CIS cultural cooperation to be discussed in Dushanbe
The agenda of the meeting includes 15 items. Members of the council will hear a report on the national cultural policy of Tajikistan, discuss a draft program of the CIS main activities in culture for 2021-2025, which includes more than 100 international and national events in various cooperation areas, including preservation and restoration of historical and cultural heritage, museums, libraries, theaters, concerts, visual art, publishing, information activities, music, and cinema.
The participants of the meeting will also evaluate the results of the Year of Culture in the CIS and participation of the member states in events timed to the CIS Year of Book. Plans are in place to agree on a schedule of the touring exhibition Read Together – Explore Each Other featuring fiction by contemporary writers of the CIS member states.
The council will consider cooperation in museum studies and participation in events timed to the 75th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War. The meeting will focus on the project The Territory of the Victory of Russia's Museum of the Great Patriotic War which was launched in Russia in 2017. It is designed to unite history and war museums, maintain the link between generations, and teach patriotism to the youth. The project has brought together regional, municipal, private and school museums and is currently implemented in 75 Russia's federal subjects.
At the 7th Saint Petersburg Cultural Forum in November 2018, the Museum of the Great Patriotic War signed cooperation and partnership agreements with the key museums of the CIS, including the Belarusian State Museum of the Great Patriotic War History and the Brest Hero Fortress Memorial Complex. In August 2019, the Khatyn State Memorial Complex joined the project. The members of the council will review the status of implementation of the CIS Capitals of Culture interstate program and activities of the CIS basic organizations for cooperation in music, theater, and professional education in the field of filmmaking. The participants of the meeting are set to discuss Uzbekistan's proposal to create a virtual museum of cultural heritage of the CIS countries. This project will aim at popularizing cultural heritage of the CIS states, attracting interest of the public (including educational and cultural organizations and the mass media) to the history, and providing public access to historical materials and documents. The museum will be able to put tangible and intangible heritage of the CIS countries together at one website which will display the most interesting sites of the cultural heritage.
Moreover, the members of the council will touch upon organizing the Art Expo, popularizing cultural heritage in the information space, and holding the CIS Youth Delphic Games and the CIS Youth Cultural Forum. The CIS Council for Cultural Cooperation was established in 1995. It aims to strengthen cooperation of the CIS member states in culture and the humanitarian sphere, create a common humanitarian space, foster moral and ethical values in the society, search for new forms and mechanisms of cooperation, including holding joint forums, conferences, theater, music, and film festivals, developing multilateral international agreements and comprehensive programs. The council includes culture ministers of all eleven CIS member states.