The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene by Theodora Dragostinova

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene by Theodora Dragostinova Elizabeth Banks (bio) Theodora Dragostinova, The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021). 307 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-5329-9. Theodora Dragostinova enriches understandings of the cultural Cold War by examining cultural exchange in and from Bulgaria in the long 1970s and by demonstrating the centrality of culture to socialist and nationalist nation branding in Bulgaria. Emphasizing Bulgaria's status as a "small state," Dragostinova additionally invites scholars to rethink the concept of periphery in cold war history and global history more generally. The body of the book consists of a preface, an introduction, which establishes the importance of the global cultural scene amid the challenges of the 1970s, six chapters, and an epilogue. Chapters 1 and 2 present the efforts within Bulgaria to use complex cultural events to reinvigorate state and society during this crucial decade. The most important of these events was the 1300th anniversary of Bulgaria, which took place in 1981 but was celebrated through anticipation and preparation for much of the late 1970s. This celebration, like the embrace of culture writ large, was the initiative of Liudmila Zhivkova, the daughter of the longtime state leader Todor Zhivkov. She is the book's central character, and was the cultural secretary from 1975 until her death in July 1981. The remaining four chapters explore overseas uses of Bulgarian culture in the same years. They demonstrate the enmeshing of international cultural performance with domestic, the variety of socialist world making in the seventies and eighties, and the pursuit of foreign audiences as central to Bulgarian self-expression. Dragostinova refreshingly avoids any sense of surprise that a small state would actively pursue global ambitions, focusing instead on documenting its details. The international cultural tour begins closest to home, with chapter 3 examining exchange with Bulgaria's nearest neighbors. Chapter 4 heads farther afield to the FRG and United States to document the creation of a multivalent Bulgarian diaspora through cultural exchange. The chapter reveals elaborate state plans for recruiting émigrés of various backgrounds and political persuasions for socialist Bulgaria, while highlighting varied responses and forms of national affinity among Bulgarians abroad and their descendants. The final two chapters travel farther still to cover cultural exchange with India, Mexico, and [End Page 321] Nigeria. They show how connections with the developing world, where audiences had little or no prior knowledge of Bulgaria, offered officials more space to craft their cultural national self-image. These chapters usefully show how Bulgarian cultural officials presented one message for audiences miles apart, underlining the international cultural project as primarily domestic, while noting local variations in expression and reception. Dragostinova's vibrant account of Bulgarian cultural initiatives in the long 1970s is driven by a method-as-argument she calls a "pericentric approach." It disturbs traditional historical narratives by centering on states and people usually considered small or peripheral. Cultural exchange generated a whole range of local meanings that can only be seen and understood in the specific sense; paying attention to these details makes clear the polyphony of socialist world making even in a single national case. This is an important contribution, especially as histories of the Cold War may suffer more than other subfields from an obsession around causality or a hangover assumption that Eastern Europe was overshadowed by the USSR. Following a long line of scholars who have delved into the specific to demonstrate the falsehood of this claim, the book displays honest fidelity to the Bulgarian point of view, even as two-thirds of the book is about Bulgarian culture abroad in various forms. Dragostinova is always very careful about the limitations of her sources, which are Bulgarian, and makes observations about Bulgaria rather than an ephemeral "socialist world" even as she rightly insists her method would be fruitfully applied in other settings. At times this reader found herself wishing for more contextualization that would help make sense of the metrics of smallness and bigness that underlay the argument. Between 1977 and 1981, for...