2014 02/26 Theodora Dragostinova

Theodora Dragostinova, Associate Professor of History, The Ohio State University

This paper examines the logic and execution of the Bulgarian cultural offensive abroad, carried out from the mid-1970s to the early-1980s under the leadership of Ludmila Zhivkova, the eccentric minister of culture and daughter of the communist leader Todor Zhivkov. Interrogating the dynamics of cultural exchange with the West, the Soviet bloc, and, partially, the non-aligned world, the paper explores the unexpected encounters among the cultural agents and other representatives of communist Bulgaria, their official hosts, private admirer or ardent detractors of various ideological orientations, and members of the Bulgarian diaspora of different generations. By adopting a transnational approach to the cultural Cold War, understood as a multipolar rather than a bipolar political confrontation, this research seeks to unearth the changing logic of cultural diplomacy during the détente. While ideological factors continued to inform the way official Bulgarian policies were articulated, the combination between a new generation of intellectual elites and the language of human rights provided unexpected opportunities for both supporters and opponents of the communist bloc to compete on the international scene for the hearts and minds of various audiences. In the constantly changing context of the détente, it was not always clear who the winner was in these cultural duels, as unlikely alliances formed around issues of historical heritage, cultural commonality, and national legitimacy, undermining expectations of straightforward ideological

uniformity. Combining a top-down approach (mostly based on archives and memoirs) with a bottom-up methodology (inspired by oral histories and ethnographic observation), this paper reveals what sorts of unexpected cultural encounters occurred, during the Cold War, when people supposed to be

living on different planets found themselves in the same cultural space.

Theodora Dragostinova is an Associate Professor of History at the Ohio State University. Her work focuses on nation-building, refugee movements, and minority politics in Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on the Balkans. She is the author of Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and Emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria (Cornell University Press, 2011). Her most recent research, tentatively entitled “Communist Extravaganza: National Commemorations and Cultural Diplomacy in Late Socialist Bulgaria,” explores the global Cold War through a transnational examination of Bulgarian cultural policies during late socialism in a variety of geographical and ideological contexts. This work combines archival research with oral history interviews, continuing Professor Dragostinova's earlier commitment to interdisciplinary research.