Cultural Diplomacy

Cultural Diplomacy is deeply embedded in the DNA of both Salzburg and the “Festival Idea”. 

Historically, the roots of Salzburg's legacy emerged before the First World War when cosmopolitan figures such as Harry Graf Kessler — the twentieth century’s cultural diplomat par excellence — brought together the key players who would catalyse Salzburg as a soft-power "hot spot". By 1921, a landmark shift in thinking about culture’s reparative function took place when the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (est. 1915) convened their first ever Summer School. Their Salzburg meeting was a joint Austro-British educational collaboration that prompted the League’s global president, Jane Addams (the first American woman awarded the Nobel peace prize), and its members, including Friderike Zweig, to argue for music’s special role in facilitating international peace-making, intercultural understanding, and lasting reconciliation among the citizens of Europe and the Americas. The organisation immediately identified W.A. Mozart as a unifying figure — symbolising common cultural property for all sides of the political spectrum — and thus central to diplomatic work.

More than a century later, the Los Angeles Times highlighted this rich heritage by hailing the Salzburg Festival’s “daring belief in cultural diplomacy” as inspiration for the upcoming 2028 Summer Olympics.

At SIAS, we are committed to exploring a wide array of interdisciplinary issues in Cultural Diplomacy to provide strategic, timely, and forward-thinking solutions to global issues.

Because diplomacy ("the art of the possible") is both performative and collaborative — elements also deeply intrinsic to arts festivals in general — we recognise that various local and global institutions, as well as figures, have contributed to enriching Salzburg's diverse resources in Cultural Diplomacy.

Learn more about how this Core Area interfaces with Global Festival Studies.