Cold War Cultures - Perspectives on Eastern and Western European Societies

The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term "Cold War Culture" is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether - or to what extent - the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.

List of contents

List of Illustrations

European Cold War Culture(s)? An Introduction

Annette Vowinckel, Marcus M. Payk, Thomas Lindenberger

Part I: Mediating the Cold War: Radio, Film, Television, and Literature

Chapter 1. East European Cold War Culture(s)? Alterities, Commonalities, and Reflections

Marsha Siefert

Chapter 2.“We Started the Cold War”: A Hidden Message behind Stalin’s Attack on Anna Akhmatova

Olga Yurievna Voronina

Chapter 3. Radio Reform in the 1980s: RIAS and DT-64 Respond to Private Radio

Edward Larkey

Chapter 4. The Enemy Within. (De-)Dramatizing the Cold War in U.S. and West German Spy TV of the 1960s

Marcus M. Payk

Chapter 5. Cold War Television: Olga Korbut and the Munich Olympics of 1972

Annette Vowinckel

Part II: Constructing Identities: Representations of the “Self”

Chapter 6. Catholic Piety in the Early Cold War Years or: How the Virgin Mary Protected the West from Communism

Monique Scheer

Chapter 7. The Road to Socialism Paved With Good Intentions. Automobile Culture in the Soviet Union, the GDR and Romania During Détente.

Luminita Gatejel

Chapter 8. Advertising, Emotions, and “Hidden Persuaders”: The Making of Cold-War Consumer Culture in Britain from the 1940s to the 1960s

Stefan Schwarzkopf

Chapter 9. Survivalism in the Welfare Cocoon: The Culture of Civil Defense in Cold War Sweden

Marie Cronqvist

Part III: Crossing the Border: Interactions with the “Other”

Chapter 10. The Peace and the War Camps. The Dichotomous Cold War Culture in Czechoslovakia: 1948-1960

Roman Krakovsky

Chapter 11. Artistic Style, Canonization, and Identity Politics in Cold War Germany, 1947-1960

Joes Segal

Chapter 12. What Does Democracy Look Like? (And Why Would Anyone Want to Buy It?): Third World Demands and West German Responses at 1960s World Youth Festivals

Quinn Slobodian

Chapter 13. Drawing the East-West Border: Narratives of Modernity and Identity in the Julian Region (1947-1954)

Sabina Mihelj

Part IV: The Legacies of the Cold War: Remembrance and Historiography

Chapter 14. A fifties revival? Cold War culture in re-unified Germany

Andrew Beattie

Chapter 15. The Mikson Case: War Crimes Memory, Estonian Identity. Reconstructions and the Transnational Politics of Justice

Valur Ingimundarson

Chapter 16. The First Cold War Memorial in Berlin. A Short Inquiry into Europe, the Cold War, and Memory Cultures

Petra Henzler

Notes on Contributors

Bibliography

Index

 

About the author

Annette Vowinckel received her doctorate from the University of Essen and her Habilitation from Humboldt University in Berlin. She is a specialist in cultural history of the Renaissance and the twentieth century. A researcher at the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, she has recently published a book on the cultural history of skyjacking.

Marcus M. Payk is currently a Fellow in the Department of History, Humboldt University in Berlin and specializes in twentieth-century German and transatlantic history. He received his doctorate in Modern History from the University of Bochum in 2005 and was awarded a Dilthey-Fellowship for excellent young researchers in the humanities in 2011.

Thomas Lindenberger received his doctorate from the Technical University Berlin and his Habilitation from Potsdam University. He was a research director at the Potsdam Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung and is currently the director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for European History and Public Spheres in Vienna. He has held guest professorships at EHESS Paris, CEU Budapest and Vienna University.

Summary

The Cold War was not only about the imperial ambitions of the super powers, their military strategies, and antagonistic ideologies. It was also about conflicting worldviews and their correlates in the daily life of the societies involved. The term “Cold War Culture” is often used in a broad sense to describe media influences, social practices, and symbolic representations as they shape, and are shaped by, international relations. Yet, it remains in question whether — or to what extent — the Cold War Culture model can be applied to European societies, both in the East and the West. While every European country had to adapt to the constraints imposed by the Cold War, individual development was affected by specific conditions as detailed in these chapters. This volume offers an important contribution to the international debate on this issue of the Cold War impact on everyday life by providing a better understanding of its history and legacy in Eastern and Western Europe.

Additional text

"Overall, then, this is an important contribution to European Cold War history which will hopefully find its way onto reading lists for courses on post-1945 European history." � War in History

"Cold War Cultures is an ambitious collection of essays by an interdisciplinary group of American and European scholars – including historians, sociologists, and cultural theorists... [that] makes a compelling case for why individual countries in Europe should be included in the historiography of the conflict." � Canadian-American Slavic Studies

"...this is a book for researchers, but I believe those who are interested in European culture from the 1950s to 1980s would appreciate these scholarly pieces as vivid explanations of its background. The editors have done a great job in combining such varied topics into a single volume." � European Review of History: Revue europ�enne d'histoire

"The collection is... invaluable in informing English-language readers how Czechs, Romanians, Russians, Swedes, Austrians, Italians, Slovenes, and (more than any other nationality) Germans experienced the travail of a divided continent." � Journal of Cold War Studies

"This is a very interesting edited collection of essays that makes a valuable and indeed a pathbreaking contribution to the study of an important emerging area... [It] offers a very original take on the [existing] literature in that it seeks to broaden the debate to ask questions about European Cold War Cultures, as opposed to the North American ones that have dominated the literature hitherto." � Mark Pittaway, Open University, UK

Product details

• Authors: Annette Payk Vowinckel
• Assisted by: Thomas Lindenberger (Editor), Marcus M. Payk (Editor), Annette Vowinckel (Editor)
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.02.2014
• EAN: 9781782383888
• ISBN: 978-1-78238-388-8
• No. of pages: 396
• Dimensions: 153 mm x 228 mm x 23 mm
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; History: 20th Century to Present