UNESCO‘s global cultural policy attracts the attention of diplomats and academics
The launch of the book “Global Cultural Policy of UNESCO” by Prof. Rositsa Yordanova, PhD, from Varna Free University “Chernorizets Hrabar”, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the world organisation for science, education and culture – UNESCO, took place at the Diplomatic Institute with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sofia.
Guests at the event included employees from the “UNESCO” Department of the Human Rights Directorate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and representatives of the academia in Bulgaria.
The author – a professor of Rhetoric at Varna Free University “Chernorizets Hrabar” – demonstrated a graphic image of the main cultural and political activities of UNESCO, and outlined the trends in the development of the organization’s cultural policy and its profiles, characteristic of the decades between 1945 and 2010. She placed emphasis on the role of universities for the establishment of a fluid research network on issues of cultural rights, and also for the training of students and attracting PhD students to do research on various aspects of global cultural politics.
Prof. DSc Ivanka Mavrodieva – a professor of Rhetoric at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” - said that the book came as “the result of a thorough and comprehensive study of UNESCO’s global cultural policy for the 1945 – 2010 period”, because of the systematic presentation of the huge amount of information, its thematic range, the precise terminology and the original graphic and artistic design made by Viktor Petkov.
Prof. Mavrodieva placed a special focus on the presentation of the four ideas in the cultural and research activities of UNESCO. In conclusion, she added her own view as to the audience the book was aimed at, including vocational training institutions and programmes and specialization of cultural diplomacy.
Prof. DSc Donka Alexandrova emphasized the precision and the systematic presentation of data and the nuancing of the book’s conceptual apparatus, which contains a selection of documents stating UNESCO’s grounds for the global cultural policy they have adopted.
Assoc. Prof. Ivan Kasabov, PhD from the Department of History and Theory of Culture at Sofia University deemed the book valuable and coming at the right moment. “The texts in the book are on the constant search for a dialogue with students, and not only the students in the mentioned majors “Cultural Studies”, “Law”, “Public Administration”, “Psychology”, “Informatics””, he said, which is the best guarantee for preserving and encouraging cultural diversity as central to UNESCO’s activity. He stressed the importance of the documents included in the final part of the book, translated into Bulgarian for the first time – “A Recommendation Concerning the Status of Artists” (1980), “Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies” (1982), and pointed out their usefulness for the debates in the field of cultural policies both in the past and in the present-day world.
A congratulatory letter to the author of the book - Prof. Rositsa Yordanova, PhD – was received by the Director-General of UNESCO, Ms. Irina Bokova.
