PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
Contacts

Address
1957 E St NW,
Washington, DC 20052

adminponars@gwu.edu
202.994.5915

NEWSLETTER
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Podcast
PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
DIGITAL RESOURCES
digital resources

Bookstore 📚

Knowledge Hub

Course Syllabi

Point & Counterpoint

Policy Perspectives

RECOMMENDED
  • A Rock and a Hard Place: The Russian Opposition in a Time of War | New Voices on Eurasia with Jeremy Ladd (April 11)

    View
  • The Russia Program at GW (IERES)

    View
  • The Evolving Concerns of Russians after the Invasion | New Voices on Eurasia with Sasha de Vogel (March 9)

    View
  • PONARS Eurasia Spring Policy Conference (March 3)

    View
  • Ukrainathon 2023 (Feb. 24-25)

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Russia’s Remarkable Cultural Diplomacy

  • December 5, 2012
  • Andrey Makarychev

 

Russia has recently intensified its efforts to improve its image in Berlin, one of the most important of European capitals. The multiple cultural events at the end of the 2012 sponsored by Russia, including of course Gazprom, were meant to foster cultural diplomacy, and not [quite] as an extension of soft power.

The difference between the two concepts is crucial. Cultural diplomacy is simply a unilateral demonstration of country’s artistic talent while soft power presupposes forging a system of interactive communicative relations with other nations that are ideally conducive to shared norms, if not values.

Russia’s cultural diplomacy in Berlin has two tracks. One is basically meant to reach Russian-speaking audiences that are nostalgic for the motherland. Russian Film Week (which includes showing new movies), theatrical performances (with Moscow celebrities such as actress Chulpan Khamatova, and literary discussions (as with writer Dmitry Bykov) highlighted popular Russians. The selection of figures was politically balanced. Chulpan Khamatova runs a charity fund and is known for her work with Kremlin activities. Dmitry Bykov is one of the most sarcastic critics of the ruling elite, which he openly mocks in his highly popular pieces that are widely available on the Internet.

A visible signs of political context is an exposition photographs of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency, which many Germans could see as a nostalgic allusion to a bygone enthusiasm for modernization, partnership, and security dialogue. There is also a historical discussion of Russia’s victory over Napoleon, which also fits nicely with the Kremlin’s narrative.

The second track of Russia’s cultural diplomacy is meant for wider consumption. Two events in this regard are of particular interest. One is the historical exhibition “Russians and Germans” in one of the best downtown museums. The second is a video art installation performed by Russia’s AES+F group. The two events are strikingly dissimilar. The exposition is a rather traditional display of Russian–German relations starting from the times of the Hanseatic Union. Each event is placed within a certain logic of historical continuity. On the contrary, the installation introduced a futuristic and absurdist world of post-modern imagery, with people fighting and killing each other for no rational reason. It shows technological disasters as part of ordinary everyday life.

There was another strange aftertaste of absurdity I experienced while at the concert hall where the aforementioned Dmitry Bykov performed his events. How otherwise one can feel about the showing of an apologetic book on Mikhail Khodorkovsky—this at a state-sponsored international cultural festival. The Russian state imprisoned its richest challenger and then is selling a book that morally rehabilitates him. Russia brings to Berlin artists like Dmitry Bykov only to hear from them that Russia is a wild country ruled by crooks and blockheads.

The same irony can be said for the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation, one of the co-sponsors of the Russian Festival in Berlin. Prokhorov himself was an object of harsh mockery in Bykov’s show. Is it because of the Kremlin’s impartiality, a feeling of superiority, or simply insensitiveness to discourses that it doesn’t view these fragmentations as dangerous?  

After such public paradoxes, it may not be unreal to see Pussy Riot as an element of Russia’s cultural outreach. This radical gesture may be closer to soft power than anything else.

Andrey Makarychev is a Guest Professor at the Free University of Berlin, blogging for PONARS Eurasia on the Russia-EU neighborhood.

Related Topics
  • Makarychev
Previous Article
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Анализируя “Русскую весну”

  • December 4, 2012
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
Next Article
  • Uncategorized

National Identity and Globalization: Youth, State and Society in Post-Soviet Eurasia

  • December 5, 2012
  • PONARS Eurasia
View
You May Also Like
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

The Desire to Possess: Russia’s War for Territory

  • Irina Busygina
  • February 8, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Kyiv-Washington Relations in Times of Colossal War: The Ultimate Test of a Strategic Partnership

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • January 11, 2023
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Prevailing Soviet Legacies

  • Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov
  • December 27, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

In Russia’s Nuclear Messaging to West and Ukraine, Putin Plays Both Bad and Good Cop

  • Simon Saradzhyan
  • December 23, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Ukraine’s Asymmetric Responses to the Russian Invasion

  • Nurlan Aliyev
  • July 28, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем
  • Territorial Conflict

Dominating Ukraine’s Sky

  • Volodymyr Dubovyk
  • March 5, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Russian Anti-War Protests and the State’s Response

  • Lauren McCarthy
  • March 4, 2022
View
  • Commentary | Комментарии

Путин и Лукашенко

  • Konstantin Sonin
  • August 29, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PONARS Eurasia
  • About
  • Membership
  • Policy Memos
  • Recommended
  • Events
Powered by narva.io

Permissions & Citation Guidelines

Input your search keywords and press Enter.