Par Mélissa M'Raidi-Kechichian, finissante au Baccalauréat en Art de l'Université de Québec à Montréal
Russian diplomacy is most often approached through its commitments in the Near East and its military influence. However, Russia has been increasingly using another form of diplomacy over the past few years: cultural diplomacy. The conceptual framework of our analysis is based on the concept of soft power defined by Joseph Nye (2004). According to Nye, the soft power of a country is divided into three categories: the attractive aspects of its cultural image, its values, and its foreign policies. We will focus on the values and cultural aspects by adapting the concept of soft power to the reality of a contemporary Russia. We will first briefly address the soviet history of soft power, followed by the role of language as a vector of culture and ideologies through the implementation of Russian cultural centres (Russkyi Mir) abroad, more specifically in Armenia. Finally, we will discuss the use of media in the context of soft power. In its official Russian interpretation, the concept of soft power is more political than it is in the Occident[1]. The History of cultural diplomacy in Russia dates back to the Russian revolution of 1917. Moreover, according to Kogan (2012), breaking the political, cultural, and economic isolation of the Soviet Union was actually possible thanks to cultural and public diplomacy[2]. One telling example of those policies is the creation of VOKS (Vsesojuznoe Obščestvo Kul’turnoj Svjazi s zagranicej) in 1925, or the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. It was the first Russian organisation in charge of promoting cultural diplomacy. This promotion of the Russian culture consisted of cultural and scientific exchanges between public and educational institutions in the Occident, but also in the creation of social circles opened to the public via conferences and exhibitions of Russian scientists, artists, and scholars[3]. Even though the official goal of VOKS was to create cultural bonds with foreign societies, those activities were often perceived as tools of communist propaganda[4]. It seems obvious that cultural diplomacy operated by Russia is no new business, but how does it operate nowadays? After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia set two important goals in terms of communication: to separate the stereotype of the Soviet era from the new image of Russia, and to promote the new image of a democratic Russia. The promotion of Russian culture and language was an additional goal[5]. This secondary goal was delegated, through the Rossotrudnichestvo[6], to the Russkiy Mir Foundation, implemented worldwide.
Founded in 2007, Russkiy Mir (Russian World) now has more than 60 cultural centres (russkiy center) in over 40 countries, far beyond the Post Soviet space. The concept is similar to other cultural centres such as Alliances Françaises, Goethe Instituts, British councils or Confucius Insituts[7]. Its budget rose to almost 430 millions rubles in 2015, approximately 5.7 millions euros. If we compare this number to the budget of Goethe Instituts for the same year, Germany invested 236 million euros, and is present in over twice as many countries as Russkiy Mir[8]. It is therefore obvious that even though Russia is present abroad, both culturally and linguistically, it is not as pervasive as the culture and language of Western powers such as Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.
Russian language in Armenia: from privileged status to foreign language
Geopolitical changes in the Post Soviet space had a direct impact on the cultural evolutions of countries that used to be part of it[9]. In the USSR, Russian was a compulsory subject taught in schools. The collapse of the USSR has profoundly impacted the role and importance of Russian in the Post Soviet space where it used to be one of the components contributing to regional internal coherence. Armenian policies of “derrussification” had a significant impact on the place of Russian in its society, and according to the law of Article 2 of the National Assembly of Armenia, Russian is considered a minority language. If Russian still is the second language of education in Armenia, it would appear to be more a technical issue than linguistic hegemony. Indeed, Armenian children receiving an education in Russian are mostly children of Armenians formerly expatriated in Russia. After coming back to Armenia, the language of education became an issue for their child who does not have a strong enough command of the language for an academic setting. However, the Armenian Ministry of Education specifies that if a child received at least five years of their education in Russian, they are allowed to pursue their education in Russian. Under five years, they must receive their education in Armenian[10].
In spite of those policies meant to promote Armenian, Russian remains the most spoken foreign language in Armenia. Indeed, since 1995, Russian is a compulsory subject taught in school from grade two to twelve. Other foreign languages are taught from the third year, which is not, for example, the case of Georgia, where English is prioritized in comparison with other languages and is a compulsory subject taught from the first year[11]. Learning English is one of the issues that Georgia tackled in order to get closer to Europe as well as the Occidental international community. In addition, Georgia implemented the English Language Strengthening Programme to give its young graduates more competitive profiles on the international scene[12].
This status change of Russian in Armenia seems coherent for a nation emerging from the USSR, but interestingly, Russian remains accessible, especially for the elite. This can be illustrated by the opening in 1999 of the Russo-Armenian university of Yerevan, that operates under Armenian and Russian authorities. From a systemic point of view, this strategy translates into supporting students to master Russian by offering prizes, scholarships, and academic exchanges as forms of encouragement from the Russian government. Russian still has an important place in Armenia, partly thanks to the intervention of the Russian government offering funding and establishing cultural centres. However, Russian is promoted in a multi linguistic environment alongside English, French, German and Mandarin, reflecting the new geopolitical reality. As this case study shows, linguistic strategy is not enough for Russian to remain a privileged language in Armenia and is at risk of declining in the long run. Though the goals of Russkiy Mir align with the promotion not only of the Russian language but also of its culture, the erosion of the linguistic power of Russian makes Russkiy Mir an insufficient tool of domination. The spread of Russian information, values and paradigms takes place not only through the language, but also through a new digital reality to which the Kremlin has been able to adapt. Regardless of the tools used in its soft power, Russia does indeed seek to promote Russian courses for foreigners, and disseminates the language as much as an integral part of world culture than a tool for intercultural communication[13]. Broadcast networks like Russia Today (RT) are helping to boost Russia’s public diplomatic agenda[14]. Indeed, nations with advanced communication skills are more influential in the world and are able to spread their values further and more effectively. This nation branding therefore plays an important role in the use of soft power in the sense that it serves to promote a culture and its values [15]. Described by Price (2003), international broadcasting is an “elegant term for the use of electronic media by one society in order to shape the opinions of people and leaders of another”. Russia has used significant resources to develop its capacity for international broadcasting (including radio and television) as a tool of public diplomacy. For example, RT is not focusing, as we might expect, on Russian news, but rather on events taking place in the United States. RT is very critical of the policies used by the United States in the events it reports, but also of their domestic and international behaviour [16]. However, RT is not a homogeneous entity. Several journalists have denounced the bias of RT, including Liz Wahl, former correspondent in Washington for RT, who resigned live saying, “I can not work for a network funded by the Russian government, which laundered the actions of Putin”. This resignation was followed by Sara Firth, who publicly announced her resignation on Twitter, later declaring that the reporting of information about flight MH17 was “disrespectful of the facts”[17]. In describing soft power as an attractive power, Nye (2004) argued that values such as democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are very attractive aspects. Russia, which does not align itself with these values, is nevertheless able to use soft power in order to spread its culture and the authoritarian values that the Kremlin wishes to spread abroad, thus participating in world communication. As Keating and Kaczmarska (2019) point out, it is important to note that focusing solely on cultural attractiveness underestimates not only the geographic reaching potential of Russian soft power, but also non-liberal ideas which may also please the West[18]. Indeed, sharing a culture does not necessarily mean having similar opinions, and people sharing the same opinions may come from different cultures [19]. It would therefore be relevant to consider soft power as an environment[20] for cooperation, in which values can be transported and integrated by a foreign society, rather than just as a tool for cultural diplomacy. So far, Russia has successfully transitioned from the Soviet to Post Soviet era, while reusing standards and techniques for disseminating information. We have seen that the linguistic aspect is not a strong enough aspect to assert dominance, but remains a factor of power in neighbouring countries.
Bibliographie
Notes * Soft power generated by culture can come from several sources: popular culture, literature, art, television, and films [21]. For Russia, this was reflected, for example, in the tours of the Russian Ballet Troupe during the Cold War, which was an important tool for diplomacy [22]. Références [1]Lukyanov, F. (2013). Les paradoxes du soft power russe. Revue internationale et stratégique, (92), 147‑156. doi: 10.3917/ris.092.0147 [2]Klyueva, A., & Tsetsura, K. (2015). Strategic Aspects of Russia’s Cultural Diplomacy in Europe: Challenges and Opportunities of the 21st Century’. by Catellani, A., Trench, R. and Zerfass, A., Brussels: PIE Peter Lang. [3]Barghorn, F., The Soviet Image of the United States, New York, Harcourt Brace and Co., 1958. [4]Klyueva, A., & Tsetsura, K. (2015), Op. Cit. [5]Bulin, D., “Vyacheslav Nikonov: Delivering the Russian Language to the World”, in The Moscow News, 16 Aug. 2007. Web. 1 Sept. 2014. [6]Mkhoyan, A. (2017). Soft power, Russia and the former Soviet states: a case study of Russian language and education in Armenia. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 23(6), 690–704. [7]Mkhoyan, A. (2017), Op. Cit. [8]Mkhoyan, A. (2017), Op. Cit. [9]Hill, Fiona. 2006. “Moscow Discovers Soft Power.” Current History (Oct. 1): 341–347. [10]Mkhoyan, A. (2017), Op. Cit. [11]Blauvelt, Timothy. 2013. “Endurance of the Soviet Imperial Tongue: The Russian Language in Contemporary Georgia.” Central Asian Survey 32 (2): 189–209. [12]Kopečková, L. (2012). Will English become a new lingua franca in Georgia. Ostrava Journal of English Philology, 4(1), 153–170. [13]Ganshina, G., & Tsvyk, A. (2016), Op. Cit. [14]Rawnsley, G. D. (2015), Op. Cit. [15]Hurn, B. J. (2016). The role of cultural diplomacy in nation branding. Industrial and Commercial Training. [16]Rawnsley, G. D. (2015). To know us is to love us: Public diplomacy and international broadcasting in contemporary Russia and China. Politics, 35(3–4), 273–286. [17]Rawnsley, G. D. (2015), Op. Cit. [18]Keating, V. C., & Kaczmarska, K. (2019). Conservative Soft Power: Liberal soft power bias and the ‘hidden’attraction of Russia. Journal of International Relations and Development, 22(1), 1–27. [19]Mkhoyan, A. (2017), Op. Cit. [20]Klyueva, A., & Tsetsura, K. (2015), Op. Cit. [21]Rugh, W. A., “The Case of Soft Power”, in Seib P. (Ed.), Toward a New Public Diplomacy: Redirecting U.S. Foreign Policy, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 3–21. [22]Brown, R., “What’s Behind Public Diplomacy’s Uncritical Dismissal of Public Relations?”, in Gathering the Light, 31 March 2009. Web. 1 Sept. 2014.
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