Cultural Exchange Through Soviet–Japanese Trade: A Case of the Soviet Art Business by Yoko Nakamura in the 1970s
Cultural Exchange Through Soviet–Japanese Trade: A Case of the Soviet Art Business by Yoko Nakamura in the 1970s

Summary/Abstract: Cultural exchange between Japan and the Soviet Union, which was active from the time of the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration in 1956 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, has been often examined in previous studies, which focused mainly on the diplomatic and political background. This paper aims to identify an instance of cultural exchange in fine art not on the background, but within a business framework, specifically exploring the link between the introduction of Russian-Soviet paintings in Japan and Soviet–Japanese trade. It highlights the case of Tokyo's art gallery owner Yoko Nakamura, during the 1970s. Previous studies have reasonably connected cultural exchange with diplomacy and politics. As David Caute indicated in The Dancer Defects, a voluminous work on the cultural competition between the US and the USSR in five artistic fields, that cultural exchange during the Cold War period was the scene of diplomatic struggles between two polities with conflicting ideologies. On the Soviet side, cultural exchange was viewed as an appeal to capitalist countries, highlighting the perceived superiority of communist ideology. Starting soon after WWII, until the 1950s, the tension between the two camps remained high; therefore, The Cultural Cold War in Western Europe, 1945–60, edited by Hans Krabbendam and Giles Scott-Smith, shows that the United States attempted to unite the countries of Western Europe against communism, sometimes using the CIA for cultural programs like the International Student Conference. Shiro Hanya informs us of the political contest between the Soviet Union and the US in Japan at the moment of the restoration of Soviet–Japanese diplomatic relationships. He clarified that the successive visits of highly excellent Soviet artistic programs to Japan in 1954–1961 accompanied Soviet efforts at intervention in the revision of the US–Japan Security Treaty.

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