Cold War in the Heartland Speaker Series: Victoria Zhuravleva
4/15/21. "How Russia and America's 'Cold War of Images' Ended and Began Again" by Victoria Zhuravleva Abstract: Times change and political leaders come and go in Russia and in the United States, but the long-lived collective and personified images of the other nation are surprisingly resilient, used to resolve domestic political issues and to construct national identities. The Cold War was characterized by clearly delineated and all-encompassing ideas that Americans and Russians had about each other. At that time comparisons between the demonic American/Soviet “Other” and the romantic Soviet/American “Self” played a special role in the fight for the hearts and minds of people all over the world. As the Cold War waned, Russians and Americans began to laugh together, clearing away obstacles on the path to cooperation and mutual understanding, and making fun of the stereotypes they had of each other. But these stereotypes and the images associated with them have not disappeared from media discussions, cinematic representations, and political cartoons on either side of the Atlantic. The current crisis in Russian-American relations has involved the legacy of Cold War imageries and drawn on expressive modes and tools from Cold War discourse, using them for new political purposes. Drawing on extensive research and a wide base of visual sources, this talk addresses a broader set of questions in the context of Russian-American relations. Why did Russians and Americans imagine each other in a particular way in the Cold War era, and why do they continue to do so now? What kinds of discursive practices, both verbal and visual, were used during the Cold War and are still used today to create these images, and how malleable are they? How do these images function as a means of Russian-American communication and self-identification? About the speaker: Prof. Victoria Zhuravleva is Professor of American History and International Relations, ?hair of the American Studies Department and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of International Relations and Area Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia. Her research focuses on American history with a specialization in Russian-American relations and U.S. foreign policy. She published a monograph Understanding Russia in the United States: Images and Myths (in Russian), co-authored a text-book World History of the 20th Century (in Russian), and co-authored a volume Russia and the US: Diplomatic Relations. 1900-1917 (in Russian, 2009). She is editor and co-editor of several volumes on History and Imagology of Russian-American relations as well as on American History, including Russian-American Relations in Past and Present: Images, Myths, and Reality (in Russian), Abraham Lincoln: Lessons of History and the Contemporary World (in Russian), Russia and the United States: Mutual Representations in Textbooks (in Russian, 2009), Russian/Soviet Studies in the United States, Amerikanistika in Russia: Mutual Representations in Academic Projects (in English), War in American Culture: Texts and Contexts (in Russian), Revolution and the Revolutionary Discourse in the USA (in Russian).
4/15/21. "How Russia and America's 'Cold War of Images' Ended and Began Again" by Victoria Zhuravleva Abstract: Times change and political leaders come and go in Russia and in the United States, but the long-lived collective and personified images of the other nation are surprisingly resilient, used to resolve domestic political issues and to construct national identities. The Cold War was characterized by clearly delineated and all-encompassing ideas that Americans and Russians had about each other. At that time comparisons between the demonic American/Soviet “Other” and the romantic Soviet/American “Self” played a special role in the fight for the hearts and minds of people all over the world. As the Cold War waned, Russians and Americans began to laugh together, clearing away obstacles on the path to cooperation and mutual understanding, and making fun of the stereotypes they had of each other. But these stereotypes and the images associated with them have not disappeared from media discussions, cinematic representations, and political cartoons on either side of the Atlantic. The current crisis in Russian-American relations has involved the legacy of Cold War imageries and drawn on expressive modes and tools from Cold War discourse, using them for new political purposes. Drawing on extensive research and a wide base of visual sources, this talk addresses a broader set of questions in the context of Russian-American relations. Why did Russians and Americans imagine each other in a particular way in the Cold War era, and why do they continue to do so now? What kinds of discursive practices, both verbal and visual, were used during the Cold War and are still used today to create these images, and how malleable are they? How do these images function as a means of Russian-American communication and self-identification? About the speaker: Prof. Victoria Zhuravleva is Professor of American History and International Relations, ?hair of the American Studies Department and Vice-Dean of the Faculty of International Relations and Area Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia. Her research focuses on American history with a specialization in Russian-American relations and U.S. foreign policy. She published a monograph Understanding Russia in the United States: Images and Myths (in Russian), co-authored a text-book World History of the 20th Century (in Russian), and co-authored a volume Russia and the US: Diplomatic Relations. 1900-1917 (in Russian, 2009). She is editor and co-editor of several volumes on History and Imagology of Russian-American relations as well as on American History, including Russian-American Relations in Past and Present: Images, Myths, and Reality (in Russian), Abraham Lincoln: Lessons of History and the Contemporary World (in Russian), Russia and the United States: Mutual Representations in Textbooks (in Russian, 2009), Russian/Soviet Studies in the United States, Amerikanistika in Russia: Mutual Representations in Academic Projects (in English), War in American Culture: Texts and Contexts (in Russian), Revolution and the Revolutionary Discourse in the USA (in Russian).