Myths about the past in media environment: theoretical grounds and Russian political practice

This article is examines the issues of constructive use of the myths about the past in media environment. The goal lies in the attempt to align several most significant theoretical models of interpretation of the social myth in order to comprehend constructive use of myths about the past in modern Russian politics of memory. This required referring to the peculiarities of the ontology of the past in media myth, as well as to the trends characteristic to modern foreign and Russian research of the politics of memory. The scientific novelty lies in the detailed analysis of the key categories that reveal the peculiarities of creating ontology of the past in modern media myth, as well as allow analyzing the constructive potential of myths about the past in media environment in the context of the Russian politics of memory (the function of cultural-historical orientation, motivating function, functions of conflict settlement). The author explores myths about the past, which in recent decades have become a crucial instrument for conducting a peculiar type of information warfare – the so-called “memorial” wars.

SUBJECTIVE COMPONENTS OF THE LINGUISTIC IMAGE OF A WOMAN POLITICIAN: THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL AND SPEECH ACTIVITY

Statement of the problem. This work is devoted to the study of the linguistic image of a Russian woman politician – a special type of public image that attracts the attention of both the mass addressee and the professional expert community. The very concept of “linguistic image” is used in many social and scientific practices, being of great interest for modern humanitarian knowledge – imageology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, philosophy, advertising, public relations, etc. Within the field of linguistic image, as well as in the linguistic theory of linguistic personality, the aspect of the subjective component of public speech, the so-called “author in the text”, has always been highlighted as a separate aspect. This is interconnected not only with anthropocentrism as a universal scientific idea of ​​the 21st century, but also with the global process of mediatization of all spheres of human activity. The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the subjective component of the linguistic image of a woman politician in the context of public social and speech activity. The methodology (materials and methods). The methodology of the analysis undertaken is based on the provisions and ideas of imageology, the theory of linguistic personality and linguistic semantics, in the context of which descriptive-analytical and comparative methods were used, as well as the method of semantic text analysis. The research material included the texts of public speeches and statements of 2016–2018, belonging to two representatives of modern Russian politics – Maria Zakharova and Natalia Poklonskaya. Research results. In the speeches of M. Zakharova and N. Poklonskaya, the description of social-speech communication corresponds to one language model and is presented in three aspects: 1) space (where?), 2) participants (who?), and 3) metascenarios of social-speech communication (what is happening?). In the texts of these women politicians, this semantic model is filled with its own content, which has general and specific elements that characterize their public images in different ways. Russia is described as a common communicative space for the activities of political subjects, despite the fact that for M. Zakharova the Ministry of Foreign Affairs turns out to be a specific medium of communication, and for N. Poklonskaya these are the State Duma, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Crimea. The common thing is that both speakers inscribe their own communicative activity in a threefold structure, where the main participants are a) the speaker himself, b) his associates and c) his opponents. In the contexts of M. Zakharova, the listed participants are embodied in roles: a) “Me” as “an intermediary” or “a moderator”, b) “We” as “diplomats”, as “teammates”, or a subject of the “conciliar” type (Russia, Moscow, diplomatic corps);in the contexts of M. Poklonskaya – a) “Me” as “a stateswoman” or “a prosecutor”, and also b) “We” as “prosecutors”, as “associates” and as “trustees”, respectively. As for the opponents, in both cases the set is practically the same: USA or the Ukrainian. The content of the described model is complemented by the so-called metascripts, which represent the social-speech situation in a new way and have a different functional purpose in every statement. Conclusion. The linguistic image of M. Zakharova is more objectified and restrained, in fact merging with the typical diplomatic image, while the image of N. Poklonskaya is more emotional and subjective, reinforced by the characteristic features of speech spontaneity and directness. At the same time, both images, framed by the modus of involvement and team goal-setting, organically fit into the space of the professional communication.

Crimean Tatars in the Governing Bodies of the Taurida Province in the First Half of the 19th Century

The author identifies the amount of Crimean Tatars who served as officials in Taurida Governorate in the first half of the 20th century. The article is based on archival data, address-calendars and mesyatseslovs of the Russian Empire. Russian politics in the region after the Crimean annexation was characterized by an active interaction with the local population. The imperial authorities gave the Crimean Tatars broad rights and involved them in civil and military service. Tatar murzas and beys who entered service closely interacted with Russian officials and thus got acquainted with the Russian language and culture as well as with the new legal system. While the largest number of Crimean Tatars were in service during the reign of Catherine II, their number began to decline under her successors. The author argues that the Russian authorities interaction with the Crimean Tatar nobility was based on mutually beneficial conditions. The state received the loyalty of local leaders, which provided stability and allowed for communication with the ordinary population. In turn, the murzas and beys received titles and ranks, which allowed them to increase their property and keep their social status. However, the number of Crimean Tatars in local government functions during the first half of the 19th century was low. They served in the governing bodies only by election from the nobility. This was a result of central policy but also of the low level of training among Tatar officials. Many of them were not familiar with legal procedures laws and could not read and write in Russian. Consequently, they preferred service in military formations, which was more prestigious and did not require special training.

Greater Eurasian partnership: economic perspectives of integration with the EAEU

This article analyzes the current state and future prospects of integra- tion associations and formats of multilateral economic cooperation from the point of view of the implementation of the Comprehensive Eurasian Partnership initiative. The author analyzes the role of this initiative as an instrument of Russian politics and assesses its potential for strengthening international cooperation in Eurasia. In partic- ular, it analyzes the possibilities of harmonizing key projects and initiatives within the EAEU. The work examines the potential of the largest multilateral formats in Eurasia as in the economic sphere – the Comprehensive Regional Economic Partner- ship, the Belt and Road Initiative, the Eurasian Economic Union, etc. to multilateral economic projects in Eurasia as a locomotive for promoting strategic interests, as well as realizing the potential of the EAEU. It is concluded that institutional overload is observed in the economic sphere of Greater Eurasia, caused by the existence of a number of parallel developments of in- tegration initiatives and mechanisms of economic cooperation. Based on the forego- ing, the strengthening of the EAEU as the institutional core of Greater Eurasia can become the basis for the formation of a regulatory mega-space. However, the aggre- gate economic potential of the EAEU member states does not allow the Union to be the largest economic pole and a leading center for the development of multilateral in- stitutions in Greater Eurasia. It is assumed that the solution to this problem could be the development of the Comprehensive Eurasian Partnership towards the conjugation of the EAEU and RCEP – the largest format for developing rules for international economic interaction in Asia and formulating specific proposals for building a system of mutually beneficial relations between the largest players of Eurasia, in which all interested states will be involved on mutually beneficial terms to strengthen interna- tional cooperation.

“Biggest Nationalist in the Country”

Nationalism is an ism rarely used as self-description. This article suggests that nationalist discourses are on the move, meaning the concept may be used in novel ways. In Russia, for example, the president recently identified himself as a nationalist, claiming ownership of the concept in the long-standing struggle against manifestations of oppositional nationalism. The article asks who describes themselves as nationalists in contemporary Russia, how do they define the concept, and how did it change during the years 2008–2018 when nationalism as a political idea became increasingly important in Russian politics? Drawing from Russian newspaper sources, the article suggests that diverse, self-proclaimed nationalist actors rely on narrow ethnic understandings of the concept and do not embrace the president’s interpretation of multinational nationalism.

Elections of Deputies of the State Duma of the Second Convocation (1995-1999): the Success of the Anti-reform Opposition, the Failure of the “Party of Power” and the Defeat of the Democrats (to the 30th Anniversary of the Russian Federation)

The article is devoted to the political and historical analysis of the elections of deputies of the State Duma of the second convocation in 1995. The political context of these elections is assessed as a confrontation between the “party in power” and the anti-reform opposition. To counteract the opposition, the “party in power” created its own political structure to participate in the elections — the movement “Our Home-Russia” (NDR), headed by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. An analysis of the process of creating the PDR movement, which took place under the auspices of the Presidential Administration, confirms the use of the administrative resource of the presidential and executive powers in this process. The creation of the NDR movement led to the erosion of the reformist-democratic wing. The weakening of this flank was also facilitated by the fact that the political organizations forming it could not unite. Two leading political organizations with a reformist-democratic orientation — Yegor Gaidar’s Democratic Choice of Russia party and Grigory Yavlinsky’s Yabloko public association did not create a common electoral bloc, although there were objective prerequisites for this. A significant aspect of the 1995 election campaign was the fact that Russian industry corporations and financial and industrial groups began to show an active interest in the elections of deputies. They began to incorporate lobbyists of their interests into the parliamentary corps. At the elections of deputies of the State Duma of the second convocation in 1995. success accompanied the anti-reform opposition and, above all, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, failure befell the “party of power” represented by the NDR movement, and the reformist democrats who failed to unite suffered a crushing defeat. The State Duma of the second convocation had a pronounced anti-reform and oppositional character to the incumbent president and the executive branch, but at the same time it was a fairly independent political institution, which retained certain opportunities for competitive legislative activity and the search for compromises in crisis situations. The 1995 elections cannot be assessed as completely fair and free, and, starting with these elections, the bacillus of electoral corruption was introduced into the organism of Russian politics.

От Уполномоченного императорского российского правительства в Монголии И. Я. Коростовца до Уполномоченного НКИД РСФСР в Монголии О. И. Макстенека: к 100-летию российско-монгольских дипломатических отношений

Introduction. An urgent issue of Mongolian studies today is the role of Russian-Mongolian diplomatic relations in promoting the statehood of Mongolia in the first quarter of the twentieth century. The revolutionalry movement in Inner Asia, in particular, and the social-political history of modern Mongolia, in general, are closely associated with the efforts of Russian diplomacy and, especially, with a number of diplomats who greatly contributed to the promotion of Mongolian direction of the Russian politics in the East. The aim of the present article is the study of the activities of Russian diplomats, namely I. Ya. Korostovets, the Plenipotentiary of the Imperial Russian Government in Mongolia, and O. I. Makstenek, the Representative of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR in Mongolia. Accordingly, the research has been conducted along the following lines: i) history of the issue, ii) examination of 1912 Russian-Mongolian agreement, iii) description of the events in Outer Mongolia between 1917 and 1920, and iv) analysis of Makstenek’s report as a source on the history of Mongolian Revolution of 1921 and the Soviet-Chinese relations. Conclusions.Both Korostovets, on behalf of the Russian Imperial Government, and Makstenek, on behalf of the RSFSR, played a significant role in establishing the regional system of international relations in the Baikal region. The 1912 Russian-Mongolian Agreement, which was in fact the result of Korostovets’ efforts, was instrumental in promoting Mongolia as a subject of international law and in initiating the movement of Mongolians to their de facto and de jure independence from China. Makstenek’s report shows much effort the Soviet diplomat took in preparing the Mongolian Revolution of 1921. Besides receiving and delegating Mongolian revolutionaries to Soviet Russia, taking an active part in preparations to the First Congress of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and in the formation of military detachments of Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Army, Makstenek conducted negotiations with the Chinese authorities in Urga and Maimachen, i.e. in fact initiated the diplomatic proceedings designed to prepare the presence of Soviet troops in Mongolia.

Prospects for Russian politics in 2022

Subject Prospects for Russian politics in 2022. Significance Now that the Kremlin has dealt with the immediate domestic policy priorities of constitutional change and parliamentary elections, 2022 will be a year of consolidation and continuity. The administration's focus will be on preparing what it regards as optimal, stable conditions for the presidential election in 2024. The Communist Party has a chance to build popularity among anti-government voters, but may not be bold enough given the Kremlin's limited tolerance for rebellious behaviour.