Iron Curtain Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Pre-Cold War usage== [[File:Bakom Rysslands jarnrid.jpg|thumb|upright|Swedish book "''Behind Russia's iron curtain''" from 1923]] In the 19th century, iron [[safety curtain]]s were installed on theater stages to slow the spread of fire. Perhaps the first recorded application of the term "iron curtain" to [[Soviet Russia]] was in [[Vasily Rozanov]]'s 1918 polemic ''The Apocalypse of Our Time''. It is possible that Churchill read it there following the publication of the book's English translation in 1920. The passage runs: {{Blockquote |With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, an iron curtain is lowering over Russian History. "The performance is over." The audience got up. "Time to put on your fur coats and go home." We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing.<ref>{{Citation |last =Rozanov | first =Vasily|trans-title=The Apocalypse of our Time |title=Апокалипсис нашего времени | year =1918 | page =212}}</ref>}} In 1920, [[Ethel Snowden]], in her book ''Through Bolshevik Russia'', used the term in reference to the Soviet border.<ref>{{Citation |last1 = Cohen |first1 = J. M. |first2 = M. J. |last2 = Cohen |year = 1996 |title = New Penguin Dictionary of Quotations |publisher = Penguin Books |page = [https://archive.org/details/newpenguindictio00cohe/page/726 726] |isbn = 0-14-051244-6 |url-access = registration |url = https://archive.org/details/newpenguindictio00cohe/page/726 }}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Snowden |first=Philip (Ethel) |title=Through Bolshevik Russia |location=London |publisher=Cassell |year=1920 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JRJLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMAAJ |page=32 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> A May 1943 article in ''[[Signal (magazine)|Signal]]'', a German propaganda periodical, discussed "the iron curtain that more than ever before separates the world from the Soviet Union".<ref name=":0">{{citation |title= Hinter dem eisernen Vorhang |newspaper= Signal |number= 9 |date= May 1943 |language= de |page= 2}}</ref> [[Joseph Goebbels]] commented in ''[[Das Reich (newspaper)|Das Reich]]'', on 25 February 1945, that if Germany should lose the war, "An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered".<ref name= Feuerlicht>{{citation |title=A New Look at the Iron Curtain |first= Ignace |last=Feuerlicht |journal= American Speech |volume= 30 |issue= 3 |date=October 1955 |pages=186–189 |doi=10.2307/453937 |jstor= 453937}}</ref><ref>{{citation |last=Goebbels |first= Joseph |url= https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb49.htm |title= Das Jahr 2000 |newspaper=Das Reich |language=de |date= 25 February 1945 |pages=1–2 }}</ref> German [[Leading Minister of Germany|leading minister]] [[Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk|Lutz von Krosigk]] broadcast 2 May 1945: "In the East the iron curtain behind which, unseen by the eyes of the world, the work of destruction goes on, is moving steadily forward".<ref>{{citation|title=Krosigk's Cry of Woe |newspaper= The Times |date=3 May 1945 |page= 4}}</ref> Churchill's first recorded use of the term "iron curtain" came in a 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President [[Harry S. Truman]] regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind".<ref name="maychurchill">{{Citation |last= Churchill |first= Winston S. |title= The Second World War, Triumph and Tragedy |publisher=Bantam |year=1962 |volume= 2 |chapter= 15 |pages= 489, 514}}</ref><ref>{{citation | publisher =US Dept of State |title= Foreign Relations of the US, The Conference of Berlin (Potsdam) |year=1945 |volume=1 |page= 9}}</ref> He repeated it in another telegram to Truman on June 4, mentioning "...the descent of an iron curtain between us and everything to the eastward",{{sfn|Churchill |1962|p=92}} and in a House of Commons speech on 16 August 1945, stating "it is not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is unfolding itself behind the iron curtain which at the moment divides Europe in twain".<ref>{{Citation |title= Debate on the address |publisher= Hansard, House of Commons |url= https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1945/aug/16/debate-on-the-address#column_84 |at= column 84 |date= 16 August 1945 |volume= 413 |access-date= 20 May 2009 |archive-date= 26 March 2022 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220326134914/http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/aug/16/debate-on-the-address#column_84 |url-status= live }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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