scholarly journals Promoting diversity. The Polonia Book Fund, Ltd Transnational Network, 1958-1963

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Sowinski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
East European ◽  
Historical Materials ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

<p>This article discusses the history of the so-called “book program”—a joint effort by the U.S. government, the East European diaspora, and readers of prohibited books behind the Iron Curtain. Between 1956 and 1989 the program purchased some 10 million copies of publications and delivered them to people in Soviet–dominated Eastern Europe in order to undermine communist rule. Using the historical materials of the Polonia Book Fund, a U.S.–sponsored publishing project for Poland, this article contributes new insights on the transatlantic perspective of the cultural Cold War. This article focuses on the program’s early stages, and describes various elements of the transnational smuggling network. The program’s state-private partnership was a workable solution that helped to foster a diversity of opinions in post-Stalinist Poland.</p>

scholarly journals Promoting diversity. The Polonia Book Fund, Ltd Transnational Network, 1958-1963

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pawel Sowinski
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
East European ◽  
Historical Materials ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The U.S

<p>This article discusses the history of the so-called “book program”—a joint effort by the U.S. government, the East European diaspora, and readers of prohibited books behind the Iron Curtain. Between 1956 and 1989 the program purchased some 10 million copies of publications and delivered them to people in Soviet–dominated Eastern Europe in order to undermine communist rule. Using the historical materials of the Polonia Book Fund, a U.S.–sponsored publishing project for Poland, this article contributes new insights on the transatlantic perspective of the cultural Cold War. This article focuses on the program’s early stages, and describes various elements of the transnational smuggling network. The program’s state-private partnership was a workable solution that helped to foster a diversity of opinions in post-Stalinist Poland.</p>

Overseas Mechanism: The Polonia Book Fund, Ltd., Transnational Network, 1958–1963

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542092660
Author(s):  
Paweł Sowiński
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
East European ◽  
Historical Materials ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
History Of

This article discusses the history of the so-called book program—a joint effort by the US government, the East European diaspora, and readers of prohibited books behind the Iron Curtain. Between 1956 and 1989, the program purchased some ten million copies of publications and delivered them to people in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe in order to undermine communist rule. The article gives nuanced explanations of the motivations and practices of book-takers, placing Cold War books in the context of consumer goods trades. Using the historical materials of the Polonia Book Fund, a US-sponsored publishing project for Poland, this article contributes new insights on the transatlantic perspective of the cultural Cold War. This article focuses on the program’s early stages, and describes various elements of the transnational smuggling network. The program’s state–private partnership was a workable solution that helped to foster a diversity of opinions in post-Stalinist Poland.

scholarly journals Cold War Books: George Minden and His Field Workers, 1973–1990

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-66
Author(s):  
Paweł Sowiński
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Joint Effort ◽  
East European ◽  
Historical Materials ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Field Workers

The article deals with the history of the so-called Book Program—a joint effort of the US government, the East European diaspora, and readers of books prohibited behind the Iron Curtain. This was one of the most brilliant smuggling operations in the history of Eastern Europe. In 1956– 1989, the operational budget was used for the purchase and delivery to the population of Soviet-dominated Europe of about ten million publications in an effort to undermine communist rule there. This study adds new things to what is already known about the cultural Cold War. Concentrating mostly on Polish cases, the author examines relations between state and non-state actors inside the network of the book program. Using historical materials, he captures the complexity of the grassroots activists–US government interactions, which were finally successful, but this communication also proved difficult for both parties. Contributing to the discussion of hegemony and autonomy in state–private networks, the author points out cooperation and negotiation, not the co-optation of diaspora communities by the US government.

The United States and Eastern Europe in 1945: A Reassessment

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 94-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Trachtenberg
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Sphere Of Influence ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The U.S

This article reassesses U.S. Cold War policy in 1945, with particular emphasis on Eastern Europe. The article considers how the U.S. government proposed to deal with the Soviet Union in the postwar period more generally. The article looks closely at U.S. policy toward Poland and toward Romania and Bulgaria and sets these policies into context in order to determine whether U.S. leaders had “written off” the East European countries by the end of the year, consigning them to a Soviet sphere of influence. The article traces the strategic concept underlying U.S policy and analyzes key aspects of Secretary of State James Byrnes's policy at the July 1945 Potsdam conference and in the October–December 1945 negotiations with the USSR about the occupation of Japan.

scholarly journals International Federation of Free Journalists: Opposing Communist Propaganda During the Cold War

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 103-106
Author(s):  
Martin Nekola
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
International Federation ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
East European ◽  
The Cold War

The topic of supranational organizations of East-European émigrés during the Cold War still remains a lesser-known topic. There were a number of anti-Communist organizations between 1948–1989, consisting of former politicians, diplomats, soldiers, lawyers or academics from behind the Iron Curtain. The community of exiled journalists was represented by the International Federation of Free Journalists, officially founded in November 1948 in Paris by delegates from twelve nations. Its membership base soon grew to 1,400 people. The Federation warned the Western public against the injustices, false propaganda and the red terror in Eastern Europe for four decades.

Going West

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 785-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara Zahra
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
European History ◽  
East European ◽  
European Context ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

“Going West” explores the potential of integrating East European History into broader histories of Europe and the world. Placing the history of Eastern Europe in a European context, I argue, may enable us to challenge the tropes of backwardness, pathology, and violence that still dominate the field. I also suggest that historians explore the extent to which conceptions of minority rights, development, and humanitarianism first developed in Eastern Europe radiated beyond the region in the twentieth century.

Tropical Russian Bears: Jews and Soviet Animation During The Cold War

Images ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-90
Author(s):  
Maya Balakirsky Katz
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Social Geography ◽  
Mickey Mouse ◽  
Social Mapping ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Cold War

After Stalin consolidated the major animation studios and closed down smaller regional studios to create a single Moscow-based drawn and puppet animation studio in 1934–36, the animation studio Soyuzmultfilm became the largest animation studio in Eastern Europe. In the 1960s, Soviet Jewish animators focused on the theme of social geography and developed individual characters in relationship to social mapping. This essay analyses the enigmatic Cheburashka, the Soviet Mickey Mouse, whose popularity as a Communist ideal led to his starring role as Soyuzmultfilm’s most enduring logo. It is particularly concerned with the development of the ethnically-unidentifiable Cheburashka against the history of the Moscow Zoo and its inter-species exhibitions.

Economic Opportunities and Some Pilgrims' Progress: Jewish Immigrants from Eastern Europe in the U.S., 1890–1914

1978 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 235-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arcadius Kahan
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
East European ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
Economic Progress ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Proper Perspective ◽  
Original Habitat ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
The U.S

The purpose of the following essay is to evaluate the existing economic opportunities for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and to indicate the pace of their economic progress during the period 1890–1914. This purpose can best be achieved by viewing the mass migration of these European Jews in the proper perspective, that is, in terms of the dynamics of their situation at the places of original habitat; second, by differentiating successive cohorts of immigrants in terms of their skill composition, literacy, and degree of experienced urbanization, all elements important for the adaptability to and utilization of existing economic opportunities; third, by analyzing the structure of the U.S. industries that provided employment opportunities to the East European Jewish immigrants; fourth, by assuming the income level and standard of living of the native-born labor force as the yardstick for measuring the economic progress of the immigrants. Such an approach may broaden our understanding of the mechanism of adjustment that enabled the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe both to take advantage of existing economic opportunities and to create new ones.

scholarly journals Discourse Beyond Borders: Periodicals, Dissidents, and European Cultural Spaces

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Reijnen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Central Europe ◽  
Spatial Perspective ◽  
Central European ◽  
East European ◽  
European Public ◽  
Cultural Spaces ◽  
The Cold War

Émigré periodicals in Cold War Europe have long been considered isolated islands of Central and East European communities with limited relevance. In the second half of the Cold War, some of these periodicals functioned as crucial intersections of communication between dissidents, emigrants and Western European intellectuals. These periodicals were the greenhouses for the development of new definitions of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Europe at large. This article studies Cold War émigré periodicals from a spatial perspective and argues that they can be analysed as European cultural spaces. In this approach, European cultural spaces are seen as insular components of a European public sphere. The particular settings (spaces) within which the periodicals developed have contributed greatly to the ideas that they expressed. The specific limits and functions of periodicals such as Kultura or Svědectví [Testimony] have triggered perceptions of Central European and European solidarity. The originally Russian periodical Kontinent promoted an eventually less successful East European-Russian solidarity.  

scholarly journals Polio and Disability in Cold War Hungary

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dora Vargha
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
World War ◽  
Post World War Ii ◽  
Shared Experiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Cold War

Concerns over children’s physical health and ability were shared experiences across post–World War II societies, and the figure of the child was often used as a tool to reach over the Iron Curtain. However, key differences in how children with polio were perceived, and as a result treated, followed Cold War fault lines. Concepts of an individual’s role in society shaped medical treatment and views of disability, which contributed to the celebrated polio child in one environment and her invisibility in another. Thus, through the lens of disability, new perspectives have emerged on the history of the Cold War, polio, and childhood.

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