A COMPLICATED CULTURAL RELATIONSHIP: THE BRITISH COUNCIL IN ROMANIA DURING THE CEAUȘESCU REGIME
Études balkaniques (Sofia) 2024, N 4, DOI: https://doi.org/10.62761/645.EB.LX4.04
Mioara ANTON
Nicolae Iorga Institute of History, Romanian Academy, Romania
Abstract: The article analyses the little-known dimension of cultural exchanges between socialist Romania and the United Kingdom from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. It focuses on both the common and the contrasting cultural interests of the governments in London and Bucharest. The article contributes to the growing scholarship on East-West entanglements beyond the Iron Curtain. It highlights the ambiguity of post-war divisions: ideological tensions co-existed with willingness for rapprochement. Drawing on material from British and Romanian archives, this article argues that the dynamics of cultural relations were influenced by a number of factors which, in the long term, created blockages and crises. The contribution shows that the re-opening of the British Council in Romania was seen by the British government as an essential condition for the development of cultural strategies to keep Romanian society connected to the West. In their turn, the regime in Bucharest sought to use cultural exchanges to gain access to new technologies. Moreover, its representatives tried to limit the negative influences that Western cultural trends could have on Romanian society. The ideological freeze of the 1980s brought this cultural encounter to a standstill: the reopening of the British Council in Romania became a moot issue.
Keyword: British Council, Cold War, Communist Romania, Cultural Diplomacy, the Ceaușescu Regime