Cultural Diplomacy

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

Historical Background

The roots of this legacy took hold 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" over the next century. 

The first Summer School of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (est. 1915) triggered a major paradigm shift in thinking about culture’s reparative function. Their Salzburg meeting of August 1921, which was a joint Austro-British educational collaboration, prompted the League’s global president, Jane Addams (the first American woman awarded the Nobel peace prize), and its members (among them 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. As W.A. Mozart symbolised common cultural property for all sides of the political divide, the organisation immediately regarded him as a unifying figure central to future soft-power diplomacy.

This legacy continued to develop in the 1920s, during the Cold War, and again in mid-1990s, involving figures such as Leonard Bernstein (1959) to Philip Glass (1999). After more than a century of such achievements, it is little wonder that The Los Angeles Times even praised the Salzburg Festival’s “daring belief in cultural diplomacy” as inspiration for the upcoming 2028 Summer Olympics.

Extending the Legacy

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 individual figures, have contributed to enriching Salzburg's diverse resources in cultural diplomacy.

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