Suchergebnisse

Exemplifying small-state diplomacy in the straitjacket of Soviet geopolitics, the foreign policy of socialist Bulgaria was a matter of precarious 'manoeuvring' – a word that Todor Zhivkov, head of state and party until 1989, often used to selfcongratulate his political shrewdness. 2 Towards the West, his was a strategy of manoeuvring national interests in uncharted waters around the 'icebergs' of superpower geopolitics. ; The research leading to this article is part of the project PanEur1970s, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [Grant Agreement No. 669194]

First published online: 19 September 2019 ; This paper investigates Bulgaria's trade strategy towards the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1970s: a decade of intensified economic exchange between East and West thanks to détente and, simultaneously, of growing trade barriers due to the consolidation of the Common Market. The successes and failures of Bulgaria's endeavours are discussed through a study of economic cooperation with Denmark before and after its accession to the EEC in 1973. The main argument is that while Bulgarian economic policy focused on the rising regulatory impediments to trade with EEC members, it neglected the structural deficiencies of Bulgarian export production. Thereby, Bulgarian state officials strove to resolve foreign trade problems through diplomatic negotiations over customs regulations upheld by their Western partners instead of advancing domestic economic reforms. This argument is supported by analysis of intergovernmental economic negotiations and trade deals between Bulgaria and Denmark during the 1970s. It highlights the different ways in which Bulgarian trade envoys in Copenhagen and top officials at home evaluated recurrent problems in accessing the Danish market and formulated solutions for these problems. Thus, rather than tackling internal structural problems, the blueprints for Bulgaria's foreign trade focused on external foes, namely trade discrimination against socialist countries ; The research leading to this article is part of the project PanEur1970s, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme [Grant Agreement No. 669194]

The socialist reconstruction of Sofia evolved at the juncture of institution-building, formation of professional expertise and social engineering, framed by a party ideology in a flux that time and again revised the social mission of urbanism and the professional role of the architect. This paper first focuses on four areas of Sofia's reconstruction that illustrate the interplay of ideology and urbanism in the Stalinist years: the endorsement and subsequent betrayal of Marxist guidelines for urban planning; the replication of the leader cult and its prime monument, the Mausoleum; the reorganization of architects into a Soviet-style professional union; the application of the Stalinist art canon in monumental architecture. The paper then discusses how de-Stalinization affected urban planning, public architecture and architects' professional standing. It concludes by reflecting on the post-1989 transformation of Sofia as a radical breach with socialism or a symptom of path dependence.

Published online 12. Sep 2017 ; The news about the recent Hungarian legislation that threatens the existence of the Central European University (CEU), known as 'Lex CEU', was received with mixed, sometimes strong feelings in the Bulgarian public. Bulgaria is a country that has its own love/hate tradition with George Soros. Its political class has profited quite a lot from his support over the years, even if many former grant recipients today would rather contest Soros' visions of an open society. Indeed, the current state of affairs in Bulgarian politics and society suggests clear anti-liberal tendencies and a recourse to militant nationalism. Yet, as I will argue in this article, this is not really a new phenomenon. Instead, the developments in the country over the last decade and more rather point to a stable trend towards increasing illiberalism that is accelerated by rampant elite corruption and an ever decreasing media independence.

The post-war boom in international travel made tourism a question for international diplomacy. Focusing on the growth of bilateral tourism agreements during the Cold War, this article shows how the meaning of tourism was negotiated by and between governments on either side of the East–West divide. While previous research on tourism in the Cold War has focused on the threat tourist traffic posed to national security in socialist states, the present study also considers the dilemmas it presented to liberal democracies. The article analyses the intersections of tourism with issues of foreign trade, cultural exchange and human contacts, which shaped the contestations over tourism throughout the Cold War.

The comparative presentation of the birth of metropolises like St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Kiev, Belgrade, or Athens confirms the importance of the Western model as well as the influence of international experts on city planning at the periphery of Europe. In addition, this volume presents an alternative perspective that aims to understand the genesis of Eastern European cities with a metropolitan character or metropolitan aspirations as a process sui generis. The rapid expansion of metropolitan cities such as London and Paris began in the 17th and 18th centuries. Large parts of Central and Eastern Europe underwent urbanization and industrialization with considerable delay. Nevertheless beginning in the second half of the 19th century, the towns in the Romanov and Habsburg empires, as well as in the Balkans grew into cities and metropolitan areas. They changed at an astonishing pace. This transformation has long been interpreted as an attempt to overcome the economic and cultural backwardness of the region and to catch up to Western Europe