title: Lev Tolstoy and contemporary Russian cultural policy
abstract: The twenty-first century has seen the development of the concept of soft power in world politics and international relations (Nye 2004). Russia has played its part in the global trend of seeking to influence hearts and minds in the information age with a number of initiatives in the first decade of the century designed to promote its image abroad (see Introduction). The year 2014 marked a shift towards nationalism in Russia’s narrative of national identity and in the way it presented itself and 