Artful Warfare: the Soviets’ Superficial Thaw, 1959

Artful Warfare: the Soviets’ Superficial Thaw, 1959 PDF Author: Cadra Peterson McDaniel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Recently, scholars have begun to examine American and Soviet relations in the 1950s. These studies, however, do not concentrate upon the Soviet leadership’s use of cultural exchange, nor do these studies explore the Soviets’ reliance on the arts as a foreign policy tool. Similarly, though studies analyze evidence for a possible thaw in American-Soviet diplomatic relations and investigate this potential thaw’s ramifications within the Soviet Union, no major studies concentrate on the thaw with regard to cultural exchange. This dissertation explores whether the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1959 American tour provided evidence of a genuine thaw in American-Soviet relations, and simultaneously seeks to understand the arts’ prominent role within Soviet foreign policy and examine the role of tsarist culture within Soviet society. Specifically, this study investigates the rationale behind the creation of the Bolshoi’s repertoire and the Soviet leadership’s objectives and interpretation of the tour’s effectiveness as well as Americans’ responses to the tour. The dissertation’s main focus concerns the four ballets, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, and The Stone Flower, and the Soviets’ attempt to use these ballets to alter Americans’ anti-Soviet opinions. Soviet officials’ public and private statements demonstrate their reliance on the arts as a political weapon. The Soviets conceived of the ballet as an effective political tool that disseminated Communist messages. Conversely, the American public and critics understood the ballet as an art form divorced from political overtones. These contrasting viewpoints weakened the Soviets’ cultural offensive. At the official level, members of the American government deliberately tried to minimize the Bolshoi’s effect as Cold War propaganda. This study concludes that the Bolshoi’s 1959 tour indicated the Soviets’ determination to employ the ballet as a weapon designed to achieve a Soviet Cold War victory. Even though the Bolshoi’s tour did not represent a thaw in American-Soviet relations and did not sway American impressions of the Soviet Union, the tour played an integral role in the Soviets’ grand strategy for a worldwide Soviet Communist victory.

Artful Warfare: the Soviets’ Superficial Thaw, 1959

Artful Warfare: the Soviets’ Superficial Thaw, 1959 PDF Author: Cadra Peterson McDaniel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Get Book Here

Book Description
Recently, scholars have begun to examine American and Soviet relations in the 1950s. These studies, however, do not concentrate upon the Soviet leadership’s use of cultural exchange, nor do these studies explore the Soviets’ reliance on the arts as a foreign policy tool. Similarly, though studies analyze evidence for a possible thaw in American-Soviet diplomatic relations and investigate this potential thaw’s ramifications within the Soviet Union, no major studies concentrate on the thaw with regard to cultural exchange. This dissertation explores whether the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1959 American tour provided evidence of a genuine thaw in American-Soviet relations, and simultaneously seeks to understand the arts’ prominent role within Soviet foreign policy and examine the role of tsarist culture within Soviet society. Specifically, this study investigates the rationale behind the creation of the Bolshoi’s repertoire and the Soviet leadership’s objectives and interpretation of the tour’s effectiveness as well as Americans’ responses to the tour. The dissertation’s main focus concerns the four ballets, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, and The Stone Flower, and the Soviets’ attempt to use these ballets to alter Americans’ anti-Soviet opinions. Soviet officials’ public and private statements demonstrate their reliance on the arts as a political weapon. The Soviets conceived of the ballet as an effective political tool that disseminated Communist messages. Conversely, the American public and critics understood the ballet as an art form divorced from political overtones. These contrasting viewpoints weakened the Soviets’ cultural offensive. At the official level, members of the American government deliberately tried to minimize the Bolshoi’s effect as Cold War propaganda. This study concludes that the Bolshoi’s 1959 tour indicated the Soviets’ determination to employ the ballet as a weapon designed to achieve a Soviet Cold War victory. Even though the Bolshoi’s tour did not represent a thaw in American-Soviet relations and did not sway American impressions of the Soviet Union, the tour played an integral role in the Soviets’ grand strategy for a worldwide Soviet Communist victory.

The Total Art of Stalinism

The Total Art of Stalinism PDF Author: Boris Groys
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1844678091
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
From the ruins of communism, Boris Groys emerges to provoke our interest in the aesthetic goals pursued with such catastrophic consequences by its founders. Interpreting totalitarian art and literature in the context of cultural history, this brilliant essay likens totalitarian aims to the modernists’ goal of producing world-transformative art. In this new edition, Groys revisits the debate that the book has stimulated since its first publication.

Soviet Internationalism after Stalin

Soviet Internationalism after Stalin PDF Author: Tobias Rupprecht
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316381293
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
The Soviet Union is often presented as a largely isolated and idiosyncratic state. Soviet Internationalism after Stalin challenges this view by telling the story of Soviet and Latin American intellectuals, students, political figures and artists, and their encounters with the 'other' from the 1950s through the 1980s. In this first multi-archival study of Soviet relations with Latin America, Tobias Rupprecht reveals that, for people in the Second and Third Worlds, the Cold War meant not only confrontation with an ideological enemy but also increased interconnectedness with distant world regions. He shows that the Soviet Union looked quite different from a southern rather than a Western point of view and also charts the impact of the new internationalism on the Soviet Union itself in terms of popular perceptions of the USSR's place in the world and its political, scientific, intellectual and cultural reintegration into the global community.

The Cambridge History of Communism

The Cambridge History of Communism PDF Author: Norman Naimark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107133549
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description
The second volume of The Cambridge History of Communism explores the rise of Communist states and movements after World War II. Leading experts analyze archival sources from formerly Communist states to re-examine the limits to Moscow's control of its satellites; the de-Stalinization of 1956; Communist reform movements; the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance; the growth of Communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America; and the effects of the Sino-Soviet split on world Communism. Chapters explore the cultures of Communism in the United States, Western Europe and China, and the conflicts engendered by nationalism and the continued need for support from Moscow. With the danger of a new Cold War developing between former and current Communist states and the West, this account of the roots, development and dissolution of the socialist bloc is essential reading.

Inside the Cold War

Inside the Cold War PDF Author: Chris Adams
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781410218919
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
General Adams reflects on his experiences in the cold war, during which he served in both manned bombers and missile silos. He tells stories of famous and not-so-famous cold warriors, including some from the US Navy. Some stories are humorous; some stories are tragic. Having traveled extensively in Russia and some former Soviet Union states after retirement, General Adams tells us about his former adversaries, the Soviet cold warriors. In the process, he leaves no doubt about his respect for all who served so valiantly in the "strategic triad"-- the strategic command, the ICBM force, and the submarine Navy.

The Cultural Cold War

The Cultural Cold War PDF Author: Frances Stonor Saunders
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1595589147
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy’s most cherished possession—but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA—whether they knew it or not. Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA’s] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA’s undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA’s astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work—now with a new preface by the author—is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.

American–Soviet Cultural Diplomacy

American–Soviet Cultural Diplomacy PDF Author: Cadra Peterson McDaniel
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739199315
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
American–Soviet Cultural Diplomacy: The Bolshoi Ballet’s American Premiere is the first full-length examination of a Soviet cultural diplomatic effort. Following the signing of an American-Soviet cultural exchange agreement in the late 1950s, Soviet officials resolved to utilize the Bolshoi Ballet’s planned 1959 American tour to awe audiences with Soviet choreographers’ great accomplishments and Soviet performers’ superb abilities. Relying on extensive research, Cadra Peterson McDaniel examines whether the objectives behind Soviet cultural exchange and the specific aims of the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1959 American tour provided evidence of a thaw in American-Soviet relations. Interwoven throughout this study is an examination of the Soviets’ competing efforts to create ballets encapsulating Communist ideas while simultaneously reinterpreting pre-revolutionary ballets so that these works were ideologically acceptable. McDaniel investigates the rationale behind the creation of the Bolshoi’s repertoire and the Soviet leadership’s objectives and interpretation of the tour’s success as well as American response to the tour. The repertoire included the four ballets, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, and The Stone Flower, and two Highlights Programs, which included excerpts from various pre- and post-revolutionary ballets, operas, and dance suites. How the Americans and the Soviets understood the Bolshoi’s success provides insight into how each side conceptualized the role of the arts in society and in political transformation. American–Soviet Cultural Diplomacy: The Bolshoi Ballet’s American Premiere demonstrates the ballet’s role in Soviet foreign policy, a shift to "artful warfare," and thus emphasizes the significance of studying cultural exchange as a key aspect of Soviet foreign policy and analyzes the continued importance of the arts in twenty-first century Russian politics.

Retreat from Doomsday

Retreat from Doomsday PDF Author: John Mueller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934849170
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description


Beyond Memory

Beyond Memory PDF Author: Diane Neumaier
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813534541
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Photography possesses a powerful ability to bear witness, aid remembrance, shape, and even alter recollection. In Beyond Memory: Soviet Nonconformist Photography and Photo-Related Works of Art, the general editor, Diane Neumaier, and twenty-three contributors offer a rigorous examination of the medium's role in late Soviet unofficial art. Focusing on the period between the mid-1950s and the late 1980s, they explore artists' unusually inventive and resourceful uses of photography within a highly developed Soviet dissident culture. During this time, lack of high-quality photographic materials, complimented by tremendous creative impulses, prompted artists to explore experimental photo-processes such as camera and darkroom manipulations, photomontage, and hand-coloring. Photography also took on a provocative array of forms including photo installation, artist-made samizdat (self-published) books, photo-realist painting, and many other surprising applications of the flexible medium. Beyond Memory shows how innovative conceptual moves and approaches to form and content-echoes of Soviet society's coded communication and a Russian sense of absurdity-were common in the Soviet cultural underground. Collectively, the works in this anthology demonstrate how late-Soviet artists employed irony and invention to make positive use of difficult circumstances. In the process, the volume illuminates the multiple characters of photography itself and highlights the leading role that the medium has come to play in the international art world today. Beyond Memory stands on its own as a rigorous examination of photography's place in late Soviet unofficial art, while also serving as a supplement to the traveling exhibition of the same title.

In the Sphere of The Soviets

In the Sphere of The Soviets PDF Author: Charles Merewether
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9813365749
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
The book distinctive is listed in points (i) it focuses on Eastern European art covering the historical avant-garde to the post-war and contemporary periods of; (ii) it looks at some key artists in the countries that have not been given so much attention within this content i.e. Georgia, Dagestan, Chechnya and Central Asia; (iii) it looks beyond Eastern Europe to the influence of Russia/Soviet Union in Asia. It explores the theoretical models developed for understanding contemporary art across Eastern Europe and focus on the new generation of Georgian artists who emerged in the immediate years before and after the country’s independence from the Soviet Union; and on to discuss the legacy and debates around monuments across Poland, Russia and Ukraine.helps in Better understanding the postwar and contemporary art in Eastern Europe.