Join us on Friday, June 26th at noon PT for our next Scholar Series webinar. Joanna Smolko will discuss 1980s rock music behind the Iron Curtain.

From the mid-1980s to 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated the time of Perestroika (“reordering”) and Glasnost (“transparency”) in the Soviet Bloc. During this era, there was a new openness to Western ideas and influences, including a greater freedom for young people to hear popular music. Musicians like Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen moved behind the Iron Curtain for concerts.

A fresh shift to a more empathetic and curious view of the Russian people in songs like Joel’s “Leningrad” overshadowed some of the fearful attitudes in songs from earlier periods. Other songs like Sting’s “They Dance Alone” drew attention to the global effects of the Cold War in nations like Chile experiencing proxy conflicts.

In this discussion, Joanna will talk about individual songs, as well as pivotal events, such as Billy Joel’s tour of Russia in 1987, Amnesty International’s Human Rights Now tour (1988), and Bruce Springsteen’s 1988 concert in East Berlin.

Funded in part by a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology.