The Cotton Empire in the Early Soviet Bloc

Lecture by Jan Zofka

The presentation takes the history of cotton as a starting point to approach the economy of the early Cold War Soviet bloc. The role of cotton in the economic development in 1950s’ Eastern and Central Europe will be examined by looking into different layers of the commodity chain: from agricultural techniques of cotton growing and agro-biological knowledge transfers to trade, textile production and technology transfers in the textile industry. This perspective highlights the intra-regional connections of socialist Eastern Europe as well as its integration into global economic flows, knowledge circulations, and trade infrastructures from standardization to price-building. The “Empire of Cotton” (Sven Beckert) did not stop at the Iron Curtain.

Dr. Jan Zofka is a historian of Eastern Europe and works as a researcher at the Leibniz-Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO) Leipzig. He specializes in global history of the Cold War, socialist industrialization, and commodity history. His current projects deal with cotton in the Eastern bloc and with machine-building enterprises after the Second World War in the socialist world. He has published articles and special issues on these topics in Journal of Global History, European Review of History, Cold War History, Jahrbücher für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, and Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Previously he had written a monography on post-Soviet separatist movements in Transnistria and Crimea between 1989 and the mid-1990s (in German).

The event will take place in a hybrid format at ZMO.

Link to participate: https://zfl-berlin-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/E9iYf5ytShuA7zWWD64bIg