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“Perhaps You Can Be Helpful in This Situation”: Hungary, the Eastern Bloc, and the International Olympic Committee in the Cold War
April 3, 2018 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Lunchtime Symposium
3312 Turlington (CES Conference Room)
Johanna Mellis, PhD Candidate, History
How did the “boorish” Eastern Bloc representatives act within international organizations during the Cold War? How did the Western-oriented International Olympic Committee perceive and engage with the socialist Bloc nations? Based on research conducted at the IOC Historical Archives, History PhD candidate Johanna Mellis will explore the evolving and increasingly mutually beneficial diplomatic relations between Hungary and the IOC from 1948-1989. She will also discuss how the unique position of the ‘middle’ Bloc nations more broadly – those situated between East Germany and the Soviet Union – helped to protect their support systems from Western scrutiny, and how that benefitted their athletes to a certain extent as well.