Abstract: Based on unpublished archival sources and relevant literature, this paper aims to analyze Yugoslavia's approach to the possibilities offered by public diplomacy in relation to its policy toward Romania in the period from 1945 to 1948, as well as to point out its objectives in this regard. Due to the complexity of the concept of public diplomacy itself, we will limit ourselves only to those aspects that were directly in the service of Yugoslav support for the Romanian Communist Party and the government of Petru Groza.

Keywords: Yugoslavia, Romania, Public diplomacy, Sovietization, Propaganda

Summary: In the case of Yugoslav policy towards Romania from 1945 to 1948, by observing the most commonly used aspects of public diplomacy employed during that period, the primacy of ideological goals is clearly evident when it came to achieving the desired image of Yugoslavia in the public of neighboring Romania. For that reason, during 1945 and 1946, when there was no Convention on Cultural Cooperation, Yugoslav “public diplomacy” in the neighboring country was focused almost exclusively on the local youth, who were considered the most open to ideological and political influences. The main means of influence was the cooperation of youth political organizations, sports cooperation, but also the organized arrival and work of Romanian youth brigades in the construction of railway lines in Yugoslavia, with the aim of introducing young people from Romania to the so-called “Yugoslav reality”, which Yugoslav authorities believed to be much more advanced than that in Romania. During 1947 and the first half of 1948, that is, until the conflict between Yugoslavia and the Cominform, Yugoslavia broadened its focus and turned to classic means of “public diplomacy”, which included cooperation in the field of high culture, as well as the increasingly widespread use of ordinary propaganda through the press, radio, and cinematography.