Between Winning and Losing the Cultural Cold War – The Soviet Ministry of Culture and Musical Infrastructures During the Cold War

Wojnowski Zbigniew () and Abesser Michel ()
Additional contact information
Wojnowski Zbigniew: 6396 University of Oxford , Oxford OX1 2JD, UK
Abesser Michel: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg 79098, Germany

New Global Studies, 2025, vol. 19, issue 2, 149-174

Abstract: The article analyzes the Soviet Ministry of Culture in the late Soviet period as an agent facilitating the transfer of music within the socialist bloc and to the West. Conceptualizing Soviet musical infrastructures as an imperfect ensemble of state-run institutions for the production and distribution of music, the article focuses on three case studies to explore how the Ministry, as the organizer of “progressive Soviet musical culture,” navigated the ideological challenges of the Cold War era, the various practical tasks of global music markets, and its diverse audiences. By examining contractual agreements with Western record companies, the mechanisms of music distribution within the socialist bloc, and Soviet concert tours in the Global South, the article carves out the possibilities and limits of Soviet attempts to capitalize on their musical cultures both symbolically and economically.

Keywords: Soviet music; Soviet Ministry of Culture; concert organization; Cold War culture; musical infrastructures; socialist culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2025-0007 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:nglost:v:19:y:2025:i:2:p:149-174:n:1004

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyte ... journal/key/ngs/html

DOI: 10.1515/ngs-2025-0007

Access Statistics for this article

New Global Studies is currently edited by Nayan Chanda, Akira Iriye and Saskia Sassen

More articles in New Global Studies from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().