Cultural contacts of the Nordic countries with Soviet Russia and the USSR in the 1920s - 1930s

Abstract

The main characteristics of cultural exchanges between Fennoscandian and Russian peoples in the 1920s-1930s were considered. The methodology of the study contained a combination of different methods of analysis: comparative, institutional, functional, anthropological, as well as socio-cultural, socio-political. These methods were determined by the principle of historicism. Authors considered the topic of research as an integral sphere of holistic intellectual life of humanity, as a form of international cooperation, which is an integral part of the system of international relations in the period between the two world wars. The study was based on material from Russian state archives, as well as on published documents of Soviet foreign policy. The authors concluded that a passive attitude to the joint political struggle against the threat of war by many participants of the cultural cooperation with the USSR was determined by the idea of their national culture as a part ofWestern civilization. Nevertheless, refusal to cooperate with the Soviet Union was then tantamount to being marginalized in world culture. Cultural contacts with the Soviet Union played an important role in the formation of anti-fascist sentiments in the West. However, in the Nordic countries these sentiments were not widespread. Rather, the common idea was the short-sighted public hope that they would manage to stay away from the military disaster in Europe. As a result, they were among the first victims of German aggression.