“Building of Friendship” in Relations of Soviet Union and East Germany (1949—1989)

The attempt to characterize the process of “building of friendship” within the socialist bloc on the example of relations between the USSR and the GDR is made in the article. The leadership of these countries sought to establish the most friendly relations, the basis for which was a memorial consensus based on the unconditional acceptance by the official German side of the Soviet view of the events of World War II. However, at the level of interpersonal contacts, the “negative tail” of the communicative memory of the events of 1941—1945 persisted (moving into the “zone of silence”), even despite the widespread introduction of institutions, practices and rituals of friendship into relations between citizens of the two countries, a vivid example of which was regularly mass festivals of friendship between the youth of the USSR and the GDR, held in the 1970s and 1980s. In general, the author of the article concludes that the project of constructing the Soviet-German friendship was not effective enough not only because of the hidden memorial contradictions, but also because of the lack of a promising picture of a common future. By the 1970s and 1980s, citizens of the two countries, especially young people, had not received a clear, realistic idea of the future joint development of their countries within the framework of the common project of socialist integration, which contributed to the growth of skepticism in this direction and, as a result, became one of the reasons for the collapse of the socialist bloc in the late 1980s.

1. Behrends, J. C. (2006). Die erfundene Freundschaft. Propaganda fur die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag. 438 s. ISBN 978-3-412-23005-0. (In Germ.).

2. Changing the slogan. (2005). Rodina, 4: 87. (In Russ.).

3. Flakke, M., Schmigelt, W. (2005). German Democratic Republic. From darkness to the stars: the state in the spirit of anti-fascism. The inviolable reserve, 2—3: 66—75. (In Russ.).

4. Kirakozova, N. (1979). Trade workers to the 30th anniversary of the GDR. Soviet trade, 8: 46—49. (In Russ.).

5. Kuhn, K. (2002). «Wer mit der Sowjetunion verbunden ist, gehört zu den Siegern der Geschichte…»: Die Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft im Spannungsfeld von Moskau und Ostberlin. Dissertation… Mannheim: [b. i.]. 403 s. (In Germ.).

6. Morre, Y. (2017). The history of cooperation on the example of the German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst. In: Overcoming the past in Germany and Russia: experience and lessons for the future. Mat. International Scientific Conference. Lipetsk: LSPU named after P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shan. 148—154. (In Russ.).

7. Nagornaya, O. S. (2021). Memory of the Second World War in the communicative spaces of the socialist camp. In: Transformation of historical memory in the regional space. St. Petersburg: Renome. 136—148. ISBN 978-5-7422-7049-2. (In Russ.).

8. Popov, A. D. (2011). Tourist relations of the Crimea and divided Germany in the 1950s—1980s: organization, scale, specifics. Tavriysk studii, 1: 138—144. Available at: https://kukiit.ru/docs/ts/no1/19.pdf (accessed 18.02.2022). (In Russ.).

9. Popov, A. D. (2013). Tourist relations of the USSR–GDR: “friendship technologies” and “ideological conveyor”? Gilea (naukoviy visnik): Zbirnik naukovikh prats, 68: 123—130. (In Russ.).

10. Popov, A. D. (2018). The last Soviet mega-event: the XII World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1985. The Modern History of Russia, 8 (4): 1017—1031. DOI: 10.21638/11701/spbu24.2018.415. (In Russ.).

11. Satjukow, S. (2008). Besatzer. «Die Russen» in Deutschland 1945 bis 1994. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht Verlag. 405 s. ISBN 9783525363805. (In Germ.).

12. Tikhomirov, A. A. (2014). “The best friend of the German people”: the cult of Stalin in East Germany (1945—1961). Moscow: Political Encyclopedia. 310 p. ISBN 978-5-8243-1861-6. (In Russ.).

13. Vershinin, S. E. (2003). The image of the GDR in the Soviet mass consciousness. In: Scientific Yearbook of the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Yekaterinburg: Ifin. 336—353. (In Russ.).