Sociо-Political Narrative, Language Policy and Rhetoric in Ukrainian-Russian Relations: Post-Soviet Experience
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2025.06.196Keywords:
socio-political narrative, language issue, Russia’s war against Ukraine, national identity, neo-imperialism.Abstract
The aim is to highlight and analyze the linguo-political dynamics and the socio-political narrative that shaped Ukrainian-Russian relations after the disintegration of the USSR. The research methodology is based on a combination of analytical, comparative, and hermeneutic approaches, which, in combination with content and discourse analysis, allow us to investigate the dynamics of the formation of Ukrainian-Russian relations as they appear in language / rhetorical and political practice and socio-political narrative in the Post-Soviet period. The reverse influence of rhetorical / narrative strategies on the formation of political reality is considered as well. Scientific novelty. Through the study of rhetorical / narrative strategies of Ukrainian and Russian texts of the post-Soviet period, the features of the reflection of state and nation-building processes in the socio-political narrative of Ukraine and the Russian Federation are clarified; the formation of neo-imperial changes in the socio-political narrative of the Russian Federation is highlighted; the influence of these factors on the dynamics of Ukrainian-Russian relations after 1991 is described. Conclusions. Ukrainian-Russian relations in the post-Soviet period were determined by the change of the mode of “brotherhood” to the mode of “hostility.” This was caused by the restoration of Russia’s neo-imperial aspirations, which were embodied in its return to the paradigm of denying the rights of the other in accordance with the customary practice of tsarist and Soviet Russia. In this paradigm, an alternative picture of the world is created, where the Russian Federation plays the role of a hegemon, takes the place of some “nation of nations,” which claims to absorb the rights of the other not only on the domestic political contour but also beyond its borders. Based on its imaginary rights of exclusive subjectivity, the Russian Federation denies the rights of the other-Ukraine not only in certain aspects of its sovereignty, and its historical subjectivity, but also denies its existence as such.
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