The role of the nuclear threat in constructing the image of the United States on Soviet television in the first half of the 1980s
https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2025-6-52-67
Abstract
The article examines the role of Soviet television in the late 1970s and early 1980s in constructing the image of the United States through the prism of the nuclear threat. The article seeks to identify the recurring mechanisms of television discourse through which historical memory was reinterpreted and the new symbols of the nuclear threat were constructed in the context of a renewed confrontation at the final stage of the Cold War. The main sources of the study are the programs Mezhdunarodnaya Panorama (International Panorama), Vremya (Time), Novosti (News), and Prozhektor perestroiki (Spotlight on Perestroika), where the memory of Hiroshima was intertwined with the contemporary issues of international politics and became part of a stable symbolic repertoire. The analysis focuses on the techniques by which television expanded the circle of “victims” of nuclear escalation – from the Japanese affected by the atomic bombing to the Europeans and Americans participating in the protests against the nuclear arms race – thereby shaping the image of powerlessness and the illusory character of “bourgeois democracy”.
Keywords
Soviet television,
nuclear threat,
Cold War,
Hiroshima,
arms race,
image of the United States,
propaganda
Supporting agencies: This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation under Grant No. 22-18-00305-П.
About the Author
Igor M. Tarbeev
HSE University – Saint Petersburg; Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Igor M. Tarbeev, Cand. of Sci. (History),
123, Griboyedov Canal Emb., Saint Petersburg, 190068;
32a, Leninsky Av., Moscow, 119334.
References
1. Bart, R. (2014), Mifologii [Mythologies], Akademicheskii proekt, Moscow, Russia.
2. Batiuk, V.I. (2018), Kholodnaya voina mezhdu SShA i SSSR (1945–1991 gg.): Ocherki istorii [The Cold War between the USA and the USSR (1945–1991). Notes on history], Ves’ mir, Moscow, Russia, pp. 195–230.
3. Evans, C. (2024), Mezhdu “Pravdoi” i “Vremenem”: Istoriya sovetskogo Tsentral’nogo televideniya [Between “Pravda” and “Vremya”: A history of Soviet Central television], Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, Moscow, Russia. (Biblioteka zhurnala “Neprikosnovennyi zapas”)
4. Fazzi, D. (2016), “The Nuclear freeze generation: The early 1980s anti-nuclear movement between ‘Carter’s Vietnam’ and ‘Euroshima’ ”, in Andresen, K. and Steen, van der, B., eds., A European Youth Revolt, Palgrave studies in the history of Social movements, Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK, pp. 145–158.
5. Khvorostyanyj, A.A. (2006), “Theoretical foundations of the National Security Doctrine of the Reagan administration”, Izvestiya vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii. Severo-Kavkazskii region. Obshchestvennye nauki, vol. 134, no. 2, pp. 37–41.
6. Knoblauch, W.M. (2017), Nuclear freeze in a Cold War: The Reagan administration, cultural activism, and the end of the arms race, University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, USA. (Culture and Politics in the Cold War and Beyond)
7. Rabush, T.V. (2021), “Allies of the USSR and Soviet policy in Afghanistan in the 1980s”, Novaya i noveishaya istoriya, no. 3, pp. 185–201.
8. Rojecki, A. (1999), Silencing the opposition: Antinuclear movements and the media in the Cold War, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, USA.
9. Roth-Ey, K. (2011), Moscow prime time: How the Soviet Union built the media empire that lost the cultural Cold War, Ithaca, NY, USA.
10. Vorob’yova, T.A. and Yungblud, V.T. (2019), “Relations within ‘Triangle’ USA – USSR – China at the end of détente (1977–1980)”, MGIMO Review of International Relations, vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 59–82.
11. Zboev, A.V. (2016), “USA participation in weakening the Soviet influence in Eastern Europe during the presidency of R. Raegan (1981–1989)”, Herald of Vyatka State University, no. 12, pp. 54–63.
12. Zhuravleva V. (2023), “The Cold War of images in political cartoons: the American messianic concept vs the Soviet messianic concept”, Istoriya: Elektronnyi nauchno-obrazovatel’nyi zhurnal, vol. 132, iss. 10, available at: https://history.jes.su/s207987840028758-2-1 (Accessed 1 Sept. 2025).
13. Zubok, V.M. (2007), A failed empire. The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, USA.
Review
For citations:
Tarbeev I.M. The role of the nuclear threat in constructing the image of the United States on Soviet television in the first half of the 1980s. RSUH/RGGU Bulletin Series "Political Science. History. International Relations". 2025;(6):52-67. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2073-6339-2025-6-52-67
Views:
21
Email this article 