National identity remains a critical issue: cultural diplomacy, nation branding, and the dilemma for Slovakia

The paper’s research conveys a pervasive difficulty in describing a contemporary national image, and how this can be used strategically. Cultural practitioners and stakeholders tend to underestimate the enduring role of national identity and there is a chronic lack of professional political discussion on how our past, present, and future historical culture, its symbols, and narratives, remain internal to the cultural production of a country (and therefore to any strategically effective cultural diplomacy). And yet, post-nationalism and the commitment to European integration and globalisation means that people are oriented in the other direction. This paper considers how cultural policy researchers can devise a consistent approach to nation branding and design a full-spectrum approach to cultural diplomacy.

Furthermore, this paper addresses a lack of current research —on what remains of historic national identity and how it is changing, or being replaced by, other forms of self-recognition and representation. Younger generations in Slovakia and throughout Europe appear to be hugely influenced by a generalised ‘pan-Europeanism’ and ‘globalism’ and inclined to smaller-scale means of belonging (social or identity groups; activist issues or community-based movements). Yet, this paper will assert, that there is a dimension of national identity that is enduring and remains a means of recognition, community, culture and belonging — but this is a critical issue for cultural diplomacy and National Cultural Institutes (Paschalidis 2009). What is being represented? And how do we define national identity within and a part of Europe, especially among white-majority nationals in a pan-European multicultural context?

This paper also draws attention to a forgotten historical narrative, that of the Slavic peoples in Central-Eastern Europe and the suppression of their cultural self-determination since the fall of the Great Moravian empire and more recent reinvention in the post-communist era (Chudžíková, 2011; Fawn, 2003). The word ‘national’ has since not been effectively reinvented but has only become a negative term, indelibly associated with far-right politics; and yet the question of culture and the enduring national state entity remains significant to any strategically effective cultural diplomacy.

The intended outcome of this paper should be a larger and urgent discussion, and further research, on cultural policy in the context of the national identity of post-socialist countries and its influence on their cultural diplomacy strategies. This research will relate directly to the work of National Cultural Institutes in most European member states.

Simona Vrabcova is a final year Doctoral Researcher in Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Music Business and Arts Management and a Master’s degree with Distinction in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship from Middlesex University London. Coming from a Central European country Slovakia, both her national background and artistic practice strongly influenced her research interest. Aside from academia, Simona is a freelance arts manager working on several projects including her independent theatre company Slovak Theatre London