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Article by Max Trecker and Sören Urbansky Published in "Cold War History"

Reporting on China in the Eastern bloc press

11.10.2018

Max Trecker, alumnus of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, and Sören Urbansky, former research associate at LMU Munich's Chair for Russian and Asian Studies, jointly have written an article on press reports about China in the Eastern bloc between 1956 and 1969.

Their article with the title "Kremlinology revisited: the nuances of reporting on China in the Eastern bloc press" is part of the journal's special issue "Beyond the Kremlin’s Reach? Eastern Europe and China in the Cold War Era". Guest editors are Jan Zofka, Péter Vámos and Sören Urbansky.

Max Trecker was doctoral candidate at the Graduate School in Munich from 2013 to 2017. He has completed a doctoral dissertation about "The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) and the Economic Side of the Cold War in the Global South". Since 2017 he is a research associate of The Institute of Contemporary History, working in Berlin.

Sören Urbansky was research associate at LMU Munich's Chair for Russian/Asian Studies between 2014 and 2017. in 2016 and 2017 he was also attached to the Department of Social Anthropology of the University of Cambridge as postdoctoral fellow. Since early 2018 he is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C.

Abstract

Based on the assumption that the media was part of the intra-bloc diplomacy in eastern Europe, we explore the official portrayal of China in the East German, Hungarian and Polish press. Focusing on the Great Leap Forward, Sino-Indian War and Cultural Revolution, we analyse not only what was reported, but also how news were structured and what language was used. Disparities indicate that the uncertainty of future relations between Moscow and Beijing, combined with disagreements between Moscow and its satellites, forced the leaderships to adapt to new circumstances but simultaneously created leeway for their own political agendas.

Sören Urbansky & Max Trecker: Kremlinology revisited: the nuances of reporting on China in the Eastern bloc press. In: Cold War History, 18 (3), 2018, pp. 307-324. DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2018.1458093.