Mila Oiva

It appears that the idea of Montand’s possible Soviet tour was first raised with Russian cultural broker Sergei Obraztsov during the latter’s visit to Paris in 1954. From that encounter to the departure of Montand and his wife Simone Signoret for the Soviet Union, preparations for the event were subject to hesitations and tergiversations against the dynamic backdrop of international events throughout 1956. Together with Georges Soria, acting on behalf of the French L’Agence Littereraire et Artistique and the Soviet tour office Gastrolbureau, Obraztsov played a major role in the preparations for the tour, with the latter also active in raising Montand’s profile in the Soviet Union. A contract was signed in early 1956, but over that year the events in Poland and Hungary led to Montand’s plans becoming the subject of bitter controversies in France. Montand himself expressed anger at the Soviet actions, and in November he announced he was postponing the tour. Sartre advised the singer that whichever decision he made, he would be condemned by one side or another, and so it transpired. Notwithstanding the postponement, Montand continued to be attacked and threatened, and finally, defiant, he rescheduled and departed for the Soviet Union on 16 December.

Yves Montand’s life is intertwined with the passions and aspirations of Europe in the twentieth century. It extends from the aftermath of World War I to the dawn of the post-Cold War era. Chapter 4 briefly outlines his life prior to his arrival in Moscow in 1955. He was born on 13 October 1921 in the province of Tuscany in Italy, in the small village of Monsummano Alto, and died on 9 November 1991 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France. Montand’s real surname was Livi, and his first name was Ivo, later gallicised as Yves. By the end of 1923, the Livi family escaped the rising fascism in Italy and moved to southern France, and Yves Montand spent his early life in the suburbs of Marseilles. He became known as a singer from the late 1930s and as an actor after World War II. He became a transnational star whose activities were carefully followed. In 1951 he married Simone Signoret, and Montand/Signoret became one of the most famous intellectual couples in France at the time, known for their sympathies for the left and for the growing peace movement.

The repertoire that Montand delivered on his tour programme was unchanged from his performances in Paris, already familiar to Soviet audiences through recordings and radio. Part of the pleasure they derived from his concerts therefore included that of hearing material they already knew, delivered in person by the artist himself, who enjoyed cult status. The presentation of the songs included in the documentary Yves Montand Sings, and the audience reception as portrayed in the film, along with the voice-over Russian commentary, present a narrative of perfect harmony between Montand and the Soviet audiences. This is underlined by scenes of interaction between him, Signoret, and members of the public. But the synergy presented in the film is in many ways misleading, as we know from such sources as published memoirs and unpublished primary documents. A careful examination of the music itself reveals that something is ‘lost in translation’, and there are disparities between the message sent by Montand’s music, and what is received by the audiences. There are odd dissonances between the content of the music and the way it appears as being interpreted by Soviet audiences, particular in the matter of attitudes to jazz.

Montand’s Soviet tour occurred during the Thaw era, an unusual period in Soviet history. Beginning gradually after Stalin’s death in 1953, the Thaw era’s relaxation of political repression and the opening of the Soviet Union to the outside world made Montand’s Soviet tour possible. Montand became an emblem of the Thaw within the Soviet Union, when cultural and intellectual processes began to develop parallels with Western Europe to an unprecedented degree. Nikita Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence resulted in a significant expansion of possibilities for interaction with foreign citizens and cultures. The policy of peaceful coexistence and opening up to the world outside the Soviet bloc was manifested in increasing activities related to cultural diplomacy, such as cultural exchange agreements with foreign countries. Agreements with Western countries were a practical implementation of the objective of improving the cultural image of the Soviet Union in the international arena.

The preparations for Montand’s tour, and the tour itself, took place in the context of extreme international turbulence both in the West and within the Soviet bloc. Khrushchev sought to defuse the situation through the ‘Thaw’ and the policy of peaceful coexistence, but an unforeseen consequence was the manifestation of more public signs of dissent, which in turn led to reassertion of central control. Two outcomes in particular in 1956 formed the backdrop to the preparations for Montand’s tour: massive strikes in Poland and the uprising in Hungary, both of which were suppressed by armed force. At the same time, the Suez crisis also destabilised the international balance of power, with ripples also affecting Soviet interests. Through 1956, in particular, there were therefore increasing, and often violent, international movements against ‘colonialist’ enterprises in which France, Britain and the USSR were targets and in which the US was implicated. Thus, in the same period in which both the US and the USSR were at one level trying to develop the policy of cultural diplomacy and peaceful coexistence—the Thaw—and at another level very serious and complex tensions were bursting to the surface.

The scale of newspaper digitization and emergence of computational research methods has opened new opportunities for scholarship on the history of the press-as well as a new set of problems. Those problems compound for research that spans national as well as linguistic contexts. This article offers a novel methodological approach for confronting these challenges by synthesizing computational with conventional methods and working across a collaborative multilingual team. We present a case study studying the transnational and multilingual news event of Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth's journey to the United States in 1851-52. Our approach helps to demonstrate some of the characteristic patterns and complexities in transatlantic news circulation, including the pathways, reach, temporality, vagaries, and silences of this system. These patterns, in turn, offer some insights into how we understand the significance of this era for histories of the press.

The repertoire that Montand delivered on his tour programme was unchanged from his performances in Paris, already familiar to Soviet audiences through recordings and radio. Part of the pleasure they derived from his concerts therefore included that of hearing material they already knew, delivered in person by the artist himself, who enjoyed cult status. The presentation of the songs included in the documentary Yves Montand Sings, and the audience reception as portrayed in the film, along with the voice-over Russian commentary, present a narrative of perfect harmony between Montand and the Soviet audiences. This is underlined by scenes of interaction between him, Signoret, and members of the public. But the synergy presented in the film is in many ways misleading, as we know from such sources as published memoirs and unpublished primary documents. A careful examination of the music itself reveals that something is ‘lost in translation’, and there are disparities between the message sent by Montand’s music, and what is received by the audiences. There are odd dissonances between the content of the music and the way it appears as being interpreted by Soviet audiences, particular in the matter of attitudes to jazz.

Yves Montand’s life is intertwined with the passions and aspirations of Europe in the twentieth century. It extends from the aftermath of World War I to the dawn of the post-Cold War era. Chapter 4 briefly outlines his life prior to his arrival in Moscow in 1955. He was born on 13 October 1921 in the province of Tuscany in Italy, in the small village of Monsummano Alto, and died on 9 November 1991 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France. Montand’s real surname was Livi, and his first name was Ivo, later gallicised as Yves. By the end of 1923, the Livi family escaped the rising fascism in Italy and moved to southern France, and Yves Montand spent his early life in the suburbs of Marseilles. He became known as a singer from the late 1930s and as an actor after World War II. He became a transnational star whose activities were carefully followed. In 1951 he married Simone Signoret, and Montand/Signoret became one of the most famous intellectual couples in France at the time, known for their s...

It appears that the idea of Montand’s possible Soviet tour was first raised with Russian cultural broker Sergei Obraztsov during the latter’s visit to Paris in 1954. From that encounter to the departure of Montand and his wife Simone Signoret for the Soviet Union, preparations for the event were subject to hesitations and tergiversations against the dynamic backdrop of international events throughout 1956. Together with Georges Soria, acting on behalf of the French L’Agence Littereraire et Artistique and the Soviet tour office Gastrolbureau, Obraztsov played a major role in the preparations for the tour, with the latter also active in raising Montand’s profile in the Soviet Union. A contract was signed in early 1956, but over that year the events in Poland and Hungary led to Montand’s plans becoming the subject of bitter controversies in France. Montand himself expressed anger at the Soviet actions, and in November he announced he was postponing the tour. Sartre advised the singer t...

The preparations for Montand’s tour, and the tour itself, took place in the context of extreme international turbulence both in the West and within the Soviet bloc. Khrushchev sought to defuse the situation through the ‘Thaw’ and the policy of peaceful coexistence, but an unforeseen consequence was the manifestation of more public signs of dissent, which in turn led to reassertion of central control. Two outcomes in particular in 1956 formed the backdrop to the preparations for Montand’s tour: massive strikes in Poland and the uprising in Hungary, both of which were suppressed by armed force. At the same time, the Suez crisis also destabilised the international balance of power, with ripples also affecting Soviet interests. Through 1956, in particular, there were therefore increasing, and often violent, international movements against ‘colonialist’ enterprises in which France, Britain and the USSR were targets and in which the US was implicated. Thus, in the same period in which bot...

The Soviet mass media created the image of Montand as an admired celebrity in the Soviet Union. It constructed his fame by importing, domesticating and promoting his films, recordings and photographs, and translating books from the West, along with their own domestic production of radio programmes, newsreels, and newspaper and journal articles. A variety of media, which reached nearly all Soviet citizens, succeeded in promoting the idea of Montand as a progressive, pro-Soviet, world-class artist whose viewpoints supported the newly launched policy of peaceful coexistence. Although the Soviet media succeeded in creating a coherent image of Montand’s Soviet tour, it could not fully control its public reception. In general, Montand appealed to a variety of social groups, but along with feverish enthusiasm, the tour also generated indifference and opposition. The widespread Montand mania and the overtly positive treatment of Montand in the official media, together with a sense of social...

Montand’s Soviet tour occurred during the Thaw era, an unusual period in Soviet history. Beginning gradually after Stalin’s death in 1953, the Thaw era’s relaxation of political repression and the opening of the Soviet Union to the outside world made Montand’s Soviet tour possible. Montand became an emblem of the Thaw within the Soviet Union, when cultural and intellectual processes began to develop parallels with Western Europe to an unprecedented degree. Nikita Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful coexistence resulted in a significant expansion of possibilities for interaction with foreign citizens and cultures. The policy of peaceful coexistence and opening up to the world outside the Soviet bloc was manifested in increasing activities related to cultural diplomacy, such as cultural exchange agreements with foreign countries. Agreements with Western countries were a practical implementation of the objective of improving the cultural image of the Soviet Union in the international arena.

False information on history, spreading widely in the internet, is a global phenomenon, which can potentially be used for forming the basis for distorted worldviews and strengthen social and political juxtapositions. Seeking to understand the phenomenon of pseudohistorical medievalism in the Russian language internet, this essay explores the position and contexts of pseudohistorical web pages in the medievalist discussions. The study analyses a selected sample of webpages within a hyperlink network to assess their potential influence and worldview of Russian language medievalist pseudohistory. The analysis reveals that the hyperlinked position of the webpages in the medievalist internet discussion is marginal and fragmented into separated knowledge communities. Despite their radical approaches to history, they share common features with the contemporary cultural and political discussions and historical schemas explaining the history and identity.

The chapter introduces the main themes of “Digital Histories”. It shortly discusses the histories of digital history and the various research projects that resulted in this volume, as well as the main contributions of the individual chapters. Focusing on the most recent periods of development of digital and computational history, the introduction explains how this book contributes to advancing the larger field of history in two primary ways: firstly through conceptual explorations of the central issues characterizing the past, present and future of digital history research, and secondly by providing new empirical historical knowledge coming out of research using digital methods. The chapter surveys a number of key challenges and criticisms facing contemporary and future historians, including the digitisation of sources, metadata creation for digital source materials, digital source and resource criticism, and the various salient questions involved in organising digital history resea...

Topic modeling is a highly useful method that can provide new ways to understand the past. In order to reach the full potential of the method, the researcher needs to understand the context, the specifics of the data, and how the algorithm works and know the research literature. This chapter demonstrates how topic modeling can be applied in the studies of Russian and East European history. It illustrates the choices a researcher will face and the needed steps for preparing a data set for topic modeling, and shows how the interpretation of topic modeling results works in practice. The chapter also addresses the question of the scattered nature of digitized collections of Russian history sources, and the associated challenges and opportunities in this context.

Historical scholarship is currently undergoing a digital turn. All historians have experienced this change in one way or another, by writing on word processors, applying quantitative methods on digitalized source materials, or using internet resources and digital tools. Digital Histories showcases this emerging wave of digital history research. It presents work by historians who – on their own or through collaborations with e.g. information technology specialists – have uncovered new, empirical historical knowledge through digital and computational methods. The topics of the volume range from the medieval period to the present day, including various parts of Europe. The chapters apply an exemplary array of methods, such as digital metadata analysis, machine learning, network analysis, topic modelling, named entity recognition, collocation analysis, critical search, and text and data mining. The volume argues that digital history is entering a mature phase, digital history ‘in action...

Digital humanities (DH) as a research field has been developing rapidly in Finland during the past few years, mainly due to increased funding and profiling activities. Although these infrastructural developments have created (smaller and larger) centres, hubs and clusters related directly or indirectly to digital humanities, the future of Finnish research in this area depends on how the various scholarly and memory organisations, as well as individual scholars, succeed in joining forces. The overall argument in this paper is that digital humanities needs to establish its identity and to create a new space among research cultures with varying characteristics tackling a multitude of problems, and that this can only be achieved through national collaboration and the joint exploitation of the strengths of existing DH hubs. The article sets out a roadmap to this end, providing a detailed discussion of various developments in digital humanities, and analysing different possibilities in th...

This article examines digital humanities (DH) centers as focal points of the interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge. It is based on the assumption that the manner in which the knowledgetransfer activities of DH communities are facilitated affects the knowledge they produce. Following an analysis of eight semi-structured interviews of directors, researchers, and administrators, the article considers how DH professionals describe the facilitation of the interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge in DH centers. It demonstrates that the transfer of knowledge in DH centers is based on overlapping layers of organic networks and stable organizational structures that support various kinds of knowledge-sharing practices. The transfer of knowledge in DH centers combines the exchange of ideas in the same physical space with online communication at various levels, ranging from outside academia to the internal communication of a research group. Further, the factors that enable information flow als...

This volume is the first book-length account of Yves Montand’s controversial tour of the Soviet Union at the turn of the years 1956/57. It traces the mixed messages of this internationally visible act of cultural diplomacy in the middle of the turbulent Cold War. It also provides an account of the celebrated French singer-actor’s controversial career, his dedication to music and to peace activism, as well as his widespread fandom in the USSR. The book describes the political background for the events of the year 1956, including the changing Soviet atmosphere after Stalin’s death, portrays the rising transnational stardom of Montand in the 1940s and 1950s, and explores the controversies aroused by his plan to visit Moscow after the Hungarian Uprising. The book pays particular attention to Montand’s reception in the USSR and his concert performances, drawing on unique archival material and oral history interviews, and analyses the documentary Yves Montand Sings (1957) released immediately after his visit.

Although the concept of digital comes with an assumption of placelessness and detachment from physical space and geographical location, these matters still play a significant role in the way the digital humanities research is practiced today, and also in the future. The location, the surroundings and infrastructure open the questions of accessibility and equality: space shapes the opportunities for doing digital humanities research, both enables and hinders collaboration, and both unifies and divides scholars. The purpose of this special issue is to examine the different aspects of situated research practices of the digital humanities covering two perspectives: physical and virtual. The physical places of research refer to the various digital humanities sites (laboratories, centers, departments) all over the world and more widely to the surroundings a location in a particular city, country, cultural sphere or continent affecting research practices. As virtual environments of digital...

Leonardo (1968-present), published by MIT Press, is the leading international peer-reviewed publication on the relationship between art, science and technology, making it an ideal dataset to analyze the emergence of such complex collaborations over time. To identify and analyze both the visible and latent interaction patterns, the research employs different granularities of data (article texts, images, publication dates, authors, their places of affiliation and disciplines) as part of a multimodal approach. Using a convolutional neural network, we examined the features of the images to analyze the modes of representing (and actually doing) art, science or engineering. We paired these features with information extracted using text mining to examine the relationships between the visual and the textual over time.

The topic of the interview data are the personal memories and family stories about the tour of French-Italian singer-actor Yves Montand in the Soviet Union in 1956-57. It was collected in September-November 2019. The idea of the interviews was to collect information on how Yves Montand’s tour in the Soviet Union was remembered in Russia in autumn 2019, either by people who had experienced the visit in a way or another by themselves, or based on stories the respondents had heard from their family members, relatives and friends concerning Yves Montand.

Topic modeling is a computational text analysis method that summarizes the studied text and shows what kinds of topics it consists of. The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how the method can be applied in studies of Russian history. Topic modeling is often used in analysis of massive datasets, but the chapter exemplifies that it is a useful addition to an analysis of smaller data sets as well. Taking examples from real research projects, the chapter walks through the basic principles of applying the method and discusses how to interpret the results of a topic model. Finally, the chapter gives a general overview of the digital sources available for studies on Russian history.

Although the concept of digital comes with an assumption of placelessness and detachment from physical space and geographical location, these matters still play a significant role in the way the digital humanities research is practiced today, and also in the future. The location, the surroundings and infrastructure open the questions of accessibility and equality: space shapes the opportunities for doing digital humanities research, both enables and hinders collaboration, and both unifies and divides scholars. The purpose of this special issue is to examine the different aspects of situated research practices of the digital humanities covering two perspectives: physical and virtual. The physical places of research refer to the various digital humanities sites (laboratories, centers, departments) all over the world and more widely to the surroundings a location in a particular city, country, cultural sphere or continent affecting research practices. As virtual environments of digital humanities scholarship, we define the digital internet-based platforms, services, and tools that enable research and scholarly collaboration. The aspects that determine digital humanities research in both physical and virtual places are infrastructure (material and non-material), social interaction (communication and collaboration), and context (social, cultural, and political situatedness). The aspects influence each other and changes in one of them can affect the others. They have also impact on what is studied, the ways research can be done, and, in the end the results of our knowledge, what kind of knowledge digital humanities research can provide. Digital Humanities Places and Spaces Although working in the same university and being interested in similar issues, we, the editors of this special issue, had never met until recently. As it often goes, sitting in different buildings belonging to different departments at the Otaniemi campus of the Aalto University, we were separated by the physical space and organizational structures of the university. Only the lucky coincidence that one of us had a short presentation at the "Aalto HELDIG DH pizza" event, and the other came to listen to that talk took us to the same room to talk to each other. Meeting on the same physical premises enabled us to see how close our interests and thoughts were, not only regarding pizza, but also in scholarly terms. Our story is not unique. Exploring the digital humanities (DH) matters, one cannot avoid noticing how the establishment of various DH places and their organizational changes influences how, where, and with whom we do DH research. Place plays a role in all academic disciplines, affecting the way we construct knowledge. In the DH field, which comes with a promise of utilization of "nonmaterial" and ubiquitous digital resources, there is a threat that we will forget how the place is also entangled in the digital. DH scholars work together in a physical place-a center and a laboratory-in which an infrastructure, facilities, and equipment determine the knowledge creation practices. DH researchers also collaborate in virtual space-online platforms and virtual research environments-in which an infrastructure, connection, and operation affect the work and research communication. The algorithms and designs of digital analysis and collaboration tools direct the way we work and what kinds of practices are not doable. Further, DH scholars also practice and collaborate in temporary places like hackathons and summer schools established around particular topics and people. Temporariness is one aspect that forms knowledge creation practices. In addition, the prerequisites for doing DH research vary greatly based on the wider social and cultural surroundings. Examination of the research practices and structures in their cultural contexts and the temporal dimensions guiding DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly: Lab and Slack. Situated Research...

This article examines digital humanities (DH) centers as focal points of the interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge. It is based on the assumption that the manner in which the knowledge-transfer activities of DH communities are facilitated affects the knowledge they produce. Following an analysis of eight semi-structured interviews of directors, researchers, and administrators, the article considers how DH professionals describe the facilitation of the interdisciplinary transfer of knowledge in DH centers. It demonstrates that the transfer of knowledge in DH centers is based on overlapping layers of organic networks and stable organizational structures that support various kinds of knowledge-sharing practices. The transfer of knowledge in DH centers combines the exchange of ideas in the same physical space with online communication at various levels, ranging from outside academia to the internal communication of a research group. Further, the factors that enable information flow also have the capability to restrict potentially meaningful information from entering into the field. As a result, this article suggests that it is important to continue the discussion on the boundaries for the transfer of knowledge in DH.

The dataset contains interviews focusing on facilitating research at digital humanities (DH) centers in Finland, Great-Britain and the United States. The aim of the interviews was to learn how the DH professionals describe the best practices identified in their centers and laboratories. The dataset is available for research and teaching purposes, and contains eight interviews (six in English and two in Finnish language). The interviews were made part of the Kone Foundation funded research project "From Roadmap to Roadshow: A collective demonstration and information project to strengthen Finnish digital history".

The Tämä aineisto sisältää tietoa tutkimustyön fasilitoinnista digitaalisen ihmistieteen keskuksissa Suomessa, Iso-Britanniassa ja Yhdysvalloissa. Tutkimuksessa pyrittiin löytämään hyviä käytäntöjä jaettavaksi muihin organisaatioihin, joissa tehdään humanistista tutkimusta digitaalisia menetelmiä hyödyntäen. Aineisto sisältää kahdeksan asiantuntijahaastattelua, joista kuusi on toteutettu englanniksi ja kaksi suomeksi. Haastattelut suoritettiin osana Koneen säätiön rahoittamaa hanketta "From Roadmap to Roadshow: A collective demonstration and information project to strengthen Finnish digital history".

This chapter studies Polish and Finnish traders' efforts to access the Soviet market. By analysing socialist Poland's clothing industry and capitalist Finland's shipbuilding industry access to the Soviet market, the study sheds light onto foreign trade practices of smaller states that sought to increase their room to manoeuvre in an asymmetric trade political situation. Agency of the smaller powers is analysed in three phases of commerce: market analysis, marketing, and political lobbying. The article focuses on individuals (entrepreneurs) and intermediate-level actors (Finland, Poland); private businesses (Finland) and state-owned foreign trade organisations (Poland). The chapter reveals that a sale onto the Soviet market took place within a set of political, economic, structural, social and cultural margins for manoeuvring. The rigidities as well as the loopholes of the planned economy formed the structures in which the actors operated. The article studies whether the two countries used similar strategies to sell their products to the Soviet buyers. It suggests that their relative leverage was related to their perceived westernness compared to the USSR and agility to respond to Soviet demand. With successful business deals both actors gained, besides economic benefit, also sovereignty vis-a-vis the Soviet Union.

Newsreels, short documentary news films, were an influential channel of mass communication and propaganda in the Soviet Union. They served as an important means of visualizing the world for audiences in the way the Soviet authorities wanted it to be depicted. Studies in Soviet visual culture have recognized both continuities of repeating patterns and changes in the post-World War II period. This understanding is based primarily on temporally limited source selections, while a more systematic study of the developments in Soviet visual culture over a longer period is pending. In this article, we reveal long-term continuities, subtle changes, and sudden shifts in the official visual discourse in the Soviet newsreel series 'Novosti dnia' (News of the Day) 1945 to 1992. We study visual patterns in approximately 1,700 digitized newsreel issues, each about ten minutes long, using multidimensional vector embeddings. These embeddings, produced from the central frames of 205,678 shots, help visually evaluate the footage and assess visual similarities based on ResNet50 feature vectors. For this, we use the Collection Space Navigator tool. The article demonstrates how multidimensional vector embeddings can be used to study the internal time of the films, and the external time of the years running by.

The scale of newspaper digitization and emergence of computational research methods has opened new opportunities for scholarship on the history of the press-as well as a new set of problems. Those problems compound for research that spans national as well as linguistic contexts. This article offers a novel methodological approach for confronting these challenges by synthesizing computational with conventional methods and working across a collaborative multilingual team. We present a case study studying the transnational and multilingual news event of Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth's journey to the United States in 1851-52. Our approach helps to demonstrate some of the characteristic patterns and complexities in transatlantic news circulation, including the pathways, reach, temporality, vagaries, and silences of this system. These patterns, in turn, offer some insights into how we understand the significance of this era for histories of the press.

False information on history, spreading widely in the internet, is a global phenomenon, which can potentially be used for forming the basis for distorted worldviews and strengthen social and political juxtapositions. Seeking to understand the phenomenon of pseudohistorical medievalism in the Russian language internet, this essay explores the position and contexts of pseudohistorical web pages in the medievalist discussions. The study analyses a selected sample of webpages within a hyperlink network to assess their potential influence and worldview of Russian language medievalist pseudohistory. The analysis reveals that the hyperlinked position of the webpages in the medievalist internet discussion is marginal and fragmented into separated knowledge communities. Despite their radical approaches to history, they share common features with the contemporary cultural and political discussions and historical schemas explaining the history and identity.