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

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene by Theodora K. Dragostinova Emilian Kavalski (bio) Theodora K. Dragostinova, The Cold War from the Margins: A Small Socialist State on the Global Cultural Scene (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021). 302 pp., ill. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-5329-9. It is hard to believe that just thirty odd years ago, some scholars thought it pertinent to demand a "freeze" on the study of the Cold War, because there is nothing new to be written about the period.1 The suggestion was that while it might be possible to glean some overlooked facts, occurrences, or data from previously inaccessible archives, these are unlikely to challenge, let alone change, the existing frameworks for explanation and understanding. It seems however that time has proved such assessments premature, if not flawed. Instead of wilting, Cold War scholarship has blossomed into more than a "hundred flowers," if we are to paraphrase Chairman Mao's well-known adage. There has been a sustained and growing interest in troubling the bifurcated historical and geopolitical imaginaries of the Cold War by examining complex cultural trends and everyday practices. Rather than the relentless struggle between the homogeneous monoliths of a capitalist West and a communist East, such studies have challenged the dichotomized stereotypes pervading the established accounts of the Global Cold War by providing much more nuanced and variegated depictions of the period. The recognition of such diversity of experiences, actors, and roles has provided the analytical foundation for the contestations of dominant narratives. In particular, the scholarship focusing on the cultural practices and everyday life of the Cold War have been offering important input into the diversity of contingent and oftentimes contradictory dynamics that have been defining the broader pattern of complex interactions between individuals, societies, states, and the international. Labeled as the "Cultural Cold War," the attention to such processes illuminates the critical role played by culture in framing entrepreneurial and idiosyncratic engagements with diplomatic outreach, nationalism, domestic legitimation, and transnational connections under the guise of a global ideological confrontation. At the same time, this mode of inquiry puts the production, dissemination, and control of cultural representations at the heart of Cold War studies. It should probably not be surprising that the bulk of these studies [End Page 346] have tended to focus on the experience of the so-called Third World. Such attention appears justified by the unique positioning of the Global South betwixt and between the two protagonists of the Cold War as well as the distinctive interactions engendered by this location. Yet this focus does little to challenge the uniformity uploaded into the bloc structure of the bipolar international systems. In particular, East European countries – and the so-called Second World, more broadly – appear to have been persistently marginalized in assessments of the "Cultural Cold War." This absence is at the heart of Theodora K. Dragostinova's book. It seeks to redress the exclusion of East European experiences from the record and studies of Cold War histories. The small Southeast European country of Bulgaria provides the context for Dragostinova's endeavor. Considered one of the closest allies of the Soviet Union in the former communist bloc, Bulgaria's experience – both during and after the Cold War – has rarely been considered a fashionable subject for scholarly, policy, or public engagement. Yet Dragostinova's book demonstrates that this lack of attention has overlooked important trends and perspectives that have much broader relevance. Her account indicates that Bulgaria's case is critical for understanding simultaneously the actorness and the historical experience of small states on the margins in playing on the world stage. In this setting, Bulgaria offers a good illustration of the "advantages of smallness," which have provided the country with "unexpected opportunities" to carve entrepreneurial policy space (P. 7). Dragostinova's book thereby challenges the established explanations and understanding about the workings of global order – both during and after the Cold War. As her analysis indicates, since culture was not at the forefront of strategic calculations or threat perceptions of either of the two superpowers, East European countries deployed their positions of marginality to develop meaningful...