Introduction

Abstract

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, many Cubans insisted upon their cultural and ideological differences from the Soviets and on the negligible impact of their ties to them. Caviar with Rum: Cuba-USSR and the Post-Soviet Experience is the first collection to examine how the interaction between Cuba and the Soviet Union is remembered today within distinct disciplines by participants and professional observers. The chapters bring to life how and why, these days, artists, writers, and politicians are indeed revisiting this period and what this means, not only for creative production, but also for the future of geopolitics. They make vivid the personal, popular, and emotional levels of the international relationship. What is remembered and how it is remembered are essential themes in many of these explorations of artistic and intellectual influences of the Soviet Bloc on the Caribbean island.