Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Ali Omidi ¹
• Saeide Moradifar ²

¹ Associate Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

² PhD in International Relations, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Public diplomacy has always been an important tool in the foreign policy of the Russian Federation, before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. From the beginning of its establishment in the 1920s, and with the aim of interacting and influencing the peoples of other countries, the Socialist Soviet Union pursued public diplomacy in parallel with official diplomacy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation sought to reform and create new structures to revive its public diplomacy. Considering the fact that New Russia's strategies in public diplomacy and digital diplomacy are more broader and diverse than the Soviet era’s, the authors examine the question of what are the prominent features of the Soviet Union and the new Russia’s public diplomacy. The present article hypothesizes that Soviet public diplomacy was largely world-centered and ideological, while the approach of modern Russia has been more cultural and Russian-oriented. From the 1917 to 1990, the Soviet Union was a major player in the application of public diplomacy in the world arena, especially in the nations under its political axis. But after its collapse, Russia's main focus has been on its cultural-historical geography to advance public diplomacy and digital diplomacy. This article tries to analyze the question of the article in the framework of theoretical discourse of public diplomacy by using descriptive-analytical method.

Keywords

• Public Diplomacy
• Foreign Policy
• Digital Diplomacy
• Russian Federation
• Soviet Union