Project Proposal

The Cold War has commonly been interpreted as the antithesis to globalisation. Following the Second World War, rather than being united in peace, the world was harshly divided into two distinct camps. The Iron Curtain separating East and West was seen as an impenetrable geographical, ideological and cultural barrier. However, this view of socialist states as isolated from the global trends that surrounded them has been revised in recent scholarship.[1] The processes of de-Stalinisation and decolonisation forced Soviet leaders in Eastern Europe to reassess their reluctance to engage with the outside world and instead foster a variety of economic, social and cultural relationships with the so-called ‘Third World.’ Rather than being solely a Western-Capitalist phenomenon, these encounters between the Eastern bloc and the ‘Third World’ impacted the political economies of these regions and shaped new forms of transregional mobility and exchange, presenting an alternative form of globalisation. [2]

A plethora of new literature exists on transregional Eastern European actors in African, Asian and Latin American countries – particularly in terms of economic, infrastructural and scientific development. However, I wish to discover how exactly the increased spread of knowledge about events in the ‘Third World’ to the Eastern bloc, alongside the increased exposure to individuals from these places made an impact on their host countries. Thus, I will argue that ideas of solidarity and anti-imperialism were transmitted from the ‘Third World’ to mirror and configure similar activism occurring in socialist Europe.

To do this I endeavor to use Czechoslovakia in the period of 1950-1989 as a focal point for transregional exchange. Alongside other socialist state countries, Czechoslovakia experienced a period of political activism and lively youth culture which was undoubtably impacted by increased contact with ideas and politics from the ‘Third World.’[3] In tandem with increased media circulation, the entrance of hundreds of ‘Third World’ students into Czechoslovakian universities and technical colleges played a role in dispersing ideas of liberation and reform that were subsumed into Czechoslovakia’s own political climate.[4]

Indeed, The Prague Spring in 1968 – violently crushed by the Warsaw Pact invasion – was perceived akin to American intervention in Vietnam, likening Soviet interference in Czechoslovakia to Western and in turn imperial intrusion. As evident in the civic petition, Charter 77, which described the lack of press freedom in the Czechoslovakia as a “virtual apartheid”, the nation’s reformists were able to use language and concepts from the Third World to communicate internal disillusionment in the Socialist model prescribed by the Soviet Union.[5]

I hope to analyse transregional youth and cultural movements using archives from international student newspapers, archives of the University of the 17^th of November (a college for foreign students) and personal accounts and photography from youth festivals and protests to map how this rhetoric found its place in political activism. Additionally, I will examine film created by those in Prague’s FAMU school during this time, which has recently been exhibited as one of the main methods for foreign students from the ‘Third World’ to share their cultural experiences and encapsulate how independence aspirations crossed geographical boundaries.[6]

Through these means I wish to highlight the agency of these regions, examining how actors from the Third World were able to influence public opinion on liberation and solidarity and how Czechoslovakia formulated its own means to connect with these countries, separate from the prerogative of the Soviet Union. I believe marginalised voices both within Europe and in the Third World deserve specific study – highlighting how the periphery, both East and Southward, was able to shape transregional perceptions of politics, independence and human rights.

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[1] See David C. Engerman, ‘The Second’s World Third World’ (2011), Łukasz Stanek, ‘Architecture in Global Socialism (2020), Oscar Sanchez-Sibony, Red Globalization (2016).

[2] James Mark and Artemy Kalinovsky, and Steffi Marung (eds.), Alternative Globalizations. Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World, Bloomington: Indiana University Press (2020) pp. 3-5.

[3] Peter Apor and James Mark, ‘Socialism Goes Global: Decolonisation and the Making of a New Culture of Internationalism in Socialist Hungary 1956–1989’, Journal of Modern History, (2015),pp. 855-6.

[4] Kim Christiaens, ‘Europe at the crossroads of three worlds: alternative histories and connections of European solidarity with the Third World, 1950s–80s’, European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire, (2017) 24:6, pp. 932-954.

[5]James Mark, and Paul Betts, Socialism Goes Global: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation. (Oxford, 2022), pp. 220.

[6] Kathleen Reinhardt, ‘“Biafra of Spirit” in Prague: Film and Clashing Political Agendas in 1960s Czechoslovakia’, Contemporary And (17 January 2018) < https://contemporaryand.com/magazines/film-and-clashing-political-agendas-in-1960s-czechoslovakia/ >.