Public Diplomacy: the Past and the Present

The round table “Public Diplomacy and International Cooperation” was held at the Presidential Library. It proceeded the institution’s work to unite various organizations, the public, Russian regions and foreign countries, aimed at revealing the history, its image through documents, facts, memoirs.

The Presidential Library held a round table in collaboration with the St. Petersburg Association for International Cooperation. The event was attended by representatives of the Committee on External Relations of St. Petersburg, the Representative Office of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg, the St. Petersburg Association of International Cooperation, the media, experts, students from relevant faculties of universities of St. Petersburg and others.

“Against the backdrop of complicated relations at the interstate level and sanctions, there is often an improvement in cooperation at the regional and municipal levels”, - said Sergey Markov, First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on External Relations of St. Petersburg. - Mayors of cities from EU countries come as before. But we know that they are discouraged from these trips, they are not recommended to visit Russia now”.   

As an example of the most productive cooperation of St. Petersburg with public organizations of other countries, he spoke about survivors of the siege now living in Israel. An agreement was reached with them that in the near future a blockade monument with a capsule of earth from the Piskaryov cemetery will appear in Israel. In addition, the Presidential Library actively interacts with the Israeli survivors of the siege. This year, they donated a unique collection of memoirs to the institution’s electronic collections.

On the same day, on the initiative of the Presidential Library, within the framework of the project “Victory 75. Chronicle of Memory and Glory” jointly with the Union of Journalists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region, school № 207 of the Central District hosted a major meeting. An exposition prepared by students and teachers on the subject of the “Scottish Album” was presented. It was sent by the women of Scotland as a token of gratitude to the residents of Leningrad during the years of the siege. The book became a striking act of public diplomacy during the war years, when, on the initiative of ordinary people who lived in Glasgow and other cities of Scotland, drawings, poems, more than 6,000 signatures in support of women who defended Leningrad were collected. The project of digitizing the album was announced in the Presidential Library on November 9, 2018, now the publication is already being studied electronically by students and is available at the exhibition. By the way, school № 207 is one of those that was opened during the siege and this memory is carefully respected here.

Now the work is underway to obtain from Scotland the “Leningrad Album”, which was sent counterparts by the women of Leningrad. Then work will begin at the addresses of those families whose relatives left signatures in both albums in order to unite these people already in our time and learn about the fate of their ancestors.

The Presidential Library is also considering the possibility of creating, together with Belarusian colleagues, a documentary marking the anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War in 2020.

Another example of public diplomacy is the festival of Russian amateur theaters from several dozen countries in the Northern capital.

“Unlike classical diplomacy, public diplomacy is freer in its actions, less dependent on official decisions. It rests on the most powerful resource - human relations”, - said Svyatoslav Nechaev, First Secretary of the Representative Office of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg.

President of the St. Petersburg Association for International Cooperation, member of the Presidium of the Russian Association for International Cooperation, Andrei Ibragimov, cited the Immortal Regiment campaign as an example of public diplomacy, adding that despite the fact that it does not have a single leadership and organizational structure, it “touched upon everyone". At the same time, he noted the lack of effective instruments of influence of Russian public diplomacy in the world.

Representatives of the Department of International Humanitarian Relations of St. Petersburg State University, Yulia Nikolaeva and Natalya Bogolyubova spoke about the models of public diplomacy of different states: from the French model of “diplomacy of influence” and “public diplomacy” of the USA to panda diplomacy (presenting bears by the Chinese government as a gift to their allies ) and diplomacy of saunas, common in Finland. Experts also presented an expanded definition of “public diplomacy” in Russia.

Dmitry Vasilenko, Vice-Rector for International Relations of St. Petersburg State University of Economics, spoke about the role of universities in public diplomacy. It was, in particular, that in some countries of Europe, which official relations with Russia are far from ideal, there are thousands of students studying the Russian language.

A number of materials in the digital collections of the Presidential Library is devoted to public diplomacy. This is an electronic copy of the order of the President of the Russian Federation of October 30, 2010 on the International Public Forum "The role of public diplomacy in the development of international humanitarian cooperation". These are abstracts of dissertations on oil and gas, energy and sports diplomacy.

Interesting information about different forms of interaction between countries and their residents is included in the English book Diplomacy (1941) and the book On Ancient Russian Diplomacy (1847), available on the Presidential Library’s portal. The video “Foreign View. The Power of Public Diplomacy”, which tells about the annual photo contest of the Presidential Library, where residents of different countries share their own vision of the beauty and originality of Russia, is also presented.