Representations of China in Soviet Lithuanian Children’s Visual Culture

The Lecture

The focus of this lecture is on how China, its history, culture and people, are depicted in Soviet Lithuanian children's visual culture, while contextualizing them in the political context of Soviet-China relations. I will argue that the promoted Soviet internationalism was highly selective, and will question the Soviet use of Sino-themed illustrations to portray Soviet foreign policy as progressive and anti-colonial, making anti-racism and anti-colonialism its main Cold War stance against the West. The research will nuance how one Baltic state absorbed, followed, or opposed the ideology, thus adding a rarely seen Baltic perspective to the Sinophone Cold War experiences.

The main questions posed in the presentation include: What images of China did the visual culture of the period promote? How are these themes presented in motifs and iconography? How was the Soviet politics of friendship with China constructed and presented to Lithuanian children during the Soviet era? To what extent was this related to the propaganda of the benefits of the socialist system?

In order to answer these questions, Professor Simonson will first unpack the concept itself, as well as highlight its historical, political, and cultural contexts. Secondly, she will explore direct contacts between Lithuanians and people from China during the Soviet era. Third, she will present different types and ways in which China was represented. In the final section of her argument, she will focus on tropes and stereotypes that were evident in selected illustrations.

The Speaker

Karina Simonson is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies at Vilnius University, Lithuania. She is an art historian and interdisciplinary scholar focusing on cultural connections between the Baltics and the Global South in the 20th and 21st centuries. She graduated with an MFA from the University of Cape Town and holds a PhD in Art History and Criticism from the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. She was a visiting fellow at Harvard and Princeton universities, the University of Cape Town and Western Cape University in South Africa, The DuSable Black History Museum in Chicago, and others. This year she has already been teaching at the University of Sao Paulo and University of Mauritius. Recently she completed her Postdoctoral fellowship at Vilnius Academy of Arts with the book manuscript provisionally titled “Representations of Africa and Asia in Soviet Lithuanian children's culture (1945-1990): Origins, influences, circulation and after-effects". 

Registration (required)

Everyone is welcome to attend, but we ask you to register as seating is limited. Please use the web form on this page for this.