Universal – International – Global

Art Historiographies of Socialist Eastern Europe

Contributions by Michael Feist Contributions by Éva Forgács Contributions by Maja and Reuben Fowkes Contributions by Maja Fowkes Contributions by Corinne Geering Contributions by Piotr Juszkiewicz Contributions by Adri Kácsor Contributions by Krista Kodres Contributions by Mária Orišková Contributions by Elena Sharnova Contributions by Robert Born Contributions by Antje Kempe Contributions by Marina Dmitrieva Contributions by Reuben Fowkes Contributions by Douglas Gabriel Contributions by Ivan Gerat Edited by Antje Kempe Edited by Beata Hock Edited by Marina Dmitrieva Series edited by Robert Born Series edited by Ada Raev

Book cover: Universal – International – Global

Extent: 320 pages

Publisher: Böhlau Verlag Köln

Subjects: Art & Art History

Series: Das ostliche Europa: Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(January 2023)

ISBN: 9783412520816

6.34 x 9.25 inches

Price: $74.00

In stock

Teaching back to earlier efforts to conceive of the international community in a less Eurocentric way, the volume proposes a tentative link between socialist internationalism as a political and cultural diplomatic principle in the Soviet Block and some new approaches to art and cultural historiography introduced there. In the “Second World”, universal art history or Weltkunstgeschichte were endorsed as frameworks for the teaching and writing of art history. Authors in this book interrogate whether “world art history” as practiced by socialist scholars had aspirations and achievements comparable to today’s Global Art History and World Art Studies. Or was this knowledge production in an internationalist paradigm a mere foil for communist rhetoric, behind which severed cultural relations to the Western world could also be recommenced?


This collection of articles explores a possible alternative beginning of Global Art History and World Art Studies, two methodologies that set a worldwide focus in the study of art around the 2000s. Reaching back to earlier efforts to conceive of the international community in a less Eurocentric way, the volume proposes a tentative link between socialist internationalism as a political and cultural diplomatic principle in the Soviet Block and some new approaches to art and cultural historiography introduced there. In the “Second World”, universal art history or Weltkunstgeschichte were endorsed as frameworks for the teaching and writing of art history. Authors in this book interrogate whether “world art history” as practiced by socialist scholars had aspirations and achievements comparable to today’s Global Art History and World Art Studies. Or was this knowledge production in an internationalist paradigm a mere foil for communist rhetoric, behind which severed cultural relations to the Western world could also be recommenced?

  • Contributions by Michael Feist
  • Contributions by Éva Forgács
  • Contributions by Maja and Reuben Fowkes
  • Contributions by Maja Fowkes
  • Contributions by Corinne Geering
  • Contributions by Piotr Juszkiewicz
  • Contributions by Adri Kácsor
  • Contributions by Krista Kodres
  • Contributions by Mária Orišková
  • Contributions by Elena Sharnova
  • Contributions by Robert Born
  • Contributions by Antje Kempe
  • Contributions by Marina Dmitrieva
  • Contributions by Reuben Fowkes
  • Contributions by Douglas Gabriel
  • Contributions by Ivan Gerat
  • Edited by Antje Kempe
  • Edited by Beata Hock
  • Edited by Marina Dmitrieva
  • Series edited by Robert Born
  • Series edited by Ada Raev