ABSTRACT
The essay explores the creation of cultural diplomacy in the New Europe in the aftermath of the First World War. Culture was a great promotional tool for the East Central Europeans already before the War; however, cultural propaganda became an important tool during the conflict and, above all, afterwards. Initially unofficial, but then institutionalised in the 1920s, cultural diplomacy supported societies fighting for independence and made it easier for their spokesmen to show that they had the right to exist and were capable of constituting their own state. States in the making were presented as both unique and similar to free nations in the West. The defeated Central Powers and also the developing USSR, on the other hand, tried to break out of isolation through culture, to gain or regain their international standing. Therefore, through publications in foreign languages and in the foreign press, exhibitions, inviting guests from abroad, scholarships, films, and many other measures, cultural diplomacy grew creatively in the 1920s.
