Encountering Cold War East Asia: Yugoslav Experiential Writings from the Long 1950s

This thesis looks at Yugoslav firsthand journalistic and travel writings about East Asia between 1950 and 1961, a period marked by great socio-ideological transformation in Yugoslavia. Through an analysis of historical newspapers, travel books, and archival materials, this thesis represents the first scholarly attempt at mapping experiential knowledge production about East Asia in Yugoslavia during the long 1950s. Offering the first-ever overview of individuals who traveled and wrote about East Asia at the time also fills scholarly gaps in historical awareness of the interactions between the two regions. Furthermore, these writings are examined from the transcultural perspective, revealing relational, processual, and contextual dimensions that speak to Yugoslav nation-building and meaning-making in the 1950s. Thematically, this thesis focuses on the four most important and recurring topics found in their writings. The first is the Korean War and its profound impact on Yugoslavia’s foreign policy and its connections with (East) Asia. The second is how Yugoslavs used East Asia as an educational example through which they made sense of the Cold War as well as sharpened ideas and values that would become the basis of Yugoslav Non-Alignment. The third is how writing about East Asian countries, among others, became proof of Yugoslav exceptionalism and cosmopolitanism. The fourth is how they negotiated their Yugoslav-ness and European-ness in relation to the region. This thesis argues that East Asia, as reported on by journalists and travelers, played a significant role in the Yugoslav transformation during the 1950s.