Ukrainian Cultural Diplomacy during the War Time: Experience, Issues, Prospects

Abstract

The paper covers Ukrainian cultural diplomacy activities during Russian-Ukrainian war since 2022. The conditions since 1991 up to 2022 could be regarded as unsatisfactory one for the area, and the reasons were absence of political will to care on culture diplomacy up to 2015, and sporadic character of state care after, absence of strategic planning in the field, absence of well-designed Ukrainian culture strategic narrative, absence of sustainability in times of political changes. The importance of cultural diplomacy as part of strategic communications and as a “soft power” tool in creating attractive image of state and providing international support, are stressed. Mass media reports on culture and art events which presented Ukrainian culture abroad after the full-scale Russian aggression begun, allow one to define either main forms and directions which Ukrainian cultural diplomacy had been used, or the main actors in the field. The special focus is on analysis of the events which were held during this year, and their certain fea tures look unreasonable and controversial. Such ones are, for instance, presentation of Ukrainian cinema almost exclusively via demonstration of movies screened for the last some years and absence of Ukrainian films which are real world cinema classic; almost complete ignorance of centuries-old history of Ukrainian visual art and placing contemporary art only in focus. Considering the role of civil society as cultural diplomacy actor as highly positive one, however, since cultural diplomacy is crucial for Ukraine now, the need for state to pay much more greater attention to cultural diplomacy, is stressed. Certain means and approaches which could help to increase effectiveness of Ukrainian cultural diplomacy, are suggested.

Keywords

• cultural diplomacy, soft power, civil society, strategic communication, ukrainian institute, russia-ukraine war, cultural relations.