Radio Praga. International radio broadcasting as part of Czechoslovakia’s political engagements in Latin America, 1948-1989

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Cold War in Latin America

Abstract

This paper focuses on the international broadcasting of the Czechoslovak Radio between 1948 -1989, in particular on its programming and activities towards Cold War Latin America. Known as "Radio Praga", the broadcasting formed an integral part of Czechoslovakia’s political and cultural engagements in Latin America which scaled up dramatically during the period. Nationalized just after the Communist takeover in 1948, all radio output was then subject to control of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and its specialised censorship body.

The paper first places the results of the original research in the Czech radio archives into a larger political, cultural and political context within which they came into existence. Selected programs of Radio Praga are then analysed to examine their discourse on social and political developments in Latin America and on Czechoslovakia’s particular role in them. Other relevant aspects of Radio Praga’s activities, such as the extensive international network of its Listener’s Clubs whose 1st unit was established in Cuba in 1960, as well as the audience reception of its broadcasting as reflected through the letters from listeners abroad, are also brought into consideration.
While traditional historiography described the Cold War events in Latin America as a direct outcome of superpower rivalry between the United States of America and the Soviet Union, new archival evidence suggests a necessity to take a second look at the actions of minor players, in our case Czechoslovakia. It may result in a nuanced, more complex story of Latin America’s Cold War.

Author

• Katerina Brezinova, Metropolitan University Prague