Projection and Reception of British Culture During the Cold War: an Archival and Theoretical Approach

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K00916
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 03010:Historical studies in general-related
• Research Institution: Waseda University
• Principal Investigator: Watanabe Aiko 早稲田大学, 文学学術院, 教授 (10345077)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: イギリス文化外交史 / 冷戦期 / 実証研究 / 文化理論 / ブリティッシュ・カウンシル / ジョージ・オーウェル

Outline of Final Research Achievements

At first, this research project intended to explore the intention behind and impact of British culture during the Cold War on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from both empirical and theoretical research perspectives. The project initially consisted of substantial archival research at the National Archives in the UK but was hampered halfway by the Corona Pandemic that began in 2020. Due to this, I was compelled to devote my time to studying the secondary sources including literary representation. By so doing, I found political use and dissemination of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) was worth investigating, because I was able to identify some signs that the novel not only successfully penetrated the Iron Curtain to Eastern Europe as part of the British Government's propaganda strategy, but was also actively accepted and reproduced by the underground, resistance groups, and functioned as an instruction book for overthrowing the regime.

Free Research Field

イギリス文化外交史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ジョージ・オーウェル最晩年の小説『一九八四年』は、全体主義批判の書として知られ、冷戦期西側諸国において対ソ連・東欧諸国への対抗プロパガンダ戦略として利用されていた点については、すでにいくつかの研究実績がある。一方、本作が東側陣営においてどのような社会的役割を果たしてきたのかについては、これまでほとんど見過ごされ、総括的に研究されてこなかった。よって、今回、この点を実証的・理論的に研究する可能性を見出したことに学術的な意義があるばかりでなく、文学が東欧革命という歴史的事象に果たした影響を社会に示すことには大きな価値があるといえるだろう。