ROMANCE AND BELLIGERENCE BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN.COLD WAR GENDER IDENTITIES IN ANGLO-AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
ROMANCE AND BELLIGERENCE BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN.COLD WAR GENDER IDENTITIES IN ANGLO-AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: This article looks at fictional and non-fictional renderings of Cold War Eastern Europe from Anglo-American perspectives, with a focus on Romania, and proposes gender as a focus of reading that illuminates particular aspects of the relationship between traveller (frequently associated with a male gaze) and foreign country (feminised, and/or represented through an array of female figures). Cognisant of critiques from post-colonial perspectives, from East-European standpoints and from gender studies directions to this type of stereotyped interaction, this approach ponders the degree to which the texts selected here engage in a fruitful dialogue with the space of representation. Reading these narratives as Cold War romances, the article also suggests the emergence of the self-doubting Western narrator invited to question his own positions of power and knowledge, pointing to multiple routes of remembrance to a post-Cold War present.

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