The interpreter as a citizen diplomat

Interpreters’ role in a grassroots movement to end

the Cold War

Birgit Menzel
University of Mainz/Germersheim

The article presents a case of interpretation as a political activity during the

Cold War. In the 1980s and 1990s, a grassroots citizen diplomacy movement
was initiated by the Californian Esalen Institute, the center of the American
Human Potential Movement. In and around its Soviet-American exchange
program, numerous individuals, NGOs and organizations established
personal relationships and professional exchange with citizens of the two
super powers and travelled in both directions. Interpreters had a complex
and crucial role in this exchange which was different from both the profes-
sional experience of conference and of communal interpreting.

Keywords: citizen diplomacy, Cold War, human potential movement, Esalen

Institute, space bridges

Whatever you do you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is
always someone to tell you you are wrong; There are always difficulties arising
which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of
action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier
needs: Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win them.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world;
indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

Introduction

Although translation and interpreting have been instrumental in solving conflicts

and even changing societies for centuries, simultaneous interpreting as a profes-
sion has emerged only after the end of World War II, namely since the Nuremberg
trials (Gaiba 1998). Translation as an international movement of political activism

[Link] | Published online: 24 July 2019

Translation and Interpreting Studies 14:3 (2019), pp. 464–478. issn 1932-2798 | e‑issn 1876-2700
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
 The interpreter as a citizen diplomat 465

developed only in the 1970s/1980s, at the height of the Cold War, when a dan-
gerously polarized world on the verge of nuclear war led to massive civil engage-
ment and resistance.1 At the same time, a paradigm shift took place in translation
studies from characterizing translation as a purely linguistic transposition or a
literary art to an “ethical, political and ideological activity” (Tymoczko 2010: 3).
But it was only in the late 1990s that attention turned to the political dimen-
sions of translation and interpreting, as well as their social aspects and functions.
Instrumental in shaping this new perspective was a series of phenomena, includ-
ing globalization following the end of the bipolar world-order, the exponential
rise in migration produced by a growing number of local wars and crises world-
wide, and the revolution in communication technology. While in the late 1970s,
the field of Translation Studies was attempting to transcend the narrow linguistic
profile which had shaped scholarship on translation until then, since the 1990s,
philosophers, linguists, philologists and translation scholars alike have shared a
common interest in the impact of power and ideology on culture and language.
Lawrence Venuti’s strategy of “foreignization” as a “call to action” (Venuti 1995: 307,
267) was an important wake-up call aimed mostly at the monolingual cultures
of the Anglophone world, and much less at multilingual European communities.
While this call to action was sooner a metaphor, as it applied only to the trans-
lation of literary texts, many translators and interpreters literally left their desks
and engaged in volunteer translation, getting involved in forums on alternative
globalization or organizing themselves to provide transnational communication
for political purposes. Community interpreting, in particular, has emerged as a
new field of activity in social, legal, medical and administrative contexts as a reac-
tion to the challenges of rapidly growing migration flows. It is now developing
new profiles quite different from the traditional function and image of the con-
ference interpreter working in international organizations. Since the 2000s new
internet communication technologies have facilitated new forms of collaborative
practices in volunteer translation and interpreting, such as “crowdsourcing” on
the web (Jiménez-Crespo 2015: 60).
This shift in reality has begun to be reflected in academic translation research.
Over the past decade several studies and monographs have been published, which
for the first time document, describe and conceptualize various aspects of trans-
lation and interpreting as a political activity. Maria Tymoczko, Edwin Gentzler,
Erich Prunč, and Miguel Jiménez-Crespo address asymmetries of power, and
activist and volunteer translation as forms of resistance (Tymoczko 2002, 2007,

1. For a reflection on the term activism as an umbrella term see Maria Tymoczko (2010: 12–13).
Tymoczko (2010: 2–22) notes that activism was still absent in the Oxford English Dictionary edi-
tion of 1971.
466 Birgit Menzel

2010; Gentzler 2002; Prunč 2007; Jiménez-Crespo 2015). Mona Baker analyzed the
connection between translation and conflict by applying narrative theory (Baker
2006; Baker 2010), while Michael Cronin explored the impact of globalization and
the new challenges it poses for translation in the twenty-first century, the age of
“fluid modernity” (Cronin 2003: 105).2 Under conditions of corporate power and
given the ever expanding technologies of communication, a general “demateri-
alization of space and time” can be observed, which is significantly altering the
working and professional conditions for translators and interpreters, rarely for the
better. Cronin and Baker also address the striking discrepancy in power and pres-
tige between literacy and orality, especially the “disturbing neglect of orality in
the academic discipline of interpreting studies” (Cronin 2002: 47). Although this
dichotomy has been challenged in poststructuralist theory and postcolonial stud-
ies for several decades, and although the overwhelming majority of interpreting
worldwide takes place outside conference halls and international organizations,
“research on interpreting is still heavily influenced by the priority which has tra-
ditionally been given to simultaneous conference interpreting” (Baker 1997: 113).
Approximately two thirds of all thematic publications on interpreting between
1989 and 1994 dealt with conference interpreting (Cronin 2002: 50). Only recently
has community interpreting begun to receive greater attention. As scholarly stud-
ies focus on redefinitions of the process of interpreting together with the pro-
foundly political struggle for its existence, recognition and professionalization,
they address the didactic and performative aspects of interpreting, the role of
empathy and emotion, as well as quality control and feedback procedures
(Bahadır 2004, 2010, 2011; Prunč 2011; Mikkelson 2014).
The movement which I explore in this article traces activist translation and
interpreting back to the 1980s and may be seen as a pioneering project of political
engagement in a divided world. Citizen diplomacy as I refer to it here is related
to a grassroots movement of transnational mediation that formed in the early
1980s, when thousands of American citizens began to establish personal relations
with citizens of the Soviet Union (Carlson and Comstock 1986; Warner and Shu-
man 1987; Evangelista 1999; Tennison 2012). They wished to move beyond the
frozen relations of official diplomacy to get to know the “face of the enemy” (Keen
1988) and establish personal contacts within “the Evil Empire,” the term used for
the Soviet Union by President Reagan, who in 1983 made the statement that in a
nuclear war, twenty million casualties would be an acceptable sacrifice.
The term Citizen Diplomacy or Track Two Diplomacy was coined by William
Davidson and Joseph Montville to describe this effort:

2. Cronin (2003: 106–107) borrows the term fluid modernity from Zygmunt Bauman.
 The interpreter as a citizen diplomat 467

Track two diplomacy is unofficial, non-structured interaction […] always open

minded, often altruistic, and […] strategically optimistic, based on best case analy-
sis. […]. Track two contacts – from the most apolitical cultural exchanges to psy-
chologically focused political problem-solving meetings – can be a critical
complement to the essential but often sterile official relations between adversaries.
(Davidson and Montville 1981/1982: 155, 156)3

Scientists and businessmen, artists and journalists, private individuals and diplo-
mats were equally involved in this social movement. The Esalen Institute in Big
Sur, California, took a leading role in the Citizen Diplomacy movement. Esalen
is a non-profit integral learning and retreat center offering workshops, residential
education, internships, bodywork and private academic conferences since 1962,
as well as a place, that experiments with a wide range of alternative holistic ways
of life, while also scientifically exploring them, always with the aim of producing
fundamental social change.4
The Esalen Soviet-American Exchange Program was launched by its founder
Michael Murphy, Dulce Murphy, and James L. Hickman in late 1979. It developed
many initiatives and exchanges over the decades and continues today as Track II:
An Institute of Citizen Diplomacy. Its two previous executive directors, James L.
Hickman (1980–1986) and James Garrison (1986–1991), explained the terms and
goals of citizen diplomacy in 1980:

3. “Political leaders are like tribal chiefs (…). Even the most sophisticated leaders must adopt
forceful postures at crucial moments to meet this most primitive but enduring need of people
who fear for their survival. (…) A second diplomatic track can therefore make its contribution
as a supplement to the understandable shortcomings of official relations, especially in times of
tension. [Track two diplomacy’s] underlying assumption is that actual or potential conflict can
be resolved or eased by appealing to common human capabilities to respond to good will and
reasonableness.” (Davidson and Montville 1981/1982: 155, 156). William D. Davidson was a psy-
chiatrist, president of the Institute for Psychiatry and Foreign Affairs, and Joseph V. Montville
was a Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. State Department.
See also Citizen Diplomats (Warner and Shuman 1987) with in-depth-profiles of nine “pathfind-
ers in Soviet-American relations”, Cornell professor Matthew Evangelista’s monograph Unarmed
Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (1999) about behind-the-scene efforts
of European-peace-researchers, former policy makers and high-level U.S. and Soviet scientists
in steering Gorbachev toward ending the nuclear arms race.
4. While writers and scientists, such as Arnold Toynbee, Aldous Huxley, Fritz Perls and espe-
cially Abraham Maslow gave talks in the scholarly gatherings, a wide range of techniques, new
and old, were developed and practiced at Esalen: Gestalt therapy, meditation, tai chi chuan,
psychedelics, Rolfing, primal scream therapy, holotropic breathwork, hatha yoga, biofeedback,
Tantra, massage. See Kripal (2007) and Goldman (2012).
468 Birgit Menzel

Track two refers to constructive, unofficial, informal interactions between indi-

viduals and groups on different sides of ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Conceived
as an adjunct to track one diplomacy (official, traditional, nation-to-nation chan-
nels), track two seeks to reduce psychological barriers between contending par-
ties, creating new possibilities for negotiations on more formal levels.
(Hickman and Garrison 1980: 2)

The Esalen Soviet-American Exchange Program inspired hundreds of American

individuals who not only met and engaged in dialogue with their counterparts in
the Soviet Union but also went on to create and develop innovative and diverse
collaborative projects and joint businesses. While fewer than six organizations had
engaged in this type of activism between the end of World War II and 1980, within
six years, the movement spread like wildfire, and by the end of 1986, over 232 such
organizations had been created (ISAR 1986).5
Several dozen translators and interpreters were deeply involved in this move-
ment. Some were high-ranking professionals, such as the conference interpreters
Harris Coulter and Steven Jones. They accompanied Boris Yeltsin on his first trip
to the U.S. in September of 1989, which was sponsored and organized by the
Esalen Institute. Others were bilingual citizens, mostly philologists, scholars of
Slavic Studies from Russia or the U.S. who got onsite job training, acquiring var-
ious levels of a new type of translation and interpreting. For many of them, this
experience became a memorable part of their lives. The projects ranged from book
fairs of independent publishers in Moscow to encounters with writers, physicians,
sportsmen and parapsychologists. They included Soviet-American youth-theater
performances, rock concerts, and alternative Olympic games, as well as the first
personal meetings of Soviet cosmonauts and U.S. astronauts. As citizen diplo-
mats, their interpreting work shared some features with traditional conference
interpreting, but it more closely resembled community interpreting, and often
included editing written materials as well as translating them. Still, this was in
some ways different from both interpreting activities, I argue, and to support that
argument, I will present several unique features of this specific form of intercul-
tural mediation.
So, what did interpreters as citizen diplomats do? Their professional profile
and the range of their action grew together with the experience and development
of the movement itself. Here are some examples:

5. For access to private archives, interview-partners and source material I am gratefully

indebted to Anya Kucharev, who initiated the Citizen Diplomacy Archive Project in 2005, herself
a major translator and interpreter in the movement from the very beginning.
 The interpreter as a citizen diplomat 469

– Interpreters enabled the first ever workshops between Soviet/Russian and

American psychologists and therapists in ex-prompt psychotherapy and
bodywork sessions when members of the American Association for Humanis-
tic Psychology (AHP) visited Russia 1983–1991.6
– In Moscow, some of the key-mediators (Joseph Gol’din, Tanya Rotenberg,
Tania Kolodziei, the Soviet art collector), individuals trusted by both Russians
and Americans, provided meeting opportunities and venues and opened up
networks of connections in private apartments, the legendary kitchen-
community-centers.
– Several Slavic experts, philologists of Russian heritage (Vera Dunham, a pro-
fessor of Russian Literature, Antonina Bouis, a prominent translator of Russ-
ian/Soviet literature, and Gail Lapidus, a professor of Political Science) par-
ticipated in workshops at the Esalen Institute on Russian/Soviet literature,
culture and history.7
– One Russian-American, Anya Kucharev, co-founded the Soviet-American
Book Exchange to display thousands of titles from independent U.S. publish-
ers at three Moscow Book Fairs in the 1980s, and edited a trade and travel
guide for citizen diplomats published by philanthropist Henry Dakins (Infor-
mation Moscow, 1987).
Below I will present two examples of citizen diplomacy projects and interpreting
activities – The Productivity Enhancement Program (PEP–1996–2008) organized
by the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) and the Space Bridges program – and
then discuss specific aspects of this work in relation to community and conference
interpreting.

The Productivity Enhancement Program (PEP–1996–2008)

This was a program that “offer(ed) management training in U.S. companies for
non-English speaking delegations of Russian business owners” as part of the

6. The AHP was founded in 1962 by Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir and Abraham Maslow. Amer-
ican (Gestalt-) psychologist and later environmental activist, Francis Underwood Macy, was
one of the most influential citizen diplomats. He reintroduced psychoanalysis and other new,
individual-based methods of psychological therapies to Soviet Russia, after psychoanalysis had
been officially banned from Soviet Russia since the 1930s. For the early history of Psychoanaly-
sis in Russia until WWII. see Etkind (1997). The more recent history of Psychoanalysis is still
waiting to be written.
7. Later, during the perestroika years, Russian writers and intellectuals (Viktor Erofeev,
Alexander Dallin, Valentin Berezhkov, Yuri Zamoshkin, Andrei Melville) would join them and,
together with scientists, interpreters and diplomats, they would participate in these workshops.
470 Birgit Menzel

Russian Initiative for Self-Employment (RISE 1993–2008), which was designed to

help establish a new middle-class in Russia. It was one of the most successful
programs of the longest movements of citizen diplomacy (from 1981–2009, in
part still longer), initiated by Sharon Tennison, who started out as a non-
politically-involved nurse. As a mother of three sons, she was moved by the
desire to stop the insanity of contemporary politics, which appeared to be mov-
ing toward a nuclear war between Russia/the USSR and the U.S. So, in 1981
she founded the “Center for US-USSR Citizen Initiatives,” later renamed sim-
ply “Center for Citizen Initiatives.” Tennison was inspired by Apollo astronaut
Edgar Mitchell, the sixth human to walk on the Moon. On his return flight
through space, he had a life-changing spiritual experience and in 1973 founded
the “Institute for Noetic Studies” in California. She was also inspired by orga-
nizations like Physicians for Social Responsibility. In her monograph The Power
of Impossible Ideas, Tennison describes the part of the citizen diplomacy’s move-
ment that she founded and organized on her own initiative (Tennison 2012). The
PEP program, which was modeled after the postwar Marshall Plan, was financed
by major American foundations and private sponsors,8 and mostly supported by
civic philanthropic organizations (85% by the Rotary Club). In the 2000s, PEP
became the largest US-Russian non-governmental exchange program, employing
more than 21 professional interpreters and facilitators.9
How did the Productivity Enhancement Program work? 20–30 delegations
of 11 Russian members plus two interpreters/facilitators per year from diverse
professions, both traditional and new, and from small and medium businesses
from all over Russia, visited the U.S. for one month. They came from a variety
of fields, ranging from dairy farming, furniture manufacturing, insurance com-
panies, foreign language teaching and educational administration, private trans-
lation schools, and gardening. They were hosted by families and member of civic
society. Each delegation consisted of Russian citizens from at least seven differ-
ent regions. Each trip was thoroughly organized, documented, and also evalu-
ated – before and after – for at least half a year, by a group of carefully chosen
and trained facilitators from both sides. Separate groups worked in Russia and

8. Some of the sponsors (Henry Dakins, Arthur Shultz) wanted to repay the Russians for their
decisive role in winning WWII.
9. Tennison, who introduced Middle America to a more positive way of thinking about Russia,
became a passionate representative of “understanding Russia” in America and was not with-
out influence in Washington. The CCI brought organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous to
Russia, introduced roof-top gardening, launched a 2002 anti-corruption program, and, after it
stopped, provided a perfectly documented template for future programs of this kind in other
countries. President Obama sought out Tennison’s opinion in the Russian conflict with Georgia
in 2008.
 The interpreter as a citizen diplomat 471

in the U.S. The training modules were carefully designed by U.S. industry pro-
fessionals. Both volunteers and hired professional facilitators along with Russian-
born professional interpreters worked in eight Russian partner-offices, as well as
in 60 regional satellite operations all over Russia (122). The basic premise was the
principle of a “closed loop” system, i.e., continuous monitoring from beginning
to end, immediate problem-solving via computerized communication, and pre-
serving all information at all stages. There were pre- and post-travel consultations,
with accompanying and materials, and interpreters were trained to work in vari-
ous industrial sectors.10
Interpreters found themselves in the role of group coordinators and faced
problems of authority and discipline. For example, the Russians tended to view
“their” interpreters as their leaders, giving them the right and authority to send
delegates home. At the same time, Russian delegates felt overwhelmed by tight
schedules on both business trips and sometimes non-stop entertainment program
put together by their hosts. They would not regard their visit as a strictly business
trip, and so they often split up, broke the rules and disappeared for souvenir shop-
ping or to take a tourist excursion.
Interpreters volunteered to drop by the various families to facilitate commu-
nication by interpreting. But this led to problems. For example, American fami-
lies expected the Russians to accompany them from one event to another, to lend
a helping hand in the household or to participate actively in their neighborhood
relationships, while the Russians would hide in their rooms or remain at a dis-
tance, uninterested in sharing minor chores or responsibilities – or they polluted
the air with their chain smoking.11
Interpreters in these groups had to act as intercultural mediators between rep-
resentatives not only of two different cultures, but also within a highly complex
imbalance of power. Though all the people involved were conscious of the cultural
differences, the imbalance of power was often perceived differently on each side.
American hosts saw themselves as equal partners, respecting their guests, moti-
vated by altruistic, generous, sometimes charitable, and – if good Christians –
missionary ideals. As initiators of this process, they were curious and ready to

10. Here are some figures: in 1988–89, there were 350 Soviet citizens in 230 US cities, in 900
homes, “missionaries for open borders.” Among the 26 basic principles (119) of the project was
the following: “Russian staff provides pre- and post-travel consultations and material and long-
term resources for the alumni.”
11. The Stanford Hoover Tennison archive documents an episode of an interpreter breaking the
rules – perhaps to enhance the experience of her Russian guests. The interpreter, Claire Greens-
felder, after a whole day of programmed activities, instead of accompanying the Russian group
to a performance of a film, let herself be persuaded to drive a few of them all the way to Chicago
to spend the evening in several bars to see the “real life” of a U.S. city.
472 Birgit Menzel

invest time, money, energy and effort into this project of civic responsibility and
public service.
On the other side, they met Soviet Russian citizens who were encountering a
totally new world, which differed significantly from their “imaginary West” (Yur-
chak 2006: 158–206), which reflected both an idealized image of the wealth and
high standard of living in the U.S., and an internalized image of “foul Western cap-
italism” (“gniloi Zapad”), derived from official Soviet propaganda. The Russians
were also eager to present their own work, ideas, and traditions, distribute and
present their material, but soon realized that there was rarely time or interest for
what they were ready to bring to America. Expectations differed greatly. For the
Russians, it was their first vacation beyond the Iron Curtain, and they were over-
whelmed by impressions – and by the intense, full-time care of their host families.
Therefore, it often fell to the interpreters to ease cultural tensions and con-
flicts, often in the host family context. They had to make Russians aware of their
communication habits. One of them reported: “Interns should speak tactfully in
Russian around their home hosts; some of the hosts speak Russian.”12 Sometimes,
interpreters and facilitators, often Russians in Russia, found themselves in com-
peting roles as facilitators who had trained the Russian delegation before the trip
abroad, on the one hand, and as the ones tasked with to supervising, documenting
and monitoring the entire visit, on the other. Not all of the interpreters, Russian
native speakers living in the U.S., were prepared to facilitate an adequate level of
communication with the Soviet guests. Another source of tension was the inequal-
ity between immigrant and domestic interpreters. Sometimes Russian immigrants
in the U.S. were perceived as removed from both the Russian facilitators in Russia
and the Russian delegations. One Russian immigrant in the U.S. was found by the
Russian facilitator to be “good but sometimes strange with both [languages], not
really a professional interpreter, does not know technical terms, and her vocabu-
lary is outdated.”13

The Space Bridges

A second example of early citizen diplomacy is the Space Bridges program.

Between 1982 and 1990, this program made possible the first live encounters
of Soviet and American people using satellite technology, which became a new

12. Quoted from a report. Stanford Hoover Archive (Sharon Tennison).

13. An American heritage speaker of Russian and interpreter of a PEP-program exchange del-
egation between San Jose, California and Ekaterinburg. Archive CCI, Sharon Tennison, Box 9,
Hoover Archive, Stanford University.
 The interpreter as a citizen diplomat 473

format for direct communication watched during prime time by millions of

Russian and American citizens (Risch 2012; Korchagin and Skvortsov 2007).
After the opening of this channel of communication with a rock concert in San
Bernardino, California, promoted by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, there fol-
lowed 29 “link-ups” or space bridges, as they were later called. Topics covered by
various space bridges with a number of moderating talk-show masters on both
sides ranged from children, youth and journalists, witnesses of war, physicians
and nuclear scientists, (U.S.) astronauts and (Soviet) cosmonauts to members of
the Senate and the Soviet government. Among the most prominent space bridges
were the live talk shows with Phil Donahue in Russia and Vladimir Posner in
the U.S. This project is widely forgotten today except for a surviving quote that
turned into an aphorism: “There is no sex in the USSR.”14 Nevertheless, it was
a crucial step toward mutual understanding, facilitating personal encounters of
citizens from both sides of the Iron Curtain. Lynn Visson, a well-known New
York-based UN interpreter who interpreted for Gorbachev and the last Soviet
foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, facilitated many of the televised Space
Bridges. Visson was needed for her professional conference interpreting profile
during the live TV shows, but her tasks went well beyond that. After the first four
pioneering satellite linkups, which served as a template for the later TV shows,15
she became involved in the venture, performing the following duties:
– interpreting the negotiations between the American initiators from the Esalen
exchange program and officials of Gosteleradio (State Radio and TV) at the
Ostankino Studios in Moscow about the unprecedented idea and extraordi-
nary plan for the space bridges;
– recruiting Russians for the live TV show audience by addressing regular peo-
ple in the streets of Moscow, together with a Gosteleradio journalist;
– ensuring the appearance of the often-suspicious audience members for the
show, then interpreting the live encounters in the studio.

14. “Seksa u nas net”/ “There is no Sex in the USSR” is a truncated quote of the Russian
female talkmaster in the Donahue/Pozner space bridge “Women to Women” between Boston
and Leningrad on July 17, 1986. To the question by an American woman in the audience about
TV-commercials (“In our TV commercials everything is about sex. Do you have such TV
commercials?”), the representative of the Soviet Women’s Committee responded: “Nu, seksa u
nas …(smeshok), seksa u nas net, i my kategoricheski protiv etogo.”/”Well, sex here (laugh-
ter)…there is no sex, and we are categorically against it.” (Wikipedia “V SSSR seksa net”, 09
May 2015)
15. There were two major US rock festivals, a Washington-Moscow spacebridge between
American scientists, which included Carl Sagan and the Russian academic Yevgeny Velikhov
discussing “nuclear winter” with professional conference interpreters, and a musical Peace
Child spacebridge from the Minneapolis Childrens’ Theater with John Denver and singers in
Moscow.
474 Birgit Menzel

Visson remembers the challenges of interpreting during the live talk show, often
not seeing the audience, only hearing voices or seeing them on screen, or of con-
sulting the talk-show anchor Phil Donahue when he planned “killer-questions”
about contraception, adultery, sex and drugs or other predictably “dead-end ques-
tions” or discussions.16

Conclusion

Interpreters as citizen diplomats in part fulfilled tasks of traditional conference

interpreting, for instance at the “Global Citizens’ Summit” at the height of pere-
stroika, during visits to the U.S. by Yeltsin or other high-ranking Russian guests
and to the Kremlin by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, or for the live-satellite
TV Space Bridges. Much more often, however, their work required them to per-
form roles outside that of the traditional conference interpreters, roles similar to
those seen in community interpreting (see Table 1).

Table 1. Features of conference vs. community interpreting

Features of conference interpreting Features of community interpreting
highly prestigious profession low prestige, often non-professional activity
motivated by professional service and psychological motivation
economic interest
(an invisible) medium between two sides visible, active third part in the middle: interventions
(explain, comment etc.)
emotionally detached quite often emotionally involved
pre-defined roles, equal partners non-defined roles, imbalance of power relations
on the margins of the event right in the middle of the event
claim to have equal pre-knowledge different pre-knowledge and cultural background
the interpreter and interpreting process differ in ideas about interpreter, interpreting
working with more than two languages, working with two languages, but both actively
into native language

Different from conference interpreters, the citizen diplomat interpreters had

to mediate between distant, even hostile cultures. Often, they had to interrupt
the process of interpreting in order to intervene, explain, evaluate, deduce, redact
or simply comment on the situation, offering explanations of cultural differences
and empathy for cultural misunderstandings, although it was often unclear as to

16. Personal interview with Lynn Visson.

 The interpreter as a citizen diplomat 475

whether they were even understood by their clients. Also, citizen diplomat inter-
preters had to convey content to third parties, such as the U.S. home office. The
most striking feature that distinguishes their situation from that of conference
interpreters is the imbalance of power, which lent the interpreter a fundamentally
different status. Interpreters were often unprepared or unwilling to accept this
expanded role. No longer invisible and uninvolved agents, they were often treated
as an active third party with their own cultural, social, and personal identities. As
such, they were placed right in the middle of the event, which gave them a high
degree of responsibility, although their contribution often went unacknowledged.
Both community and citizen diplomacy interpreters work with at least two
languages, often interpreting in both directions. Different from the conference
interpreter’s situation, however, interpreters involved in citizen diplomacy have
different pre-knowledge, different cultural backgrounds, as well as different ideas
about interpreting and the role of the interpreter. They act in small groups, need
to develop empathy as a basic ethical precondition, and their clients are often not
used to communicating via an interpreter. In addition, both citizen diplomats and
community interpreters have to navigate and find a balance between emotional
involvement – as clients often see their interpreter as a trusted party on their side.

Table 2. Features of community interpreting vs. citizen diplomacy interpreting

Features of community interpreting Features of citizen diplomacy interpreting
clients are migrants, refugees or political clients are guests, temporarily visiting
victims, often traumatized
social, legal or medical environment mostly unspecified environment
aim at mutual trust, respect and confidence presume mutual trust, respect and confidence
formal situations Formal & informal situations
migrants as interpreters and cultural incongruities between interpreters & citizen
mediators diplomats (ex-pats vs. in-pats)
awareness of imbalance of power Unawareness or unequal awareness of imbalance
of power

There are, however, a few features in which citizen diplomats’ work is different
from that of both conference and community interpreters (see Table 2). Their
clients were neither migrants nor refugees nor political victims, who are often
traumatized; rather, they were formally equal citizens of a different country,
guests, visiting temporarily. The image of the clients’ country was, however,
charged with biases and adversarial stereotypes, and the Americans were more
often than not in a state of ignorance about their guests’ country. So, the envi-
ronment was not as in the social, legal and medical spheres – involving migrants
and individuals of different ethnic groups. The situations were formal as well as
476 Birgit Menzel

informal (often around the clock). Misunderstandings occurred between clients

and interpreters involving vocabulary, phraseology and oral style, due to the dif-
ferent situations, languages (i.e., various dialects, nationalities within the USSR)
and worldviews among the clients as well as between the immigrant interpreters
and the interpreters living in Russia.
More first-hand accounts of former Russian citizen diplomats in Russia still
need to be collected, and more first-hand accounts of interpreters from all sides.
The aim of this article, which focuses on interpreters, is to sharpen the method-
ological tools for analyzing the historical material as well as to raise sensitivity
in current and future projects of this kind. By bringing together professional and
non-professional practices, contexts and discourses that have so far existed sepa-
rately and unconnected, I hope to open up a productive interdisciplinary dialogue
and illustrate the topical value of all projects of citizen diplomacy in a new era of
global conflict.

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478 Birgit Menzel

Correction

The version of this article that was available online until 4 December 2019 unfortunately con-
tained a few factual errors, of which the author became aware after publication. The errors con-
cern the provenance and description of the Esalen Soviet-American Exchange Program as well
as the characterization of several interpreters as émigrés.
The author regrets this oversight. The corrections have been implemented in the version
that is currently available.

Address for correspondence

Birgit Menzel
Arbeitsbereich Russisch
Fachbereich Translations-, Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft
Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz
An der Hochschule 2
76711 Germersheim
Germany
bmenzel@[Link]

Biographical notes

Birgit Menzel is a professor for Russian Cultural Studies at the University of Mainz/ Germ-
ersheim. She has published nine books on twentieth and twenty-first century Russian culture,
including Russian Literary Criticism in the Perestroika, Late and Post Soviet Popular Literature,
The New Age of Russia. Occult and Esoteric Dimensions, Russian Translation Studies Today, and
Russian Germans as a Case of Ethnic Remigration. Her current research projects are Citizen
Diplomacy. A Soviet-American Exchange Program to End the Cold War and New Religious Cul-
tures in Late and Post Soviet Russia.
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