International Fair of Plovdiv in Bulgaria’s Trade Relations with Underdeveloped Countries in the Second Half of the 1950s

Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 was the cause of a change in the policy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the Eastern bloc. If this led to a tentative détente on the European continent in East-West dialogue, Nikita Khrushchev’s new policy toward the Third World strained competition with the United States for strategic influence over postcolonial countries. Eastern European states were encouraged to increase their contact with the former colonies at all levels. Therefore, participation of underdeveloped countries increased at the International Fair Plovdiv in the 1950s. Research curiosity, however, was sparked by the following questions: What was the place of the International Fair Plovdiv in the context of struggle for Third World countries and markets? Did Bulgaria use it only as a weapon in the Eastern bloc’s common diplomacy, or did it have economic benefits for expanding trade relations with underdeveloped countries? This article tries to answer these questions by referring to archival documents, reports in periodicals, and Bulgarian and foreign publications on the subject.