Büyük diplomatik adım: Soğuk savaş boyunca uluslararası sahnede siyasi bir araç olarak bale

This dissertation investigates the role of ballet as a political instrument during the Cold War, focusing on how the Soviet Union and United States mobilized this art form within their broader geopolitical rivalry. While the Cold War has long been studied through its military, economic, and strategic dimensions with a focus on hard power capacities, this research emphasizes its cultural and symbolic aspects, showing how ballet became a medium of ideological expression, national identity construction, and soft power projection. It asks how, within the bipolar context of great power rivalry, the Soviet Union and the United States employed ballet as an instrument of ideological dissemination and cultural diplomacy during the Cold War. The study first examines the internal development of ballet within both superpowers. In the Soviet Union, ballet was progressively transformed from an imperial heritage into a socialist art form under strict state supervision, combining ideological narratives, realism, and folkloric elements to reflect and reinforce the values of the regime. In contrast, the United States, lacking a strong native ballet tradition, developed an eclectic style largely shaped by immigrant artists and nourished by local dance and music traditions. Supported primarily by private patronage, American ballet embraced abstraction and modernism, positioning itself as a counter-discourse to the Soviet model of narrative-driven, ideologically saturated productions. These divergent trajectories embodied two opposed worldviews: collectivism versus individualism, and ideological discipline versus artistic experimentation. The second part explores ballet as an international instrument in the confrontation of the two blocs. During the Cold War, major ballet companies undertook extensive international tours, serving as ambassadors of cultural prestige and ideological superiority. These tours were carefully orchestrated to seduce audiences abroad, but they also became arenas of political tension, where defections of Soviet dancers to the West revealed cracks in the Soviet system and symbolized victories for the capitalist model. Yet, the mutual fascination and cooperation that emerged from these interactions illustrated that even within the context of rivalry, ballet could act as a vector of dialogue and admiration across the Iron Curtain. The findings suggest that ballet was far from a mere cultural by-product of the Cold War. It was a central arena where ideological competition, national identity, and international prestige were staged and contested. By embodying different political visions on stage and traveling across borders, ballet contributed to shaping perceptions of power, freedom, and cultural superiority. Moreover, the study underscores the continued relevance of cultural diplomacy, as current global tensions demonstrate that culture remains a crucial domain of international influence. Ballet, as a non-verbal yet profoundly political art, exemplifies how soft power can both mirror and mold the dynamics of international relations.