Sounding the Turn to the West: Music and Diplomacy of Yugoslavia After the Split With the USSR and the Countries of the “People’s Democracy” (1949–1952)

Abstract

My grasp of the research area of music and diplomacy is grounded on the experience that I gained through the realization of a project investigating the Belgrade Choral Society’s concert tours abroad at the turn of the 20th century. There, I explored how music was incorporated into the diplomatic strategies that the Kingdom of Serbia practiced in its cross-border relationships with empires, states, cities and ethnic communities of the Central, Eastern, South-Eastern and Ottoman Europe of the time. Focusing on a new topic in this article, my approach to music in diplomatic interactions remains the same line. It is placed in the context of cultural diplomacy and poses questions about the involvement of music in policies and practices of cross-border networking, exchange, representation, negotiation and mediation, while encompassing different state officials and non-officials, groups, institutions and organizations, as well as both formal and informal, elitist and non-elitist events and activities. Such an approach shares its interests with a spectrum of contemporary studies that open the space for investigating diplomacy as a social and cultural practice.