Women’s encounters regarding women’s rights and development in the context of the Cold War | The Romanian Anti-communist Dissidents Reflected by Radio Free Europe
Visegrad Scholarship at OSA
The next event of the Visegrad Scholarship at OSA Lecture Series includes two presentations: Women’s encounters regarding women’s rights and development in the context of the Cold War by Yulia Gradskova, Associate prof. in History and Research Coordinator at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, Sweden; and The Romanian Anti-communist Dissidents Reflected by Radio Free Europe by Camelia Runceanu, PhD in sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, CESSP.
Women’s encounters regarding women’s rights and development in the context of the Cold War
by Yulia Gradskova, Associate prof. in History and Research Coordinator at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, Sweden
The project is dedicated to women’s encounters as part of the international events organized by the transnational Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), often addressed as the “Communist front organization” (including in many archival files held at the Blinken OSA Archivum). In particular, the research focuses on the differences in presentations and evaluations of these encounters that took place at women’s congresses, seminars, and study-trips. This talk will outline the WIDF work with and for women in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and discuss in general terms some of the findings concerning the representation of women’s issues in the archive.
The Romanian Anti-communist Dissidents Reflected by Radio Free Europe
by Camelia Runceanu, PhD in sociology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, CESSP
This research focuses on how Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty viewed Romanian anti-Communist dissent before and after the fall of state Socialism in order to evaluate the subversive role of intellectuals under Communist rule and during the transition to democracy. While intellectual dissent under the Romanian Communist regime appeared to be a rather accidental phenomenon, after 1989 a whole array of previously unrecorded dissidents emerged in the public realm. Since the mid-1970s, RFE/RL provided a platform for Romanian exiles to create a cultural “resistance” movement and intellectual “opposition” in Romania, and served as a legitimizing institution for dissident intellectuals, both in exile and at home. The radio was highly instrumental in shaping the political identities of many prominent Romanian intellectuals and in producing (re)presentations of what is anti-Communist dissent both before and immediately after the demise of Communism.
The presentations will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, May 4, 2023, in the Meeting Room of the Blinken OSA Archivum, and online. The Zoom link of the meeting is: https://ceu-edu.zoom.us/j/99367261350?pwd=cy9QYjlkckdiY2V2UE1XOXNMOGQ4Zz0
