Tchaikovsky 19, A Diplomatic Life Behind the Iron Curtain
Tchaikovsky 19, A Diplomatic Life Behind the Iron Curtain

Author: Robert F. Ober

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1425778461

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"Readers will discover the failures of Kissinger ́s policy of detente in the early 1970s, the mistaken departure from Carter ́s balanced policy toward China and the USSR, and the near-collapse of the embassy due to intelligence failures"-Foreign Service Journal. "Ober ́s book recounts it all, along with the personalities and events of the time now mostly forgotten: dissidents and refuseniks, Victor and Jennifer Louis, Nina and Ed Stevens, U.S.-Soviet summits, microwaves, bugged buildings and typewriters, fires, spy dust and spy mania . . . It ́s all there, the pageant of U.S. Embassy Moscow 1970-90, a place so unlike today ́s walled air-conditioned, high-rise embassy fortress a block away as to beggar the imagination."-Richard Gilbert, AmericanDiplomacy.org "You have wonderfully captured the way things were in the Soviet Union in the 1970s and ́80s. I don ́t know anyone who has done it better."-Donald Connery, former Time-Life correspondent, Moscow. "Together with much wisdom about American diplomacy, this rich memoir provides keen insight into Russian thinking and behavior"-George Feifer, "The Girl from Petrovka".

When the World Stopped to Listen
When the World Stopped to Listen

Author: Stuart Isacoff

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2017-04-18

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0385352190

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From the acclaimed author of A Natural History of the Piano, the captivating story of the 1958 international piano competition in Moscow, where, at the height of Cold War tensions, an American musician showed the potential of art to change the world. April of 1958--the Iron Curtain was at its heaviest, and the outcome of the Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition seemed preordained. Nonetheless, as star musicians from across the globe descended on Moscow, an unlikely favorite emerged: Van Cliburn, a polite, lanky Texan whose passionate virtuosity captured the Russian spirit. This is the story of what unfolded that spring--for Cliburn and the other competitors, jurors, party officials, and citizens of the world who were touched by the outcome. It is a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most remarkable events in musical history, filled with political intrigue and personal struggle as artists strove for self-expression and governments jockeyed for prestige. And, at the core of it all: the value of artistic achievement, the supremacy of the heart, and the transcendent freedom that can be found, through music, even in the darkest moments of human history.

Living My Life
Living My Life

Author: Emma Goldman

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 1970-01-01

Total Pages: 532

ISBN-13: 9780486225449

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The autobiography of the early radical leader and her participation in communist, anarchist, and feminist activities

Russian Émigré Culture
Russian Émigré Culture

Author: Christoph Flamm

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1443863661

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A quarter of a century ago, glasnost opened the door for a new look at Russian émigré culture unimpeded by the sterile concepts of Cold War cultural politics. Easier access to archives and a comprehensive approach to culture as a multi-faceted phenomenon, not restricted to single phenomena or individuals, have since contributed to a better understanding of the processes within the émigré community, of its links with the lost home country, and of the interaction with the cultural life of the countries of adoption. This volume offers a collection of critical articles that resulted from the international interdisciplinary symposium which was held at Saarland University in November 2011 as part of a one-week festival, “Russian Music in Exile”. Scholars from around the world contributed essays reflecting current perspectives on Russian émigré culture, shedding new light on cultural diplomacy, literature, art, and music, and covering essentially the whole 20th century, from pre-revolutionary movements to the present. The interdisciplinary approach of the volume shows that émigré networks were not confined to a particular segment of culture, but united composers, artists, critics, and even diplomats. On the whole, the contributions to this volume document the fascinating diversity, the internal contradictions, as well as the impact that the largest and most durable émigré movement of the 20th century had on European cultural life.

My Life
My Life

Author: Leon Trotsky

Publisher: Wellred Books

Published: 2023-03-02

Total Pages: 719

ISBN-13:

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Since My Life was first published it has been regarded as a unique political, literary and human document. Written in the first year of Trotsky's exile in Turkey, it contains the earliest authoritative account of the rise of Stalinism and the expulsion of the Left Opposition, who heroically fought for the ideas and traditions of Lenin. Trotsky's exile is the culmination of a narrative which moves from his childhood, his education in the "universities" of Tsarist prisons, Siberia and then foreign exile - to his involvement in the European revolutionary movement and his central role in the tempestuous 1905 revolution and the Bolshevik victory in October 1917 and the civil war which followed. The work concludes with his deportation and exile. With an introduction by Alan Woods and a preface by Trotsky's grandson, Vsievolod Volkov.

International Relations, Music and Diplomacy
International Relations, Music and Diplomacy

Author: Frédéric Ramel

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-01-22

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 3319631632

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This volume explores the interrelation of international relations, music, and diplomacy from a multidisciplinary perspective. Throughout history, diplomats have gathered for musical events, and musicians have served as national representatives. Whatever political unit is under consideration (city-states, empires, nation-states), music has proven to be a component of diplomacy, its ceremonies, and its strategies. Following the recent acoustic turn in IR theory, the authors explore the notion of “musical diplomacies” and ask whether and how it differs from other types of cultural diplomacy. Accordingly, sounds and voices are dealt with in acoustic terms but are not restricted to music per se, also taking into consideration the voices (speech) of musicians in the international arena. Read an interview with the editors here: https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/international-relations-music-and-diplomacy-sounds-and-voices-international-stage

New Beginnings
New Beginnings

Author: Antonina Duridanova

Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.

Published: 2021-06-03

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1649521103

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Burning with desire to share the value of freedom, Antonina takes you from her plight in communist Bulgaria to the free shores of America. Following unfortunate events of life in a totalitarian regime in Bulgaria, Antonina bids goodbye to her homeland and flees to the Western world. She provides true experiences and observations of what life is in a communist society-her family's lands and cattle being confiscated by the agricultural labor cooperatives; the censorship of the press and any literal, artistic, and scientific works from the West; religion being prohibited; and any deviation from the norm leading to detention in a labor camp. Her last crossing of the Bulgarian-Yugoslavian border almost costs Antonina her life and makes up her mind to never go back. She describes her life as an immigrant at the refugee camp in Traiskirchen, Austria, while waiting for an American visa. Antonina is ecstatic when the plane cruises over the Statue of Liberty and lands in the most amazing city in the world-New York. She describes how she could taste, smell, feel, and touch freedom as she gets off the plane, ready to embark on new adventures. Antonina gets educated and becomes a good specialist in taxation, working for the United States Treasury Department. Ultimately, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, she is invited to go back to Bulgaria and fix a broken tax system as a representative of the United States government. Her work in the newly democratic society of Bulgaria paved the way for the country to become a member of NATO, escaping Soviet influence, and later being accepted in the family of the European Union. 20

Soviet Internationalism after Stalin
Soviet Internationalism after Stalin

Author: Tobias Rupprecht

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-08-06

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1316381293

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The Soviet Union is often presented as a largely isolated and idiosyncratic state. Soviet Internationalism after Stalin challenges this view by telling the story of Soviet and Latin American intellectuals, students, political figures and artists, and their encounters with the 'other' from the 1950s through the 1980s. In this first multi-archival study of Soviet relations with Latin America, Tobias Rupprecht reveals that, for people in the Second and Third Worlds, the Cold War meant not only confrontation with an ideological enemy but also increased interconnectedness with distant world regions. He shows that the Soviet Union looked quite different from a southern rather than a Western point of view and also charts the impact of the new internationalism on the Soviet Union itself in terms of popular perceptions of the USSR's place in the world and its political, scientific, intellectual and cultural reintegration into the global community.