"The political representative without mandate" in post-war cultural diplomacy of the USSR: features of selection and motives of participation (based on the diaries of K. A. Fedin)

The author studies the problem of agency in the Soviet cultural diplomacy of the late 1940s - early 1960s, when the main mediators of the foreign policy representations of the USSR were writers. Based on personal experience K.A. Fedin, one of the notable participants in the post-war cross-border communication, attempts to understand the features of selecting persons for the role of «political representative without a mandate», to reveal the components of the symbolic capital of actors that provided them with a cohort worthy to represent the country in the international arena, and the motives for their participation in cultural and diplomatic activities.