Protecting the heritage of humanity in the Cold War: UNESCO, the Soviet Union and sites of universal value, 1945–1970s

Abstract

The concept of world heritage prevailed in international policies in the conflict-ridden Cold War period. In particular, UNESCO adopted measures to protect heritage sites of universal value; most notably, in the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage (1972). Despite the growing interest in internationalism in heritage conservation, socialist states’ approaches for the protection of the heritage of humanity have largely been ignored in historical accounts. This article focuses on the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics’ (USSR) heritage diplomacy and discusses the socialist politics of world heritage. By drawing on published sources as well as documents from UNESCO and Russian archives, it shows how international conflict has spurred the development of international heritage policies in a divided world. It pays special attention to the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954), which reflected the understanding of heritage as an international security issue as maintained by experts from socialist countries. Thus, the Soviet internationalist heritage politics reveal the relevance of the Cold War conflict as a continuation of wartime measures in the development of world heritage and the diverging interpretations of this idea in the second half of the twentieth century.