The Wind of Change in Cultural Diplomacy: Estonian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s

The end of the Cold War marked not only fundamental changes in the international system, but also in the basics of cultural diplomacy. The practice of ideological influencing with cultural measures retreated and the achieving of mutual understanding between states and nations became more important. This paper analyzes the changes in cultural diplomacy in Estonia in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. It asks how and why the organization of cultural diplomacy transformed in the background of the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union. The focus is on the history of the Estonian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and its successor organization. It shows how new non-governmental organizations also engaged in cultural diplomacy emerged at the time resulting in competition between institutions, the loss of importance of the Friendship Society, and eventually its dissolution despite efforts at reorganization. It was not able to adapt to the new liberal conditions. The history of the Friendship Society sheds new light on the Estonian aspirations toward the West as well as on the pragmatic efforts of achieving international support for the restoration of state independence