People-to-people diplomacy and the end of the Cold War

Abstract

In March 2019, at the Russian State University for the Humanities, in the framework of the international conference “Turning Points at the End of the Cold War: A Look from the West and from the East, 1989–2019,” the section “The Role of Public Diplomacy in Ending the Cold War” was held. Its participants, civilian diplomats from Russia and the United States, shared their experience of organizing and participating in projects aimed at contacts between the ordinary people who lived on both sides of the Atlantic – the contacts that contributed to the end of the Cold War in the minds and hearts of these people. The article collects their memories.

A common feature of the testimonies of civilian diplomats is their recognition of the importance of accepting the foreign “Other” in the United States and Russia in the process of experiencing the legacy of the Cold War. The block confrontation ended not only with the efforts of professional politicians who signed interstate agreements, but also thanks to the activities of those individuals who helped to improve the images of Russians in the USA and Americans in Russia.