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The first post-war decade was filled with big foreign policy challenges for the newly established communist rule in Yugoslavia. Firmly siding with the Soviet Union, the subsequent sharp conflict, adherence to the Western world as a kind of way out of difficult situation and the subsequent normalization of relations with the Eastern bloc have caused the Yugoslav military-geographic position at the time. In the years of conflict with the western world Yugoslavia represented the most forward point on the west of the Eastern bloc and as such had a special status. The situation has completely changed during the conflict with the Soviet Union when it became an important bridgehead west to east. By its geographic, political, military and economic potentials Yugoslavia in these moments represented an important international factor, the space through which East and West communicated, as well as the space of potential conflict between them. In a way, its geographical location and military importance determined its role and fate during the Cold War.
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Central and Eastern Europe, taking into account the potential impact of the contemporary crisis in Ukraine. The authors start by describing the historical attempts made by Central and East European countries to obtain nuclear weapons during the Cold War and the post-Cold War period. The main focus is on current trends, including a prediction of possible future developments. The policies of state as well as non-state actors are considered, including nationalist calls for nuclear armament. The authors conclude that the risk of proliferation in this region should not be overestimated; equally, however, certain ‘early warning signals’ should be not ignored.
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This paper discusses the role of art in Cold War diplomacy in Yugoslav-US relations between 1961 and 1966. During the 1960s, culture was often, sometimes unwittingly, at other times intentionally, infused with the politics of the Cold War. According to one line of existing scholarship, the rise of US art after WWII and exhibitions of American art abroad amounted to cultural imperialism and a “profound glorifying of American civilization.” These historians persuasively identified the political motives behind the exhibition strategies of American museums, such as MoMA’s promotion of Abstract Expressionism through the International Program of Circulating Exhibitions (established in 1952), or the US Government’s Central Intelligence Agency endorsement of US art through its offices around the world. Accordingly, Abstract Expressionist works were staged as par excellence representations of America’s democratic values, where the messages of freedom and individuality behind the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock were contrasted against the tyranny and totalitarianism of the USSR. Indeed, John Hay Whitney, Chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, explicitly stated that the role of the Museum and of art is to “educate, inspire, and strengthen the hearts and wills of free men in defence of their own freedom.”
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The concept of “dissidence’’ is most often used to denote critical activities directed toward the communist governments of the countries of Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia in the time after Stalin’s death. Its connection to the politics of the Cold War speaks to the fact that the definition was subjected to the widest interpretations and that dissidents were considered individuals or groups ranging from deserters from the communist movement to all those who were dissatisfied with one party rule. From a research point of view the selection of the best definition complicates the politicization of the historical context to which dissidence belongs, the question of value judgments, the problem of “measuring’’ dissident activities, and the personal perceptions of participants/dissidents. For the purposes of this conference a suitable definition of dissidence is any activity which attempted to constitute an autonomous public sphere outside of the official institutions of the party state and by which it opposed the desire of the regime to completely control the public sphere. This opens the possibility of analyzing the complexity of the mosaic of themes exploring different segments of activism in politics and culture: critical approaches, creative detachment from prevailing or official positions – whether the fruit of personal initiative or a group of like-minded individuals – in the recent past. While on a theoretical level dissidence is relatively clear, the attempt to apply some of the concepts in the analysis of historical practice in Croatia/Yugoslavia, or to compare these to situations in other countries of realist socialism, raises many uncertainties, which indicates caution in using historiographical models without regard to specific historical context or period.
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Just as the governments of the other communist countries in Europe, the Yugoslavian government operated within the formula of “challenge and response’’, which was first devised by the once fashionable yet today almost totally forgotten British philosopher of history, Arnold Toynbee. For a long time dissidents were a relative minor threat to the powerful and proud Yugoslav authorities, but gradually, owing to the combination of internal and external events, the dissidents gained in importance and came to play a significant role in the defeat of the political system and the destruction of the Yugoslavian state. This process is the theme of this article.
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