Article
Islamic Discourse of Visual Propaganda in the Interwar Soviet Orient, 1918–1940
Visual propaganda played an enormous role in the history of the twentieth century. Unlike the propaganda of nineteenth century, it was aimed not only at educated classes in the imperial centers, but also at subaltern masses living in the colonies of great powers, including the vast territories in the east and south of the former Russian Empire. Posters created for (and with the assistance of) Muslims between the two world wars in the Soviet Orient (i.e., in the Volga region, Crimea, Urals, and Siberia, on the Caucasus and in the Central Asia) represent an enormous and still poorly studied layer in the history of Soviet propaganda. So far, the posters have been studied primarily in the context of art history. But the creation of visual propaganda is critical for historical reconstructions as well. It is more important to understand posters’ language, historical context, attitude to public policy, cultural background, in other words - the discourse of propaganda. This is a part of life, even if semiofficial, the loss of which would simplify and impoverish the picture of the past. Discursive analysis of poster art allows one to understand the relationship between knowledge and power in society, the role of different social strata in its reproduction, and the aspects of perception and rejection of official propaganda.
The series "Modern Linguistic-and-Didactic Researches" presents the results of the research in the area of teaching foreign languages in view of contemporary concepts of education, intercultural communication, theory and paractice of translation.
This chapter reviews the representations of the Afghanistan war in school textbooks published in Russia. The authors define school textbooks as a document of public cultural memory showing what it is ‘necessary’ to know about the past. The chapter demonstrates the representations of the Afghanistan war in school textbooks published from 1990 to 2010.
The sample included 16 history textbooks. For the analysis, we divided the textbooks into four groups. The division was based on presidential transitions and therefore includes textbooks for the presidencies of Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev. The discourse analysis by Laclau and Mouffe (2001) was applied as an analytical framework.
We reveal the diversity of the representations of the Afghanistan war in different political periods. In Gorbachev’s presidency, the Afghanistan war was represented through a discourse of Soviet political dissidents. In the Yeltsin era, a discourse of Soviet political dissidents remained, but the field of discursiveness was significantly expanded. Additional discourses included the public discourse of the first years of post-Soviet Russia and the official discourse of the Soviet Union. Finally, in Putin’s time, the field of discursiveness was reduced; there was no change in the Medvedev period.
This article addresses a subject that can in the broadest sense be stated as interplay of language and ideology in process of instantiating historical knowledge in texts of political significance. It is presumed that historical representations are not static; they are flexible and more than prone to distortion when values come into play. A clash of different political perspectives is a clash of different historical descriptions. And in this clash a power-wielding social agent has the power to reinterpret the history that will fit their political narrative with other interpretations outlawed and rendered unhistorical. The aim is to discuss how history is recontextualized in national political discourse in the framework of biased representation of historical f acts and to see how national historical discourse is reinstantiated vis-а-vis a newly acquired national identity. The evidence for this contention is provided through linguistic analysis of a chunk of texts produced by those claiming to be professional historians. An example of such discourse would be texts by Ukrainian historians writing on Great Patriotic War/World War II. Second, texts of public figures, state leaders among them, instantiating post-Soviet geopolitical situation in the Caucasus, in particular, tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh were looked into. Linguistic analysis is neither meant to substitute historical analysis, nor claims that all historical permutations are of discursive nature solely. Instead, we see the role of discourse analysis in placing a broader question: To what extent that which has really happened is displaced by its recontextualization in discourse, i.e. by its description?
This book brings together academics and practitioners from a range of disciplines from more than twenty countries to reflect on the growing importance of transparency, power and control in our international community and how these concerns and ideas have been examined, used and interpreted in a range of national and international contexts. Contributors explore these issues from a range of overlapping concerns and perspectives, such as semiotic, sociolinguistic, psychological, philosophical, and visual in diverse socio-political, administrative, institutional, as well as legal contexts.
The collection examines the ways in which 'actors' in our society - legislators, politicians, activists, and artists - have provoked public discourses to confront these issues.
The article presents discourse analysis of media texts concerning the intercultural (diplomatic) conflict on both macro- and micro- levels. The research shows that in conflict situations official spokesmen prefer to use inductive reasoning in argumentation while journalists orient towards deductive and emotional reasoning. Discourse micro-analysis reveals that the sources of intercultural conflict are historical perspectives of two parties, legal system differences, and involvement of law enforcement agents in conflict resolution.
The research applied for research abilities of critical discourse analysis for new religious movements’ analysis. A long tradition of religion research in social sciences had a lot of theoretical issues. In this paper we show how theory is used for empirical survey.
The article analyzes the frames of representation of collective identity of macro political (national) community the “constitutes” the Russian state in electoral rhetoric of Vladimir Putin. Following the patterns of representation of Us and Others in the seven articles, published during the campaign in the major newspapers, the author reveals the dynamics of the campaign. A special attention is devoted to the public reaction to the article about “national question”.