The Cold War from the Margins: Bulgaria on the Global Cultural Scene
02 February 2022, 6:00 pm–7:30 pm
An online event with Prof Theodora Dragostinova (Ohio State University), co-organised by the SSEES Southeast European Studies Seminar and the Institute of Historical Research. Discussant: Alex Drace-Francis (University of Amsterdam)
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
SSEES
In the late 1970s-early 1980s, small Bulgaria launched an ambitious international cultural program centered on its celebration ofits 1300thanniversary: exhibitions, concerts, museum and monument openings, book readings, film screenings, and other mass cultural events dominated public life at home and abroad. The cultural offensive of the small socialist state spread to the Balkans, Western Europe and the United States, various countries in the “developing world,” as well as Bulgarian émigrécommunities throughout the globe. Focusing on Bulgaria’s cultural outreach with India, Mexico, and Nigeria, this talkdemonstrates the existence of vibrant partnerships along an East-South axis in the context of the global Cold War, explains the importance of cultural diplomacy in the late socialist period, andchallenge notions of the seventies as a period of doom and gloom. Instead, when viewed from the margins, 1970s appeared as a time of measured optimism when the agendas of the East, West, and the Global South dynamically interacted and surprisingly empowered actors on the periphery.