Cultural Projects in Implementation of South Korea's Soft Power Strategies, the Case of the Korea-Russia Dialogue Forum

The purpose of this study is to determine the role of cultural projects run by the Korea-Russia Dialogue Forum (KRD) in terms of the implementation of South Korea's foreign policy objectives using a soft power strategy. The tasks of the study were: to substantiate the importance of cultural initiatives in terms of soft power, to systematize and describe KRD projects in various spheres (literature, festivals, visual arts, cultural studies), to identify priority strategic vectors of South Korea’s foreign policy basing on the material considered. The structure of the work corresponds to the research objective setting. As a result of the analysis, several conclusions have been drawn. For instance, it was found out that the interaction between Russia and the Republic of Korea was characterized by horizontal ties between societies ("from civil ties to politics" vector). The research highlights the following soft power strategic tasks: the popularization of the Korean language in the world in general and in Russia in particular, the worldwide promotion of Korean cultural brands, the consolidation of the national community in foreign countries, and support for the implementation of the foreign policy tasks, specifically related to the process of tackling the North Korean issue. The Republic of Korea’s cultural projects can therefore be considered not only as culture related ones, but more extensively as a tool for pursuing the foreign interests of the state as well.