Volunteers Across Cold War Borders

George Bodie is Lecturer in European History at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. His research explores how ideas of socialist internationalism and solidarity are constructed and formed, and how these ideas have shaped action and behaviour at the level of everyday life.Ana Kladnick is a MSCA Fellow at the University of Graz, Austria. Together with Celia Donert and Martin Sabrow she edited Making Sense of Dictatorship: Domination and Everyday Life in East Central Europe after 1945 (2022).

Through a series of fascinating case studies, Volunteers Across Borders explores the history of voluntary action in socialist, post-colonial and post-socialist societies in Europe and the global South, demonstrating that volunteers and volunteering existed in many forms outside the liberal democratic West during the Cold War.

• Introduction: Toward a Social History of Internationalism and a Global History of Voluntarism, George Bodie and Ana Kladnik (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK and University of Graz, Austria)1. Arisen from Ruins: International Solidarity, Voluntarism and Mobilisation in the early German Democratic Republic, George Bodie (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)2. The Red Cross Society of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam: Solidarity and Nation Building in Vietnam (1946-1976), Marie Cugnet (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)3. Practices and Socio-Political Ecosystems of Anti-Colonial Solidarity in Yugoslavia: From Algeria to Guinea-Bissau, Jelena Ðureinovic (University of Vienna, Austria)4. Development Voluntarism and Re-Imagined Solidarities in Early Post-Colonial TanzaniaMichael Jennings (SOAS, University of London, UK)5. The Soviet Vision of Humanitarianism and the International Red Cross Film Festival in Socialist Bulgaria (1965–1977), Severyan Dyakonov (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)6. Negotiating ‘Suitable’ Forms of Activism: Student Contributions to Yugoslav Non-Aligned Internationalism, 1964-71, Helena Stolnik Trenkic (University of Cambridge, UK)7. Solidarity and Voluntary Cultural Exchanges during the global Cold War. 1960s African Correspondence to Romania in the IRRCS archives, Domnica Gorovei (University of Bucharest, Romania)8. Sisters in Solidarity: The Solidarity Work of the Hungarian Women’s National Council During Late Socialism, Réka Krizmanics (Bielefeld University, Germany)9. Actors of Socialist Solidarity: Cuban Internationalists in Angola and Worker-trainees in European socialist States, Claudia Martínez Hernández (University of Vienna, Austria)10. Vernacular Internationalism, Solidary States, Collective Feelings: (Re)Thinking International Solidarity and Voluntarism from the Aftermath of State Socialism, Tanja Petrovic (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Slovenia)11. Cuban Medical Internationalism: The Anti-Imperialist Roots of ‘Voluntarism’ and Solidarity, Helen Yaffe (University of Glasgow, UK)