Crossing the Iron Curtain

As Russian pianist Lev Vlasenko dazzled Harvard students with his smooth piano playing in a dimly lit Adams House Common room, the political tension between the virtuoso’s native USSR and the United States was hardly visible. At the informal concert, the students seemed to forget that their respective countries were at war and simply delighted in each other’s company.

In 1959, when the Cold War was at its pinnacle, and the relationship between the U.S. and the USSR was frigid at best, a team of 12 Soviet delegates came to Harvard as part of a month long tour of American northeastern colleges in an effort to foster greater cultural understanding.

The group constituted one of two assembled on the basis of geographical area and professional interest. While one group toured universities in the Northeast, the other toured those in the Midwest.

The 12 visitors—eight men and four women—arrived in Cambridge, where they surveyed the Harvard campus, met with University administrators and students, and attended lectures and conferences.

The delegates were selected in such a way as to guarantee representation of various facets of Soviet life. Among the members were Vlasenko, movie and stage actress Zinaida Kirienko, engineer Igor Markov, accordion player Vladimir Fedoseyev, and Elvira Astafyeva.

While visiting the Harvard campus, the delegates lived in pairs at the Business School, Divinity School, Adams House, Kirkland House, Bertram Hall, and Comstock Hall.

The group lost little time in visiting notable Cambridge and Boston locales.

During their six and a half day stay, the delegates saw as much of Cambridge and Boston as possible—they visited John Hancock Building, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Commons, Widener Library and the Yard. In addition, smaller groups paid visits to hospitals, a reform school, Newton High School, and a Polaroid-Land factory.

In addition, they met with Dean McGeorge Bundy to discuss American-Soviet student exchange programs, attended a closed luncheon in Quincy House, and strolled through Widener Library; the Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Peabody Museums; and the Russian Research Center.

The delegates noticed large differences between life in the U.S. and the USSR.

“The tempo in the United States is very fast,” delegation leader Nikolai Voshchinin said at a news conference.

Although U.S.-Soviet relations were the talk of the town, the delegates, who arrived in the wake of Premier Nikita Khrushchev’s U.S. visit, strayed from political discussion, focusing instead on cultural exchange, in what appeared to be an attempt to facilitate amicable and peaceful coexistence.

Prior to Khrushchev’s first visit to the U.S. during the previous month, Soviets had been prohibited from leaving the USSR. The student exchange programs—such as those in which the student delegates participated—demonstrated that the iron curtain had, indeed, begun to fall.

In fact, 1959 was also the first year that the U.S. was allowed to host a trade and cultural fair in the Russian capital.

However, the fact that the way in which the countries chose their delegation participants differed suggested that political tension and strong feelings of ideological superiority hadn’t ceased to exist.

While American delegates were chosen on the basis of academic merit, the Soviet delegates were chosen largely on the basis of their allegiance to the USSR and ability to champion Soviet political ideals, according to former Davis Center for Eurasian Studies Associate Director Professor Marshall I. Goldman.

“The University went out of its way to insist that participants in the exchange did not have anything to do with the CIA or the State Department,” Marshall said, adding that the Russian government used U.S.-USSR exchange programs as opportunities to spread propaganda.

Notwithstanding, the Russian delegates received a hearty welcome in Cambridge—their first stop in their month-long voyage along the northeastern U.S., with stops including Penn Yan, N.Y., Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York City.

Partly due to the success of the delegation’s visit, such exchanges became more frequent, allowing for greater understanding between the two countries, according to the delegation’s interpreter, Edward W. Keane ’57.

Fifty years later, tension between the former USSR and the U.S. has largely subsided, and Harvard’s Davis Center for Eurasian Studies and the College’s Born in the USSR club actively encourage students to pursue Russian studies or seek out exposure to Russian culture.

The Davis Center not only provides financial support to student internships and research in Russia and the CIS countries, but also hosts a variety of conferences and seminars.

In addition, Harvard’s Born in the USSR club organizes events, such as Russian poetry readings, movie and game nights, and Russian tables. The purpose of all these activities is to increase Russian cultural awareness among both Russians and Americans, according to active BUSSR participant and honorary board member Alla Azrilyan.

—Staff writer Marianna N. Tishchenko can be reached at mtishch@fas.harvard.edu.