In The Cold War from the Margins, Theodora K. Dragostinova reappraises the global 1970s from the perspective of a small socialist state-Bulgaria-and its cultural engagements with the Balkans, the West, and the Third World. During this anxious decade, Bulgaria's communist leadership invested heavily in cultural diplomacy to bolster its legitimacy at home and promote its agendas abroad. Bulgarians traveled the world to open museum exhibitions, show films, perform music, and showcase the cultural heritage and future aspirations of their "ancient yet modern" country.

As Dragostinova shows, these encounters transcended the Cold War's bloc mentality: Bulgaria's relations with Greece and Austria warmed, emigres once considered enemies were embraced, and new cultural ties were forged with India, Mexico, and Nigeria. Pursuing contact with the West and solidarity with the Global South boosted Bulgaria's authoritarian regime by securing new allies and unifying its population. Complicating familiar narratives of both the 1970s and late socialism, The Cold War from the Margins places the history of socialism in an international context and recovers alternative models of global interconnectivity along East-South lines.

Thanks to generous funding from The Ohio State University Libraries and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

About the Author

Theodora K. Dragostinova is Associate Professor of History at The Ohio State University. She is coeditor of Beyond Mosque, Church, and State and author of Between Two Motherlands. Follow her on X @theodora_dragos.

Reviews

It is not possible to do justice to such a rich book in a review of this length. Theodosia K. Dragostinova has written an excellent book, full of concrete examples and pertinent comments, which is a valuable contribution to the comparative history of the Cultural Cold War. It is sophisticated, theoretically aware, and scholarly.

* Eurasian Geography and Economics *

There are major contributions that this study brings to the history of the Cold War, Eastern Europe, and even world history.

* H-Net Reviews *

In six detailed chapters, the author presents a wealth of information meant to reveal the ability of that small Balkan state to chart an active international agenda at a time when small states dominated discussions of the new world order.

* Choice *

In a remarkable new book, Theodora Dragostinova offers a thought-provoking account of the efforts of a small state to attain global cultural stature during the final decades of the Cold War.This provocative argument forces us to rethink our standard conceptualizations of power hierarchies during the Cold War.

* The Middle Ground Journal *

Theodora K. Dragostinova account indicates that Bulgaria's case is critical for understanding simultaneously the actorness and the historical experience of small states on the margins in playing on the world stage.

* Ab Imperio *

Dragostinova's vibrant account of Bulgarian cultural initiatives in the long 1970s is driven by a method-as-argument she calls a "pericentric approach."

* Ab Imperio *

This fine book meets all its stated goals and offers more. At its simplest, it narrates the story of national branding through culture (aptly defined as cultural extravaganza), when tiny Bulgaria organized 38,854 cultural events across the world between 1977 and 1981 to highlight its history and achievements, coinciding with the 1,300th anniversary of the state's creation.

* Austrian History Yearbook *


Awards
Joint winner of John D. Bell Memorial Book Prize 2023 (United States). Commended for The Heldt Prize by Association for Women in Slavic Studies 2022 (United States) and Barbara Heldt Prize for Best Book by a woman in any area of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781501755552
Author Theodora Dragostinova
Format Paperback
Page Count 330
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 19mm