Międzynarodowy wymiar Europejskiego Roku Dziedzictwa Kulturowego w świetle strategii Unii Europejskiej w obszarze międzynarodowych stosunków kulturalnych

The EU-Western Balkans Cultural Heritage Route, international activities for the protection of cultural heritage in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, Silk Route Heritage Corridors in Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, projects promoting European cultural heritage through EU Delegations in third countries are projects implemented outside the European Union as part of the European Year of Cultural Heritage (EYCH) in 2018. At the same time, the EU promoted these activities as fl agship examples of the implementation of the EU Strategy for international cultural relations launched in 2016. The aim of the article is to analyze the ways of implementing the international dimension of the EYCH, which, although important in the context of the activities of European institutions and organizations involved in the implementation of the EU strategy in the fi eld of international cultural relations and EU cultural diplomacy, remains for the time being a side theme and is not deepened in the subject literature. The article indicates that the specifi c moment for heritage, which became the celebration of the European Year of Cultural Heritage, was important not only for the internal dynamics of shifting culture from the periphery to the mainstream of EU policies, but also for the process of operationalisation of the 2016 Strategy.