Prof. Birgit Menzel (University Mainz/Germersheim)
Lecture Cycle: The Cold War: US and URSS, Countercultures and Citizen Diplomacy
For almost half a century the Cold War dominated politics, culture and the mutual perception of Russia and America, caught up in an arms race in a bipolarized world. This lecture offers a comparative analysis of the cultural impact of the cold war on both countries. It then focuses on the countercultures and introduces citizen diplomacy as a bottom-up strategy to end the Cold War. In the late 1970s and 1980s, thousands of American citizens began to establish personal relations with citizens of the Soviet Union. Scientists and businessmen, artists and journalists, private persons and diplomats were equally involved in this network, which in 1985 comprised already more than 230 organizations. May be the most visible event of this new format of communication were the Space Bridges (1982-1989), the first live-encounters of Soviet and American people made possible by satellite technology.
Films for the Cold War Lecture Birgit (recommended to see)
1. Part (9.3.) Cold War Politics and Culture
USSR
Russkii vopros (UdSSR 1947; Michail Romm)
Vstrecha na El’be (UdSSR 1949 G. Aleksandrov ; neu ed. 1965;)
Sekretnaja missiia (UdSSR 1950; Michail Romm)
Zagovor obrechennykh (UdSSR 1950; Michail Kalatozov)
Planeta Bur (UdSSR 1962; P. Klushantsev)
Ja – Kuba (UdSSR ’64)
US
The Northstar (USA ’43)
The Big Lift (1951)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (USA ’56/78)
Fail Safe (USA ’64)
Atomic Café (USA ’82)
Spies, Psychological Warfare:
US:
Funeral in Berlin
Manchurian Candidate (US 1962 J. Frankenheimer)
UdSSR:
Podvig razvedcika (Boris Barnett 1947)
Sekretnaja missija (M. Romm 1950)
Soversenno sekretno (1951)
Semnadcat’ mgnovenij vesny (1973)
2. Part (16.3.) Counterculture and Citizen Diplomacy
US
Howl (US 2010; R. Epstein, J. Friedman)
Dr. Strangelove or how I stopped worrying and love the bomb (USA, ‘64)
The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! (1966; N. Jewison)
USSR
Zhara III. (A. Arkhangel’ski RF TV 2012) Stiliagi (RF 2007)
Dom Solnca (RF 2010; G. Sukachev)
(Dzen-Baptist) Artur Aristakisjan: Mesto na zemle (2011) www.hippy.ru/vmeste/ponyatie.htm www.hodite.com/xippibolshe-chem-subkultura.php http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/hum/slavi/vk/savitsky/andegrau.pdf