Russian Cultural Marking of the International Scene: The Soft Power to the Test (2000-2018)

Since the mid-1990s, and even more Vladimir Putin’s accession to the presidency, reaffirmation and recognition of Russia’s status as a great power has been erected as an existential political imperative. The restoration of Russia's global influence is one of the parts of this high-powered policy implemented by the authorities. It manifests itself repeatedly through hard power initiatives outside national borders in Georgia, Ukraine or Syria. But the “color revolutions” in the post-Soviet space, primarily the Orange Revolution of 2004, prompt the Russian government to rethink its foreign policy in order to project a better image of Russia abroad. This late awareness is reflected in the adoption of a clean soft power strategy and its main key instruments are created during the second term of Vladimir Putin (2004- 2008). The notion of soft power will be institutionalized in the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation on February 12, 2013. This article is therefore intended as a contribution to the analysis of the issues surrounding the cultural variable in foreign policy. of the Russian Federation. It is therefore more precisely his ambition to decipher the motives underlying the mobilization of resources for the purpose of cultural outreach by Russia. A country with many contrasts and, moreover, in a world cultural field traditionally controlled by strong Western powers, Russia has opted for soft power, with the triple vision of making its way, to feed its current rise and to pose as a “responsible” and “conciliatory” power. For the twelfth largest economic power in the world, it is also a question of reducing the mistrust and criticism that its presence already arouses on the international scene. The choice made on the cultural variable is therefore not insignificant; because, it is a strategy, through which Russia would like to build, if not regain its greatness of yesteryear.