The Main Directives of Cultural Diplomacy - Hungarian Cultural Representation Abroad is a supplementary document that outlines the path the country's culture institutes abroad have been on and the one they are to follow. The document notes the need for a forward-looking cultural picture of the country, one that positions Hungarian culture and Hungary in the world.
The role of cultural diplomacy in terms of international relations has become visibly more important in the past years, according to the document. Culture has not only become a matter of agreeing on values, but of cooperation and conflict management. Cultural diplomacy points beyond politics of the moment and the current economic situation, it "strengthens the public, the country and the national identity, it ties people, groups of people and nationalities together".
András Derdák, director of the Hungarian Institute in Paris, said the document, on which work started in the autumn of 2009, was a "common stand on the results of a four-year period". The kind of non-government people that were brought into Hungary's network of culture institutes abroad "took on their work really differently", he said. At the same time, the Ministry of Education and Culture reorganised the network, bringing in the Balassi Institute and naming cultural attaches, he added.
Author: Éva Kelemen
