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Friendly Communication Strategies in Indo-Soviet Relations in the 1960s and 1970s (Study of the Work of Nehru Award Winner Leonid Mitrokhin)
This article presents the results of a study of the friendly communication strategy at the basis of Indo-Soviet relations that have sustainably and successfully developed over the past 70 years. We examine the period of the 1960s and 1970s during which the basic forms of cooperation between the two countries took shape in the domain of economics, politics and culture. The process of the formation of the positive and sustainable image of the Friend in the public awareness of both countries is studied as a unique phenomenon not only in Indo-Soviet ties but also in the entire history of 20th-century international relations. The concept of friendship was widely used in official Indian and Soviet documents and became part of intercultural communication both in the personal and professional sphere. We study the bibliography of Indo-Soviet relations over a thirty-year period (from 1947 to 1977) to identify and classify the major themes and different genres of journalist and scholarly publications. We draw attention to the major role played by the media in developing Indo-Soviet relations and shaping the mutual images of the two countries and analyze the unique phenomenon of the introduction of the main ideas and concepts of official propaganda into the worldview of both peoples through the work of journalists and their personal communicative practices. We explore the work of the Soviet Indologist L. Mitrokhin, the 1985 Nehru Award winner who worked for over 10 years in India and was a specialist and admirer of its languages and cultures, paying particular attention to his communicative experience and his methods of implementing the strategy of friendship in newspaper, magazine and scholarly articles as well as in the domain of personal communication.