One of the most prevalent quotes of the first chapters is when the author states, “To get to ‘know’ the Soviet Union was no longer a process of discovery, comparison, and analysis as it had been during the Third Republic, but of memorization, performance, and ritual” (Applebaum 45). In fact, the Soviet Union had poured numerous hours of films and other realist art into Czechoslovakia in order to pull them into the fold of Eastern influence. The first chapter explores just how ineffective these methods were and how the entirety of this time focuses on how Czechoslovakians wished to retain their national identity. Several times Applebaum makes clear that “Brdecka also mentioned that Czechoslovak viewers were too Westernized and sophisticated to enjoy Soviet films. He claimed that Soviet films were made exclusively with the needs of Soviet audiences in mind– people who are in some regions, still very unrefined and primitive” (Applebaum 38). Applebaum even goes so far as to point out that, “By drawing on stereotypes of the unrefined earthy Russian soul… posited the USSR as a foil for a more sophisticated, Western, and modern [Czechoslovakia]…” (Applebaum 41). These quotes and others exemplify the need for Czechoslovakians to retain their national identity and become an amalgamation, a nexus really, of bother Western and Eastern ideologies. The question, I have then for discussion and to put to you, is how influential was that bombardment of propaganda? Could the Soviet Union have created (or even heeded to the criticisms of Czechoslovakians) propaganda that illustrated the USSR as refined and sophisticated? Or, do you think that ideologically (meaning through the Soviet Communistic lens) it was not possible and the Czechoslovakians were never going to be persuaded into the pure Eastern influence?
Through the Iron Curtain
