Propaganda of the "greatness" of the Russian language
Larisa Masenko
The French philosopher Alain Besançon , who studies Russia, attributes the system of total lies to the foundations of its state system .
This researcher in the book "Holy Rus" cites the words of the historian Jules Michelet , who considered lying to be a national trait of Russians: "A Russian is a lie. A lie is in a community, a false community […] the lie of liars, the highest lie that crowns all lies. A crescendo of lies, tricks and illusions."
Deception, deception, concealment of unattractive aspects of Russian reality have been characteristic of this state since ancient times. In this connection, we can mention Mykola Gogol 's first impressions of the social life of St. Petersburg, reflected in the story "Nevsky Prospekt": "Everything is a lie, everything is a dream, everything is not what it seems." It is no coincidence that the main characters of his works are the fool Khlestakov in "The Auditor" and the swindler Chichikov in "Dead Souls".
The main tool of logocracy was the Russian language, and the deception also extended to its immediate characteristics
In Soviet times, deception, the tool of which was the use of distorted, de-semanticized language, became all-encompassing. Reality replaced pseudo-reality.
As Besançon writes, "A whole class that specializes in the false production of false journalists, false historians, false literature, false art, pretends to photographically reflect a false reality."
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The main Soviet newspaper was published under the name Pravda. The central "truth" branched out into a whole network of local and group "truths": "Komsomolska Pravda", "Pravda Ukrainy", "Kyivska Pravda", etc. The name acted as a verbal manipulation: these newspapers did not contain a single word of truth.
Besançon defined the ideology introduced in the USSR as "logocracy" - the power of the word.
The main tool of logocracy was the Russian language, and the deception also extended to its immediate characteristics. The scientific and journalistic service of the regime called it nothing else than "the great Russian language".
Propaganda of the "greatness" of the Russian language
As noted by the Russian linguist Volodymyr Alpatov in the book "150 languages and politics. 1917–2000. Sociolinguistic problems of the USSR and the post-war space", the leading place in Soviet linguistics of the post-war period was occupied by the book "The Great Russian Language" by the Moscow academic Viktor Vinogradov , published in 1945.
Vinogradov's book, which became canonical in Soviet linguistics, was full of such statements:
"The greatness and power of the Russian language are universally recognized. This recognition has deeply entered the consciousness of all peoples, all of humanity."
"The opinion about the superiority of the Russian language over Western European languages was not only positively developed by great Russian writers from the 17th century, but also shared by leading representatives of the peoples of Western Europe."
The Russian language never oppressed other languages, declared Vinogradov, but performed a "civilizing role in relation to neighboring languages."
The apotheosis of the "greatness" of the Russian language should be interpreted differently than the extreme manifestation of amoralism and cynicism of the leadership of the USSR
Mass propaganda of the "greatness" of the Russian language began even earlier than Alpatov noted. This was recently reminded by an eloquent fact given by Serhiy Borshchevskyi . On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union, in accordance with the agreement with Nazi Germany, attacked Poland. At the same time, the newspaper "Pravda" published a poem called "September 17, 1939" by the young poet Margarita Aliger . The poem declared the following maxim: "Justice spoke with peace in the great Russian language."
Thus, the Pravda newspaper interpreted an armed attack on a neighboring state with the aim of seizing its territory and destroying its population as an act of "justice". Such an apotheosis of the "greatness" of the Russian language should be interpreted differently than the extreme manifestation of amoralism and cynicism of the leadership of the USSR.
Putin's cynical rhetoric
With exactly the same cynical rhetoric , Vladimir Putin justifies the current war against Ukraine, the so-called "military special operation": "Our goals are absolutely clear and noble."
The "nobility" of the goals of the Russian army in Ukraine is reproduced in Valentyn Vasyanovych 's film "Glare".
The film realistically depicts a torture chamber in which Russian sadists interrogate captured Ukrainian soldiers. On the wooden curtain, which hides the portable crematorium, intended for burning the bodies of Ukrainian prisoners who died from torture, "Humanitarian aid" is written in large letters.
In this picture, which is repeated several times in the film, is the whole terrifying essence of the "civilizing" mission of the "great Russian language", which Vinogradov declared.
The Russian language as an imperial weapon
Even from the first years of independence, the most perceptive Ukrainian intellectuals rightly interpreted the Russian language as a ruthless imperial weapon, as a tool for the enslavement of other peoples.
The myth of the "greatness" of the Russian language and the Russian people was deconstructed by the writer Yevgeny Gutsalo in a series of articles published in 1993-1995 in the newspaper "Literature Ukraine", which were published in 1996 as a separate book called "Mentality of the Horde" .
"Being in the imperial language of Russia until 1917," he wroteHutsalo - after the October putsch, it became even more established as the language of the imperial people, as its total, merciless, unfailing weapon. The innate aggressiveness of the Russian language only intensified, it became an instrument, so to speak, of "ballistic" action, and its operational space became and was to become even more the linguistic spaces of other nations, as well as their fate, culture, and history. In modern times and the latest technologies, this weapon could no longer remain some archaic Cossack-robber saber, although, of course, that saber is very merciless and very effective, and now, with the passage of time, it was transformed into napalm, into a neutron bomb, which had to finally burn everything, especially the psyche of other peoples, to leave a desert - for the exuberant luxury of the Russian language, which, of course,
Unfortunately, at that time, few people listened to the prophetic visions of the writer, who tried to warn Ukrainians about the reality of the threat of the latest attack of the Moscow hordes on Ukraine.
Larisa Masenko - doctor of philological sciences, professor of the National University "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy"
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