus Fuchs was one of the most infamous spies of the Cold War, whose espionage feats altered the nature of the early postwar period. Drawing on newly released archival documents and witness testimony, this article considers the events surrounding his arrest and conviction. These sources reveal that even before Fuchs was arrested, he was used as a pawn.Because of his supreme importance to the British nuclear weapons program, some British of ficials initially believed that he should remain in his position, despite his admission of guilt. Until the matter was resolved, Fuchs was used unwittingly as a wedge between the British and U.S. intelligence services.Moreover, when the United States criticized British security standards, the Fuchs case was used by MI5 to cajole and mislead Parliament and the public.

Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War: Some Reflections on the 1945–8 Conjuncture

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Bethell ◽  
Ian Roxborough
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

The importance of the years of political and social upheaval immediately following the end of the Second World War and coinciding with the beginnings of the Cold War, that is to say, the period from 1944 or 1945 to 1948 or 1949, for the history of Europe (East and West), the Near and Middle East, Asia (Japan, China, South and East Asia), even Africa (certainly South Africa) in the second half of the twentieth century has long been generally recognised. In recent years historians of the United States, which had not, of course, been a theatre of war and which alone among the major belligerents emerged from the Second World War stronger and more prosperous, have begun to focus attention on the political, social and ideological conflict there in the postwar period – and the long term significance for the United States of the basis on which it was resolved. In contrast, except for Argentina, where Perón's rise to power has always attracted the interest of historians, the immediate postwar years in Latin America, which had been relatively untouched by, and had played a relatively minor role in, the Second World War, remain to a large extent neglected. It is our view that these years constituted a critical conjuncture in the political and social history of Latin America just as they did for much of the rest of the world. In a forthcoming collection of case studies, which we are currently editing, the main features of the immediate postwar period in Latin America, and especially the role played by labour and the Left, will be explored in some detail, country by country.1In this article, somewhat speculative and intentionally polemical, we present the broad outlines of our thesis.

“It Is a Day of Judgment”: The Peacemakers, Religion, and Radicalism in Cold War America

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leilah Danielson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Politics Of Resistance ◽  
The Cold War

AbstractThis article argues that Christian beliefs and concerns shaped the political culture of anti-nuclear activism in the early years of the Cold War. It focuses in particular on the origins of the Peacemakers, a group founded in 1948 by a mostly Protestant group of radical pacifists to oppose conscription and nuclear proliferation. Like others who came of age in the interwar years, the Peacemakers questioned the Enlightenment tradition, with its emphasis on reason and optimism about human progress, and believed that liberal Protestantism had accommodated itself too easily to the values of modern, secular society. But rather than adopt the “realist” framework of their contemporaries, who gave the United States critical support in its Cold War with the Soviet Union, radicals developed a politics of resistance rooted in a Christian framework in which repentance for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the first step toward personal and national redemption. Although they had scant influence on American policymakers or the public in the early years of the Cold War, widespread opposition to nuclear testing and U.S. foreign policy in the late 1950s and 1960s launched them into leadership roles in campaigns for nuclear disarmament and peace.

The Specter of Yalta: Asia Firsters and the Development of Conservative Internationalism

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-156
Author(s):  
Joyce Mao
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Political Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
China Policy ◽  
Legislative Oversight ◽  
Legislative Proposals ◽  
International Peacekeeping ◽  
The Cold War

During the 1940s, conservative leaders in the United States turned to the emerging Cold War in Asia both to condemn the moral bankruptcy of liberal globalism and to establish their own brand of anti-Communist internationalism. “Asia Firsters” such as Senators William F. Knowland, John W. Bricker, and Robert A. Taft evoked the specter of Yalta and Roosevelt’s betrayal of Nationalist China as a signature issue which extended far beyond the question of who “lost” China. Yalta served as a touchstone for the right’s ideological and political development during the Cold War. Focusing on U.S.-People’s Republic-Taiwan relations during the early and mid-1950s, this article traces how initial criticism of the 1945 agreements quickly evolved into practical legislative proposals that addressed executive overreach, legislative oversight, collective international peacekeeping, opposition to Beijing’s admission to the United Nations, and constitutional principles vis-à-vis active global interventionism. Although Asia Firsters failed to substantively change China policy, their approach was an inspiration for the most enduring American political movement of the postwar period.

scholarly journals Cold War Sport, Film, and Propaganda: A Comparative Analysis of the Superpowers

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Shaw ◽  
Denise J. Youngblood
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Cinema ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Hearts And Minds ◽  
Sports Films ◽  
East West

Films and sports played central roles in Cold War popular culture. Each helped set ideological agendas domestically and internationally while serving as powerful substitutes for direct superpower conflict. This article brings film and sport together by offering the first comparative analysis of how U.S. and Soviet cinema used sport as an instrument of propaganda during the Cold War. The article explores the different propaganda styles that U.S. and Soviet sports films adopted and pinpoints the political functions they performed. It considers what Cold War sports cinema can tell us about political culture in the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945 and about the complex battle for hearts and minds that was so important to the East-West conflict.

scholarly journals “The Struggle to Sell Survival”: Family Fallout Shelters and the Limits of Consumer Citizenship

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 117-138
Author(s):  
Thomas Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Consumer Capitalism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
Fallout Shelters ◽  
The Cold War

In 1961 families across the United States witnessed the sudden growth of one of the most remarkable consumer products of the Cold War: the home fallout shelter. This article charts the rise of domestic sales for home fallout shelters between 1961 and 1963, the growth in the number of shelter salesmen, the public backlash against their sales techniques, and the eventual decline of the home shelter market. The story of the family fallout shelter exposes the limitations of consumer capitalism in mobilizing and sustaining popular support for national security policy. Questioning the validity of the product being sold and the trustworthiness of the person pitching it, homeowners challenged the citizen-consumer ideal that supposedly went hand-in-hand with the state sanctioned vision of privatized survival.

scholarly journals THE AMAZON AS A LOW-COST ARENA IN THE COLD WAR'S GAME OF POWER? THE CASE OF THE AMAZONIAN GREAT LAKES PROJECT (1964-1968)

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 682
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Lovejoy ◽  
Fábio Albergaria de Queiroz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Brazilian History

The article examines an underexplored episode of the Brazilian history in the context of the Cold War: the role of the Hudson Institute in South America and the proposal to create a large lacustrine system in the Amazon domains. From the analysis of official documents and literary registers, some of them little-known from the public, we attempted to identify the existence of a relationship between the aforementioned project and the Cold War systemic agenda and, also, the role of Brazil in this paradigmatic moment of the contemporary history. Evidences did not allow us to point out a clear connection between the Amazon Great Lakes Project and the dynamics of the United States-Soviet Union political disputes, even though they have shown that such an enterprise, if carried out, could make the Hylea a low-cost arena for the achievement of U.S. interests in the Cold War's game of power.

Editor's Introduction

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Stone
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
World History ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Impact

It is tempting to tell the story of Europe in the twentieth century in two halves: the first, a sorry, bleak tale of poverty, war, and genocide; and the second, a happy narrative of stability and the triumph of boring normality over dangerous activism and exuberant politics. When one examines the ‘return of memories’ which could not be articulated in the public sphere during the Cold War, one can see that the years since 1989 are intimately connected to World War II and its aftermath. In many ways, we are only now living through the postwar period. The impact of World War II, the largest and bloodiest conflict in world history, did not end in 1945. This book modifies the emphasis usually placed on the Cold War as the main historical framework for understanding the postwar period. It questions the extent to which 1945 was really a ‘zero hour’ and examines various facets of postwar life – from high politics to economics to tourism and consumerism.

Preliminary Design Considerations of He-Xe Mixture Cooled Space Nuclear Reactor

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Meng ◽  
Sichao Tan ◽  
Yuhao He ◽  
Dongdong Yuan ◽  
Kun Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Reactor ◽  
The United States ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Nuclear Technology ◽  
Project Design ◽  
Preliminary Design ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Project ◽  
The Cold War

The space nuclear reactor has been widely studied since 60s in the last century. However, upon the signing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the ending of the Cold War, the space nuclear technology gradually faded out the public and researchers view. In recent years, due to the proposal of the United States’ Moon and Mars Project and China’s Deep Space Scientific Project, space nuclear technology are welcoming new opportunities for research and development. In this paper, the Prometheus project design has been analyzed and thereafter been based for multi-kilowatt He-Xe cooled space nuclear system preliminary design. Parameters like system efficiency, compressor ratio, temperature are given and neutron calculations are conducted in order to evaluate its physical performance and provide guidelines for future optimization. A computer program, which can calculate performance of heat pipe radiator, is also coded and thereafter used. At last, some consideration guidelines are concluded for larger power space reactor design.

The Whole World Was Watching

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
The World ◽  
Dominant Ideologies ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
International Systems ◽  
International Sport

The master narrative of Cold War sports describes a two-sided surrogate war, measurable by falsely objective medal counts every four years at the Olympic Games. This approach is as inadequate for sports as it is for the Cold War. Rather than a bipolar, superpower conflict, the Cold War was a competition between the dueling globalization projects of capitalism and Communism composed of far-from-monolithic blocs. While a fragile, fearful peace took shape in the Northern Hemisphere, both sides waged proxy wars that killed tens of millions in the Global South. Alongside other forms of popular culture, sports were deployed to win the sympathies of the world’s citizens, many of them from nations that had emerged in the wake of European decolonization. Sport was the most conspicuous form of popular culture in the period. It offered millions around the world the opportunity to forge identities that both supported and undermined dominant ideologies—racial, gender, local, regional, national, and international. Sport crossed rather than created borders and identities—and it did so in myriad and intricate ways. This book brings together experts working on sports in the United States, USSR, German Democratic Republic, Asia, and the postcolonial world. Their work is theoretically aware and underpinned by extensive archival research. Taken together, they go beyond simple notions of bipolarity and present new insights that should invigorate the study of both international systems and of culture in the Cold War period.

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