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The chapter starts from the premise that the study of cultural diplomacy, dominated by a focus on major world powers since 1945, would be illuminated by a better understanding of the cultural diplomatic activities of small, new or restored European states after 1918. It further argues that attempts to incorporate literary translation into cultural diplomacy quintessentially highlight the difficulties of practising cultural diplomacy. The chapter centrally documents the extent and nature of government support for Czech literary translation in the UK, mapping the networks that facilitated the translation of Czech imaginative literature and assessing their relationship with Czechoslovak cultural diplomacy. The chapter shows that the translation and promotion of Czech literature in the UK, though never the product of direct state strategy or intervention, is always linked to gatekeeper sympathy for the idea and aims of Czechoslovakia, but the reception of translated Czech literature in the UK shows no appreciation of this aspect until after the September 1938 Munich Agreement, when, for Czechoslovakia, it is too late.

The topos of inheriting the built legacy of the temples of Angkor (9^th to 13^th centuries CE) had been a vital element of the French-colonial civilizing mission in Cambodia from 1863 onwards. Yet this claim on ‘cultural heritage’ (or cultural inheritance) was subject to a novel ideological twist when Cambodia became independent in 1953. The classic ‘salvage paradigm’ once practiced by the European colonial power was now appropriated by the newly independent, quasi-‘Neo-Angkorian’ nation state (1954–1970). In this chapter, three different scenarios of this process are discussed: first, the reinvention (as continuation) of the genealogical and religious tradition of the ancient Khmer kings as central element of a new Buddhist socialism of the Non-Aligned country of Cambodia; second, the revival of the grandeur of the built Angkorian antiquity in a modern-day architectural interpretation in vast building programmes for the new-old capital of Phnom Penh and the provinces under state architect Vann Molyvann; and third, the staging of various cultural performances and re-enactments è la Angkorienne within Sihanouk’s strategies of cultural diplomacy, both inside Cambodia with sound-and-light shows inside the Archaeological Park of Angkor, and around the globe through the king’s private Royal Khmer Ballet.

In this chapter, I link the creation of the British-Spanish Society (BSS) and the development of soft power strategies in the Western World. I also put the history of the BSS in the context of British-Spanish relations in the 20^th Century. Finally, I describe the BSS as one example of those institutions involved in the cultural side of foreign policy.

Alongside Beijing’s diplomatic campaign to win over Afro-Asian countries went an equally vigorous cultural initiative. During the 1950s and early 1960s the PRC carried out a multi-faceted propaganda offensive that highlighted China’s economic and military achievements while criticizing American imperialism. The overarching goal was to reassure the world about China’s intentions while inspiring admiration for the CCP’s revolutionary struggle. This chapter also covers Washington’s efforts to counter the effects of the PRC’s cultural diplomacy.

This chapter examines the complications and challenges unique to developing a Cuba Festival program in collaboration with Cuban governmental partners at agencies such as the Cuban Institute for Cultural Research Juan Marinello. Given fifty years of diplomatic isolation, the author, assigned to curate a program that as of 2015 had not come to fruition, explores the implications of the collaborative research and training project for cultural diplomacy and cultural policy in both Cuba and the United States.

Pop culture has emerged has a vehicle of soft power and an arena for competition in cultural diplomacy between China, Japan and Korea. As a middle-power, Korea is the most self-conscious about turning the popularity of its pop culture into an instrument to influence its consumers in Japan and, especially China. Japan’s ability to exercise cultural influence is limited by the potential push-back from memories its colonization of Korea and war time atrocities in China. With a nascent media industry, China is currently at a disadvantage because it is a net importer of pop culture; however, its massive consumption power has begun to force foreign producers to seek co-production opportunities with Chinese companies in order to avoid being kept out by import restrictions imposed by the Chinese government. Co-production gives the Chinese counterparts the right to control the content of the programs, than an ideological advantage. In view of the soft power competition, the idea of pan-East Asian cinema seems to be a project deferred rather than one that is imminent.

Minh’s early encounters with jazz in socialist Vietnam invites a broader contextualization of jazz during the Cold War, in particular, the stories of jazz “behind the Iron Curtain.” Adopted as a cultural instrument in the ideological competition by both sides in the Cold War, jazz was ironically able to persist and even developed its own individual characteristics in different countries behind the Iron Curtain. Indeed, there was jazz in the socialist states after the Stalinist era. But in socialist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, where classical music was deep rooted and flourished, and folk music deemed as a rich source of national pride in the respective countries, jazz was always placed a tier or two below the mainstream arts. Nonetheless, jazz continued to persist behind the Iron Curtain.

Et lille land’ - a little land - is a trope of Danish identity which recurs in many of the short informational films about Denmark made from the 1930s to the 1960s. This chapter outlines why the notion of Denmark as a small country has historically been fundamental to the nation’s self-understanding as an imagined community, and how and why it has been employed in informational films made for domestic and foreign consumption. The chapter discusses the role of film in the national imagination, and the importance of medium-specific qualities in that process of imagining: for the purposes of this book, such qualities include the films’ shortness, which impacts on narrative as well as distribution and exhibition. The chapter then discusses recent scholarship on ‘small-nation’ cinema, especially in the Nordic region, and the place of informational filmmaking within the small-nation context. A final chapter section outlines a further body of scholarship on cultural diplomacy, soft power, and nation-branding in the Nordic region as a framework for understanding how images (including informational films) move across borders and re-negotiate auto- and xenostereotypes.

Between 1954 and 1961, William Faulkner made several trips to Latin America, Asia, and Europe as a goodwill ambassador for the U.S. Department of State. This chapter examines how Faulkner presented himself to (and was viewed by) local and official audiences as both a writer from the U.S. South with a regional identity that was sometimes at odds with the nation, and as a Cold warrior who staunchly defended the U.S. and the democratic system, often in “strategic” nations with anti-American activism. The chapter focuses in particular on Faulkner’s 1955 trip to Asia and Europe, which followed the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, noting in particular how, on the one hand, Faulkner criticized the U.S. South and its racial strife, and, on the other, he promoted the United States and its democratic system as the best means of resisting Communism.

This chapter defines the channels used to elaborate and disseminate propaganda, and reconstructs a history of the circuits and the most significant materials used to create and disseminate language. It places the press and propaganda sections of parties and mass associations in the more complex context of the media and communication agencies that participated in the making of Italian political identities, such as major political newspapers, publications and exhibitions promoted by the government and by foreign embassies, and the popular press.