CULTURAL CONTACTS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND CHINA IN THE FIELD OF MUSIC AND DRAMA THEATER (50s of the XXth century)

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-106
Author(s):  
Wang Kaidi ◽  

The article is devoted to the cultural cooperation between the USSR and the People's Republic of China in the field of musical theater. The Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance between these two countries, signed in Moscow on February 14, 1950, became a starting point in the development of cultural contacts. The most productive period was from 1949 to early 1960s. An important marker of the development of Soviet-Chinese cultural relations was the tour of theater troupes from both countries to the Soviet Union and the Celestial Empire. The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Musical Theater team visited China in 1954, and later the artists of the Shaoxing Opera and the Shanghai Theater of Beijing Musical Drama demonstrated their art in Russian cities. The two countries' directors showed mutual interest in the classical opera art of their counterparts: in Beijing and Tianjin P. I. Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" and "The Queen of Spades" were performed by Chinese singers, while in Russian cities the traditional Chinese theatre plays "The Spilled Cup" and "The Grey-Haired Girl" were staged by Russian artists.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-149
Author(s):  
A.V. Surzhko ◽  

The article examines the main aspects of Soviet-Chinese cooperation in the field of sports after the normalization of bilateral relations in the late 1980s — early 1990s. Sport was one of the factors that contributed to overcoming the consequences of the thirty-year split between the USSR and the PRC at the state, regional and informal levels. During this period, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China actively exchanged numerous sports delegations, adopting each other's successful experience in organizing and conducting competitions, as well as training athletes. In the USSR, Chinese national sports were popularized, primarily wushu and ping-pong. More traditional for the Soviet side was football, matches in which Soviet and Chinese athletes repeatedly played. Also, the article reveals some economic aspects of sports bilateral cooperation. A common thing for this period was the conclusion of various kinds of agreements and contracts at the interregional level, including those related to the sports component. The personal role of regional party functionaries, sports officials and athletes in the development of Soviet-Chinese relations is shown. There is a certain continuity between the perestroika period and the "golden age" of Soviet-Chinese cooperation in the 1950s. The experience of cooperation in sports gained at the end of perestroika had a beneficial effect on the development of Russian-Chinese relations in the 1990s. The study is carried out on the example of the Irkutsk region, which, due to objective reasons, has developed long-term and strong relations with a number of Chinese cities. The main source of the research was the Irkutsk regional periodicals.


2019 ◽  
pp. 82-133
Author(s):  
Deborah Welch Larson ◽  
Alexei Shevchenko

This chapter argues that both the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) pursued social competition with the Western states while at the same time seeking recognition from the states they were trying to subvert. Stalin sought to increase the power and prestige of the Soviet state through coerced industrialization, and Khrushchev made an effort to “catch up and surpass” the West in economic production. The PRC sought to improve its status by allying with the Soviet Union, but the Chinese chafed under their status as “younger brothers” to their senior ally, and eventually Mao challenged the Soviets for leadership of the international communist movement. In the 1970s, China took advantage of the US need to balance Soviet military power by putting aside communist ideology to become a tacit ally of the United States, part of a “strategic triangle.”


Author(s):  
Andrey A. Avdashkin ◽  
◽  
Igor V. Sibiryakov ◽  
Tatyana V. Raeva

The aim of the article is to examine the process of constructing the images of Stalin and Mao Zedong in the material of Soviet central newspapers on the themes of the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) and Soviet-Chinese friendship. Our focus on the techniques of such constructions allow for dealing with a number of research issues, such as which conceptions of the political leaders were rendered to the Soviet audiences and in which way was this implemented; was there a potential for dynamics in treating the subjects and if this was the case what were the factors that played a role in such dynamics. Data and methods. For our database of primary sources we have chosen the ”Ogonyok” issues published in the period between October 1949 and March 1953. The authors of the present article were interested in references in the magazine texts but also in the images of Stalin and Mao. Hence, the research lens of historical imagology allowed us to examine the images under study as complex synthetical constructions, the constructions that were impacted by inner and outer factors in play in the Soviet society itself, including its political culture, the specific features of representations in the sphere of internationl relations, etc. The illustrative material was used for the sake of further verification and detailization. Results. The ”Ogonyok” material on the theme of Soviet-Chinese friendship included a considerable amount of texts and their visual supplements, with Stalin and Mao as their central personages. The thematical distribution of the database has shown that its main themes are Soviet-Chinese friendship described in hierarchical terms as the ”teacher-pupil” relationship, the achievements of socialist transformation in China, etc. Conclusions. The personification of the images of the leaders of the USSR and the PRC was designed to promote the positive attitudes towards the main Soviet ally, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to contribute to the legitimization of the USSR’s leading position not only in the Soviet-Chinese interaction, but in the whole of the Socialist world as well. Mao’s leading role in the transformations of the Chinese society confirmed to the Soviet audiences the correctness of the development model in the Soviet Union itself. Numerous presentations of the good will with which the Chinese side was ready to follow the ”Stalin recipe” in building socialism served as a marker that the ”great friendship” was under Moscow’s control.


2015 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 261-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cole Roskam

The current international attention devoted to contemporary Chinese-financed and constructed development in Africa has tended to obscure complex and multivalent histories of the relationships between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and numerous African nations; and many of these histories date back decades. The ideological origins behind socialist China’s engagement with Africa, and the geopolitical dynamics that continue to propel them forward, trace back to the time of Chairman Mao Zedong, who first coined the term ‘intermediate zone’ in 1946 to position the vast expanse of contested territories and undecided loyalties existing between the ideological poles of the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II. Nine years later (1955), at the first Non-Aligned Movement conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai declared thatever since modern times most of the countries of Asia and Africa in varying degrees have been subjected to colonial plunder and oppression, and have thus been forced to remain in a stagnant state of poverty and backwardness […]. We need to develop our countries independently with no outside interference and in accordance with the will of the people.


Author(s):  
Thomas J. Christensen

This chapter examines the Sino-Soviet split and its implications for the United States' policies in Asia, Europe, and the Americas during the period 1956–1964. Coordination and comity in the communist camp peaked between 1953 and 1957, but alliance between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China (PRC) was relatively short-lived. This was caused by ideological differences, distrust, and jealous rivalries for international leadership between Nikita Khrushchev and Mao Zedong. The chapter explains what caused the strain in Sino-Soviet relations, and especially the collapse of Sino-Soviet military and economic cooperation. It also considers the effects of the Sino-Soviet disputes on third-party communists in Asia, China's foreign policy activism, and the catalytic effect of the Sino-Soviet split on Soviet foreign policy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-205
Author(s):  
Liyuan Wang

In recent years, the recovery and compilation of the oral histories of scientists has attracted increasing attention. The focus of the research has also expanded from individual experiences to collective experience. As part of the Project on Collecting the Historical Data of Chinese Scientists’ Academic Life, and following the norms of historiography, I and other team members compiled oral interviews and accounts of Chinese scientists trained in the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. Through the procedures of data collection, candidate selection, framework construction and detailed presentation, I compiled the oral accounts of 16 Soviet-educated Chinese scientists, supplemented by photos, annotations and other information. These materials describe the lived circumstances and feelings of those scientists in the early days of the People’s Republic of China and recreate the collective experience of this generation of scientists from multiple angles.


2019 ◽  
Vol 135 ◽  
pp. 03050
Author(s):  
Sergei Mezentsev

The purpose of this article is a comprehensive review of spatial and urban planning, and zoning in modern Russia. The starting point of the study is the experience of territorial, urban planning and zoning of the Soviet Union, which has achieved significant success in this area of activity. To achieve this goal, we used the books of modern Russian researchers and the author’s publications of this article, as well as materials posted on the Internet, applied philosophical and scientific approaches and research methods: systemic, dialectic, socio-humanitarian, anthropological, environmental, aesthetic and cybernetic approaches, as well as methods of observation, analysis, synthesis, analogy, comparison, generalization. As a result of the study, many negative phenomena and mistakes made in the territorial planning, zoning and urban development of post-Soviet Russia were revealed: the system was lost, the laws of dialectics are violated, there is no synergy between state structures and civil society, there is an excessive concentration of the population in Moscow and the Moscow region, it isn’t possible to provide comfortable and safe living conditions for each person and, the most importantly, environmental problems in cities and neighboring territories become more acute.


2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1022-1041 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ville Laamanen

Existing scholarship suggests that Stalin’s Great Terror of 1936–8 seriously undermined Soviet cultural diplomacy and forced its main promoter, the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS), to succumb to the strict control of the party and secret police. By contrast, this article argues that by the spring and summer of 1939 VOKS was recovering from stagnation and reintroducing customs from before the Great Terror. Through a micro-historical analysis of Finnish writer Olavi Paavolainen’s exceptionally long visit to the Soviet Union between May and August 1939, the article demonstrates how case studies of select VOKS operations can explain many of the dilemmas and peculiarities of Soviet cultural diplomacy during the thus far scantily researched 1939–41 period. By focusing on the interactions between Paavolainen, the VOKS vice-chairman Grigori Kheifets and Soviet writers, the article illustrates that after the purges, VOKS continued its efforts to disseminate a positive and controlled image of Soviet life by complex means that linked propaganda with network-building. Finally, the article highlights the role of individuals in cultural diplomacy and explores how an outsider perceived the Great Terror’s effects on Soviet cultural intelligentsia.


1961 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-165 ◽  

The first part of the fifteenth session of the General Assembly met at UN Headquarters from September 20 through December 20, 1960, when it was adjourned. The second part of the session was to open on March 7, 1961. At the opening plenary meeting, Mr. Frederick R. Boland (Ireland) was elected President of the session, having obtained 46 votes out of a possible 80. At the same meeting, the Assembly's 864th, the following fourteen countries were admitted to membership in the UN: the Republic of Cameroun, the Togolese Republic, the Malagasy Republic, the Republic of Somalia, the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville), the Republic of Dahomey, the Republic of the Niger, the Republic of Upper Volta, the Republic of the Ivory Coast, the Republic of Chad, the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), the Republic of Gabon, the Central African Republic, and the Republic of Cyprus. At the 876th plenary meeting, the Republics of Senegal and Mali were admitted to membership, as was the Federation of Nigeria at the 893 d meeting, thereby bringing the total membership of the UN to 99. A special report of the Security Council on the subject of the admission to membership of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, considered by the Assembly at its 954th meeting, noted the failure of the Council to recommend Mauritania for admission; the Assembly decided to postpone indefinitely further consideration of the question. At its 895th plenary meeting, the Assembly adopted by a vote of 42 to 34, with 22 abstentions, the recomementation contained in the report of the General Committee that the Assembly reject the request of the Soviet Union for the inclusion in its agenda of the question of the representation of China in the UN, and decided not to consider at its fifteenth session any proposals to exclude the representatives of the government of the Republic of China (Nationalist) or to seat representatives of the government of the People's Republic of China (Communist). With regard to the representation in the UN of the Congo (Leopoldville), the General Assembly, at its 924th meeting, adopted by 53 votes to 24, with 19 abstentions, the draft resolution recommended by the Credentials Committee in its report; the Assembly thereby accepted the credentials issued by the head of state (President Joseph Kasavubu) and communicated by him to the President of the Assembly.


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