Visegrad Lecture Series

The RFE/RL Tatar-Bashkir Service’s Role in Producing and Transmitting Historical Knowledge During the Cold War Era

by Mansur Gazimzianov, PhD candidate (University of Amsterdam).

The significant role of Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (RL/RFE) in bridging audiences across ideological and geographic divides during the Cold War has been well documented and studied. However, far less attention has been given to the Radio’s function as a research institution, one that regularly supplied its staff and external experts in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with up-to-date information. Even less attention has been paid to the services of RL/RFE that operated in the languages of Russia’s national minorities, and their role in shaping and producing knowledge.

In his new project, Mansur Gazimzianov seeks to investigate the Tatar-Bashkir Service of RL/RFE (established in 1953) as a research hub focused on the Tatars and Bashkirs, the largest Turkic-speaking nationalities within Soviet and present-day Russia. Specifically, the project will examine how the Service engaged with historical narratives and interacted with both Western and Soviet scholarship. It will also explore how the Service and its staff attempted to influence its audience’s understanding of national history, and conversely, how listeners’ feedback and editorial policy shaped the framing and delivery of historical narratives.

In his presentation, Mansur will share his preliminary findings from the Blinken OSA Archivum, focusing on the Tatar-Bashkir Office’s contribution to the transnational production of historical knowledge and its complex entanglements with Cold War-era politics, historiography, and identity.