The House of Soviet Science and Culture in Prague and Soviet Public Diplomacy after the Prague Spring

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of constructing scientific and cultural communication channels of the USSR and Czechoslovakia after the “Prague Spring” of 1968 on the example of the opening of the House of Soviet Science and Culture in Prague (HSSC). The initiator of this process was the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies. It was his offices that became one of the few surviving links of public diplomacy of the USSR after 1968. Based on archival documents the author shows that the SSOD was integrated into the Soviet political system, and its projects in Czechoslovakia were carried out under the control of party and state structures. The idea of opening a House of Soviet Science and Culture in Prague, which arose in 1969, completely belonged to the Soviet side and in practice met with considerable difficulties in its implementation. HSSC was opened in 1971 in the presence of the first leaders of the USSR and Czechoslovakia. The images of the achievements of socialist science and culture presented in it symbolized the transition to “normalization” in the socio-cultural sphere of the two countries. The Soviet leadership recognized this experience as successful and authorized the strengthening of the work of Soviet cultural centers around the world as an instrument of Soviet propaganda. However, the resources of the USSR were limited and inferiored to its more successful “competitors” from capitalist countries. At the same time HSSC opened up new opportunities for travel and informal intercultural exchange between scientists, cultural figures and Czechoslovak philistines. Therefore, his activity can be characterized as a local experience of Soviet public diplomacy, carried out in the spirit of Brezhnev’s “little deal” with Czechoslovakia.