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The “Natural Ally” of the “Developing World”: Bulgarian Culture in India and Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2018

Theodora Dragostinova
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Abstract

This article examines Bulgarian cultural relations with India and Mexico in the 1970s to explore the role of cultural diplomacy in the relationship between the Second and the Third Worlds during the Cold War. In 1975, Liudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the Bulgarian leader, became the head of the Committee for Culture; under her patronage, Bulgarian officials organized literally hundreds of exhibitions, concerts, academic conferences, book readings, cultural weeks, and visits that involved the three countries in an intense cultural romance. Even though Bulgaria was known as the “Soviet master satellite,” culture provided a considerable level of independence in Bulgarian dealings with international actors, which often caused Soviet irritation. In the end, by using culture, in addition to political and economic aid, Bulgaria managed to forge its role as an intermediary between the Second World and the Global South, and to project its notions of development on a global scene.

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Type
Beyond the Iron Curtain: Eastern Europe and the Global Cold War
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , Fall 2018 , pp. 661 - 684
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2018 

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Footnotes

Research for this article, carried out in Bulgaria, Hungary, and the United Kingdom, was made possible through grants from the Ohio State University's College of Arts & Sciences and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. I am grateful to Małgorzata Fidelis for her extensive comments on an early version of this article and to the two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions.

References

1. Central State Archives, Sofia, Bulgaria (hereafter TsDA), op. 405, f. 9, a.e. 622, 95–98.

2. Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sofia, Bulgaria (hereafter MVnR), op. 38, a.e. 1208, 44–52. CPI members initially staffed the friendship societies in large numbers, but after Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, Congress activists took over the societies.

3. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 619, 54–60.

4. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 1339 (Report from Sept. 1979).

5. Ibid., op. 33, a.e. 1258, 15–17.

6. Ibid., op. 38, a.e. 1171, 45–49.

7. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 679, 3 (Clipping from Literaturen front, undated).

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15. The case of Japan provides further nuance, but I cannot discuss it here due to considerations of brevity.

16. TsDA, f. 1b, op. 55, a.e. 780, 1–32 (Information-Sociological Center of BCP, “Public opinion for the 1300-Year Jubilee,” February 1982). There were also 7,894 cultural events in “socialist countries” and 7,420 in “developed capitalist countries,” for a total of 38,854 events.

17. For a list of the Bulgarian cultural centers and friendship societies abroad, see TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 263, 55 (National Coordinating Committee of the 1300-Year Jubilee, “For the Dignified Celebration of the 1300th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Bulgarian State,” June 1979, Index 6).

18. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 619, 54–60.

19. Some influential studies on the global Cold War include Westad, Odd Arne, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McMahon, Robert J., ed., The Cold War in the Third World (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar. See also Latham, Michael E., “The Cold War in the Third World, 1963–1975,” in Leffler, Melvyn P. and Westad, Odd Arne, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Vol. 2: Crisis and Détente (New York, 2010), 258–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. Engerman, David C., “The Second World’s Third World,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 12, no.1 (Winter 2011): 185Google Scholar.

21. The literature on the Third World and development is rich, but the two analyses used here are Cullather, Nick, “Development? Its History,” Diplomatic History 24, no. 4 (Fall 2000): 641–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tomlinson, B. R., “What was the Third World?” Journal of Contemporary History 38, no. 2 (April 2003): 307–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Mark Atwood Lawrence, “The Rise and Fall of Nonalignment,” in McMahon, The Cold War in the Third World, 139–55.

23. Tomlinson, “What was the Third World?”; and Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War and the Third World,” in McMahon, The Cold War in the Third World, 213.

24. Bockman, Johanna, “Socialist Globalization against Capitalist Neocolonialism: The Economic Ideas behind the New International Economic Order,” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development 6, no.1 (Spring 2015): 109–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25. Tomlinson, “What was the Third World?,” 314; and Cullather, “Development? Its History.”

26. The vast majority of the English-language literature has focused on western economic involvement in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. These narratives often use modernization theory to imply a relationship in which the “periphery” borrows superior practices from the “core” and assumes that “to be developed is to be Euro-American,” see Cullather, “Development? Its History,” 646. For recent syntheses of the vast literature on development, see Corinna R. Unger, “Histories of Development and Modernization: Findings, Reflections, Future Research,” in: H-Soz-Kult at https://www.hsozkult.de/literaturereview/id/forschungsberichte-1130 (last accessed December 9, 2010); Hodge, Joseph Morgan, “Writing the History of Development (Part 2: Longer, Deeper, Wider),” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development 7, no.1 (Spring 2016): 125–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. Westad, “The Cold War and the Third World,” 211.

28. Hodge, “Writing the History of Development,” 150–51; and Latham, “The Cold War in the Third World,” 263–65.

29. Zubok, Vladislav, “Cold War Strategies / Power and Culture—East: Sources of Soviet Conduct Reconsidered,” in Immerman, Richard H. and Goedde, Petra, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War (Oxford, 2013), 309–12Google Scholar.

30. Selected works include Howell, Jude, “The End of an Era: The Rise and Fall of G.D.R. Aid,” Journal of Modern African Studies 32, no. 2 (June 1994): 305–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rudner, Martin, “East European Aid to Asian Developing Countries: The Legacy of the Communist Era,” Modern Asian Studies 30, no. 1 (February 1996): 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Trentin, Massimiliano, “Tough Negotiations: The Two Germanys in Syria and Iraq from 1963 to 1974,” Cold War History 8, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 353–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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32. Cullather, “Development? Its History,” 642–43.

33. Even though Bulgarian documents rarely use the term “Third World,” I use the terms developing states and Third World interchangeably in this article.

34. The National Archives, London, UK, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (hereafter TNA, FCO) 28/3732 (Cloake to FCO, “What Use is Bulgaria?,” July 30, 1979).

35. TNA, FCO 28/2866 (British embassy report, Dec. 29, 1976).

36. Ibid., 28/3023 (Annual review of Bulgaria for 1976, Jan. 1977).

37. Ibid., 28/4106 (British embassy report, Oct. 6, 1980).

38. Latham, “The Cold War in the Third World,” 264. Engerman, “The Second World’s Third World,” 188–89.

39. TNA, CFO 28/2866 (British embassy report, March 22, 1976).

40. MVnR, op. 34, a.e. 3794, 16–26, 27–34 (Materials related to the visit of Zhivkov in Nigeria, 16–19 Oct. 1978).

41. TNA, FCO 28/3330 (British embassy report, “Zhivkov’s African tour,” Nov. 6, 1978).

42. Matusevich, Maxim, No Easy Row for a Russian Hoe: Ideology and Pragmatism in Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960–1991 (Trenton, NJ, 2003)Google Scholar.

43. TNA, FCO 28/4106 (British embassy report, Oct. 6, 1980).

44. TNA, CFO 28/3733 (Annual review of Bulgaria for 1978, Jan. 1979; FCO evaluation of report, Feb. 20, 1979). As self-serving as they were, the memoir of the Bulgarian ambassador in Mexico at the time captures this enthusiasm well, see Gerasimov, Bogomil, Diplomatsiia v zonata na kaktusa (Sofia, 1998)Google Scholar.

45. TNA, FCO28/3330 (FCO to Cloake, Dec. 15, 1978; Anderson to Lambert, Nov. 22, 1978; Annex with visits by Warsaw Pact heads of state to Africa).

46. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 263, 55 (National Coordinating Committee of the 1300-Year Jubilee, “For the Dignified Celebration of the 1300th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Bulgarian State,” June 1979, 10, 195).

47. I borrow this term from Brown, Kate, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford, 2013)Google Scholar.

48. In November 1976 and February 1981, Liudmila Zhivkova took two consecutive trips to India and Mexico when signing cultural exchange agreements and opening exhibitions for the 1300-Year Jubilee, see Liudmila Zhivkova. Zhivot i delo, 1942–1981. Letopis (Sofia, 1987), 158–59, 394–99Google Scholar.

49. TNA, FCO 28/3330 (British embassy in Mexico City, April 27, 1978).

50. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1171, 93–98, 104–09 (Information on India prepared for Gandhi’s visit in Nov. 1981).

51. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 675, 41–45 (Memo on Mexico, 1976).

52. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 2091, 14–17 (Information on Mexico, Feb. 24, 1979).

53. Ibid., 36–42 (Memo on Mexico).

54. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1171, 110–16 (Relations between CPI and the Congress Party, Nov. 1981).

55. Ibid., op. 36, a.e. 1243 (Reports on Indian elections).

56. Ibid., op. 35, a.e. 2091, 14–17 (Information on Mexico, Feb. 24, 1979).

57. Ibid., 36–42 (Memo on Mexico).

58. The ambassadors to India and Mexico were carefully chosen to satisfy Zhivkova’s preferences and reported personally to her on various matters. These included Toshho Toshhev, Ambassador in New Delhi; Bogomil Gerasimov, Ambassador in Mexico City; and Morfi Skarlatov, director of the Bulgarian Cultural-Informational Center in New Delhi.

59. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1171, 45–49.

60. For details, see Gerasimov, Diplomatsiia.

61. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 2091, 43–49, 136–40 (Memos on Mexican-Bulgarian relations).

62. Open Society Archives–Radio Free Europe Archives, Budapest, Hungary (hereafter OSA-RFE), 300-20-1-26; “Die Herscher im sozialischtische Ostblock bauer Dynastien auf,” Muencher Merkur, Sept. 27, 1979; and “Communist Rule: All in the Family,” International Herald Tribune, Aug. 24, 1979.

63. “Bulgaria’s ‘Princess’ Leads Drive for Culture,” Chicago Tribune, July 19, 1980. See also “President’s Daughter Plays Major Role in Bulgaria,” New York Times, November 9, 1980.

64. OSA-RFE, 300-20-1-26. “Zhivkov’s daughter making her mark,” Reuters, Sofia, May 11, 1976.

65. Zhivkova’s biographers confirm the importance of her personal interests in the way official Bulgarian cultural policies evolved; see Blagov, Zagadkata Liudmila Zhivkova.

66. OSA-RFE, 300-20-1-26. “Culture Boss,” The Observer, Feb. 29, 1976.

67. A growing literature has shown that to think about Third World choices simply in terms of western and eastern models is simplistic. Third World states—such as India and Mexico—merged elements of east and west while they also prioritized local factors in their international choices. See the interpretations of Engerman, “The Second World’s Third World,” 184; Boden, Ragna, “Cold War Economics: Soviet Aid to Indonesia,” Journal of Cold War Studies 10, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 110–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Maxim Matusevich, No Easy Row for the Russian Hoe.

68. For overviews of India after 1947, see Vanaik, Achin, The Painful Transition: Bourgeois Democracy in India (London, 1990)Google Scholar; Singer, Wendy, Independent India, 1947–2000 (Harlow, Eng., 2012)Google Scholar; and Chandra, Bipan, Mukherjee, Aditya, and Mukherjee, Mridula, India after Independence (New Delhi, 2000)Google Scholar. For analyses of India’s foreign policy and Cold War choices, see McGarr’s, Paul The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent, 1945–1965 (Cambridge, Mass., 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sumit, Ganguly, ed., India’s Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect (New Delhi, 2010)Google Scholar.

69. For the place of Latin America in the Cold War, see Joseph, Gilbert and Spenser, Daniela, eds., In from the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Cold War (Durham, 2008)Google Scholar; Brands, Hal, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge, Mass., 2010)Google Scholar; and Miller, Nicola, Soviet Relations with Latin America, 1959–1987 (Cambridge, Mass., 1989)Google Scholar. A work of Cold War Mexico is Schreiber, Rebecca M., Cold War Exiles in Mexico: U.S. Dissidents and the Culture of Critical Resistance (Minneapolis, 2008)Google Scholar.

70. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 1339, 1–2 (Report from Feb. 1979).

71. Ibid., op. 38, a.e. 1171, 93–98, 104–09, 117–25 (Information about India, Nov. 1981).

72. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1173, 9–10 (Report from Dec. 1980). For an analysis of Soviet experts in India, see Engerman, David C., “Learning from the East: Soviet Experts and India in the Era of Competitive Coexistence,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33, no. 2 (2013): 227–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For two analyses of US and Soviet efforts in the Third World, see Andreas Hilger, “Building a Socialist Elite? Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and Elite Formation in India,” 241–61; and Unger, Corinna, “The United States, Decolonization, and the Education of Third World Elites,” 262–86, in Duellfer, Jost and Frey, Marc, eds., Elites and Decolonization in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2011)Google Scholar.

73. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 2091, 85–96 (Political situation in Latin America, March 1979).

74. Ibid., 14–17 (Information on Mexico, Feb. 24, 1979).

75. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 675, 41–45 (Memo on Mexico, 1976).

76. TNA, FCO 28/2866 (British High Commission in New Delhi, Nov. 29, 1976; Joint communiqué, Nov. 21, 1976).

77. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 616, 161–75 (Draft project for cooperation with India, 1976–1980); MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1171, 93–98, 99–103.

78. MVnR, op. 36, a.e. 1243, 85–86; a.e. 1244, 50–52, 70–72; and a.e. 1245, l. 5–8, 12–32. For the cooperation between Bulgaria and India in computing, see Victor Petrov, “A Cyber-Socialism at Home and Abroad: Bulgarian Modernization, Computers, and the World, 1967–1989” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2017).

79. TNA, FCO 28/2866 (British embassy in Sofia, Nov. 30, 1976).

80. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 2091, 36–42 (Memo on Mexico).

81. Ibid., op. 36, a.e. 2019 (Clippings from Uno mas uno, Aug. 12, 1980). Gerasimov, Diplomatsiia.

82. TNA, FCO 28/3330 (British embassy in Mexico City, April 27, 1978).

83. MVnR, op. 35, a.e. 2091, 43–46, 60–67, 101–06 (Memos on Bulgarian-Mexican relations, and COMECOM and Mexico).

84. Ibid., op. 38, a.e. 1173, 66–69.

85. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 675, 131–35 (Memo from 1978).

86. Pogled, March 3, 1981, found in TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 679.

87. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1173, 66–69.

88. Gerasimov, Diplomatsiia, 298.

89. Excelsior, March 4, 1981, found in MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1894.

90. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 675, 41–45 (Memo on Mexico, 1976).

91. MVnR, op. 32, a.e. 1402, 24–39.

92. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 616, 114–35 (Cultural relations with India, April 1976).

93. Ibid., 114–35, 180–96 (Cultural relations with India, April and Dec. 1976).

94. MVnR, op. 32, a.e. 1402, 24–39.

95. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 616, 180–96 (Cultural relations with India, Dec. 1976).

96. MVnR, op. 33, a.e. 1260, 71–77; Ibid., a.e. 1261, 57–58.

97. Ibid., op. 34, a.e. 1218, 10–24. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 617, 103–18 (Report, Dec. 1977).

98. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 617, 31 and 42 (News from Bulgaria, Feb. and March 1977).

99. Ibid., a.e. 618, l, 98–99.

100. MVnR, op. 34, a.e. 1224.

101. Ibid., op. 38, a.e. 1218, 35, 36–39. Prof. Alexander Fol, the Minister of Education and noted Thracologist, proposed a joint research project on parallels between Thracian and Indian culture (including investigation on the origin of the proto-Bulgarians) with Prof. Lokesh Chandra, specialist in Indology, Tibetology, and Polynesian culture.

102. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1207, 12–17.

103. Ibid., op. 35, a.e. 1372; and , op. 36, a.e. 1295 and 1299.

104. TsDA, f. 405, op. 10, a.e. 539, 1–7 (Memo on cultural relations from Feb. 1981).

105. Ibid.

106. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 675, 41–45 (Memo on Mexico, 1976).

107. After London, the exhibition first went to Cuba and, after Mexico, toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

108. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 675, 131–35 (Memo from 1978).

109. An overview of cultural events until early 1981 is found in TsDA, f. 405, op. 10, a.e. 539, 1–7 (Memo on cultural relations from Feb. 1981).

110. TNA, FCO 28/2866 (British embassy in Sofia, Nov. 30, 1976).

111. TsDA, f. 405, op. 10, a.e. 539, 1–7 (Memo on cultural relations, Feb. 1981).

112. Ibid., f. 990, op. 1, a.e. 515, 259–314 (General report for jubilee activities in India, 1978–81).

113. Ibid., f. 405, op. 10, a.e. 539, 23–28 (Memo on 1300 celebrations in Mexico, Feb. 1981); and f. 990, op. 1, a.e. 570, 149–78 (Memo on jubilee activities in Mexico).

114. Ibid., f. 990, op. 1, a.e. 570, 149–78 (Memo on jubilee activities in Mexico).

115. Zhivkova was in India February 17–27, Liudmila Zhivkova. Zhivot i delo, 394–99; MVnR, op. 36, a.e. 1298, 23–25, 33–36; MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1173, 1193. The exhibition had already toured Paris, Moscow, Leningrad, Vienna, Warsaw, Budapest, London, Havana, Mexico City, New York City, Boston, Munich, Cologne, and Tokyo.

116. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 497 (Speech reprinted in the Statesman and Sunday Standard).

117. Ibid., f. 990, op. 1, a.e. 515, 259–314, 246–54 (General report for jubilee activities in India, 1978–1981; report on the visit of Zhivkova in India in Feb. 1981).

118. Zhivkova was in Mexico from February 28 to March 6, with a 12-hour stay in Sofia after India. Liudmila Zhivkova. Zhivot i delo, 394–99.

119. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 679, 1 (Clipping from Rabotnichesko delo, March 7, 1981).

120. Ibid., 1–5, 63–65 (Clippings and report about the Bulgarian Medieval Civilization exhibition and other activities in Mexico, March 1981).

121. TsDA, f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 679, 1–5, 63–65 (An overview of cultural events until early 1981 in TsDA); f. 405, op. 10, a.e. 539, 1–7 (Memo on cultural relations from Feb. 1981).

122. Ibid., f. 405, op. 9, a.e. 679, 1–5, 63–65.

123. Blagov, Zagadkata Liudmila Zhivkova.

124. TsDA, f. 990, op. 1, a.e. 570, 149–78 (Memo on jubilee activities in Mexico).

125. MVnR, op. 38, a.e. 1162 and 1171.

126. Ibid., a.e. 1171, 45–49.

127. TNA, FCO 28/3732 (Cloake to FCO, “What use is Bulgaria?,” July 30, 1979).

128. Cooper, Frederick, “Writing the History of Development,” in “Modernizing Missions: Approaches to ‘Developing’ the Non-Western World after 1945,” a special issue of Journal of Modern European History 8, no. 1 (2010): 5–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

129. Cullather, “Development? Its History,” 642–43.