Led by Dr. Victoria Phillips (London School of Economics) and Dr. Charles Kraus (Wilson Center), a group of twelve fellows of the Cold War Archives Research Institute Fellowship begin their week-long research at the Blinken OSA Archivum.
The Cold War Archives Research (CWAR) Institute Fellowship aims at training a next generation of Cold War historians. The program launched in 2015, an initiative of the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program in collaboration with the London School of Economics, is designed to promote innovative and collaborative approaches in archival research methodologies. This year’s fellowship started in October 2022 with a series of online workshops, and now continues with a week-long in-person research experience at the Blinken OSA Archivum in Budapest.
Addressing the interplay between soft and hard power in the cold and hot wars between 1945 and 1991, the selected group of M.A. and Ph.D. students conduct individual research in topics like Sino-Romanian or Austrian-Greek relations, African experiences in the USSR and East Germany, the Czechoslovak Secret Police, the Fujimori Regime in Peru, or women citizen activism in the 1980s. At the Blinken OSA Archivum, preserving the Records of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute, they will primarily consult the documents compiled and produced at the Research Institute’s national units, its US Office, as well as its Soviet Red Archives, Samizdat Archives, and Western Press Archives, between 1949 and 1994.
Concluding their work in the Research Room at the Blinken OSA Archivum, the fellows will present their findings at the 13th Annual International Student Conference of the Cold War History Research Center at the Corvinus University of Budapest. Held on June 6–7, 2023, the conference will investigate the Cold War and its aftermath on a global scale, with a special focus this year on non-state actors.