Transnational socialist encounters in the Second Socialist World: the case of the Chilean Museum of Solidarity

Abstract

ABSTRACT The objective of this article is to analyze from an interdisciplinary perspective, that uses transnational and cross-regional cultural studies of the Second Socialist World, the unique example of the Chilean Museum of Solidarity in the context of its relations with the socialist countries in Eastern Europe during the 1970s. The originality of this case study is that it has not been previously analyzed and it helps explain the threads uniting countries of the Second Socialist World and the role of cultural relations as they were established during the Cold War between socialist countries in the south and the east. As a methodology, this article uses a qualitative “small number” approach to analyze cultural relationships between socialist countries. The conclusions show that, for some countries, such as Romania, cultural relations were important in establishing an autonomous policy from Moscow, such as that of Nicolae Ceausescu, but the type of artistic exchanges promoted witnessed an aesthetic paradox, supporting a depoliticized version of art. Moreover, the path-dependency argument for cultural relationships between socialist countries is partially verified.