SOVIET EXPERTISE IN GLOBAL DEBATES ON CULTURAL HERITAGE AND LITERACY ON THE CUSP OF THE “LONG 1970s”
Keywords:
Cold War, the long 1970s, UNESCO, cultural heritage, general literacy, Soviet expertsAbstract
The 1970s represent a special phase in the development of the Cold War. It begins with détente and culminates in an escalation of confrontation between the political blocs. Regional integration processes accelerate, economic interdependencies become more intense, the influence of transnational corporations grows and international structures are reshaped. Historians use many metaphors as tools of description and analysis – “the second modernity”, “the second wave of globalization”, “the long 1970s”. All of them emphasize the emergence of new global challenges that are relevant for all countries, regardless of their stereotypical classification as “first”, “second” and “third” world. One of the current issues in the research debate is the role of the socialist camp, and the USSR in particular, in the dynamics of these processes. In recent years, there has been a tendency to revise the point of view about the non-viability of the Eastern bloc in the face of new challenges in favour of a more cautious thesis of its intense participation and even a determining role in shaping the global world. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the role of Soviet expert knowledge in the creation and dissemination of global concepts of cultural heritage accessibility and universal literacy on the threshold of the “long 1970s”. The author examines the extent to which Soviet experts were involved in international project teams working under the auspices of UNESCO in post-colonial countries. Turbulent internal departmental discussions, the organization's professional publications, and first-person documents reveal to the reader a complex web of ideological factors and personal ambitions within the logic of the Cold War and the ideals of cultural internationalism. Open for further research, according to the author, is the question of retransfer of global cultural and educational concepts into Soviet institutional practice.References
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