Cultural Diplomacy and the Global Cold War

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
Hello, and welcome to Cultural Diplomacy and the Global Cold War, brought to you by the History Department, the Clio Society, and the College of Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University, and by the Bexley Public Library. My name is Nick Breyfogle. And I'm an associate professor of history and director of the Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, and I'll be your host and moderator today. Thank you for joining us. During the Cold War, cultural diplomacy emerged as an important aspect of relations between states across the globe. Exhibitions, concerts, performances, book readings, and film screenings captured the ideological message of each side, as they showed conflicting ways of life in the global Cold War context. Based on her recent book, "The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Sea", Theodora Dragostinova will talk today about the importance of Cold War culture in a global perspective, tracing the cultural context of small Bulgaria, from the British Museum and New York City's Metropolitan, to New Lexington, Ohio, to Mexico City, New Delhi, and Lagos. Let's take a moment to get to know our speaker. Theodora Dragostinova is an associate professor of history at The Ohio State University. A native of Bulgaria, she completed her PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Her work focuses on nationalism, migration, global history, and Cold War culture. Geographically, her research has focused on Eastern Europe with an emphasis on the Balkans and Bulgaria. But she also engages with comparative approaches to modern Europe in a global perspective. Dragostinova is the author of "Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration Among the Greeks in Bulgaria". And she is co-editor of "Beyond Mosque, Church, and State: Alternative Narratives of the Nation in the Balkans". Her most recent book, "The Cold War from the Margins", appeared from Cornell University Press in May of this year, 2021. With that introduction, let me lay out the plan. Professor Dragostinova will begin her talk. Sorry, will begin with her talk. And then she'll take questions from you. And we'll open things up for discussion. If you're interested in asking a question, please write it in the Q&A function that is at the bottom of your screen. We'll do our best to answer as many of these questions as we can during the time that we have. Now, without further ado, let me pass you over to Professor Theodora Dragostinova, who will take us on an exploration of cultural diplomacy and the global Cold War over to you Professor Dragostinova.

Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  
Thank you very much, Professor Breyfogle. It is really a pleasure being here and pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much to the Clio Society and to the College of Arts and Sciences for the invitation to participate. And thank you for those of you who are tuning in to listen to this talk. I will jump right in by sharing my slides and starting my presentation on cultural diplomacy and the global Cold War. And just as a context, I want to remind that the Cold War developed out of the political confrontations between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War Two. And while the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of this conflict were extremely important, culture also emerged as a key battleground between East and West immediately after the war. On one level, the Cold War can be interpreted as a struggle between ideas. And so, cultural relations played an important role because they structured the ideological content of political, economic, and military relations through the transmission of ideas and values. And I have listed here some of these key ideas and values that each side, namely the United States and the Soviet Union, wanted to promote on a world stage because each one of them was trying to secure spheres of influences, not only in Europe, but also throughout the world. So in this context, both East and West heavily invested in cultural diplomacy to convince the world in the superiority of their respective political and economic models. This is the context of the battle for hearts and minds, which structured cultural diplomacy. Culture thus became an expression of each side's way of life, or each side's ideas of state, society, and rights. In this context, culture functioned, in many ways, as the flip side of ideology, that is, as a type of propaganda. In the East and West alike, the goal of official cultural programs was to, quote, "pour ideas and values in the minds of foreign publics," end quote. Yet each side also had to consider their audiences, which allowed for flexibility with the ideological content of these events. And that led to a robust, inspiring cultural programs flourishing throughout the Cold War. Now, just a little bit of context, again, in 1958, the Soviet Union and the United States signed an agreement for cultural cooperation, which created the template of official cultural exchange. Again, a robust program that develops throughout the Cold War with exchanges, in international fairs, cultural visits, concerts, exhibitions, film screenings, book readings, and so forth, which all became Cold War weapons. And here you are seeing on this bottom slide, the famous kitchen debate between Khrushchev and then-Vice President Nixon, in Moscow in 1959, when a debate about Cold War kitchens turned out to be a debate about ideas of state and ways of life. And also in this context, what we are seeing is that both sides recruited artists, entertainers, intellectuals, to travel and deliver the desired image of the state abroad. Most famously, I have just chosen two really famous examples here, the international tours of black jazz musicians that spread the ideas of the American dream and freedom, and also the Bolshoi Ballet performers, who similarly promoted the Soviet ideas of modernity and equality have become some of the most noted examples in this cultural diplomacy. And all of these ideas are the starting point of my book, which looks at the use of cultural diplomacy, not by a super power, but by a small socialist state on the margins of Europe, namely Bulgaria. And the key question asked in this book is, what was the role of cultural diplomacy in the global Cold War context outside of the super power influences and outside of the strictly European and North American contexts? So to give you some idea, a flurry of international cultural events marked for public life in late socialist Bulgaria. Those included the visits of out of the ordinary, often flamboyant foreign dignitaries, such as for example, right here, Angela Davis from the United States. The appearance of recognizable Western cultural icons, such as, again we see here, Tina Turner, but also Ray Charles, Henry Moore, Erskine Caldwell, the exhibitions of masterworks by Leonardo da Vinci, the showings of Rubens, Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt, and so forth. During this time, one event stood out. The International Assembly of Children, which was held under the auspices of the United Nations and brought countries of children from throughout the world to Bulgaria in 1979. And you see here some of these children from Uruguay, Turkey, Tunisia, Tanzania, the Soviet Union, and Syria, just you know, a small sample of the various countries that participated in this sort of cultural diplomacy. In the 1970s, the world seems to be coming to Bulgaria, a small socialist state that proudly embrace its role in advancing a new global cultural flourishing. While the country welcomed the world, Bulgarians also traverse the globe, sending its representatives throughout the world. And many of them also participated in the opening of museum and art exhibits, presided over book discussions and film screenings, received musical and performance prizes, and spoke about the importance of preserving one's culture and historical heritage. And you are seeing here images from Vienna, from New York, New Lexington, Ohio, and actually this is a picture of my family in Nigeria in 1979, just to give you a small sample of the variety of contacts that were established during this time period. By official records, between 1977 and 1981, small Bulgaria with a population of 8.7 million in 1975, organized over 38,000 cultural events throughout the world, highlighting the far-reaching global aspiration of the communist elites in charge of the country. Now, it is very likely that these numbers were exaggerated because they were produced by the Sociological Institute of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Yet what matters here is the geography of cultural contact, because it's obvious from the map, the Bulgarian cultural events touched literally all six continents, with the exception of Antarctica. Now, these ambitious cultural programs of small Bulgaria were connected to the celebration of an important national anniversary in 1981, 1,300 years since the establishment of the medieval Bulgarian state in 681. And the occasion of this anniversary, the communist elites in charge of the country organized a huge number of cultural events that I spoke about previously. The goal was to inform the world of the rich historical contributions of one of the oldest states of Europe. And you can see here, this column symbolizing the past, but also to advertise the contemporary achievements of modern socialist Bulgaria. And you see this scaffolding here, it's the background, but also you see in this other poster, so like the march to communism, you start from 681, which was the year of the establishment of the Bulgarian state, the moment today, '81, and then in the future, the idea was that communism will inevitably arrive. And conveniently 1981 also marked the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Bulgarian Communist Party. So the two central ideas of the celebrations merge seamlessly. And here, I want to return to the idea that I opened with, that cultural diplomacy really straddled this fine line between culture, ideology, and propaganda. And you see it very clearly in these images, here. This jubilee, this celebration, had bought domestic and international dimensions, just very quickly, within the country, the communist regime organized a plethora of events, from the opening of monuments, to mass events, to a prolific publishing enterprise. But most importantly, the events included a very ambitious international agenda, which included exhibitions of ancient treasures and medieval icons, performances by folk and classical music ensembles. The organization of art exhibits, film weeks, book readings, whose ultimate goal was to secure favorable media coverage in the foreign press, radio, and television, and to advance the country's reputation as an active global player. Now, in the larger book project, I examine this cultural contact on several levels. I start with the domestic level. I look at the role of culture in Bulgaria, I then expand to the neighbors of Bulgaria, in the Balkans, in the Balkan Peninsula. After that, I look at relations between East and West, including the United States, including relations with emigrants, and then finally, I also look at Bulgarian cultural relations with Mexico, Nigeria, and India, to be able to trace the diversity of cultural contacts during this time period. Now, this is what I call a peri-centric perspective. That is, my book centers the perspective of the periphery. Peri-centric, is the combination of periphery and center. So my book centers the historical experience of a small state to emphasize the importance of actors outside of the super powers in our understanding of how the global cultural order worked. Given that the super powers viewed culture as secondary to political, economic and military objectives, my claim is that cultural diplomacy emerged as a good strategy for smaller states to articulate their end project, their global visions. So in the book, I situate my narrative in the context of the late Cold War, in the context of détente, especially from 1975 on, with the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, when we see the development of robust contact between East and West. And what I claim is that culture often served as the first step in the expansion of East-West contact. But what my analysis in the book overall allows me to do is also revise dominant narratives of the 1970s as years of doom and gloom. Yet when I view the 1970s, from the perspective of small Bulgaria, and particularly its cultural adventures throughout the world, what I am seeing is actually years of optimism in which the Bulgarian leadership, I might claim, had probably its most successful and most prosperous years. And I'm happy to return to to this question in the Q&A. But here I feel I need to provide you with some additional quick background information on why invest in culture during late socialism in Bulgaria, in particular. The Bulgarian communist leadership, particularly the longtime dictator, Todor Zhivkov, was always interested in culture and he liked to be seen as a sponsor of culture, as a patron of culture. In 1975, his daughter, first daughter, Lyudmila Zhivkova, actually became a member of the Politburo, and a minister of culture, and it was under her protection that now investment in culture spread even more in the country. And what we are seeing is actually a revival of nationalism, in particularly, with the investment in the building of monuments, the publication of books, the making of movies, particularly on national themes. In the celebration in 1981 of this national anniversary of the establishment of the Bulgarian state, was actually the pinnacle of this patriotic/nationalist attempt of communist elites to engage in cultural diplomacy. And I want to emphasize that the primary objective of communist elites was to build legitimacy at home, and to advance their reputation abroad, and this is why they chose culture as the way to advance their agendas. International cultural events served public relations or reputational strategies, and their goal was to play up Bulgaria's international role. The Bulgarian leaders were sensitive to their reputation as the most loyal Soviet allies and used this context to project an image of independence. And this state investment in culture became a tool for the assertion of the prestige, as well as the policy agendas of the small state on the world stage. And I want to emphasize, again, these global aspirations, because what you're seeing in this quote, is that the Bulgarians are going, not only to Washington and London and Paris, but actually Tokyo and Lagos and New Delhi. So really, we're seeing this global aspiration of the communist elites. So in the rest of the presentation, what I want to do is to look at cultural contacts in the West, but also in the Global South, and to try to think about both the manifestations but also the functions of these cultural contacts. So Bulgarian cultural contacts in the West pursued reputational purposes. And so they focused on so-called "representative exhibitions" to showcase the best of Bulgarian culture. The logic was to focus on quality rather than quantity, and to plan, you know, really, events that would achieve cultural breakthrough. So here is one example from the United States. The Bulgarians organized an exhibition of Thracian treasures at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. They brought the Pyrenean Folk Ensemble at Carnegie Hall. And again, the idea here is to bring the best from culture to advance the ideas of state and to achieve a breakthrough of Western consciousness as far as the small state. So it's interesting to dwell on the content of these events. The core message of the Bulgarian events was reflected in the motto, "a modern nation salutes its past", and the idea was to assert Bulgaria's European identity as one of the oldest states of Europe, predating the Greek and Roman civilizations, and the over[all] emphasis was on history, and actually what we're seeing here is really that the Bulgarians very consciously tried to avoid any use of ideology or propaganda in order to be able to achieve this cultural breakthrough that they desired. So in this quest for audiences, they muted the ideological language, they focused on universal human values. And I'm showing you here one example of Bulgarian poetry reading at the Library of Congress qnd its coverage by US media, where there was the consensus that the reading was successful, because the themes were not political, but the poet's focus on things such as love, loneliness, but most of all, the magic of poetry itself. So by muting that ideological language, and by focusing on culture, not propaganda, in the end, the Bulgarians were actually successful at securing all audiences and media coverage, what was their objective, and what we are seeing is media reports actually speak about these endeavors as a brilliant success of the Bulgarian state, which managed to put Bulgaria on the Western world's cultural map. Now, I don't want to paint a universally rosy picture here, and I must emphasize that Bulgarian officials also faced challenges. Their western partners did not always oblige; sometimes they objected that they were actually served propaganda. The media did not always publish only positive coverage, and some events were not well-attended and were even canceled. A particularly challenging task was the Bulgarian interactions with emigrants, because often it was Bulgarian emigrants who came to these events, who were the audiences, and very often these immigrants, especially in the United States, and in West Germany, and other places in the West, were hostile to the agendas of the communist elites in charge of the country, and they often challenged the official objectives of Bulgarian cultural diplomacy. So Bulgarian officials had to reckon with that possibility, as well. And I'm going to give you an example from the Midwest, because in addition to going to New York, Boston, LA and other prominent cities where the Bulgarians really wanted to make a splash, they also came in great numbers to the Midwest, with a focus on Pittsburgh, which had a sizable Bulgarian population, and Macedonian as well, but also they came to Columbus and to Ohio State, when you might find it curious, they actually tried to establish a Bulgarian studies chair. And in the course of this visit to Ohio State, they also went to a small town, about an hour outside of Columbus, in Perry County, Ohio, New Lexington, which was the birthplace of Januarius MacGahan, an American journalist who had traveled to Europe in 1817, to join the Paris Commune. And after that, had actually participated in the events of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, which led to the reestablishment of modern Bulgaria as a state. So the Bulgarians came to New Lexington which already had a monument to MacGahan, and they started organizing and attending this event on occasion of the anniversary of MacGahan's death. In 1878, marked the centennial of his death, but they also marked the centennial of the resurrection of modern Bulgaria. So it was a huge event. Representatives of the Bulgarian state came to the event, there was a folk concert in New Lexington, the Ohio House of Representatives declared June of 1978 as [the] week of MacGahan. And on the occasion of those events, the Bulgarian representatives recommended to the Bulgarian government to donate to the city of New Lexington, a replica of the monument dedicated to MacGahan that had been erected in Bulgaria. And this is the copy of the monument, this is actually the original monument in Bulgaria. This replica was then gifted to the city of New Lexington and here is the replica. Now whilst it happened, anti-communist emigrants were completely upset that the Bulgarian communist state had managed to assert its agenda. So this anti-communist emigrants gathered and they actually commissioned a second statue to MacGahan by a socialist defector, a sculptor, Lubomir Dalchev, who had defected, actually, to Cleveland just the same year. And he was conveniently available to make this second statute. So you see how often these cultural events became actually sites of tension, in which the official representatives of the Bulgarian state also had to reckon with the anti-communist emigrants, in particular, who often opposed their agenda and their actions. So it did not always go smoothly, and there were many challenges that the Bulgarian representatives were continuously handling. Now, to go quickly through the rest of the events I want to talk about here. In addition to engaging with the West, the Bulgarians also invested heavily in cultural exchange, cultural diplomacy, with the Global South. And actually some of these numbers are staggering. Over 15,000 events were organized in Asia alone, but also in Latin America, in Africa, in Arab states, right, so this was a very ambitious global cultural affair. By far the most important cultural partners for Bulgaria were India and Mexico. And I just want to tell you very quickly, what happened in the 1970s in particular. The Bulgarians established a cultural informational center in New Delhi, to popularize Bulgarian culture in India. The center published a glossy monthly magazine called "News from Bulgaria" to advertise Bulgarian political, economic, and cultural accomplishments. The University of Dehli established a Bulgarian language professorship in 1977, enrolling 17 majors who studied Bulgarian language, history, and culture. And here you are actually seeing a poetry recital, by Bulgarian studies majors. And actually, the scale of the cultural events was really ambitious. I'm just going to give you some numbers so you understand the scale of investment. In 1980, Bulgarian diplomats had held 76 exhibitions, organized 242 film projections, 56 celebratory meetings, and distributed over half a million copies of books, and magazines. In that year, 1980, there were 82 Bulgarian-Indian friendship societies representing over 150,000 members who actually paid dues to participate in these meetings with Bulgarian diplomats, celebrations of Bulgarian holidays, and so forth. So you see really massive investment in culture in India. The Bulgarian cultural efforts in Mexico were perhaps not as wide ranging. Yet, similarly, what we see is the organization of various exhibitions, events. So here you see the cultural week of Bulgaria in New Mexico, you see an exhibition of contemporary Bulgarian paintings, and here it is again this program of cultural events. And perhaps it is interesting for us to think, so why was it necessary for Bulgaria to actually carry out these cultural events? How do we explain this unusually intense cultural affair? And here, what I want to emphasize is the importance of the strong personal relations that develop between political leaders, and particularly, female political leaders at the highest level. So Lyudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the Bulgarian Communist leader, Todor Zhivkov, struck a personal friendship with Indira Gandhi. Both of them daughters of leaders that took their countries in radical new directions, and their personal patronage played an important part in the intense cordial relations that developed between the two countries. Similarly, in Mexico, highly placed women played an important role because Zhivkova became close friends with First Lady Carmen Romano, pictured right here, who similarly hosted receptions, museum openings, and ceremonies honoring Zhivkova and Bulgarian culture in general. When Zhivkova visited these two countries on official state tours, she often took days off to travel to ancient archaeological sites, meet with gurus and sages, and explore her personal interest in meditation, philosophy, yoga, vegetarianism, I'm happy to talk more about this in the Q&A. Zhivkova carefully picked ambassadors, center directors, and cultural figures who will accompany her on these trips. And in many ways, state cultural policy became a tool of the Bulgarian princess and she was called this in Western press in particularly. So it became a tool of the Bulgarian princess to advance and nurture her personal interests, and whims. Which again, I want to emphasize here that these are very top-down decisions. Where exactly this culture goes, where Bulgarian culture goes, is something decided at the highest level of the Bulgarian state bureaucracy. Now, finally, I just very quickly want to say that Bulgaria also developed very robust cultural relations with Nigeria, the most populous, and at the time, the most prosperous African country that was experiencing a boom in oil production, and had embarked on a huge program of building its infrastructure. And on that occasion, Bulgarian specialists actually managed to secure a contract to build the National Theatre in Lagos, which was finished in 1976, just in time for Nigeria's hosting of the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977. It's interesting that this building was built on the model of a building that still exists in Bulgaria, the Palace of Culture and Sports, in Varna on the Black Sea. However, this version of the building was six times larger than the prototype, and became the center of the celebrations associated with the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. So what you're seeing here is really the merging of economic and cultural cooperation in the face of this contract that the Bulgarians were pursuing with their Nigerian partners. And on this occasion, the Bulgarians also signed a program for educational and cultural cooperation. So I want you to see again, how this template created by the Soviets and the Americans in 1958 still exists 20 years later, it's adopted by countries throughout the world. It's adopted outside of the West. So a country such as Nigeria also participates in this sort of cultural diplomacy. And here are actually some of these culture events that were organized by Bulgarian diplomats throughout Nigeria. So I want to wrap up here by trying to draw out the significance of these cultural contacts, and we can discuss many of the details, you know, in the Q&A as well. So why were the Bulgarians heavily investing in international culture during this time? As I mentioned previously, this type of nation branding served the domestic and international policy agendas of Bulgaria's regime. At home, the extensive state-sponsored attention given to culture sought to energize society and bolster the authority of the communist elites in charge of the country by creating new visions of national unity and historical pride. Abroad, the events pursued prestige-making goals by seeking to revise the image of the Zhivkov regime as the most loyal ally of the Soviet Union, while emphasizing Bulgaria's national uniqueness and contributions to humanity. However, I want to emphasize that soft power aspirations also contributed to hard power goals. As cultural outreach facilitated a series of new political, economic, and cultural partnerships around the globe. In other words, very often, culture became the first step towards the expansion of also political and economic relations. And Bulgaria now had dynamic, multifaceted relations with countries such as Greece, Austria, West Germany, France, India, Mexico, and Japan, among others. And you will notice that the countries that I listed, all of them are non-socialist states. So you really have the expansion of relations based on culture. So there is no doubt that cultural diplomacy provided a good strategy for the small socialist state to redefine its global standing in concrete ways. Bulgaria now became an active international player through culture. Now here, I also want to make a bigger claim that this Bulgarian engagement allow us to entertain. And in all of these cases, the Bulgarian cultural programs made possible the articulation of new global imaginaries, which linked a small country on the margins of Europe, with some of the most prominent world civilizations. And the Bulgarians really sought out to emphasize the civilizational message. But what is important here is that this is not your typical Western civilization. But actually, this is a new, fresh civilizational message that sought to emphasize the existence of contacts not only between East and West, North and South, but also across East and South lines. And just to conclude, by studying these cultural contacts, what I am also doing with this book is to remind us about the forgotten history of socialist globalization, and again, I can elaborate more. But socialist globalization emerged as an alternative to Western capitalist globalization. Yet, it was forgotten after the end of the Cold War in 1989. Yet, when I resurrect the history of these cultural contacts between small Bulgaria and a number of actors throughout the world, what I also do is challenge the idea of Eastern European captivity behind an impermeable Iron Curtain, and actually showed the variety of cultural contacts across the globe, that small Bulgaria also participated in. Thank you very much. And I leave you for a second with this image of the diverse cultural contacts. And I will stop sharing here.

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
Theodora, thank you so very much for that. That was a fascinating, fascinating talk and exploration as you say that this kind of unknown, I think, for many of us, probably unknown history of the Cold War and of Eastern Europe. Folks who are with us today, if you have questions for Professor Dragostinova, please, we'd love to get them just type them into the Q&A, kind of, button, which is at the bottom of your screen on Zoom. And we'll try to make our way through as many as we can. We had a few come in in advance, and I'll start off with a couple of those while folks who are here will type out, type out the questions that they have. I guess the first question to ask is how, in the research that you've done, how usual or unusual is Bulgaria in terms of the extent of its cultural, kind of, diplomatic activities? And also in the ways in which it was, kind of, gendered as a kind of female activity, or at least these kinds of public activities of female leaders from countries? Yeah, was this something that we saw in other parts of the so-called kind of "Eastern Bloc" of the Soviet zone of Eastern Europe? Or was Bulgaria unusual in this regard?

Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  
So cultural diplomacy was used by all Eastern European states. And usually what happened is that states signed this cultural cooperation agreement on a biannual, you know, basis. So they became a normal part of, you know, diplomatic relations, an expected and normal part of diplomatic relations. I think what is unique about the Bulgarian case is that in this particular time period, in the 1970s, you have the convergence of two factors. Unlike other Eastern European states, for example, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria was relatively quiet politically and its leadership did not face political challenges, such as, for example, if we think 1979-1980, saw the emergence of Solidarity in Poland. You also have a very strong dissident movement in Czechoslovakia. That was not the case in Bulgaria, and in the absence of political challenges, the Bulgarian leadership was actually able to travel extensively, because it didn't have to worry about its own political stability. So these were in many ways the golden years of late-socialism in Bulgaria. And the other unique aspect here is what is also connected to the second part of your question. The presence of this unique individual, this woman, Lyudmila Zhivkova, who was really, truly, an idiosyncratic individual, if I'm to put it politely. She spoke Sanskrit, she studied theosophy, she was a fan of, you know, Eastern philosophies and meditation, yoga, and so forth. She travelled extensively, she was really very educated in many of these questions. So I have to say that it's one of these doings of communist elites. I mean, she was using the state really, I believe so, to pursue her personal interests. And that's why I think we have to also emphasize that, I mean, this is, again, the doing of communist elites.

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
That's great. We have a question about socialist globalization. So you get a chance to talk a little bit more about that.... Where can she learn more about socialist globalization? Is this phrase your term? And, yeah, perhaps dig deeper into that particular aspect of what you found?

Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  
Yeah. Well, so in the last five years, we actually really have the publication of various studies that explored the active role of Eastern European states in the developed big world, in particular, outside of Europe. And there are studies, most of them actually on Yugoslavia, but also on Romania, I'm trying to think, on Hungary, on GDR (Germany), which are showing the active global engagement of countries, of the smaller countries of Eastern Europe throughout the world. So this is really a burgeoning field. And there are scholars who use the term socialist globalization. There is an edited volume out of Indiana University Press, which is actually called Alternative Globalizations. So that might be the place to look at this problem. Now, I have to say that I personally am not completely sure that I like the term "socialist globalization". I prefer to speak about alternative global connections. And I think this is what's important here is that because the West won the Cold War, after 1989, there was an erasure of this prior history of very vibrant global interconnectivity between Eastern Europe and countries in the Global South. And my work is part of this new attempt in the scholarship to revive this, whether it was Czechoslovak military involvement in Africa, whether it was Romanian involvement with UNESCO, whether it was Yugoslavia and the non-aligned movement, and the emergence of, specifically, Yugoslav cultural modernism connected to the idea of non-alignment, whether it was the attempt of the GDR to enhance its international image through cultural diplomacy and other diplomacy in the third world. We are really seeing that the smaller states of Eastern Europe were active global players, but again, I maintained that Bulgaria is unique in its investment in cultural diplomacy, specifically.

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
You talked a lot about the the activities of Bulgaria abroad, in particular, with countries like India, Nigeria, Mexico. Was there the same level of, kind of, reciprocal cultural events and visits to Bulgaria from these other countries? ... and did the tight pairings that you talked about in these cases, did we see those across, you know, with people coming in to Bulgaria as well as going out?

Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  
So Cold War cultural exchange was based on the premise of reciprocity. When you sign these cultural exchange agreements, usually the two sides are aiming for a balanced cultural program in which one of the sides is not over represented, but, you know, each of them are represented equally. So, in order to be able to organize their exhibitions, concerts, and other events, the Bulgarians also had to open up their own country for Western and other cultural influences. And I did not have time to talk about that, so thank you so much for the question, but what ultimately happened is that when Western culture, in particularly, started arriving in Bulgaria, that caused various tensions within the country, because the communist regime really wanted to control the message, and really wanted only certain aspects of Western culture to come to Bulgaria. So the Bulgarian leadership, abhored mass culture, it was very suspicious of film screenings, it was very suspicious of exhibitions that were not classical. There were constant controversies, what books can be brought into the country. Often the Bulgarians refused to show certain exhibits, or asked their guests to remove certain artifacts from the exhibit. So what I want to emphasize here is that particularly this interaction between East and West, culture was not a frivolous matter, because it did exemplify, you know, ideology and the ideological positioning of each state in the global Cold War context. There were constant controversies. In one famous example, an American diplomat accused the Bulgarians that they were organizing events that serve as Communist propaganda and the Bulgarians walked out of the negotiation table. And just to give you one more example, the Bulgarians were also very, very worried when the US Embassy invited Bulgarian cultural experts to come and screen Star Wars, because they didn't know what they might expect. So they arrived at the meeting in the company of five political commissar translators and various technical staff to make sure that this movie is going to be appropriate for Bulgarian audiences. So there was this constant tension that was evident in this contact.

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
Yeah, and it seems that, I mean, there must have been an incredible debate over how to define culture, particularly given that, I mean, looking at the 1970s and 1960s, and all the, kind of, counterculture and revisions of what culture was and how it was defined. We have a question about... it goes back to an earlier question about, you know, how exemplary Bulgaria was. But, can you talk a little bit about differences in the cultural diplomatic programs or activities between different countries in the world? You know, comparing, perhaps, how other communist countries approached this. And I suppose, to add on to that, you know, how free were each of these countries to choose how they would represent themselves? And what they would decide was worthwhile to take abroad. You know, was there a template across the region? Or was each country really able to make its own decisions about how it'd present itself on a cultural diplomatic stage?

Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  
This is a wonderful question. So generally, the socialist states followed the Soviet template, there is no doubt about it. And in fact, what happened is throughout the Cold War, up until the end of the Cold War, representatives, cultural representatives of the socialist states regularly met to coordinate their cultural events. Very often these cultural events, for example, in Nigeria, some of the Bulgarian cultural events occurred in the Soviet Cultural Center, because they borrowed venues. And they often did that. The Bulgarians sometimes sought advice from their Western partners, how to handle particular cultural programs. S,o I mean, there was a degree of, I guess, similarity. I mean, there was some similarity between the cultural programs. What I think is more interesting here is to actually think about how cultural diplomacy and cultural exchange was handled differently in the West compared to the East, or the Socialist Bloc. So generally speaking, for the Socialist Bloc, cultural diplomacy was a huge priority, and a very significant part of money, you know, the budget, the state budget was invested in culture. In the 1980s, 8% of Bulgaria, excuse me, 4% of Bulgarian GDP was invested in culture, 4%. This is a huge number, right? I mean, just imagine, I mean, what kind of events this sort of number buys you. Now, that was not necessarily the same sort of priority for Western states, which operated on free market principles and where culture was often in private hands. And therefore, first of all, for example, in the United States, the United States Information Agency was not able to dictate to private foundations, museums, centers, what sort of programming they are going to, you know, organize. So what ultimately happened is that the Bulgarians then would go actually around the official channels, and that happened with all the socialist states, and sign agreements with private entities. So for example, the Bulgarians went and signed separate agreements with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And what then also happened is that there were more Eastern European events organized in the West, than Western events organized in the East, because of these private arrangements. So there was also a discrepancy between East and West in the number of events organized, and it was a constant topic of conversation, but also the Bulgarians, and also the rest of the Socialist Bloc, were really really nervous with mass culture. You mentioned it and I just want to elaborate a little bit. So with this official channels, the Bulgarians actually coined their own term, they called mass culture, basically fake culture. And they claimed that what they were doing alternatively, is invest in what they called "real culture". Of course, here, the implication is that mass culture is not real culture. So these tensions between different understandings of culture were constantly on the horizon, as again, these events were being negotiated.

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
We have time for one more question, and the one I'll pose to you has to do with, sort of, the continuities after end of, the sort of, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, these alternative international connections, do they continue after 1989? And in what way have they been affected by joining the European Union or any of the kinds of changes over the last, sort of, 30+ years? Is this something that ends with the end of communism, or is there a longer trajectory of the impact of this?

Dr. Theodora Dragostinova  
And you probably know the answer that, yes, indeed, there is a longer trajectory. But what happened immediately after 1989, because the aspiration of Eastern Europe was to rejoin Europe. Those contacts between Eastern Europe and the global south were very quickly forgotten and erased. And this is why now, only now, we've seen the emergence of these new studies on, you know, alternative globalizations and socialist globalizations, because for 25 years there was no interest in even studying those contacts, because the focus was to show the European credentials of all of the Eastern European states and to restore their connection to the West. Therefore, the continuities after 1989 was continuities in contact with the West. Now, one notable consequence, one notable outcome of these Cold War cultural contacts, is they benefited the communist elites who had first conceptualized them and executed them. And then in the process, these communist elites also establish their own global networks and their own global contacts. So after the end of the Cold War, communist elites often use these experiences, again, it's a first step of them to venture out of Eastern Europe, and to actually reestablish these international relations. And I am just going to point out that several years ago, actually, the previous leader of UNESCO before the current one, was a Bulgarian woman, Irina Bokova, who was the daughter of a prominent Bulgarian communist, a member of the Politburo and the editor in chief of the Bulgarian Communist Party newspaper, who began her work in cultural events during the Cold War, and then went on to have a very successful international career becoming the head of UNESCO for some four years. And this is just one small example to show you that, yes, for some people, the continuities were there. And those were continuities of power and influence, an issue that continues to resonate in Eastern Europe as far as the reincarnation of communist era elites as well.

Dr. Nicholas Breyfogle  
Thank you. Thank you all so very much for joining us today. I am so grateful to Professor Dragostinova for joining us today for sharing her expertise and passion for history. Please join me in giving her a virtual round of applause. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We'd also like to thank the College of Arts and Sciences, especially Claire Davidson and Jade Lac, and also the History Department, the Harvey Goldberg Center for Excellence in Teaching, the Clio Society, the Bexley Public Library, and the magazine Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective for their sponsorship. And once again, thank you, our audience, for your excellent questions and your ongoing connection to Ohio State. Stay safe and healthy, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.