Short Abstract:

The roundtable is designed as discussion of newest findings on aspects of the role of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the decolonisation of Africa. Participants in the round table illuminate aspects of this history, whilst emphasizing legacies and reverberations up until the present day.

Long Abstract:

The roundtable will draw on new sources to explore some of the networks that were shaped through the movement of individuals and ideas from Africa to the "East" and from the "East" to Africa in the decades in which African countries moved to independence. The history of the ties that existed between African liberation movements and the socialist bloc will be of particular interest. Following the conference theme, participants in the round table will on the one hand illuminate selected aspects of this history, whilst on the other hand emphasizing legacies and reverberations of these contacts up until the present day. The global multilateral conflicts during the Cold War era were based not only on military clashes, recent scholarship shows, but also on large-scale assistance to decolonized states such as humanitarian aid, trade exchange, scholarships, and transfer of expertise. Entanglements range from diplomacy in the field of nuclear policies to the circulation of imaginaries through movies and still images. Teasing out the economic, political and cultural dimension, the roundtable is designed as discussion of newest findings on aspects of the role of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the decolonisation of Africa, simultaneously serving as book launch of a collective volume published by the panelists in the first half of 2023 (with a small reception, kindly organised by De Gruyter, Berlin).