Cultural Diplomacy in Capital Cities: Russian Missions in Paris, London, and Constantinople

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the cultural diplomacy of Russian embassies in capital cities during the nineteenth century. It demonstrates that in addition to military and political affairs, Russian ambassadors and their staff engaged in a wide range of cultural activities, including philanthropy, church building, and educational enterprise. Russian missions played decisive roles in personifying Russian power abroad, and they projected an image of Russian civilization to international audiences. The panel focuses on three capital cities to illuminate Russian religious diplomacy, the development of Russophobia, and the reception of Eastern Orthodoxy among Catholics and other non-Orthodox believers.

Sub Unit

• History: Russian and Eurasian, 1800-1924

Chair

• Theophilus C. Prousis, U of North Florida

Papers

• The Russian Eagle over the Bosporus: Baron Grigorii Stroganov at the Sublime Porte (1816-1821) - Lucien Frary, Rider U

• ‘All the Superstition of Spain or Sicily’: British Attitudes towards Orthodoxy in the 19th-Century Ottoman Empire - Jack Fairey, National U of Singapore (Singapore)

• 'So Russians are Christians!’:The St. Alexander Nevsky Church of Paris and French Encounters with Orthodoxy - Heather Leigh Bailey, U of Illinois at Springfield

Discussant

• Paul William Werth, U of Nevada, Las Vegas