THE ROLE OF UKRAINIANS ABROAD IN UKRAINIAN PUBLIC AND CULTURAL DIPLOMACY: HISTORICAL AND MODERN ASPECTS

Abstract

The circumstances, in which Ukraine began to encounter Russian aggression, require not only actively informing its population about the events that are taking place, but also the world community about our country. Such informing is done not only through official diplomacy but also through communication activities of the public, organizations, business, art circles, which, in the scientific space, has been titled public and cultural diplomacy.
In the article, given the breadth of the proposed problem, in a historical and contemporary contexts, the author attempts to review the role and directions of activity of the Ukrainians abroad in disseminating information about Ukraine (which she proposes to take as a kind of manifestations of public and cultural diplomacy), in different periods of existence of Ukrainian statehood or its absence. The analysis of the history of the issue research as well as review of the theoretical basis allowed her to conclude that the Ukrainian researchers’ lack of attention to the problem and the peculiarities of assessing the contribution of Ukrainian expatriates to the formation and realization of the phenomenon. At the same time, the analysis of Western studies shows that considerable attention is paid to the study of the role of ethnonational Diasporas in the public and cultural diplomacy of their countries of origin. The author argues that the realization of the significance of the development of this area leads to the intensification of practical cooperation between diplomats and representatives of Ukrainian communities and organizations to inform the society of the host countries about Ukraine.
The publication also contains a brief analysis of the history and the contemporary dimension of Ukrainian communities abroad, which are the subjects of public and cultural diplomacy. The author examines the essence of the waves of Ukrainian emigration, proposes her own approach to the traditional understanding of this phenomenon, analyzes the differences between generations of Ukrainians abroad, and proposes a generalization of features of the contemporary Ukrainian diaspora. The analysis of the possibilities of contemporary Ukrainians abroad in the development of Ukrainian public and cultural diplomacy, as well as a documentary basis that determines Ukraine’s willingness to cooperate with Ukrainian expatriates within the relevant state programs is logical in the context of the article.