ANGLO-SOVIET CULTURAL RELATIONS IN THE 1930s: MAIN TRENDS

Abstract

The relevance of the problem is based on the fact that cultural cooperation is an important channel for increasing dialogue between states, and a detailed study of Anglo-Soviet cultural relations in the 1930s allows identifying specific features of such cooperation between states having opposite economic, social, political and ideological systems. Based on a wide range of archive documents, main areas and development trends in the Anglo-Soviet cultural cooperation in the 1930s are analyzed. The article shows the objectives and institutional framework of the USSR foreign cultural policy and identifies changes in the form, content and dynamics of the Anglo-Soviet cultural ties in the period in question. Based on this material, periodization of the Anglo-Soviet cultural cooperation in the 1930s is made. It is concluded that the process of Anglo-Soviet cultural cooperation was complex and inconsistent as it was affected by political and ideological factors in the both countries, which determined its intermittent nature. In the late 1930s Anglo-Soviet decreased sharply. The social base in the UK on which it was possible to carry out contacts in the field of science and culture significantly shrank. On the other hand, the Soviet leadership lost interest to expanding cultural exchange with Britain in the late 1930s.