Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War

Ballet and Soviet-American Exchange

Ballet and Soviet-American Exchange Today, at Dulles or Kennedy Airport, travelers pay little heed to Aeroflot planes sitting majestically on the airstrip waiting to load passengers. Both American and Russian tourists, academics, artists, scientists, or businessmen can now take advantage of the Russian airline's new luxury service and fly back and forth to Moscow with relative ease. In addition, both Russians and Americans are becoming accustomed to visiting and working in each other's countries. For those growing up today it would be hard-if not impossible-to imagine how miraculous this would have seemed at the height of the Cold War in the 1950s. Travel between the Soviet Union and the United States was almost unheard of, except under special agreements or for diplomatic reasons. The two countries were truly divided by the symbolic Iron Curtain ; propaganda on both sides led to distrust, misinformation, hatred, fear, and paranoia. Russians with relatives in the United States were afraid to write letters or to communicate with them in any way, and the same held true for Americans with families in the Soviet Union. It is in this context that the first exchange agreement between the two countries has to be understood. Signed on 27 January 1958, it was named the Lacy-Zarubin agreement for the two chief negotiators and signatories -William S. B. Lacy, President Eisenhower's Special Assistant on East-West Exchanges, and Gregory Z. Zarubin, Soviet Ambassador to the United States. The full title was "Agreement between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Exchanges in the Cultural, Technical, and Educational Fields." Because it was an executive agreement rather than a treaty, it did not require Senate ratification. As early as 1955 there had been an attempt on the part of France, America, and Great Britain to develop exchange programs with the Soviet Union. In that year, at the Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference, a proposal was made to the Soviet Union for a seventeen-point program to remove barriers to normal exchange in culture, education, books and publications , science, sports, tourism, and the information media. Foreign Minister Molotov rejected the proposal and accused the West of meddling in Soviet internal affairs. A change in policy occurred when Nikita Khrushchev attacked Stalin at the Twentieth Party Congress in February 1956. The result was a move toward peaceful coexistence and increased contact with the West, and almost immediately cultural agreements were signed with Belgium, Norway (1956), and France (1957). 70 / B A L L E T A N D S O V I E T - A M E R I C A N E X C H A N G E Shortly after the 1955 Geneva Foreign Ministers Conference, some breakthroughs were made in Soviet-American artistic exchange. Carlton Smith, director of the American National Arts Foundation, traveled to Moscow. His negotiations with Nikolai Mikhailov, the Soviet Minister of Culture, led to several successful exchange visits of performing artists. While Porgy and Bess was touring Europe in 1955, the company received an invitation from the Soviet Minister of Culture. For a period of almost three weeks, Porgy and Bess was a star attraction in the Soviet Union. These performances took place at the Palace of Culture in what was then Leningrad from 26 December 1955 through 5 January 1956, and then at Moscow's Stanislavsky Theater from January 10 to 17.' The previous October 3 the Soviet pianist Emil Gilels had arrived in the United States for a one-month tour, performing in New York, Chicago, Cleveland , Boston, and Washington. Six weeks later, on November 20, the Soviet violinist David Oistrakh made his American debut at New York's Carnegie Hall and also played in other American cities including Chicago, Washington, and Boston. Both artists came as a result of Carlton Smith's negotiations in Moscow. In 1956 the Boston Symphony Orchestra received support from Eisenhower's International Exchange Program for a tour of Europe and the Soviet Union. As part of that tour, the orchestra, under the leadership of Charles Munch and Pierre Monteux, performed in Leningrad on September 6-7 of that year; this was followed by two days of concerts in M o ~ c o w . ~ During the spring of 1956, the American impresario Sol Hurok arranged tours of the Soviet Union for two of his most famous artiststhe violinist Isaac Stern and the singer Jan Peerce. That same spring, Columbia Artists Management resented the Soviet cellist Mstislav Rostropovich on...