Kyrill Kunakhovich, "Communism's Public Sphere: Culture as Politics in Cold War Poland and East Germany"
English | ISBN: 1501767046 | 2023 | 354 pages | PDF | 7 MB
Communism's Public Sphere explores the political role of cultural spaces in the Eastern Bloc. Under communist regimes that banned free speech, political discussions shifted to spaces of art: theaters, galleries, concert halls, and youth clubs. Kyrill Kunakhovich shows how these venues turned into sites of dialogue and contestation. While officials used them to spread the communist message, artists and audiences often flouted state policy and championed alternative visions. Cultural spaces therefore came to function as a public sphere, or a rare outlet for discussing public affairs.