Empire of Friends: Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold War Czechoslovakia by Applebaum Rachel (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 191 the book: ‘through this work, I want to contribute […] to the history of masculinity between the media, bodies, masses, space and violence; to the history of nationality and transnationalism between inner-Soviet dynamics and globalization influences; to the history of Soviet generations; but above all to the history of Soviet popular culture after the death of Stalin’ (p. 11). The book is somewhat narrower in scope and largely contributes to the history of football fan culture in the USSR with frequent and valuable observations regarding Soviet history, politics and culture through the eyes of Soviet football fans and officials. The book creates a good sense of how football fans relate to the Soviet past and how their identities are shaped and have changed over time. This intense focus on football fan culture, gleaned from years of scrupulous archival work and in-depth interviewing makes this book an extremely valuable and original contribution to research on the history and culture of Soviet sport after Stalin. Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Artemi Romanov Literatures, University of Colorado Boulder Applebaum, Rachel. Empire of Friends: Soviet Power and Socialist Internationalism in Cold War Czechoslovakia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2019. xi + 275 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $49.95: £41.00. When a relationship between peoples is symbolized by tanks, it provides a clear pointer towards the complex and troubled nature of that association. Rachel Applebaum’s study of Czechoslovak-Soviet social and cultural interactions is punctuated by these armoured fighting vehicles — liberating tanks in 1945, ‘normalizing’ tanks in 1968 and, finally, a tank painted pink in 1991 in the aftermath of the 1989 transformation. Historically, the nations of Czechoslovakia enjoyed an ambivalent relationship with their powerful cousins to the east. Widespread respect for Russia’s pre-eminent position as the principal Slavonic nation was, in general, and among the elites in particular, accompanied by a critical attitude towards the internal political system during both the imperial and Soviet periods up to the Second World War. Prior to that event, actual contact between the respective peoples was limited — but that all changed in 1945. On 9 May of that year, Soviet tanks liberated the Czech capital, then in the grip of an uprising against the Nazi occupiers. In the early stages of the fighting, Czech insurgents were aided by another Russian force — that of the anti-Soviet army of General Vlasov (though not mentioned by the author). History, however, is written by the ultimate victors, and it was the iconic SEER, 98, 1, JANUARY 2020 192 images of grateful children of Prague presenting bouquets of lilac to the heroic Red Army tank-crews that came to represent the outcome and set the scene for most of the next half-century. Nevertheless, respect for Soviet wartime sacrifice was genuine and widespread and, coupled with the legacy of British and French responsibility for the dismembering of pre-war Czechoslovakia under the terms of the 1938 Munich Agreement, some reappraisal of international alliances was inevitable. Initially, even within the transformed geopolitical reality, Czechoslovakia sought to maintain a balance between East and West. But, following the Communist takeover in 1948, that equilibrium disappeared and ties with the Soviet Union became exclusive. A work of this type is unavoidably selective in its coverage and episodic in structure, though many of the salient developments of the period are carefully considered. The developing attitudes towards the Soviet role in the war and the memorialization of the Red Army liberation, focused on the concept of gratitude for the heavy sacrifice made, receive deserved attention. The impact of Soviet culture is also scrutinized in the shape of mixed public reaction to Soviet films and to Socialist Realist works of art. In terms of direct contacts between individuals, most interesting are the experiences of Czech and Slovak students in the Soviet Union during the early 1960s. Also revealing are the accounts of numerous touristic exchanges, in the form of organized groups visiting in both directions. The limitations of this study result largely from the nature of the source material, mainly official reports in Czech (former Czechoslovak) and Russian archives. Consequently, an incomplete picture emerges with the unfiltered views...