ABSTRACT
In the historiography of the Soviet period, the sixth World Festival of Youth and Students held in Moscow in 1957 is often considered to mark the opening up of the Soviet Union after the isolated years of late Stalinism and the early period of the Cold War. Attracting more than 30,000 foreign guests to a formerly closed country opened the Soviet Union to the outside world and expedited newly awakened East-West cultural relations. For the Soviet people this new openness offered the possibility of establishing contacts with foreigners and to experience alternative cultures and worldviews. According to Yale Richmond, the master plan behind the festival was the Soviet Union’s wish to exhibit the changes that had occurred after the death of Stalin. He also contends that the results of the Moscow festival were ‘quite different’ when compared to previous festivals and that ‘the consequences [were] unintended’.1 As William Taubman put it, the Soviet Union did impress the festival guests with Moscow’s new openness, ‘but the Soviet young people … were even more impressed with Western popular culture’.2
