Kyiv School of Diplomatic Arts

Our Workshop:

Intercultural

Competencies

in Public Diplomacy

Master Classes for Educators and Students

In the collection of his posthumously published writings, the Testament Politique, Armand Jean de Plessis de Richelieu (1585-1642), Chief minister to Louis XIII of France and a fabulous titan of European diplomacy, left to posterity an omnium-gatherum of particularly practical wisdom. Among other treasures of the said trove, there is one that ventilates a rather obvious fact – id est “different nations have different characters“. With the combination of grandeur and shrewdness, the sage cardinal pontificated that such distinctiveness was to be reckoned with at all times.

Throughout the subsequent centuries, other luminous prophets of diplomatic practice dwelled upon this matter as well. All in all, the idea that the world’s cultures are diverse and dissimilar has become quite conventional within the mainstream discourses of our present-day life.

But…

Are we really aware of how to conduct the communication among various cultures in a congenial, cordial, and harmoniously agreeable way?

Do the members of our contemporary society know how to construct and maintain intercultural bridges or communicate cross-culturally?

It is the above-named functions and the methods to address them in existing educational system that we eye up within this Workshop.

The Workshop “Intercultural Competencies in Public Diplomacy”

is a part of our Program

“Building the Public Diplomacy

Curriculum“.

To read more about the stately and diplomatic insights from the Cardinal de Richelieu, please use: Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu (1585-1642). The Political Testament of Cardinal de Richelieu. Translated by Henry Bertram Hill. The University of Wisconsin Press, 1961 (the referred statement concerning the different characters of different nations is to be found on p. 97.).

If you might like to see the original French text, we could suggest the edition which we employed above: Testament politique d’Armand du Plessis, Cardinal duc de Richelieu. En IV Volumes. Amsterdam: Zacharie Chatelain, 1691. Tome I. (the referred statement is on pp. 338-339).