Friendship of the Peoples: Soviet-Czechoslovak cultural and social contacts from the battle for Prague to the Prague Spring, 1945--1969

"Friendship of the Peoples" examines the personalization of international relations in the postwar Eastern Bloc. To unite the region's diverse countries and interests, Soviet and Eastern European Communists employed a policy of transnational friendship (also known as socialist internationalism). This "friendship project" involved a massive propaganda effort and an array of transnational cultural, commercial, and interpersonal contacts, which shaped the everyday lives of Soviet citizens and their counterparts in the satellite states, down to the films they watched, the vacations they took, even the razors and perfumes they bought. "Friendship of the Peoples" presents a case study of Soviet-Czechoslovak cultural and social relations as a challenge to conventional accounts of Sovietization and Soviet empire. I focus on two major sites of Soviet-Czechoslovak friendship: art and culture, including the export and reception of Soviet films, music, and fine art in Czechoslovakia; and interpersonal relations, including student exchanges, tourism, friendship societies, pen pal correspondences, and veterans' relations.;The dissertation charts how Soviet-Czechoslovak relations changed from the end of World War II to the late 1960s. In the immediate aftermath of World War II the majority of Czechoslovakia's politicians and populace supported a close alliance with the Soviet Union. During the Stalinist period, "friendship" between the two countries often functioned as a cover for Soviet domination. Following Stalin's death, the friendship project became more reciprocal (Soviet citizens were encouraged to learn about and celebrate Czech and Slovak culture) and more inclusive (ordinary people in both countries were invited to join friendship societies, travel between the two countries as tourists, and consume commercial goods from both countries). In the 1960s, as the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia began to diverge politically, the strength of these new cultural and interpersonal ties ended up undermining the countries' political alliance. Rather than bring them together, the exchanges of people, media, and goods between the two countries highlighted their increasing differences and functioned as transmission zones for the reformist ideas of the Prague Spring.