MC: Marsha Siefert: Cold War Cultural Diplomacy

Cultural Diplomacy during the Cold War and its Legacy

In this class we will explore the ways in which the idea of cultural diplomacy and "soft power" have been operationalized in research and practice, with a focus on the Cold War era.  Concepts like propaganda, public diplomacy, and "soft coercion" will be discussed with relation to cultural practices, from exchange agreements for students and performers, to scientific and technological cooperation, along with media flows in film and television. We will also talk about the legacy of Cold War cultural diplomacy, from CNN to RT, from the Beatles to Pussy Riot, from The Russia House to Kung Fu Panda 3.

The class will begin with an introductory lecture on Cold War cultural diplomacy, providing case studies from the film industry. 

We will then discuss questions such as

• How do we research cultural diplomacy? How do we combine research on cultural practices with perspectives from international relations and diplomatic history?
• What are the sources and how do we interpret those sources?
• How do we think about evidence and generalization, within the political context?
• What do we mean by "negotiation" and how can the interaction be researched using documents from both sides?
• What do we mean by "cultural intermediaries?" Who are they? What is the role of institutions?
• How do we talk about the influence or "success" of cultural diplomacy: overstating and understating influence, asserting and measuring influence?
• What is the relation of economics & politics: how was "business" done with the blocs and across the Iron Curtain?
• How did allies cooperate - or not - in cultural projects?
• What are the legacies of Cold War cultural exchange? How does this research influence contemporary understandings of "soft power" and the role of culture in diplomacy?

Finally, we will talk about your research projects and how these concepts and ideas might be useful.

Suggested reading:

Eleonory Gilburd, "The Revival of Soviet Internationalism in the Mid to Late 1950s," in Denis Kozlov and Eleonory Gilburd, eds. The Thaw. Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 362-401.

Nigel Gould-Davies, "The logic of Soviet cultural diplomacy," Diplomatic History 27, no. 2 (2003): 193-214.

Marsha Siefert, “Co-Producing Cold War Culture: East-West Film-Making and Cultural Diplomacy,” in Giles Scott-Smith and Joes Segal, eds., Divided Dreamworlds: The Cultural Cold War East and West (2012), 73-94.

// Dr. Marsha Siefert is Associate Professor of History at the Central European University, Budapest.  She specializes in transnational communications and cultural histories that include Russia and Eastern Europe. She has edited or co-edited five books, including Mass Culture and Perestroika in the Soviet Union (1991) and Extending the Borders of Russian History (2003). Her research has appeared in Interstitio: East European Review of Historical Anthropology; Ukraina moderna; Journal for Arts Management, Law and Society; Journal of Communication; Science in Context; Journal of Folklore Research; and Poetics Today. Recent publications include chapters in Cold War Cultures (2012); Divided Dreamworlds (2012); Cold War Crossings (2014) and Socialist Internationalism in the Cold War (2016).  Since 2012 she has co-sponsored the Labor History Initiative at CEU and is the editor of the book Labor in State Socialist Europe after 1945 currently under review.  She has held visiting fellowships at the Rothermere American Institute (Oxford University) and the Kennan Institute, Wilson Center (Washington, DC). In the spring of 2016 she was the Inaugural Fellow for Russia and Ballet at New York University, Center for Ballet & the Arts and the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and is a Research Fellow of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, Ludwig Maximillian University-Munich and University of Regensburg. She currently co-edits the book series Historical Studies of Eastern Europe and Eurasia for CEU Press.