Soviet influence on Cuban culture, 1961-1987: when the Soviets came to stay
- Submitting institution
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Nottingham Trent University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 49 - 1315275
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
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- Publisher
- Lexington Books
- ISBN
- 9781498580113
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- December
- Year of publication
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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A - Artistic Research Centre
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This monograph on the cultural relationship between Cuba and the USSR between 1961 and 1987, was written over 5 years. Its primary sources are 200h of interview data from 29 interviews collected in Cuba over 2y from people in positions of power within different cultural apparatuses and extensive documentary materials (in Spanish or Russian), published for the first time. The research made information newly accessible - the printed sources were difficult to access, but became available as networks were built up through the interviews. The methodology enables hitherto unavailable insights into specific moments in Cuba’s revolutionary history.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This book examines, for the first time in scholarly analysis, the crucial, although little studied, cultural relationship between Cuba and the USSR. Its distinctive feature is its use of interviews that were conducted in Cuba, where it is often particularly difficult to access interviewees. Interview subjects included individuals active during the periods examined and individuals that occupied, or occupy, significant positions of power within different cultural apparatuses. This provides hitherto unavailable insights into specific moments in Cuba’s revolutionary history, such as controversial events, and periods of crisis, wider organisational approaches and the perceived emphases placed on heritage, all of which are supported by a wealth of primary materials (consulted in their original Spanish or Russian), many of which appear for the first time in an academic study in English or otherwise.
Understanding of the Cuban-Soviet relationship continues to be informed and limited by Cold War binaries. These common assumptions mean little has been written about real Soviet influence on Cuban culture, and different sub-periods during the 30-year alliance. Examining the Soviet influence on Cuban culture, specifically the theatre and the visual arts, between 1961 and 1987, this work offers a more nuanced and expansive analysis of the Cuban-Soviet alliance. It explores the links between cultural and political priorities and nation building goals of the revolutionary leadership and their alignment with and divergence from the aims of the Soviet government, analysing the organisation of cultural interactions between the two countries. It demonstrates that culture acted as a discursive space in which deliberations about the nature of the Cuban Revolution could take place in a way that they could not in other spheres, concluding that throughout the period studied, the USSR occupied a conflicting position, acting as both a model to be learned from as well as a force to be resisted.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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