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- Convenors:
-
Daria Zelenova
(Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences)
Daria Turianitsa (Institute for African Studies)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Stream:
- Images of the living and dead
- Location:
- Virtual+Room 1221
- Sessions:
- Friday 10 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Berlin
Short Abstract:
At this panel we would like to discuss how anti-colonial image production developed during the Cold War period, what kinds of visual narratives were created, and how the anti-colonial struggle was viewed by different actors (both state and non-state) in the USSR and the socialist world.
Long Abstract:
The crucial 1960s phase of decolonization coincided with the global tensions of the Cold War, providing many African actors with the opportunity to travel to Socialist Bloc countries and meet their supporters in person. Images of these Third World Solidarities appeared in propaganda posters, cartoons in printed periodicals, films, and smaller and less official visual art objects, such as the wall newspapers and drawings of schoolchildren. In the USSR as well as in the so-called 'countries of socialist orientation', hundreds of propaganda leaflets and posters depicted the socialist world's internationalist solidarity with the anti-imperialist struggle. Whether shaped by the artists' own perceptions of colonialism and anti-colonialism, and their views of the oppressed and the liberated, these images became part of their anti-colonial narratives.
This panel invites contributions that look particularly into the ways Soviet and other Socialist orientated artists and filmmakers represented the African anti-colonial struggles (including films, photography, cartoons and posters), and seeks to explore what visual narratives were produced during the Cold War period. To what extent were these images shaped by Africans coming to visit, study and train in socialist countries and the USSR? Were African comrades part of this image creation? We are interested in contributions that could reflect on questions of mutual anti-colonial art and the complexities of visual production during the Cold War.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 10 June, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the visual language of the Africa-themed posters produced in the Soviet Union, reflecting unintended messages about attitudes, misconceptions and stereotypes held by Soviet artists and their audiences and the Soviet state's aspirations to construct a model citizen-internationalist
Paper long abstract:
The Soviet Union Propaganda machine had the crucial and strategic task of asserting its ideological stance on the international arena and positioning the Soviet Union as an ideological and political ally of the African nations fighting for their liberation from colonial and other forms of oppression. Cultural diplomacy expressed via visual means in the form of propaganda posters was just one of its manifestations. It was directed not just outwards to the international allies and wider world but primarily towards Soviet State's citizens, intending to project a self-image of brotherhood, world leadership, and unity in the struggle against the oppressors and aggressors on the African continent and beyond. Hundreds of state-sanctioned images were produced over several decades reflecting not just the political agenda of the country’s leadership but capturing unintended messages about attitudes, misconceptions and stereotypes about Africa held by Soviet artists and their audiences and the aspirations (not always successful) of the Soviet state to construct a model citizen-internationalist. The paper examines the visual language employed in the posters and the revealing tropes used in the representation of the African continent and its people. The paper references ongoing research conducted on a privately-owned collection of over thirty original posters spanning thirty years from the late nineteen fifties until the nineteen-eighties and based in South Africa.
Paper short abstract:
In our paper we will look at anti-colonial and anti-apartheid cartoons from Krokodil (Crocodile), the most popular satirical magazine in the USSR, and trace how these changed over time, from the active 1960s, when Africa became the main object of attention for the USSR, to the end of the 1980s.
Paper long abstract:
From the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s, when the USSR systematically provided considerable material support to the African national liberation movements, the narrative of internationalism and solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the Third World re-emerged and developed in Soviet society. As various studies have shown, ordinary Soviet citizens started to have more everyday contacts with Africans, either with students or with guests of the cultural and youth festivals held across the country. Despite rather limited contacts, Soviet people were well aware of events taking place on the African continent due to the Soviet media’s active news agenda. The satirical magazine Krokodil played a major role in these dynamics, contributing to the Soviets’ understanding of anti-colonial struggles. Being one of the most popular printed publications of the time, with a circulation of 6.5 million copies, its issues reached the most remote corners of the USSR. While Krokodil carried a progressive message by disseminating visual images of the struggle of the oppressed and denouncing imperialism and the abuses of the apartheid regime, its images were not totally devoid of orientalist stereotypes and political clichés. The paper reflects on the aesthetic, cultural and political meanings of the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid drawings published in numerous issues of Krokodil and explores the limitations of this visual material given its production in the context of global Cold War narratives and their shaping by the views and imaginaries of the Soviet cartoonists themselves.
Paper short abstract:
The image of Africa in the USSR was a product of considered politics and propaganda. The coverage of it included anti-racist struggle and solidarity, sometimes was used as a tool in Cold War. The paper reviews the Soviet cinema, especially 1960s -1980s, devoted to the African anti-colonial struggle
Paper long abstract:
The Soviet propaganda had created the positive image of Africa and black people were "socially close and full of merits". This image contrasted with the image of an «alien foreigner», always “white, rich and fat” bourgeois. The public manifestation of race intolerance was inadmissible. Yet over the years the Soviet propaganda put the pressure upon society so intensively that rare manifestations of racism in private life were a paradoxical form of local dissidence – a sort of reaction to official internationalism.
Race intolerance and inequality were the permanent themes of Soviet propaganda, literature, cinema, photography, cartoons and posters. It was widely covered by soviet mass media, along with universal questions of oppressions, exploitation and wealth inequality. From the 1960 - the Year of Africa - the Soviet mass media, documentary and features films focused on African independence and anti-colonial struggle.
Later in the 1970s - 1980s we see how the Soviet propaganda responded to the changing world. The images of Africans (countries as a whole and individuals) were divided on whose good, supported by the Soviet Union, and bad, collaborating with “American imperialists”.
The paper investigates Soviet cinema, especially 1960 - early 1980th, devoted to the African anti-colonial struggle. Some of them were forgotten (possibly undeservedly), other become classic (from children cartoon «Vacation of Bonifacea» to Soviet spy miniseries «TASS id Authorised to Declare…»). We look through complex way of presentation, interpretation and perception of Africa and Africans, anti-colonial struggle, internationalism and solidarity, as well as ideological and racial prejudices (Blackface etc.).
Paper short abstract:
The paper will discuss two solidarity documentaries that were shot by Soviet film crews in the liberated areas of Angola and Mozambique in 1970 and 1971 during the independence struggles of the MPLA and FRELIMO. By analysing both films, I demonstrate parallel narratives depicted on film, and the balance between the aim to represent the militant voices of African men and women and the filmmakers’ own view of the anti-colonial liberation struggles.
Paper long abstract:
The paper will discuss two solidarity documentaries that were shot by Soviet film crews in the liberated areas of Angola and Mozambique in 1970 and 1971 during the independence struggles of the MPLA and FRELIMO: Guerrilla Trails of Angola and Viva Frelimo! In the early 1970s, a group of Soviet journalists and cinematographers was secretly sent to these liberated areas to bring back a message about the local liberation struggles to the Soviet audience back home. Both films were made at a time when the USSR had decided to go public about its military assistance to the Lusophone liberation movements and thus mark an important moment in the history of the Cold War. Produced at famous Soviet studios in the genre of war solidarity documentaries (Djagalov, 2020), both films reflect a striking combination of various military narratives. The Soviet voiceover inscribes the liberation struggle of MPLA into the Great Patriotic War narrative, reinforcing this effect by means of music taken from Soviet war films. While the African militant voice is depicted in silent scenes of lessons at the shooting ranges, attacks on Portuguese garrisons, and reconnaissance guerrilla trips, the focus on the establishment of peaceful life in the liberated areas is crucial in both cases. By analysing both films, I demonstrate parallel narratives depicted on film, and the balance between the aim to represent the militant voices of African men and women and the filmmakers’ own view of the anti-colonial liberation struggles.