East German-Hungarian cultural relations (1949-1973)

Tóth, Ágnes (2024) East German-Hungarian cultural relations (1949-1973). FORUM SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW / FÓRUM TÁRSADALOMTUDOMÁNYI SZEMLE, 26 (5). pp. 83-98. ISSN 2729-9740

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Abstract

After World War II, European countries’ freedom to maneuver and make decisions was largely shaped by the tension between the two major military-political blocs and the obligations arising from the bipolar world order. Although this international status quo, rooted in the intense rivalry between the two sides, remained in place until the early 1990s, by the late 1950s, the arms race stalemate had made it clear to both the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as to the blocs they controlled, that they were mutually dependent and needed to cooperate. The response of Western powers to events like the 1956 uprising in Poznań and the Hungarian Revolution also showed that the United States had abandoned direct support for the East-Central European countries. “Essentially, it was from this point that the so-called softening-up, applied until the late 1980s, began. Its goal was to ‘soften’ the East European regimes by using Western economic aid, concessions, loans, and cultural, and diplomatic relations to pressure these governments into adopting more liberal domestic policies and pursuing a foreign policy less dependent on the Soviet Union. All this, however, occurred not only based on the de facto but also, from the mid-1970s, the de jure recognition of the European status quo” (Békés 2019: 147).

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