Political Discourse in Transition in Europe 1989-1991 (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN TRANSITION IN EUROPE 1989-1991

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editors: Jacob L. Mey (Odense University) Herman Parret (Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp) Jef Verschueren (Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp) Editorial Address: Linguistics (GER) University of Antwerp (UIA) Universiteitsplein l B-2610 Wilrijk Belgium Editorial Board: Norbert Dittmar (Free University of Berlin) Bruce Fraser (Boston University) John Heritage (University of California at Los Angeles) David Holdcroft (University of Leeds) Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (University of Lyon 2) Beatriz Lavandera (University of Buenos Aires) Marina Sbisà (University of Trieste) Emanuel A. Schegloff (University of California at Los Angeles) Paul O. Takahara (Kobe City University of Foreign Studies) Sandra Thompson (University of California at Santa Barbara) Daniel Vanderveken (University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières) Teun A. van Dijk (University of Amsterdam)

36 Paul A. Chilton, Mikhail V. Ilyin, Jacob L. Mey (eds) Political Discourse in Transition in Europe 1989-1991

POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN TRANSITION IN EUROPE 1989-1991

Edited by

PAUL A. CHILTON University of Warwick

MIKHAIL V.ILYIN Moscow Institute of International Relations

JACOB L. MEY Odense University

JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Political discourse in transition in Europe 1989-91 / edited by Paul A. Chilton, Mikhail V. I lyin, Jacob L. Mey p. cm. -- (Pragmatics & beyond, ISSN 0922-842X ; new ser. 36) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Discourse analysis—Political aspects-Europe, Eastern. 2. Europe, Eastern—Politics and government-1989-I. Chilton, Paul A. (Paul Anthony) II. Il'inskiǐ, Mikhail Mikhaǐlovich. III. Mey, Jacob. IV. Series. P302.77.P64 1997 401.41'0947--dc21 97-44191 ISBN 90 272 5048 0 (Eur.) / 1-55619-329-7 (US) (alk. paper) CIP © Copyright 1998 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

vii

Preface

ix

Note on Contributors

xi

Introduction: Political Discourse and the European Transformation 1 2 3

A Chronology of Change Mikhail Ilyin Making Sense of the Cold War's Collapse Paul Chilton The Pragmatics of Transition Jacob Mey

1

3 15 25

Part One: The Collapse of Soviet Discourse

35

4

37

5 6

The Collapse of Empire and Search for Cultural Identity Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov Processes of Political Communication in the USSR Georgii Pocheptsov The Restructuring of Soviet Political Discourse Alexandre Bourmeyster

Part Two: Political Vocabulary in Transition 7 8 9

51 69 85

From Comrades to Consumers: Interpersonal Aspects of the Lexicon Ludmila Minaeva 87 Breakthrough and Blind Alley: The Lexicon of Perestroika Marina Kaul 95 Opposition Discourse in Russia: Political Pamphlets 1989-91 Elena Borisova 111

vi 10 11 12

TABLE OF CONTENTS Justice, Equality and Freedom: The Structure of Value Concepts Anatolii Baranov Continuity and Change: German Discourse after Unification Christina Schäffner and Peter Forsch Translating the Transition: What is the Russian for 'Perestroika'? Kay Richardson

Part Three: Discourse, Identity and Conflict 13 14 15 16

The Construction of Nation and State: Discourse and Social Space Pierre Achard Cognitive Dimensions of Identity: Ethnic Stereotypes in Poland Ida Kurcz Defining Democracy: Transitional Discourse in Georgia 1990-91 Christina Teichmann Language and Identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina Jasna Levinger

131 147 173

189

191 215 233 251

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The editors gratefully acknowledge the following publishing houses for their permission to use in part articles and chapters originally published by them: Sage Publishing for permission to publish a revised version of Pierre Achard, 'Discourse and Social Praxis in the Discourse of Nation and State' {Discourse and Society, vol. 4, no. 1, 1993, pp. 75-98) and Elsevier Science Limited for permission to publish a revised version of Jasna Levinger, 'Language War— War Language' {Language Science, vol. 16, no. 2, 1994, pp.229-36).

PREFACE The origins of this volume go back to a conference held in Moscow in November 1989, when linguists, sociologists and philosophers from the Soviet Union, from North America, and from Western Europe came together to discuss political discourse in a world still divided by the Cold War. True, signs of change were in the air, and the conference itself was one of those signs. But no one expected that the transformation would arrive only two weeks later, when the citizens of divided Germany tore down that most potent symbol of the Cold War era, the Berlin Wall. During the following two years, one communist regime after another fell and was replaced. It is this period with which the essays in this volume are concerned. The approach is retrospective and multidimensional. Varying perspectives on discourse are employed by scholars from different disciplines. Several of these scholars lived through the social and political changes that they analyse. Focal to the book is the collapse of Soviet institutions and the discourses which were associated with them, or which indeed constituted them. The chapters of the book explore the consequences of this collapse in several countries or regions of the European space. The primary aim is to examine the impact of such change on language use and cognitive patterns in the domain of the political. The 'political' is conceived broadly, to include not only the relatively formal discourses of political institutions, but also the politically oriented language of the media and even of everyday social intercourse. The chapters of the Introduction are designed to place the collection in its context, firstly with respect to the momentous events in the Soviet Union in the period 1989 to 1991, secondly in relation to international relations, and thirdly in relation to linguistic-pragmatic modes of analysis. Part One of the volume investigates the nature of Soviet discourse in its domestic and international context, pursuing problems of identity and the development of a new political culture. Moving from this macroperspective to micro-analyses of language use, the papers in Part Two examine political language in the Soviet Union of the perestroika period, in the unique transition in Germany, and in the cross-cultural transmission of political concepts. Part Three returns to questions raised in the earlier sections of the volume. The most important of these questions concern the reinvention of identities and the

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PREFACE

building of post-communist discourses and political concepts such as 'state, 'nation' and 'democracy'—concepts that have been bound up with conflict and violence, most tragically in the former Yugoslavia. The contributions to the volume have undergone a long period of revision and consultation. All the papers contain textual material whose original language is central to the argument, and we have included the original text, where feasible, alongside a translated version. The policy in translating has been to provide a gloss that gives some feel for the original syntactic and lexical choices rather than to provide an elegant read or a functional equivalent. Most of the papers were written in their entirety in English, and we are grateful to all those authors whose first language is not English. In all cases there has been a substantial amount of collaborative effort. Chapter 15 was translated from an original German text by one of the editors. The English glosses of Russian material have been provided by Mikhail Ilyin, in consultation with the other two editors. Transliteration of Russian poses problems of various kinds; we have not sought to be rigidly consistent. In transliterating quotations we have used a modified standard scheme; elsewhere we have occasionally used differently based spellings of proper names that have become conventional in English. A work that has evolved over so long a period incurs many debts. All the authors deserve the editors' heartfelt gratitude for their extended patience over the years that it has taken to co-ordinate this collection. The project itself would never have started if it had not been for the efforts of Mikhail Ilyin in the late 1980s. The original meeting of contributors took place with the assistance of the Soviet Peace Committee and the contribution of research institutions. Several other institutions made our work possible. The following enabled the. editors and contributors to travel and work together in Warwick and Moscow: the Russian Academy of Sciences, the former USA and Canada Institute, the Institute for International Relations (IMEMO), Stanford University (The Centre for International Security and Arms Control), the University of Odense, the University of Warwick, and the British Council. Bob Pyrah of Humberside Food Machinery Limited facilitated communications from California. I am grateful also to Brahim Bouattia, Hannah Dennis and Tim Hooton of Aston University for technical assistance at the last hour.

Note on contributors Pierre Achard is a researcher at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris. Trained in the physical sciences, he is the author of Sociologie du langage and an editor of the journal Langage et société. Nikolai Biryukov is a historian at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He is co-author, with Victor Sergeev, of Russia's Road to Democracy. Elena Borisova is affiliated to the Pushkin Instittue of Russian Language and has made a special study of Russian political discourse. Alexandre Bourmeyster formerly taught at the Département d'Etudes Russes et Slaves at the Université Stendhal, Grenoble III, and his research embraces the political cultures of France, the Soviet Union and it successors. Paul Chilton is currently head of the School of Languages and European at Aston University. He is author of Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common House. Mikhail Ilyin teaches at the Moscow Institute of International Relations and is editor of the journal Polis. His many publications are in the field of political concepts and discourse. Marina Kaul is a professor at the Russian State University for Humanities, and a teacher of English. Her Russian language research is concerned with metaphor in political discourse. Ida Kurcz is a psychologist at the University of Warsaw who has authored many research papers on categorisation. Jasna Le vinger, studied at Sarajevo University, Georgetown and Zagreb, and has taught at both Sarajevo and Novi Sad Universities. She is currently living

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

xii

in England. Her research papers are concerned with language, identity and cross-cultural communication Jacob Mey has taught widely in the Europe and the United States and is an emeritus professor at the Institute of Language and Communication, Odense University, Denmark. Among numerous works in the European tradition of linguistics, he is author of Introduction to Pragmatics. Ludmila Minaeva teaches Applied Linguistics in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Moscow State University. Her particular research interest is intercultural mediation and social interaction through language. Georgii Pocheptsov researches and teaches at the Ukrainian Institute of International Relations at the University of Kiev. He is the author of a semiotic study of cognition under totalitarianism, with particular reference to the Soviet Union. Peter Porsch, is Professor of Linguistics and Sociology of Language at Leipzig University. He is co-author of Wortschatz der deutschen Sprache in der DDR. In 1990 he became a representative in the Saxon Parliament. Kay Richardson teaches in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Liverpool. Her numerous research publications utilise pragmatics-based approaches to the analysis of media text and talk. Christina Schäffner, formerly a research director at the Saxon Academy of Sciences, is co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Language and Society at Aston University. Her main research and publications are in the fields of translation studies, political discourse, text-linguistics and metaphor. Victor Sergeev is a director of the Analytical Centre on Science and Industrial Policy in Moscow. His research encompasses discourse models of international relations and internal political processes. With Nikolai Biryukov he is author of Russia's Road to Democracy: Parliament, Communism and Traditional Culture. Christina Teichmann, formerly affiliated to the Zentralinstitut für Sprachwissenschaft of the East German Academy of Sciences, is a sociolinguist and specialist in French discourse analysis. She has special research interests in language and political change.

INTRODUCTION POLITICAL DISCOURSE AND THE EUROPEAN TRANSFORMATION

1 A Chronology of Change Mikhail Ilyin Moscow Institute of International

Relations

In November 1989 the Berlin Wall, symbol of the East-West, communistcapitalist divide, was dismantled by East German citizens. During the following two years, non-communist regimes installed themselves in the former Soviet bloc, and in the Soviet Union itself the Communist Party was outlawed. Only weeks earlier such things had been regarded as inconceivable by most people on both sides. What were the events that mark the stages of this extraordinary transformation? And how can we make sense of it? In order to grasp the events of 1989-91, it is necessary to go back to a few years earlier. The role of Gorbachev, whatever one thinks of his policies, was certainly important, if only because the role of Russian and Soviet leaders has always been important. In March 1985, Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The following month, the Central Committee of the CPSU, at its plenary session, received the General Secretary's proposals for social, economic and, to a certain extent, political reform. At this stage the keyword was 'acceleration' (uskorenie), indicating the guiding metaphor of the time. The metaphor presupposed that the system was to carry on, that it was still in motion, that it was going somewhere. By the time Gorbachev undertook his reforms, the idea of a precise direction and objective ('the construction of communism') had become vague in the extreme. In official discourse the emphasis shifted away from movement as such to the quality of the metaphorical movement (speed, energy, persistency, and so on), while the specific building project, that is, communism, became just a metaphorical 're-building'. People scarcely ever asked 'rebuilding what and producing what?'—though in the 1980s some people jested that perestroijka meant the rebuilding of Brezhnevian stagnation (perestroijka zastoja). As for the metaphor of movement, a movement having no clear path or destination, this is perhaps deeply rooted in Russian culture. Chernyshevsky once wrote that politics is not like the Nevsky Prospekt, but goes over fields and through bogs. Overcoming the obstacle is everything, whether the end is reached or not. Perhaps it is not surprising that one of Gorbachev's catchwords was 'the process has started' (protsess proshël).

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MIKHAIL IL YIN

Things did indeed speed up, but not in the way perhaps that Gorbachev had envisaged. In February of 1986 Boris Yeltsin was elected First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party organisation, just as the 27th Congress of the CPSU was opening. The discourse of the assembly marked the apogee of uskorenie, but it was also at this time that the terms perestrojka (restructuring) and glasnost' (usually translated 'openness', but deriving from an old Russian word for 'voice'). The main administrative instrument of these two new concepts was supposed to be a law on working collectives (zakon o trudovyx kollektivax). In addition, a third new term, 'new thinking' (novoe myshlennie), entered official discourse, primarily in the context of international and global issues. The idea had already been spelled out in the discussions between Gorbachev and the American President, Ronald Reagan, at the Geneva summit of October 1985; it was expanded in January 1996 in Gorbachev's plan for nuclear disarmament by the year 2000. At the 27th Congress in February, the policy was framed within the Marxist-Leninist concept of peaceful coexistence. None the less, this troika of new terms suggested a radical departure, not implicit in the earlier notion of 'acceleration'. Speaking in Khabarovsk in the summer of 1986, Gorbachev declared: T would have put an equation sign between the words perestroika and revolution' (Pravda, 2 August 1986). He proceeded to restructure the membership of apparatus of government, and by the beginning of 1987 about 70% of the Politburo, 60% of the regional party leaders, and 40% of the Central Committee had been replaced by newcomers. Scarcely one month after the 27th Congress, an unforeseen (though predictable) event gave the processes of change further impetus—the explosion of a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant 26 April 1986. Though unexpected, it was an episode that was symptomatic of the deficiencies of the existing system. After an initial local cover-up, Gorbachev showed unprecedented openness about the catastrophe, whose radioactive effects could not be confined to the Soviet Union, but spread as far west as the British Isles. The Soviet Union could no longer close its doors to the rest of the world, nor could it afford to continue to neglect the structures that had given rise to the accident. All the reform-minded leaders around Gorbachev, such as Alexander Yakovlev, Boris Yeltsin and others, continued to think of reform within the existing ideological framework. For example, in an autumn issue of Pravda, Yegor Ligachev, the party boss from Siberia whom Gorbachev had brought into the Politburo, asserted that 'the Party expresses the profound essence of perestroika by the formula "more socialism" (Pravda, 6 November 1986). The Politburo reformers were not of course completely united. Ligachev himself

CHRONOLOGY OF CHANGE

5

led a conservative grouping which supported economic reform but resisted political democratisation. In fact, the pace of debate and dissension quickened early in the following year. Political discourse began to fragment, and split into polarised subdiscourses. Slogans such as 'more democracy, more socialism' and 'back to Lenin' continued to be uttered. The terms 'democracy' and 'démocratisation', which had been used in various formulae by the Party in all periods, became essentially contested concepts. If, in the preceding period, they had been essential, they had scarcely been contested. The positive associations, to the extent that there had been any, of official terms such as 'bureaucracy', 'apparatus', 'administrative command system' were less and less taken for granted; indeed, some commentators thought of the institutions in question as a 'a braking mechanism' (mexanizm tormozhenija), or 'mechanism of standstill' (mexanizm zastoja). Conservatives regarded such criticisms as treacherous. The 'democratic' sociologist Igor Bestuzhev-Lada, who wrote a book about the Soviet bureaucracy, was typically called 'the worst internal enemy'. Thus splits appeared in the monolithic discourse of Marxism-Leninism, though each new discourse simply reproduced a mirror-image of its source as it split away. The strains began to show in various ways. In a plenary session of the Central Committee in the autumn of 1987, Yeltsin criticised Gorbachev for lack of radicalism and toughness. Gorbachev high-handedly dismissed him. It was a humiliation for Yeltsin that was to have important consequences. The changes in the old order that had been achieved at the political centre by beginning of 1987 were followed by signs at the periphery of the crumbling of the empire. The end of the year (16-17 December) saw riots in Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, against the appointment of a Russian as the first secretary of the Kazakhstan Communist Party. In February of the following year a crisis broke out in Armenia and Azerbaijan of a type that was to become all too typical of the post-Cold War world. The territory of NagornaoKarabakh has à largely Armenian population, but is situated within the borders of the republic of Azerbaijan, and both Armenia and neighbouring Azerbaijan sought to control it. Ethnicity vied with geopolitical boundaries. On 20 February, the soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh autnomous oblast' voted to request a transfer into Armenia. Gorbachev called this action, and similar ones in Yerevan and Baku, 'a knife in the back of perestroika'. On 27-28 February a pogrom of Armenians was perpetrated in Sumgait, an industrial centre close to Baku. Such was the background to the widening and intensifying domestic political debate, the best known symptom of which is the polemic that appeared in Sovetskaja Rossija and Pravda in the spring (13 March 1988). Sovetskaja Rossija published a long article attacking perestroika from a

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conservative communist standpoint. In the form of a letter, it was signed by a chemistry professor from Leningrad named Nina Andreyeva, and bore the emotive title 'I Cannot Forgo Principles' (ja ne mogu postupit'sja printsip ami). The following month Pravda responded with an article entitled 'Principles of perestroika: revolutionarity of thinking and action' (printsipy perestrojki: revoljutsionnost' myshlennija i deistvij). Perestroika had become the new official discourse, and this riposte to Andreyeva can be seen as inaugurating a form of witch-hunt against those who opposed it. This was marked by the entry of the term 'anti-perestroika forces' (antiperestroechnye sily) into public discourse None the less, Gorbachev's appeal in the country was probably at its height at this time. The summer of 1988 was a crucial moment for the reform process and for the development of Soviet political discourse. In June, there was the Nineteenth All-Union Party conference, at which six reform-oriented resolutions were adopted. The particular tenor of the Gorbachevian reform process can be gleaned from the titles of these resolutions. On the move of realisation of the of the decisions of the 27th CPSU Congress (o xode realizatsii reshenii 27go s"ezd KPSS) On the democratisation of Soviet society and reform of the political system (o demokratsii sovetskogo obshchestva i reforme politicheskoj sistemy) On the struggle against bureaucratism (p bor'be s bjurokratizmom) On interethnic relations (o mezhnatsional'nyx otnoshenijax) On glasnost On legal reform On certain urgent measures for the practical implementation of the reform of the political system of the country (o nekotoryx neotlozhnyx merax po prakticheskomu osushschestvleniju reformy politicheskoj sistemy strany) The key concepts are apparent. The reference to 'movement' was simply the traditional Marxist-Leninist metaphor for history, with a Gorbachevian twist. The conceptual presupposition in such metaphorical formulations is that there is a direction along a clear path to a definite goal. Typical of perestroika jargon was the 'democratisation' of everything. 'Society' was a term used to refer to a shapeless totality, while the term 'political' was in effect merely a positively loaded way of referring to what would otherwise be called the 'administrativecommand system'. During the Congress, Gorbachev himself, as well as others, spoke about the 'free revelation (vyjavlenie) of interests and the will of all classes

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and social groups', and about the 'self-regulation and self-government of society'. Though far-reaching in their implications, such statements gave no details of the institutional designs: a vague notion of 'democratisation' covered everything. When the legislative framework did appear, it was presented as a return to original Soviet institutions. Although the reforms marked a radical departure in the country's political structures, the constitutional arrangements adopted by the Supreme Soviet in November 1988 left scope for electoral manipulation by the regime.1 Citizens would directly elect the People's Deputies, who would constitute the Congress of People's Deputies, which would in turn elect a bicameral Supreme Soviet. One third of the deputies would be elected, not by territory, but by 'public organisations' such as the Communist Party, the Young Communist League and the trade unions. After a turbulent campaign, the first competitive elections were held on 26 March 1989, and over thirty top Party officials were defeated. The First Congress of the People's Deputies of the USSR met in May. In the meantime unrest had broken out in Georgia: on 9 April the Soviet army was used to disperse demonstrations in Tbilisi, an action in which 20 civilians were killed. A further sign of imminent change was the coal miners' two-week strike in July, the most serious industrial unrest in the country since 1917. On the political scene in Moscow, the reforms had not stabilised the situation. In fact, increased demands for the early dismantling of the entire system were voiced by radical 'reformers'. In December, the Second Congress of the People's Deputies was faced with the question whether to debate Article 6 of the Constitution, which stated that the CPSU was the 'the leading and guiding force of Soviet society and the nucleus of the political system, of all state organisations and public organisations'.2 The backdrop to this dramatic challenge was the 'velvet revolution' in Czechoslovakia and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Despite the calls to put the debate on the agenda, the Congress voted against doing so, thus implicitly reaffirming the Party's monopoly over power. December also saw the death of Andrei Sakharov, the highly distinguished academician and internationally trusted human-rights campaigner. He had been brought back from exile by Gorbachev, but had clashed with him over procedural manipulation at the First Congress as well as over the debate on Article 6. By early 1990, the major political groupings, Democratic Russia and Democratic Platform in the CPSU, had formed themselves. A conservative reaction had set in, and political discourse was becoming increasingly fissured, as the system moved toward a form of pluralism. In March, the Congress of People's Deputies reconvened for its third session. Its job was to review Article 6, and more specifically, to establish the office of President of the USSR. The CPSU itself was proposing the removal of all references to Marxism-Leninism

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in the Fundamental Law, and the removal of the Party from the 'leading role', in a move toward becoming just another 'normal' political party. Consistently with this change, Articles 7 and 51 were also amended, recognising the right of citizens to join political parties and movements. In an extraordinary procedure, the Congress gave itself exceptional powers to elect Gorbachev as the first President of the USSR, rather than to leave his election to a national vote. The new President's legitimacy was thus paradoxical and precarious. There was in general a crisis of political power. Local and republican elections were held in March, and in May, the First Congress of the People's Deputies of the Russian Federation held its session. The divisions that had begun to appear in the polity of the USSR widened, while at the same time the public debate began to focus on the issue of 'sovereignty'. Boris Yeltsin stated the position thus: It is ultimately clear to all of us that one of the most important tactical ways out of the crisis is to secure (obespechenie) real people's power (narodvlastie). The device to achieve that end is to secure the real sovereignty of Russia, an equal among the equal republics. But it is necessary to have such a sovereignty that would not mean dragging the power and privileges from the Union bureaucrats to the Russian ones. The problems of the Republics cannot be resolved without full-blooded political sovereignty. It is this that would make it possible to harmonise relations between Russia and the Union, between autonomous territories within Russia. The political sovereignty of Russia is needed in international relations also... I deem it necessary to the secure real economic independence (samostojatel'nostr) of enterprises, notwithstanding the form of their ownership. The scheme is the following. The major primary sovereignty (suverenitet) in Russia is the human individual (chelovek), his rights. Then comes the enterprise, the collective farm (kolxoz), the State farm (sovxoz) or any other organisation. This is where there must be the primary and the strongest sovereignty. And of course, sovereignty of a district soviet or any other primary soviet... What must be the main, most urgent thing in the programme of democratic renewal and acquisition of sovereignty by Russia? ...voluntary renunciation by Russia of the role of guarantor of the former system of government in the country. (Rossija Segodnja (1991), pp. 449-50) Gorbachev's response was swift. He replied to the conference on the very next day in the following terms: First, what I would not agree with in his speech is this. It has been voiced by him. In actual fact this contains an attempt to excommunicate Russia from socialism, which is not mentioned even once in the speech of comrade Yeltsin... If, comrades, in undertaking a very serious analysis of what he has said, it turned out that we are being called, under the banner of the restoration of Russia's sovereignty, to demolish the Union...it seems that all of us might be affected by the following thesis: Boris Nikolaevich insists that sovereignty belongs both to a human individual and to an enterprise as well as to a district soviet. But I have to

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say that this point has not been scrutinised enough either theoretically or politically. It is a very dubious statement. It drives the issue of sovereignty to an absurdity. It creates such divisions as would generally excite separatism in the Russian Federation and cause the peoples of the Republic to clash with one another. And generally that would lead to anarchy, to parochialism. (Rossija Segodnja (1991), p. 451) Yeltsin was quick to dismiss the criticism: I have never spoken for the secession of Russia. I stand for the sovereignty of the Union, for the equality of the republics, for their independence (samostojateVnost'). I want the republics to be strong and to make our Union stronger. (Rossija Segodnja (1991), p. 452) Yet the underlying division was real and became increasingly manifest. In July, at the Twenty-eighth Congress of the CPSU, the gulf was demonstrated by Yeltsin's public resignation from the Party, together with the resignation of several other like-minded reformers. This marked the emergence, in the second half of the year, of a new emphasis in the country's political discourse. The keynote was the polarisation between the 'democratic' sovereign republics and the 'centre', which was regarded by the democratic groupings as the source of everything that was undesirable. By the time the Fourth Congress of Deputies convened, at the end of 1990, the political situation was grave. One republic after another had claimed precedence for its laws over those of the Union. First-first of all Lithuania declared its independence in March 1990, followed by Estonia in the same month, and Latvia in May. Following Russia's example, Uzbekistan and Moldavia declared their sovereignty in June, Ukraine and Belorussia in July. Armenia, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan followed suit in August, Kazakhstan in October. Last of all in this 'parade of the republics' came Kirgizia, in December, on the opening day of the Fourth Congress of the People's Deputies. Furthermore, the economic reforms introduced by the government of Nikolai Ryzhkov had generated an acute economic, social and political crisis. The Moscow democratic groupings had held demonstrations calling for Ryzhkov's resignation. In September 1990,Yeltsin, by this time Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federal Republic, reached a compromise with Gorbachev on the '500 Days Programme' of economic measures. But the programme was rejected by the conservatives in October, and replaced by 'General Orientations'. Gorbachev himself had obtained extra presidential powers from the Supreme Soviet. A Cabinet of Ministers was established, directly responsible to the President—which enabled Ryzhkov to be dismissed as part of the restructuring. Gorbachev had also gone on to seek a solution to the crisis by proposing a Council of the Federation, which would consist of the republic leaders. He also proposed a new Union Treaty, to replace the existing treaty signed in 1922. This was largely to counter the growth in influence of

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Soyuz—a grouping of new conservative deputies, opposed to the democrats, but also aloof from Gorbachev, and whose platform was the demand for the restoration and strengthening of the 'central' executive. The Fourth Congress reflected these increasingly pluralised political conflicts. It replaced Ryzhkov with Victor Pavlov, who was linked to Soyuz, and Gorbachev forced the election of a nonentity, Gennady Yanayev, as vicepresident. But the Congress failed to achieve Gorbachev's goal of saving the Union. Humpty Dumpty had already fallen off the wall and all the President's horses and all the President's men could not put him together again. The Congress passed what was an inherently contradictory resolution to transform the existing Union into a 'voluntary union of sovereign republics'. And Gorbachev obtained approval for a referendum on an ambiguous text regarding the 'preservation of the renewed Union'.3 The Congress saw two symbolic resignations: interior minister Viktor Baktin and foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze. The latter had been at the core of the original Gorbachev reform, in particular the 'new thinking' in diplomacy with the West, and he had a bleak view of developments in the struggle for power: Dictatorship is coming. I say so with all seriousness. Nobody knows what kind it would be, who would come, what kind of dictator, what would be the political order.4 This kind of talk was taken up in the discourse of the contenders and their own bids for power, notably in the discourse of Boris Yeltsin. In January 1991, communist hard-liners attempted coups in Lithuania and Latvia. The possibility of such attempts on the part of the conservative communists seeking to restore order was clearly high. In a television address on 19 February, Yeltsin claimed that 'in his character Gorbachev has a desire for the absolutisation of personal power' and that he 'has moved the country close to a dictatorship'. He demanded that Gorbachev actually resign, and leave all his powers with the Council of the Federation which Gorbachev himself had created, and thus in the collective charge of the heads of the republics. But Yeltsin himself was not exempt from similar charges and similar demands. Three days after his television appearance, six members of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation demanded that an extraordinary Congress of the People's Deputies of the Russian Federation be called to consider the activity of the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation—that is, the activity of Yeltsin, who was himself now under heavy criticism for authoritarian methods. Meanwhile, Gorbachev continued his efforts to rehabilitate the notion of the 'Centre' and to consolidate its powers, broadly by supporting Pavlov and Soyuz. In his public utterances he sought to steer a middle course between reformers and conservatives. Thus, he struggled to disavow the imperial

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implications of centralism, stressing his distance from confrontational imposition, while retaining remnants of the old Marxist-Leninist discourse. He declared that the Centre in my understanding is a tendency that aims to reform society on a new basis. It suggests a revolutionary perspective, but not on the basis of contrasting one part to another, not on the basis of confrontation, to say nothing of calling the opposing part enemies, but on the basis of consolidation of the overwhelming majority of society. (Pravda, 1 March 1991) Official discourse was problematic in other ways. In the Baltic republics the Soviet Army and Special Militia Forces acted in a repressive manner. While the presidency and government tried to dissociate itself, Yeltsin flew into Lithuania and urged the Soviet troops to disobey orders. The attitude of the republics toward the 'centre' only became more hostile, and relations between the Russian population and the rest became more antagonistic, the hostility fed by a general growth of nationalism in the Russian Federation itself. On 17 March, the referendum on the Union was held—though the Baltic republics only held straw polls. Despite the efforts of the reformers and democrats, who called for a vote against the Union, the result was overwhelming support for it in Russia (71.3%) and Ukraine (70.2%). In his public statements Gorbachev referred to his political adversaries as 'the socalled democrats' on the on hand, and 'neo-bolsheviks' on the other. Despite the voting figures, the centrifugal tendencies remained. The leaders of Russia and Ukraine still insisted on moving toward a reduction in the dominance of the centre. The tension was dramatically illustrated at end of March during the Extraordinary Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation. On 28 March, troops entered Moscow and blocked the centre of the city.5 Protests and accusations were hurled at Gorbachev, and the Congress suspended its work. The troops withdrew, and the Congress resumed its deliberations, during the course of which Yeltsin made a conciliatory move toward 'communist reformers'. He invited them to participate in 'the formation of a broad democratic coalition of parties, workers, movements and various associations, including progressively thinking members of the CPSU' {Rossija Segodnja (1991), p. 508). About 170 deputies formed a fraction called 'Communists for Democracy'. A further move was made on 23 April, when the 'nine-plus-one' agreement was signed. The one was Gorbachev, who was seeking a counterbalance to Pavlov and Soyuz; the nine were the republican leaders, including Yeltsin. The ten leaders promised to work jointly to restore the economy and to work out a new union treaty. The same month, at the plenary session of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Gorbachev obtained the support of moderate comrades, and even of the pragmatically minded tendency

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among the hard-liners, by playing the 'reconciliation card'. Another strand in the efforts to put the broken egg together again was the 'Novo-Ogaryovo' process, a negotiating group set in motion by the establishment of the Council of the Federation. The series of meetings was named after a dacha near Moscow, where the leaders of the republics met to do political deals between January and December 1991. Gorbachev, wary of Pavlov's power base, worked with them. But the dynamics of fragmentation were unstoppable. At the periphery one sign was the escalating border conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. The new focus on territorial sovereignty and ethnic identity exacerbated this near-insoluble political puzzle. In the Russian Federation, the June presidential elections gave Boris Yeltsin a victory with 57.3%. In July, the Novo-Ogaryovo process, which found itself increasingly at odds with the Pavlov cabinet, produced a draft Union Treaty. The text was another paradox—those republics who wished could sing the new Treaty, but those who refused would remain bound by the old Treaty of 1922. The text was scheduled to be signed on 20 August. Gorbachev left Moscow for a vacation at the presidential dacha in the Crimea. In the early morning of 19 August a 'Declaration of the Soviet Leadership' informed the general public of the formation of a 'State Committee for the State of Emergency'—the GKChP (Gosudarstvennyj Komitet po Chrezvychajnomu Polozheniju). Vice-President Yanayev announced that he was assuming presidential powers in view of Gorbachev's 'inability to carry out the duties of President of the USSR for reasons of ill health'. The emergency committee included, in addition to Yanayev, the prime minister, Valentin Pavlov, the KGB chief Vladimir Krjuchkov, defence minister Dmitri Yazov, interior minister Boris Pugo, and others who had key positions in the Communist Party and the main economic sectors. An 'Appeal to the Soviet People' was put out later the same morning. It was a text that sought support from those fearful of economic and social chaos, but the promise of order through press censorship and a clamp-down on 'profiteers' did not chime with the radically changed post-glasnost, post-perestroika attitudes of the public. During the three days 19-21 August, Moscow was in a turmoil of protest involving hundreds of thousands of people. Though tanks rumbled into the city centre and surrounded the headquarters of the Russian Parliament building— the White House—the leaders of the coup seemed half-hearted in their efforts. Yeltsin was left in a strong position politically, retaining access to the media, and making the most of it. While his call for a general strike went unheeded, his supporters did rally to the 'defence' of the White House. After a tense stand-off, the divided army withdrew and the coup leaders threw in the towel. On the following day, the 22nd of August, the crowds attacked the buildings of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and of the KGB. Statues and other

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symbols of Soviet power were torn down. In the following weeks the structure of the CPSU itself was dismantled, and the Party dissolved. On 2 September 1991 the Congress of the USSR People's Deputies returned to the scene in the form of an Extraordinary Fifth Congress. In a 'Joint Declaration of the President of the USSR and of the Leading Officials of the Union Republics', new transitional institutions were announced to replace the existing power structures until such time as the Union Treaty would be signed. There were to be transitional bodies to oversee home policy, foreign policy and the economy, with membership drawn from the republics. There was to be a Council, also composed delegates from the republics, to work on a new constitution of sovereign states. The Declaration effectively did away with the Soviet Union as a single, unified entity. It also did away with Gorbachev's ideas for the Soviet Union as a federation. The Congress in effect was providing the means of legitimising the republics' revolt against the centre. The last few months of 1991 saw the dying gasp of the USSR. In early autumn the Novo-Ogaryovo process tried to resuscitate the Union. On 18 October a treaty on an Economic Community was signed by all republics except Ukraine. A draft Treaty of the Union of Sovereign States had also been worked out, but had not been signed, because Ukraine again had withheld its assent. There was an impasse: the Ukrainian leader, Leonid Kravchuk, did not want to sign before the results of the Ukraine referendum on sovereignty, which was to be held on 1 December, and Gorbachev declared, for his part, that he could not conceive of the Union without Ukraine. Still, the draft Treaty appeared in Pravda on 27 November, presumably in order to influence the vote in Ukraine. When the results did come out on the first day of December, they gave overwhelming support for the country's independence. On 3 December Gorbachev called on the republican parliaments to prevent the collapse of the USSR. But by 8 December, Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shushkevich (the leader of Byelorus) had reached agreement to withdraw from the USSR and to form the Community of Independent States. On 21 December the CIS was officially created in Alma-Ata. Notes 1 2 3 4 5

On the constitutional amendments and the election campaign of 1989, see Sergeev and Biryukov (1993), chapter 4. Constitution, 1985, p. 16, cited by Sergeev and Biryukov (1993), p. 156. See Sergeev and Biryukov (1993), p. 183-5. Speech at the seventh session, 20 December 1990 (Fourth Congress, 1991, 1, p.410). Gorbachev never acknowledged sending in the troops.

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References Sergeyev, V. and N. Biryukov (1993) Russia's Road to Democracy: Parliament, Communism and Traditional Culture, Aldershot, Edward Elgar Constitution (1985) Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Adopted by the Seventh (Special) Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Ninth Convocation, on 7 October 1977, Moscow, Novosti Press Agency Fourth Congress (1991) Chetvërtyj S"ezd narodnyx deputatov SSSR: Stenograficheskij otchët, 4.vols., Moscow, Izdatel'stvo Verxovnogo Soveta SSSR Rossija Segodnja (1991) Rossija Segodnja. Politicheskij portret v dokumentax, 1985-1991, Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenija

2 Making Sense of the Cold War's Collapse Paul Chilton Aston University

In trying to make sense of the collapse of the Cold War, it is tempting to adopt one of two simple perspectives—one which focuses on the external systemic configuration of world power at the end of the 1980s, and another which focuses on internal social, economic and political currents. The first way of thinking (what is known to international relations specialists as 'realism') did not manage to predict what took place around the year 1990, and has neither really explained it nor described it, although, undeniably, power and the desire for power were factors, if not the only ones. The second perspective, taken alone, is no more satisfactory, since it neglects both the effect of domestic factors on foreign policy choices and the impact of foreign and security policy on domestic politics. The bipolar nuclear stand-off that lasted forty-five years had its origins deep within the societies of East and West; at the same time, the system of cold-war deterrence had serious long-term consequences for those societies. This book is not seeking to resolve the relationship between these two perspectives, or decide which is preferable. It is, however, the case that the collection of essays we have assembled gives emphasis to analyses of the internal experience of living within the societies of the former Soviet bloc. The objective here is less to provide a global explanation than to offer what Geertz (following Ryle) calls 'thick description'—a detailed in-depth account of the intimate workings of a culture (Geertz 1976, pp. 6-10). In this instance, we are looking at a culture that had entered a state of stagnation, and then underwent extremely rapid change. What is different here from the habitual concerns of political science and international relations theory is the concentration on language and discourse. There are several justifications for this approach. First, the accounts given by scholars of what happened after 1945 and in the years 1989-1991 are themselves necessarily discourses—accounts told in words, weaving patterns of conceptual understanding that seek to explain complex and sometimes perplexing events. Second, the social and political life of any community consists almost entirely of dealings between people and groups of

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people, dealings constituted by words functioning as acts and interaction.1 When this kind of approach is adopted, it is clear that we cannot restrict our focus either to external foreign relations between West and East, or restrict it to internal domestic processes. The central questions concern the opening up of the East to the West, and what this notion might mean. More specifically, what is at issue is the way in which forms of consciousness and social interaction changed, the extent to which Western forms of consciousness and social interaction affected and penetrated those that had existed under the Soviet system, and whether such changes and penetrations occurred smoothly or with conflict. Let us consider briefly the accounts that characterised the Cold War and the its ending, on both sides of the divide, before pondering in more detail what may have happened in the East. Following World War II, American policy­ makers were at first uncertain how to understand their erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union, and the new configuration of world politics. What eventually emerged as the central sense-making frame for Western foreign policy was the set of arguments and rhetorical strategies, which clustered around the central concept of 'containment' initially formulated by the American diplomat, George Kennan. According to this framework, the Soviet Union was introverted and insecure, but also power-hungry and eager to expand. The 'East' was constructed as irrational and paranoid on the one hand, and on the other hand as inhumanly rational and calculating. This picture represented the Soviet Union as fundamentally other than 'the West', in fact as 'oriental'.2 This view partly coincided with a view that some Russians—the Slavophiles—had held of themselves before the revolution, and perhaps after it also. But on both sides, the discourse of Cold War was predicated upon the premise of the threat of an alien other: the Soviet fear of imperialist-capitalist 'encirclement' was the counterpart to Western phobia of communist 'penetration'. When the Berlin wall fell, when the satellite countries underwent various species of conversion to capitalism, and when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics itself disintegrated, a world-view vacuum was produced. Over the preceding decades, Cold War discourse had provided powerful accounts of the world order that it had itself helped to create. Now an explanation of the collapse of that order was required, and it was needed by public and policy­ makers alike. One explanatory story was that the Cold War was indeed a kind of war, and therefore had a victor—the West. It was of course implied that the Soviet Union had been vanquished, although this was rarely stated in so many words. Clearly, such a story was not one that could happily be adopted by the former citizens of the USSR. For the West itself the story also had a serious consequence: the West was left without the hostile other that had helped to define it. Indeed, this was precisely the state of affairs that Gorbachev had in

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the 1980s threatened to bring about, when he declared that he would 'deprive the West of its enemy'. Around 1990 the gap appeared to be filled in Western discourse by such concepts as 'drug wars', the 'war against terrorism', and most obviously one particular real war, the war against Iraq. The West was provided with the image of a tyrannical enemy—and Sadam Hussein was and is a bloody tyrant—who could fill the now empty slot in the frame that had been filled by a succession of Communist demons. It would have been too much of course to compare the Iraqi dictator with Stalin, but he was overtly compared with that other enemy archetype, Hitler. Beyond all this, a more shadowy enemy image began to emerge: the Islamic 'threat'. And the deeply entrenched concept of containment re-emerged in the form of a 'double containment' of both Iraq and Iraq's enemy, Iran. Other so-called 'rogue states' of the Middle East were incorporated in the new imagery of alien threat. There were of course other details in the 'how-the-West-won' script— containment worked, the Star Wars program bankrupted the Soviet economy, Western media undermined Soviet propaganda, the idea of democracy conquered the minds of the oppressed, and so on. If this was the official story, there were also alternative ones. In one such story, the peace movements of East and West converged and disabused the citizens of both blocs, while nuclear deterrence spiralled to the point where it terrified even its original proponents. An extension of this narrative might include the 'opening up' of communications between citizens, the proliferation of social and professional contacts, and the unstoppable extension of the information revolution. A further story would have Gorbachev operating like a pre-Revolutionary Russian Westerniser, 'opening a window to the West', to quote Pushkin's line about Peter the Great.3 This was not an account eagerly adopted by Russians, who saw Gorbachev as a harbinger of disorder, economic distress and loss of national prestige. No doubt there are complementary elements of truth in all these stories and their variants. Whatever the explanations, the geopolitical mental map became in several senses disoriented: it lost 'the East' that had structured the bipolarity of the Cold War. The same loss of a fixed reference point afflicted the structure of political discourse, not only within former Soviet political culture, but also in a less dramatic way in Western polities: 'Left' and 'Right' were no longer self-evident cardinal points on the ideological chart. If any one narrative provides a frame to the present book, it is one that speaks of a gradual, subtle and complex opening up of societies and of an increasing flow of words through proliferating channels of communication. We turn now to some further aspects in that particular account. Western political ideas were transmitted by various routes in the 1970s and 1980s—media, inter-governmental fora such as the CSCE (Conference on

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Security and Co-operation in Europe), non-governmental organisations, social movements, professional conferences, and personal contacts. The outcome of the increased discoursal interchanges between the two halves of the continent was the increasing possibility of making a choice of society. This was not simply a matter of the triumph of 'freedom' or 'democracy'. Rather, it was a matter of confronting alternatives and coming to terms with the discourses available in complex indigenous political traditions, as Sergeyev and Biryukov (1933) argue. It was also a matter of the very diverse political theories of the West becoming available—or becoming available again—in Russia and Eastern Europe. As Bourmeyster argues in the present volume, the political traditions of the Western European Enlightenment, and of the Europe that emerged after the 1789 Revolution, once more provided concepts that had the power to shape institutions. As has already been noted, the increasing social contact and exchange of ideas led to the erosion of the enemy image which had been the keystone in the edifice of Cold War discourse on both sides of the European divide. It is probable that the citizenry in both blocs came progressively to be less convinced by the discourses of ideological polarity. This could have been partly due to increased personal encounters and to increased electronic communication. It could have been due partly also to the declining effects of propaganda, in their different forms, on both sides. In communist societies in particular, the ritual repetition of ideological discourse undermined its own power to persuade. An important element in changing Western attitudes towards 'the Soviets' was the international diplomacy of Gorbachev and his foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze. Whatever Gorbachev's failure on the domestic front, the urbanity of his approaches to the West was a highly favourable contrast with the dour demeanour of his major predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev. There are numerous concrete ways in which the higher-level international system impacted on the fine detail of social life—and that of course includes linguistic life—of societies in transition during 1989-91. The newly formed governments reflected a desire to approximate ever more closely to the economic and social norms of the capitalist West. In addition, as societies in the East looked to the West, they also looked to multilateral institutions such as the EC, Council of Europe, NATO, IMF, EBRD, with the result that the social changes already under way were further moulded by the norms, expectations and requirements of such institutions. Many societies in the East moved metaphorically towards the West by 'anticipatory adjustment' to the norms of organisations which they wished to join, adapting themselves to, for instance, the economic and social values associated with membership of the European Community (Haggard et al. 1993, p. 182-7). The other side of the coin was the

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constraining effect of Western institutions: certain procedures, customs and discourses that had prevailed in the Soviet world were not acceptable in Western fora, and this had an effect on the nature and number of discourses obtaining in the domestic arenas. In general, emerging Eastern democracies moved toward Western laws, practices and norms. But Western influence cannot be the whole of the story. Another part of the explanation has to do with independent internal mutations. Scholars have unearthed numerous factors. The most important of these is the collapse of the tacit compact between the unelected governments and their subjects, a compact which, in the immediate post-war period, exchanged restrictions on personal liberties for modest increases in the standard of living. Individual freedom was traded for supposed justice and equality in the distribution of goods, as Baranov's chapter points out. When, by the 1980s, the economic rate of growth was manifestly in decline, the compact began to fall apart. Disparities in wealth and privilege became more visible. Yet, despite daily contradiction in experience, the deeply rooted official discourse persisted. Discursive evolution and adaptation was virtually impossible, given the rigidity of the institutions of public communication and official censorship. All Eastern European states had come to resemble the Soviet model in their publicly permissible discourse: ...they were states in which a single official theory dominated the mass media, the educational system and public discourse, and in which other views of society were illegitimate and difficult to communicate because of controls over the flow of information within and across national boundaries. (White 1994, p. 5) Toward the end of the 1980s the distance between the realities presented in this monolithic and inflexible official discourse and the realties experienced in daily life could no longer be concealed, excused or explained away. The internal discourse of Marxism-Leninism, saturated and incredible, collapsed under its own semantic vacuity. At the same time, because of the proliferating channels of communication with the West, it became fruitless to continue the attempt to impose a conformity of hearts and minds by controlling alternative discourses and communicative networks. The official discourse began to unravel both in the Soviet Union, and, to a much greater degree, in the satellite countries bordering on the West. With the death of Brezhnev and the coming of Gorbachev, whose own thinking had partly been formed by contacts with the West, the threat of conformity by force lost its potency. Although the suppression of thought and social change in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 still haunted the continent, the 'Brezhnev Doctrine', the set of discourses sustaining the supposed Soviet right to maintain order in its satellites by force, was dead by the mid-1980s. The West did not believe its demise, or did not profess to believe it, until later. Once the process of delegitimation and resistance began

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in one country, increases in communication flows and an irresistible opening of media freedom produced a 'transparency' that further accelerated the process. The decay of the centralised Soviet system of discourse and its system of communication control had consequences for cognitive and interpersonal relations in the societies affected. Under communist rule, conformity was 'external', imposed upon the individual by threat of force in a variety of forms, while other discourses with competing norms and notions were transmitted partially, if it all. There was thus no internalised sense of civic duty, moral duty, or even mutual advantage, since conformity for many was a matter of observance through intimidation. Once external conformity collapsed, there was a serious degree of cognitive disarray, which included political and social categories, interpersonal communication and ethical norms, as several essays in the present volume suggest. In particular, there were no public institutions that attracted consensual adherence. This can be clearly understood in discourse terms as the loss of practices realised both linguistically and nonlinguistically—the loss of procedures, types of utterance and text, whole sets of vocabulary or established meanings, but also visual signs such as emblems, uniforms, public statuary, printed design, and auditory signs such as official music and chants. Discourse analysis can demonstrate in detail the way in which changes occur both in social intercourse and in the conceptual structures upon which it depends. Minaeva (chapter 7) describes one seemingly insignificant change that took place in the transitional Soviet Union as a result of adaptation to Western market economies. The economic changes had, as Marx would have predicted, a corresponding effect on the way individuals relate to one another. In everyday discourse, the changing relationships are reflected in the transformation of terms of address. One would also expect major socio­ economic and political changes of the kind experienced by the transitional Soviet Union to be accompanied by major shifts in the underlying conceptual system, particularly the value system. Baranov (chapter 10) describes the extraordinary complexity of changes in the central ethical assumptions of Soviet society, and their linguistic and discursive expression, reflecting the profound cognitive upheaval that was and is involved. Once the old order had crumbled, what was to replace it? Schöpflin has argued that all social and political institutions had come to be regarded with deep suspicion, and institutions were not generally regarded as potentially stabilising constituents of social structure (Schöpflin 1994, p. 26). Consequently, in Schöpflin's view, politics tended to be personalised, leading to discourses of loyalty, disloyalty and conspiracy that did not favour political notions of democratic opposition and alternation of power. It is also apparent

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that this situation favoured the construction of discourses of national unity and ethnic identity. It would be inaccurate to suppose that the transitional societies of the Soviet bloc, or indeed the Soviet Union itself, collapsed into a political vacuum. It had been assumed, above all by the communist governments themselves, that the belief and value systems of pre-communist periods had withered away or been eliminated. As Schöpflin (1994, pp. 23-4) also argues, the transmission of traditional values throughout the communist period was stronger than was thought at the time. This can be understood as the communication (both synchronically and diachronically) of cognitive models of the world, together with value systems, by means of discursive interaction. It appears that neither the channels of communication nor the officially censored ideas had been entirely suppressed. The currents and undercurrents of thinking and feeling have been linked by some scholars with the persisting world view of the peasantry. One should not over-generalise here, but it is arguable that sections of the population had not come to terms with urbanisation, industrialisation and the forms of power associated with them. These sections, antagonistic to state power, held unrealistic expectations of sudden political transformation that could equally lead to disillusion with the capitalist-democratic order. Another dimension of the survival of the traditional world-view is brought out by Sergeyev and Biryukov (1993), who argue that the collectivist idealisation of the 'people' as a repository of truth, was assimilated not only by the Slavophiles of the nineteenth century, but also by the Marxist-Leninists of the twentieth.4 Moreover, they suggest, this 'pattern of pre-understanding'— namely, the underlying belief in assemblies as somehow expressing the truth of the people, seriously hampered the transition to a parliamentary system incorporating a notion of democratic opposition. It is likely that this scenario is not simply confined to the Russian republic, as chapter 15 shows in its discussion of the problems experienced by the transitional government of Georgia in accommodating parliamentary opposition. Despite the official control of communication and discourse certain alternatives to the Marxist-Leninist discourse were and are available to the disillusioned. As well as the generalised pattern of collectivist popular 'preunderstanding', newly emerging discourses draw on the specific symbolisms of religion (Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Islam and perhaps fundamentalist Islam in the Asian lands of the USSR), and on nationalism harking back to nationalliberation ideologies of the nineteenth-century West. Plainly, certain of these discourses also have cognitive resonance with the traditional collectivist belief in the people (narod). Furthermore, if such a tradition was continuing, and if Sergeyev and Biryukov are correct, Soviet communism itself would not vanish entirely. Indeed, the discourse of state-centric socialism continued, the faithful

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exploiting the appeal to national popular sentiment, having perhaps consciously or unconsciously perceived the deep link with traditional Slav mentality. This is the current that has sometimes been called 'chauvinocommunism', and has surfaced in many regions of the former Soviet bloc. The role of traditional discourses, whether consciously expressed or not, is thus linked to a rather wide spectrum of overt political discourse, ranging from the aggressive Slavic chauvinism of a Zhirinovsky to the 'new communism' blended with Russian nationalism of a Zyuganov. What has to be remembered, when one is analysing the complex array of possible political alternatives following 1989, is that agency and 'choice' cannot be neglected in favour of underlying causal currents of history. Clearly Orthodoxy, capitalism, Slavophilism, nationalism are pre-existing patterns of belief. However, they do not in themselves cause anything. As Sergeyev and Biryukov make clear in chapter 4, when political identities are in process of formation, available discursive practices are chosen and incorporated in new discourses or they are rejected. Religions, for example, do not cause Serbian or Croatian identity; rather, they are selected and utilised to construct such identities. It is mistaken to focus on a supposed return to 'buried' indigenous political discourses of the past. As noted above, discourses flowed into the increasingly permeable Soviet bloc from the West, in some instances meeting up with the internally surviving discourses. In the case of the Soviet Union, one might wonder whether there was a return to the pre-1917 situation of competing political discourses. The Russia that was emerging from the USSR in the late 1980s was heir to a tradition of confrontation between Westernisers on the one side, with their receptiveness to Enlightenment traditions of political philosophy and practice, and on the other side the Slavophiles, with their idealised conceptions of Orthodox pastoralism. Bourmeyster (chapter 6), argues that Gorbachev's perestroika can in fact be regarded as a return to the mainstream of Western political discourse, after a long drawn out political episode that was a prolongation of traditional modes of political thought. It was only after 1989, according to this perspective, that the central tenets of parliamentary democracy—freedom of opposition and separation of powers— came to be confronted in practice. There were scant remnants of market capitalist discourse in the Soviet Union itself, though elements of private enterprise persisted in varying degrees, patchily distributed around the Soviet bloc. Some notions of independent trading survived in various corners of the centralised economy, to satisfy problems of supply, and in the 1970s and 1980s a secondary, more entrepreneurial economy emerged, which in some countries (Hungary, Yugoslavia) included a degree of labour movement and an emergent form of

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wage bargaining. The missing elements were the various interlacing discourses of finance, technology and trade that consisted not only of technical knowledge but also of particular forms of social interaction. For major sections of the population, the development of the capitalist discourse formation was shortcircuited by images and discourses from the capitalist West that percolated into the communist bloc and were incorporated in idealised representations. The fact that these counter-discourses could not actually be concretised in institutions and everyday social practices meant that they remained highly abstract, idealised, and simplified. None the less, there were sections of the population that have become engaged in the evolution of the whole system of capitalist institutions and their discourses. For these groups, opposition to étatist politics, and specifically to the recent communist past was central, as was a direct interest in focusing on certain legitimising concepts of democratic discourse, notably those concerning individual rights and freedoms. There was thus a selective assimilation of 'democracy, which was probably in many cases understood primarily in terms of its association with Western material consumption and its opposition to and triumph over communism. The coveted level of consumption was in turn equated with the 'free market'. Thus, as one analyst has observed, ' "Free market democracy" rolls off the lips of many policy-makers as if it were one word' (Nelson 1993, p. 257). These and other factors produced a variety of reactions against the shared experience of communist discourse. There was no single response; several political cultures were available. If there was one over-arching cognitive and social problem, it was the phenomenon of 'identity'. Both in the West and the East—both places being ideological constructs—the collapse of the bipolar geopolitical map was linked to turbulence of varying severity. In the West, loss of a Communist other, loss of a clear demarcation between 'Europe' and the beyond, integrative tendencies in the Europe Union, and continued migration from the South can be linked with the ideological appeal of extreme-right populist movements in some countries. To a degree, the East-West demarcation was re-inscribed in other oppositions, notably the North-South divide and the West-Islam divide. In the East, disintegration of the Soviet empire generated searches for identity which drew on many different discourses and produced numerous different effects, ranging from relatively calm adaptation to capitalist democracy in the former Czechoslovakia to the outrages of the former Yugoslavia.

Notes 1

This is not to deny the role of non-linguistic (e.g. visual) symbols, nor the role of physical and economic coercion.

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Cf. Chilton (1996); on 'orientalism' see Said (1991). Pushkin,'The Bronze Horseman'. This mentality is associated with the notion of sobornost', the spirit of the medieval sobor or ecclesiastical assembly, and narodnichestvo, or popularism; it is quite distinct from Western concepts of democratic representation, which is based on notions of rights rather than truth..See Sergeyev and Biryukov (1993), chapter 1.

References Chilton, P. A. (1996) Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common House, New York, Peter Lang Geertz, C. (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, London, Fontana Haggard, S., M. A. Levy, A. Moravcsik and K. Nicolaï'dis (1993) 'Integrating the Two Halves of Europe: Theories of Interests, Bargaining, and Institutions' in R. O. Keohane, J. S. Nye and S. Hoffmann (eds.) (1993) Keohane, R. O., J. S. Nye and S. Hoffmann (eds.) (1993) After the Cold War: Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989-1991, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press Nelson, D. N. (1993) 'The Comparative Politics of Eastern Europe' in S. White, J. Blatt, and P. G. Lewis (eds.) Developments in East European Politics Pushkin, A. S. (1984) Collected Narrative and Lyrical Poetry, Ann Arbor, Ardis Said, E. W. (1991) Orientalism, Harmondsworth, Penguin Schöpflin, G. (1994) 'Culture and Identity in Post-communist Europe' in S. White, J. Blatt and P. G. Lewis (eds.) Sergeyev, V. and N. Biryukov (1993) Russia's Road to Democracy: Parliament, Communism and Traditional Culture, Aldershot, Edward Elgar White, S., J. Blatt, and P. G. Lewis (eds.) (1993) Developments in East European Politics, London, Macmillan White, S. (1994) 'Eastern Europe after Communism' in S. White, J. Blatt and P. G. Lewis (eds.)

3 The Pragmatics of Transition

Jacob M e y University of Odense

Postmodernist thinking maintains that there is no fixed order of things, no necessary relationship between historically connected happenings. Against such a conception of history, one could invoke the rise of postmodernism itself, inasmuch as it attributes its major influence on our own, post-modern society to its rejection of theories of Enlightenment (the latter being singled out as the main cause of the 'modern misery'). Such a development does indeed recall certain historical regularities in the appearance and disappearance of subsequent schools of thought. In particular, the very idea that the disappearance of historical regularity, or the 'end of history' itself, can be said to be characteristic of the postmodern condition is not very postmodern in itself: history is most likely to go on, no matter what (Neo-)Hegelians and their latter-day incarnations, the postmodernists, have to say on the subject. Postmodernism is a symptom, rather than the cure, of an historical condition (some would narrow down this term, and speak of an ailment): the destabilisation and defocusing of human society's collectively accepted points of view. Postmodernist thinking takes one of its main points of identification in the opposition it creates between itself and what one could call, in a broad sense, the 'realist' attitude to politics and history. In one of its extreme forms, such an attitude is exemplified in the classical, Soviet-approved and Soviet-inspired, Marxist view on history as a product of the changing relations of power. By placing the emphasis on the individual rather than on the collective, the postmodernists certainly have compensated for what was one of the great failures of this 'bedrock' Marxism: the inability to account for, or even respect, the individual's choice and give him or her an allowance when it comes to exerting some influence on the course of history. While it is true, as Brecht admonishes us, that Napoleon did not fight at Waterloo nor Julius Caesar in Gaul, it (unfortunately) remains true that without those two generals, there probably never would have been a 'Battle Of The Nations' nor a Bellum

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gallicum, at least not in the way humans historically have experienced those events. The truth of the matter, therefore, is neither in just a plain denial of the postmodernist tenets, nor in their wholesale embracing. What we have to look for is a truth as shaped in its historical circumstances: in other words, in dealing with the deconstructionists, we have to deconstruct their, as well as our own, positions pragmatically. That is to say, we have to look for the conditions of production that we all are subject to while elaborating our theories. And from this angle, it stands to reason that the fragmented nature of today's intellectual endeavour is germane to the fragmenting view of humankind that is so characteristic of the postmodern discourse. As Sergeyev and Biryukov remark in their chapter in the present volume, the idea that there are no such things as international relations is 'hardly convincing if applied universally' (p. 38). And when comrades become consumers (in both East and West!), to paraphrase the title of Minaeva's chapter, certain other changes are bound to follow in the wake of such a revolution (if one wants to call it that). Applying this line of thinking to the present volume as a whole, one could say that it, too, is postmodern in a very concrete sense. It represents, and bases itself on, the end of a particular historical reality—the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the 'monolithic Eastern Bloc' with their accoutrements, the Warsaw Pact, the Council for Mutual Economic Co-operation (COMECON), and other structures from the times when there still were two Great Powers in the world. Simultaneously it deconstructs our vision of the world as being steered by either 'unceasing imperialist aggression' or 'the omnipresent hand of Moscow' (Sergeyev and Biryukov, this volume, p. 40), and draws our attention to all the other actors on the political scene: the other 'worlds', which used to be numbered posterius in deferential relation to the Two Big Numbers of our universal nomenklatura. It does this by appealing to a 'political discourse in transition' that is characteristic for our times. (One can no longer simply speak of 'Political Discourse, East and West', the original title of this volume.) This discourse, being itself transitory, establishes a state of transition among those participating in it. It is this condition, perhaps, that characterises the 'new world order', rather than the hoped-for co-operation among superpowers or some Pax Americana with its supposed universal blessings. What, then, is this new discourse all about? In the following, I will briefly characterise the individual contributions to our volume from the point of view of how they relate to the transitory aspects of the contemporary political scene; I will also try to single out certain features that seem to be characteristic of particular developments in this greater picture. The first three chapters of Part One all in various ways have their starting point in the Soviet Union's recent history and demise and are concerned with

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how this major political event is reflected in, and shapes, our political discourse. Discourse is what remains after one has stripped off all the linguistic embellishments of a text. Discourse forms, and is informed by, our thinking, our minds: it is the 'implied author' of our stories. In fact, just as stories represent discourse as it is practised in society, the myths of society represent the 'frozen discourse' that this section is about. One of the most effective ways for the implied authorship of discourse to exercise its authority, is by the use of different voices (Mey 1996). Voices function in discourse as do the personae on the theatrical scene—not as the visible actors, but as what they represent. The representations are either direct, as when we let the personae speak in their own voices (the case of the skaz, as illustrated by Bourmeyster), or we can let the voices be those of society's authority, as in totalitarian discourse (the article by Sergeyev and Biryukov comments on this). The emphasis can also be on the textual material itself: Pocheptsov's chapter illustrates the devious ways of verbal propaganda in the wake of a major political event: the creation of an independent Ukraine. Thus, this first section unites a narratological, a political, and an intertextual approach to the problems of discourse in a changing society. Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov, in their 'The collapse of empire and search for cultural identity', draw our attention to the cultural factors that play a role in the re-establishing of the mutual relationships between Russia and her former union partners. Interpreting those relations purely in terms of power makes no sense; instead, they advocate a sociologically-oriented interpretation, based on the paradigm of 'cultural choice', seen as the voluntary (and sometimes somewhat capricious) search of a nation for an identification in terms of history and culture. This, of course, implies that élite groups will have a major say in defining policies, and that 'classical' representations and notions such as statehood, national identity, 'good' and 'evil' receive a more prominent exposure than they would have been entitled to in any other paradigm of choice. We should be careful not to limit this kind of thinking artificially to the emerging or 'reborn' states and communities in Eastern Europe: elsewhere, even in the long established states of the West, one may experience similar developments; one might consider, for example, the relatively recent developments in countries such as Italy and Spain. Georgii Pocheptsov, in discussing 'Processes of political communication in the former USSR', emphasises the particular character of political communication as a collective activity. Political communication needs to be distinguished both from 'regular' communication and from propaganda: the latter is characterised by an inversion of the relation between denotation and connotation in the sign (p. 53). Normally, in Pocheptsov's view, a sign is based 'primarily on denotation and secondarily on connotation' (p. 53): the

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propaganda sign reverses this relation and as a result, it seldom relies on evidence to support its claims, explicit or implicit, as Fergusson has remarked. A further consequence is that not only the sign itself, but also its context (and whether or not it appeared in the context) is given meaning. What propaganda does, is 'to make signs out of real people' (p. 59). The author illustrates his ideas by reference to the changes that occurred in the Russian and Ukrainian public media, with the emphasis shifting away from 'underground' publications (samizdat) to a more Western-type mass communication. 'The restructuring of Soviet political discourse' is the theme of Alexandre Bourmeyster's contribution. The author argues that the discourse of MarxismLeninism, which was characteristic for the Soviet Union, in reality only can be understood as counter-revolutionary, inasmuch as it was directed at a revolution which had already taken place, in February of 1917, viz., that of Kerensky and his Social-Democrats. Thus, the people around Lenin 'rejected the political discourses of modern times in the name of a conservative utopia' (p. 71); Gorbachev's glasnost can be seen as a return to the traditional social philosophy of the Enlightenment, as it was embodied in the French Revolution's Déclaration des droits de l'homme. During perestroika, the traditional divisions of left and right, known from Western political life, (re)emerged also in the Russian political discourse of transition. However, because of the nature of this particular historical process, these ingrained appellations came to denote rather varying groupings; as a result, the idea of 'normality' itself had to be redefined (p. 74). The resulting confusion of the present frame of discourse created an unstable situation on the political scene of post-perestroika Russia, exposing societal problems that remain to be solved if the democratic process is to survive. The following six chapters all deal with the common theme of 'political vocabulary in transition'. Changes in society bring about changes in the ways we talk about society. Sooner or later, these changes are going to express themselves in the ways of words. It has been a favourite pastime of linguists and others to 'conclude' either from vocabulary changes to societal changes, or to 'explain' vocabulary changes by changes in society. Both methods are inconclusive as well as non-explanatory in the strictest sense of the terms, because they misunderstand the way wording works in society. Society is constituted by human praxis; that means that we necessarily and unavoidably are humans in and through our societal praxis. Thus, language as the expression of that praxis both reflects, and conditions, society. The salient point is that neither of the two, language and humans, are independent agents: they join hands dialectically in discourse. As a result, there is no way of simply registering or objectively describing changes in vocabulary that will explain societal changes. Rather, when Russian words such as perestrojka and

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glasnost' catch on also in other language communities such as the French- or English-speaking world, it is because a change has been waiting for its expression. And this is no magic of words—except that wording obliges you to take yourself more seriously because of your verbal commitment. The potential and actual value of such changes, as perceived by linguists, is examined by Kaul in her paper, while Richardson elucidates the conception of change from a sociologically oriented point of view. The political aspects of change in vocabulary as a result of structural changes in society are the object of the contributions by Schäffner and Porsch and Borisova, respectively; Baranov examines some crucial humanistic concepts in their ever-changing societal context. The succinct contribution by Ludmila Minaeva 'From comrades to consumers' elucidates certain changes in forms of address that have taken place since the 'revolution' of 1989. The old form 'comrade' is still in use (in fact, 22% of Muscovites prefer it), but old-new forms, such as the title gospodin (officially abolished in 1917) have made a come-back, initially among certain classes, but tendentially spreading across the social spectrum. As the author remarks, these forms of appellation reflect the social structures prevalent in the community. Interestingly, among those that have appeared on the scene as the heirs of the USSR, that heritage seems to have made several historical jumps back to pre-1917 Russia, witness the fact that even already then obsolete forms such as sudar' (and its shortened suffixal form, -s) seem to have acquired a new lease on life. Minaeva concludes: 'What we are witnessing is a social and sociolinguistic system in the process of change... It will...be a long time before a new system of terms of address becomes a universally accepted language norm' (p. 93). Venturing further into the domain of political semantics, Marina Kaul has entitled her contribution 'Breakthrough and blind alley: The lexicon of perestroika'. She chronicles the fate of some of the most popular terms of the perestroika period: in addition to the word itself, such additions to the political vocabulary as 'blind alley', 'breakthrough', 'consensus', as well as less felicitous formations and re-formations, among these the 'struggle' (and of course, in the end, the collapse) of 'perestrojka' itself, which followed its 'short-lived lord into his [political] grave', to paraphrase one of Horace's most famous Odes (II:xiv.24). Kaul draws our attention to the importance of words, and of the (metaphorical) concepts they express, in guiding us towards action (or barring us from action). Metaphor, in particular, is not just an expression of a human cognitive process (let alone an 'ornamental trope'; p. 116): its use (or misuse, as the case may be) can have beneficial or disastrous consequences, as the history of the terms the author has studied amply demonstrates. In her discussion of the 'blind alley' metaphor, for example, Kaul is able to show

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how this term, probably introduced without too much introspection or reflection by some politician(s) or journalist(s), may have had a paralysing effect on the efforts to break out of a political impasse: the blind alley has only one way out, the road back. As such, it exclusively defines a reactionary political solution. Elena G. Borisova, in 'Opposition discourse in Russia: Political pamphlets 1989-91', examines the language of popular political discourse during the period of 'late perestroika'. The author singles out several salient features that are characteristic of this discourse, and is able to show that despite the variety and development that have occurred since the period of 'transition' (and in fact during the time span examined itself), several features tend to perpetuate themselves. In the best of Russian traditions, comprising both Tolstoy and Lenin (p. 130), political discourse in Russia is much more emotionally oriented than its Western counterpart. Most interesting is Borisova's observation that political terminology is 'flexible'—that is, it can be used in different situations with different connotations (in fact, even with varying denotations). The volatile situation in Russia during the years indicated in the title make for a profound and rapid change in vocabulary. Yet, the 'manifestivity' of political clichés and other forms of political discourse is not something that came about yesterday; the Soviet period has a long tradition of arguing politically that seems to continue beyond glasnost and perestroika, as intimated also elsewhere in this volume (see, for example, Richardson's contribution). 'Justice, equality and freedom: The structure of value concepts' is the title that Anatolii N. Baranov has given his chapter. The author starts out by remarking that social revolutions may have profound cognitive effects; his intention is to show some of these effects of the 'second Russian revolution', in particular in its first period, perestroika, on the political discourse that obtained in that period. The cognitive effects of perestroika reflect themselves specifically in the value system that this discourse presupposes and sustains. Here, the main opposition is between the well-known pair, 'freedom' vs. 'justice'. While 'justice' has had a long tradition in Russian thinking, and was promoted actively by the Soviet state in the form of 'social justice', that is, equality for all, and equal access to resources, 'freedom' has a less pronounced tradition. Actually, as Baranov's examples from public discourse show, there is a great deal of uncertainty as to how to deal with this concept, and how to apply it. The very use of the word 'freedom' may change its content diametrically, as when we contrast 'freedom of the individual' with 'freedom of the state', in a true Orwellian perspective (pp. 133, 137). It turns out, in conformity with expectations, that the uses of 'freedom' as an argumentative means are far outnumbered by appeals to equality and justice. When it comes

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to decomposing the current social myths, it appears that 'justice' can be put on a solid footing by an appeal to an equal distribution of resources, whereas 'freedom' lacks this solid anchoring in the Russian tradition. As regards 'external freedom' (as opposed to its 'prototypical', subject-oriented variety), the distribution of resources often stands in the way, inasmuch as the social ideals of justice and equality turn into obstacles to the exercise of personal freedom. In order to arrive at a just distribution, the individual could be persuaded to give up his freedom so that 'law and order' may prevail, but the result could be 'an abyss of endless distribution and redistribution' (p. 143). In a joint chapter, Christina Schäffner and Peter Porsch write on 'Continuity and change: German discourse after unification'. Their aim is not so much to establish lists of 'typical' expressions for the German used in the (ex-)GDR, as to find out how the official political discourse of East Germany was transformed during, and as a result of, unification and the processes leading up to and accompanying it in 1989 and the following years. They make the important point (attributed to Ehlich) that to study discourse, one has to locate it in its social context; and to achieve their aim, they consequently focus on politicians' and journalists' ways of expressing the social processes of the 'transition' (the Wende). It turns out that some of the textual techniques employed by politicians of the GDR (such as 'propositional reduction'—that is, replacing a complex societal process by some simple slogan-like formula— continue to be used also after unification; another technique, the use of metaphors to shore up the validity of one's decisions, the legitimacy of one's political action, and so on, continues to enjoy success. The main difference in 'text types' before and after the Wende seems to be that whereas official reports to the Party or Government in the ex-GDR may be characterised as 'success discourse', the government declarations after unification admit also of a discourse of problems, even though the overall characterisation of this type of discourse as a 'discourse of power' remains valid also after the transition (p. 169). Kay Richardson's chapter bears the seemingly paradoxical title 'Translating the transition: What is the Russian for 'perestroika'?' It emerges, however, that we are not dealing with a paradox, or even an oxymoron: there is no official English translation for perestrojka (or for its companion, glasnost"), and thus what the Western public came to understand by it ('freedom of speech', roughly) was something quite different than what its Russian initiators (mainly Mikhail Gorbachev) had in mind when they first appropriated the term for a particular yet-to-be-realised stage in the development of a socialist economy— a stage which turned out in the end to be less of a development than a debacle. There are many interesting points that Richardson makes in the course of her chapter. To single out one, the case of 'perestroika' underlines the validity of

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establishing 'meaning' as a relation between signifier and referent (p. 177), rather than (as Saussure advocated, with most linguists and semanticists understanding and practising it thus ever since) one between signifier and signified, strictly understood as the 'other side of the sign coin', to use a wellknown metaphor. Stressing the referent means putting more emphasis on the total context in which the expression in question is used; this is the only way for us to understand what 'perestroika' meant in the Russian context, and consequently to make Russians understand how the term came to be used in a Western European (primarily British and North American) context: hence, how to translate 'perestroika into Russian'. The four chapters in the final section of our volume deal with 'Discourse, Identity and Conflict'. The essence of discourse as voice of the 'implied author' (Mey 1996) is located in the conceptual structure underlying the use of a language. Thus, the values that are prevalent in society are worded accordingly, and put to work in a way that is consonant with the intentions of the 'implied author'. A nationalist discourse will reveal the way society thinks and agrees about the concept of 'nation'; conversely, it will reinforce the currently accepted values. Discourse is directly linked to ideology. The current debates in 'young' and 'old' nations about the identity of 'the people', as contrasted with outside elements, is to a high degree informed by the ideology of racism, understood here as the chauvinist expression of national identity in a rejection of 'foreignness' and allegedly non-national values. To take two historical examples: the HUAC ('House Un-American Activities Committee') of the 1950s in the USA can be said to be racist in that it affirmed 'American values' as exclusively those of the political right wing; the Bush presidential discourse of the early 1990s was racist in that it affirmed white middle class values against all the others. Racism is, in discourse terms, a much wider concept than that connected with a single 'race'—even though it there shows its ugly head in its most extreme form. The chapters in this section all endeavour to deconstruct the commonly accepted concept of nationalism. They show it to be either basically racist at the level of everyday attitudes revealed by social-psychological analysis (Kurcz's contribution), or, at the level of official pronouncements and government declarations, as profoundly politicised. The approach practised by Teichmann and Levinger in their chapters is to analyse official and public discourse in an ensemble of texts related to a period's events in the life of a particular country. At a more general, cognitive and theoretical level, the chapter by Achard looks into the philosophical and linguistic implications of such a deconstruction. Writing on 'Discourse and social praxis in the construction of nation and state', Achard uses a model based on ideas developed by Emile Benveniste to

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show how the construction of a social space through discourse is at the basis of our definitions of 'nation', 'state', 'people' and the like, and how similar techniques are employed by established as well as by 'emerging nations' in constructing a national and statehood identity. The hypotheses formed are then tested on two concrete cases from the West: Britain and France, and one from Eastern Europe, where the emergence of an Estonian identity is illustrated on the basis of an original multilingual text. The author concludes that 'there is no objective meaning of the notion of "nation" ' (p. 212); all such meanings are created through discourse practices, in the sense of Bakhtin. The chapter by Ida Kurcz, 'Cognitive dimensions of identity: Ethnic stereotypes in Poland', is revealing in that it draws our attention to the (until recently mostly hidden) nationalism and chauvinism that are prevalent in the countries of the former Eastern bloc. The uncovering of the stereotyped concepts of national identity underlying such feelings is an important task, since people actually will fight people they do not like, especially in cases where the latter are their neighbours. While 'descriptive' stereotyping, taken by itself, may have some cognitive beneficial effects, 'evaluative' stereotyping in an ethnic context carries the potential of armed conflict between nations or other groups. Kurcz is able to show that while the Poles' self-image is remarkably consistent across the Polish territory (pp. 229-30), their images of other nations also show great uniformity, in that the farthest away people with the highest standard of living are evaluated most positively, whereas poor neighbours (such as the Lithuanians and the Ukrainians) receive bad ratings throughout. 'Defining democracy: Opposition discourse in Georgia 1990-91' is the title of the chapter by Christina Teichmann. The author investigates the speeches made by the then President of Georgia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in the Georgian Parliament during the constitutional crisis of 1991 and the ensuing revolt by the opposition—which ended in the President's exile in Chechenya and full civil war in his country, the very outcome he had tried to avoid by the use of his technique of 'verbal confrontation'. From the extensive transcripts (given in the original, authenticated Russian version), a picture emerges of a discourse of democracy that takes place in a space where the conditions for such a discourse are not present, and thus is doomed to fail. This proves the point made by Teichmann in the beginning of her chapter—that 'linguistic investigations into the relationship between language and society cannot replace the analysis of social processes and structures from a social science standpoint' (p. 233): the two standpoints, that of the linguist and that of the social scientist, are complementary to each other. The final chapter of this section (and of the volume as a whole) comes from a corner of the world similarly plagued by the misfortunes of political crises

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and civil war, and now perhaps the most prominent in the bad conscience of Europeans—the former Yugoslavia. In her discussion of 'Language, discourse and identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina', Jasna Levinger observes that in beleaguered Sarajevo, a language is not just a language, but can function as 'rhetoric of war', the author claims (p. 258 et passim). To substantiate her claim, she adduces numerous examples from the discourse of her war-torn city, showing how an initial quest for identity became more and more suspect as language wars turned into real wars, and linguistic purism got its counterpart in the 'ethnic cleansing' for which the Yugoslavian conflict will forever remain infamous. The chapter closes its books on the language question in late 1992, when the author left Sarajevo; the entire history of this fascinating linguistic development (which seems to confirm predictions made already decades ago by such linguists as Einar Haugen and Peter Trudgill) will have to be written at a later stage, when words again can be heard as communicative devices, not as 'loaded weapons', in Bolinger's almost prophetic words (1986). References Bolinger, Dwight D. (1986) Language: the Loaded Weapon. London: Longman Mey, Jacob L. (1996) When Voices Clash... Studies in the Pragmatics of Literary Texts. Oxford: Blackwell

PART ONE THE COLLAPSE OF SOVIET DISCOURSE

4

The Collapse of Empire and Search for Cultural Identity Victor Sergeyev Russian Academy of Sciences

Nikolai Biryukov Moscow Institute of International

Relations

1. Introduction A few years ago the Soviet Union still appeared to remain the mysterious and inert colossus the world had been accustomed to see for decades. It has since become an arena (or, should we rather say, arenas) of unceasing and increasingly dangerous conflicts. This drastic transformation is a challenge to political science, both pragmatically and theoretically. The collapse of the totalitarian regime, the disintegration of the centuries-old empire, the imminent economic and the looming ecological disasters seem to have confirmed some of its most celebrated predictions. Its ideologically less committed but, perhaps, more fundamental generalisations, however, are put to a serious test. To start with the emerging international situation, to what degree does political realism explain what is going on? Political realism's two basic premises are nation states and power relations (Morgenthau 1948; Waltz 1975). Within this paradigm nation states are regarded as natural subjects of international relations, while the relations themselves are assumed to be those of power to power. Their particular state will depend on the relative power of the nations involved. Political realism thus takes the subjects of international relations for granted. But what if there are no ready-made subjects on the international scene? Will it not make the realist approach irrelevant? The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the formation of a system of

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international relations between its former administrative units, which have now become its heirs, provide a good occasion to discuss the matter. One may argue that the type of international situations we are returning to have already been envisaged by those students of international relations that are somewhat enigmatically styled 'postmodernist'. This is not quite the case. Postmodernist criticism of the power relations approach is somewhat anarchistic, in the following sense. It proceeds from the assumption that there are no such things as subjects of international relations and that, in principle, there cannot be. Though hardly convincing if applied universally, this assumption may be true in certain cases. Postmodernism's other feature is its tendency to substitute analysis (and criticism) of a theory by analysis (and criticism) of the discourse that maintains that theory1. Postmodernism's real target is the world of scholars within which the power relations theory functions2. It deals with texts and terms, rather than with their referents, and tends to base its criticism not on the analysis of international relations as such, i.e. on the analysis of the object of the research, but on the analysis of the relations that exist between those who investigate or presume to investigate that object and do that research. It tends to seek personal reasons behind attempts of certain élite groups among scholars to impose their interpretation of international relations on others and treats the fact of personal involvement as sufficient ground to reject the theory. The line of criticism we are going to follow here is of a different kind. It is based on the Mannheim style of analysis that deals with interrelations between social institutions and political consciousness (Mannheim 1964). We intend to review situations which make the power relations theory irrelevant precisely because it was originally developed for and verified in situations of quite a different sort. The situations with which we are concerned lack the expected subjects of international relations theory. We do not reject postmodernist criticism entirely for, as we see it, the discourse of political realism proves inadequate indeed. Its deconstruction is both possible and useful, but hardly sufficient. We agree that analysis of discourse is important. It is all the more important as a plurality of discourses, i.e. the absence of a single universally recognised discourse, is crucial if élites are, as in our case, to make a choice. But we do not agree that research is to be limited to discourse and that it is enough simply to engage in deconstruction. Postmodernists, it is true, have not been alone in their criticism of political realism. Even earlier the latter came under attack from the interdependence theorists, who accepted the nation state as their starting point, but then proceeded to demonstrate that the new international situation made use of power not as easy as the theory initially assumed (Keohane and Nye 1977). The present situation, such scholars maintain, is characterised by the increasing

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role of various international structures: financial links, international trade, transnational corporations, international organisations, etc. All these have contributed to create a system of mutual interdependence, the basis of which is not some supranational agency, but rather a network of structures that permeate and unite the states at a subnational level. The interdependence approach rejects political realism as of limited validity under contemporary conditions, whereas postmodernism asserts it has never been valid. Postmodernism treats the subjects of international relations (nation states) not as gradually eroding but as purely fictitious. To put it in metaphysical terms, it denies the subjects' substantiality and asserts the primary status of the discourse. We are not going to argue that all these theories are wrong; we are rather inclined to believe none of them is universal. Our attitude is somewhat similar to that of the interdependence theorists who do not deny power relations as such but doubt that their axioms are any longer applicable. Still, they tend to treat interdependence normatively, i.e. to regard the relations it generates as something international relations really ought to be. This teleological bias reinstates the idea of 'natural', hence universal, international relations, though not in the sense in which political realism would use the term. In this chapter we intend to develop a different approach that might be called the 'cultural choice' paradigm.3 We do not presume it is any more universal than those we have discussed above, but we do believe it may help us understand specific situations in which the classical subjects of international relations (the nation states of political realism) are missing not because they have been eroded (as the interdependence theory asserts) or because they are but theoretical fictions (the standpoint espoused by postmodernists), but because they are yet to emerge. Do we need to argue that these circumstances, though by no means 'typical' from the standpoint of conceptual analysis, are common enough from the practical point of view and are at least 'typical' in situations and areas of crisis? 2. The cultural choice paradigm It is true, these 'subjectless' situations are not totally unknown to political scientists. But 'political realists' tend to treat them as 'unnatural', 'abnormal' or 'exceptional'. Even if recognised, these situations (e.g. the Balkans or the Middle East) are usually stretched to fit the classical paradigm. The most common interpretation is to present them as local or regional projections of the power relations games on the part of the great or, better still, the super powers. The superpowers' involvement is certainly something not to be neglected, but we seem to have entered a phase when such situations constitute the predominant mode of political change. It might be rewarding to review the

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situations in the Balkans before World War I, in Eastern Europe between the two world wars, in the Middle East, on the Indian subcontinent and in Africa (in short, almost throughout the entire Third World) after World War II in the context of cultural choice. This has never been done. Even the struggle around the so called 'socialist choice' on the part of some Third World countries was treated, both in the West and in the East, exclusively in terms of the superpower confrontation, as if all local politics were being done by agents or puppets and the nations involved had nothing to say on their own. It was, of course, a kind of egocentrism to view everything from the standpoint of the superpowers, not from the standpoints of the parties in situ. Still, almost all of these conflicts would be presented as staged from beyond. They would seldom be presented as meaningful local problems. Hence the myths of 'the unceasing imperialist aggression' or 'the omnipresent hand of Moscow'. In spite of much ingenuity on the part of political analysts, a satisfactory explanation of what has been going on in former colonies after the disintegration of the great powers' colonial empires has never been found. Problems of colonial nations' self-identification have been, for the most part, ignored or, at best, treated as matters solely of internal politics—of maintaining internal unity or of building up charismatic cults of national leaders (Lacouture 1970). Instead, it would have been worthwhile to view these local or regional conflicts as cauldrons in which problems were boiled for the great powers to puzzle over, rather than as mere opportunities to exercise power or to damage a rival. The socio-psychological mechanisms of cultural choice still seem rather vague. What is the basis for the choice and the divisions it invariably involves? Religions appear to be one answer, but they often become symbols and instruments of identification, rather than being its causes. They are treated as signs and markers of cultural differences; they are not necessarily their sources. It is hardly their respective religions that separate Serbs, Croatians and Bosnians. The majority of them are or, at least, have long been non-believers and, even if they do believe now, it is difficult to see how in so short a time they could have become fanatic .enough to start religious wars against each other. Crises of this kind are often viewed as caused by the birth of new nations. But as often as not the opposite is true: crises are required for these births to take place. People must be forced into situations where they have to make the either/or choices; otherwise the identities created may turn out not to be strong enough to withstand impulses that derive from other factors. Hence dualism is the prevailing political ideology of the times: the best way to create a nation seems to be to find it an enemy powerful enough to be afraid of and yet either too weak or unwilling to crush it in the bud.

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Another important factor related to cultural choice is that one may only choose from what is actually available. If you live in Poland, you cannot choose the 'Japanese way' simply because it seems attractive. Your guiding marks are to be found in your own history. You may 'stretch' or 'smooth' your history, you may close your eyes to some facts and stress others, but you have to remain within it—not of course, within what it really was, but certainly within what it may be made into without too much sheer forgery. History (each history) is multi-layered; you only have to choose one of the layers that constitute your historic past and proclaim it 'indigenous', 'genuine' or 'authentic'. This will make a myth out of history but will provide you with a means of identification. The leaders of Georgia have plucked the year 1920 out of their millennia-old history as the only year upon which Georgia's present international status is to be modelled. Why 1920 rather than any other year? This is the choice, and the choice is theirs. Germany of the middle and late 1930s, for instance, opted to identify with its pre-Christian past—the cultural alternative long forgotten but revived a few generations earlier by the Romantics, including Wagner and Nietzsche. In that way culture was substituted for the state, while the state was to identify with a culture. This is not surprising, for cultural unity seems to meet the requirements of an expansionist choice better than anything else, because it usually transcends whatever the state boundaries for the given historic period happen to be. The cultural identification, in general, leaves the subject of it with two main alternatives: it may seek to dominate (as Germany sought to dominate the German-speaking world) or else it may attempt to integrate. The latter option is exemplified by the nineteenth-century Russian Westernisers' insistence on Russia re-entering 'Europe', where it properly belonged, whereas the Slavophiles, the Byzantinists and the Euro-Asianists advocated the alternative identifications. Once again this question of 'who we are' seems to have come to the fore. From the sociological or historical point of view, this search for identity is central inasmuch as, once the choice is made, it is almost impossible to go back on it. Difficulties encountered by the Soviet Union during perestroika, and still experienced by its successors, bear sufficient witness to how painful such processes may be. Incidentally, this might also serve as a warning against a possible misunderstanding: these are not problems that only obscure underdeveloped countries are likely to face; they may well afflict any society, however technologically or otherwise advanced and self-assured. The emergence of a united Europe may well pose the question of identity anew for the nations that seem to have already solved it once. On the other hand, it is difficult to deny that these processes have something to do with the problems of modernisation. And this takes us to our next

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question. What does modernisation precisely mean in this case, for these not yet finally formed 'subjects'? Nations at the stage of formation evidently do not find themselves equally conditioned for modernisation. What obstacles await them is again best exemplified by Russia, which has spent the last three hundred years desperately trying to modernise without too much success, in spite of the fact that attempts at modernisation have been regularly resumed. Another example is provided by Turkey. Since, prior to their recent modernisation efforts, both had been empires of outstanding expanse and power, we are again forced to view our main problem in the context that disintegration of imperial structures creates.4 Our approach to the problem of modernisation is based on the assumption that the cognitive structures forming the core of political cultures are much more stable, or rigid, than is generally assumed.5 This leads us to treat social changes as primarily institutional innovations and look to interactions between social institutions for explanations and interpretations of these changes. 3. Cultural choice and the character of political discourse The disintegration of the Soviet Union has created a situation which can only be characterised as global social déstabilisation from the Balkans to the Pacific. And the hopes, till recently cherished by almost everyone, that totalitarian dictatorships would be replaced by decent democratic regimes which would stabilise the situation and boost the economic and social development of their countries appear now somewhat naive. What we witness now can be summarised as follows. First, in the course of their struggle against the Soviet Empire the movements that have opposed imperial institutions and pro-imperial forces have developed a clearly dualistic outlook that would present the Empire and whoever is associated with it as Forces of Evil and Oppression and the nationalist movements themselves as Forces of Good and Freedom. This dualistic phase extends beyond the final victory over the 'imperial Centre' and still remains a significant feature of the political discourse in the former Soviet 'colonies'. Second, however, when the 'imperial Centre' has collapsed, the dominant dualistic pre-understanding turns out to be singularly inadequate to the tasks the newly liberated countries face. After they have completed the negative part of the job and successfully broken away from their imperial bondage, they discover that they possess no positive programme to follow and that the political atmosphere they have created in the meantime is hardly conducive to its development. Perhaps most surprising and most disturbing of all is the fact that, for all the nationalist rhetoric of the last few years, national identification

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appears lacking. Whether it was intended or not, national histories have been erased, and the seventy years of Soviet rule have interrupted the flow of time and destroyed the cultural continuity required to maintain a certain level of national identity. Thus, also the newly created states face the task of creating anew their own histories. This task is made still more difficult by the fact that the areas in question are situated at the old historic 'cross-roads' which have always served as meeting places or battlegrounds for different and competing cultures. These rival 'civilisations' would win or lose, advance or retreat, but their successive advances and retreats have eventually transformed the histories of the nations involved into something like multi-layered 'pies'. The result is that none of these nations can now legitimately boast of possessing a coherent historic tradition to identify with. This makes the problem of national identification a matter of choice between different layers of their respective historic 'pies'. What adds savour to this problem from the standpoint of international relations is, of course, the fact that the choice of history turns out to be also a geopolitical choice. As long as the cultural choice is still not made, all the space in and around the new countries may be regarded as geopolitically unshaped. And their geopolitical futures will depend on what their choices are going to be. The whole problem is thus pivoted on the particular balance between the relations that exist within the space in question and the relations that connect it to the centres that surround it (which are cultural centres rather than centres of power), on the one hand, and the internal dynamics of choice-making, on the other. In this perspective, foreign policy appears organically linked to the internal politics, and much more so, indeed, than political realism is wont to admit. The problem of relations between foreign policy and internal politics, which has long puzzled international relations theorists,6 assumes a new ontological dimension. Our interpretation of international relations becomes more sociological. We refuse to treat nation states as ready-made entities for the simple reason that these presumed natural subjects of international relations have not reached the level of 'full' existence. Rather than viewing them as some primary 'atoms' of international relations, we attempt to inquire into what is going on inside these 'black boxes'. And it is the internal dynamics of the cultural and national selfidentification, rather than outward actions of the definitely established and fully self-conscious national selves that we are concerned with. And since totalitarian societies are known to have been ruled by tightly knit and compact élites, it is natural to expect that the outcome of this choice-making will depend on the relations that exist between various élite groups and between them and the masses.

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One more feature of this process is rooted in the totalitarian past. Since political pluralism had little chance to become part of the national tradition, the control over the state and its various institutions sought by the competing élites is always expected to be something undivided and unchallenged, thus making compromises between the rival factions almost impossible. This tendency towards institutional monism supports our argument that a cultural choice tends to be regarded as irrevocable. None of the contending élite groups is likely to tolerate a pluralist choice. Azerbaijan, where this rivalry has led to armed confrontations, and Tajikistan, where it has developed into a full-scale civil war, bear sufficient witness to that. And all this is being done to the accompaniment of incessant paeans to pluralism and multiparty rule. Though the cultural choice might appear basically a matter of internal politics, we would like to emphasise here that it serves to explain the interdependence of the internal and foreign policies. It determines the system of international priorities and is, indeed, the basis of the whole structure of the country's foreign relations. The international effects of a new cultural choice are sometimes quite paradoxical. Latvia and Estonia make territorial claims on Russia when one would expect them to be glad enough to have Moscow consent to their independence and to secure its subsequent non-interference on behalf of the Russian ethnic minorities. The Georgian government announces an economic blockade of Russia which is hardly noticed by the big Northern neighbour but has a devastating effect on Georgia's own economy. What further evidence does one need to support the thesis that the power relations paradigm fails to explain the political realities of the post-Soviet era? Tartar radicals proclaim they have for the last four hundred years been and still are at war with Russia. Moldavian officials state that it is not, indeed, the Transdniesterian separatists they are fighting against but Russia itself. Even allowing for Russia's present miserable situation, and allowing for the support they might hope to get from its latter-day opponents, the balance (or, should we rather say, imbalance) of power remains obvious enough to make the leaders of the republics look no more than irresponsible adventurers from the standpoint of political realism. Although there can be little doubt that ours is indeed a season for adventurers, and even if the allowances just noted are partly true, it is certainly wrong to apply the realist paradigm indiscriminately to all of these leaders, even to the reputed realists among them. A different explanation is suggested by introducing the problem of cultural identification. The burden of choice and the degree of mass mobilisation required to bear it, make anti-Russian gestures important mobilising factors. And the anti-imperialist rhetoric that accompanies these mobilisation campaigns and feeds on the psychological atmosphere of dualism, works in its

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turn to regenerate and perpetuate this convenient resource. With all their selfprofessed Europeanism, the political leaders of the Baltic states do not hesitate to engage in discriminating practices, however remote their mistreatment of the Russian migrants might be from the officially acknowledged European standards. The internal dynamics of this dualist outlook account for many otherwise incomprehensible political actions. For one thing, the agent of Evil is assumed to have no interests of his own. His behaviour is believed to be motivated exclusively and entirely by a desire to do harm. It is not surprising then that Russians in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (or, for that matter, dissident minorities elsewhere) are not expected to have any interests other than to perpetuate the imperial yoke. It might appear to be ridiculous to believe that at so great a distance from the Kremlin some unhappy Poles, Gagauz or Ossetians may be ready to risk their own lives for nothing but the benefit of its masters; everything is accounted for by reference to venal creatures. The real political process assumes a standard dramatic form, and political actors are made to play conventionally prescribed roles. Their actions must fit the familiar plot which would incidentally allow for no negotiations between the Hero and the Villain. Within the context of the unfolding drama such negotiations would appear both immoral and impossible. They would be immoral because they would mean concessions to transcendent Forces of Evil rather than compromise over mundane matters. And they are impossible, anyway, since there are no genuine interests involved on the part of the Fiend to warrant his loyalty and to make him adhere to his part of the bargain. That this amounts to the absolution in advance of all the sins that might be incurred by a subsequent breach of promise has been made manifest by some Baltic leaders' comments on the treaty they signed with Yeltsin at the peak of the crisis that followed the seizure of the Vilnius TV tower in January 1991. And, to complete the picture, these agents of Evil are considered infectious, which leaves you with only one alternative, viz. to get rid of them as soon as possible. And so it looks as if the Baltic politicians could think of no other solution for the 'Russian question' than to force the migrants out of their countries. This is the only dÈnouement allowed by the script. Since this process of cultural self-identification depends, apart from other factors, on the nature and structure of the political élites, its outcome is to some degree predictable. As far as the former Soviet Union is concerned, two significant points are to be clarified in this respect: first, the degree of institutional and ideological autonomy the local official élite enjoyed vis- -vis the central élite, and, second, the scope and intensity of restrictions that the informal local cultural élites had to suffer at the hands of all officials, whether local or central.

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Wherever the official local élites were too closely tied to the imperial Centre and its official ideology, they had practically no chance of gaining mass popular support. On the other hand, the informal élite groups representing what little has been left of the traditional cultures enjoy great popularity and can count on mass support in their struggle for power. The typical example is provided by the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, where the traditional political and cultural élites, having been virtually exterminated in the course of the civil war and the subsequent purges, were replaced by figures of a totally different mould promoted and controlled by the Moscow party leadership. The situation is different in areas where the established local élites enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy even before independence, whether because they were partly formed out of what was allowed to survive from the past or because they felt no particular need for Moscow's support to assert themselves. Such groups have come to be regarded as the guardians of the national culture, as in the Baltic republics. Identification with the masses and mobilisation of their support are an easy task for them, but present an almost insoluble problem for élites of the official or central kind. The implications are obvious. To the élite groups that chose, or were obliged, to identify with the imperial Centre, and especially if they have to face conservative traditional cultures, there is practically only one alternative left— modernisation. The rival informal élites will, in contrast, tend to adopt fundamentalism. We are, thus, in no need to view modernisation as chosen exclusively out of some genuine sympathy for technological progress or following from the élite's ideological preferences. As often as not, it will be plausible to regard it as imposed by the harsh realities of the struggle for power or even for sheer survival. This is not to say that modernisation cannot be an élite's conscientious choice at all. But if this is a genuine choice, its circumstances are bound to be different. Whereas in the Baltic area it may be seen as a natural outcome of the national cultural tradition with its long-standing orientation to the West, in Kazakhstan and Kirghizia it is precisely the absence of a deep-rooted tradition that prevents the rise of fundamentalism and makes the choice for modernity possible. These two cases may be contrasted with republics like Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where millennia-old cultures are waiting, ready for revival. It is not surprising that, political confrontation having already led to violence in two of them, some of the contenders obviously count on the national traditions as a potential mobilisation resource. In these circumstances their opponents are virtually forced to espouse the cause of modernisation, unless they prefer political or, perhaps, even physical suicide.

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4. Cultural choice and geopolitical perspectives The geopolitical implications of these developments can hardly be underestimated. There is little doubt that once made, the particular choices are bound to affect the international situation in general. Kazakhstan's 'Islamic choice', for example, will immediately 'close the gap' and turn the whole space between the Indian Ocean and the Middle Volga into a cultural domain of Islam. The Middle East will, thus, extend as far as the Urals and beyond, which cannot help affecting the political situation in Russia and may well result in regenerating the old confrontation of Christianity and Islam. And in view of the mixed population in and around Tataria, this may be particularly alarming. But if Kazakhstan chooses to lean on another layer of its historic tradition and turn to the Far East and the Pacific, this may well cut off the whole of Siberia from central Russia and leave it within the cultural sphere of either China or Japan and Korea. Azerbaijan's choice appears to be no less consequential. If it chooses secular Turkism, the Turkish republics of Central Asia are also likely to be drawn into the orbit of Pan-Turkism, with Turkey as its obvious cultural centre. If, on the contrary, Shia fundamentalism prevails, it will doubtless become much more influential in Central Asia, too. Paradoxically enough, both alternatives seem to make the conflict between the Turkish Uzbeks and the Persian-speaking Tajiks almost inevitable. Let us finally turn to Ukraine. This new state, potentially the most powerful among the successors of the Soviet Union, apart from Russia, may choose between three alternatives. It may seek to become part of Central Europe. Identification with Central Europe is likely to strengthen the Ukrainian nationalist elements in the West and to alienate the Russian population in the East. This orientation is, therefore, likely to provoke ethnic conflicts inside the country that could lead to its disintegration in the future. Orientation to Russia in the spirit of the last three centuries may have similar results. In both cases Eastern Ukraine would probably be lost to Russia, and élites in Kiev and Lvov would enter a new round of searching for national identity. Alternatively, Ukrainian leadership may make an attempt to build a new Great Slavic Power, appealing to the early medieval history of Kievan Rus' as a basis for identification and carefully avoiding emphasis on the differences between the ethnic Ukrainians and the Russians. In this perspective, the dramatic controversy over the Soviet nuclear arsenals and the Black Sea Fleet acquires a new dimension. Both are unmistakable attributes of a great power and are required not so much for their own sake (as a safeguard against a possible Russian aggression) or even as a potential bargaining resource, as for the creation and maintenance of the appropriate image.

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If the 'historic pie' is unusually heterogeneous, and particularly if its complexity is reflected in the social structure, the cultural choice, becomes multiple: it splits into a variety of different choices espoused by different sections of the population. The integrity of the discourse required to maintain the integrity of the society is lost, and the process may end up as a tragedy. The 'Lebanisation' that follows is a natural outcome of the inability to territorially segregate subjects of incompatible identifications. In this case alternative power agencies emerge and the territory in question tends to turn into an agglomerate of miniature (and further diminishing) enclaves constantly at war with each other. And as experience has taught us, the bloodshed may go on for decades until the ensuing migrations and deportations eventually make territorial segregation possible. The choice which was made by, or imposed on, the wide variety of tribes and nations decades or centuries ago and which brought them together to form the geopolitical entity later to be known 'the Soviet Union' is no longer valid. This is not to say it is no longer relevant. The disintegration of the Soviet Union has made the new states, Russia being no exception, look for new identities. But it has also left them without the necessary resources. Hence the desperate need for help from outside, and hence the interlacing of the two processes—those of cultural choice and modernisation. It is not surprising, then, that the outcome of this search for identity will be greatly influenced, if not determined, by the accompanying search for external resources. The one limitation is that, as an object of identification, the source must be acceptable from the standpoint of internal politics, i.e. not fraught with potential domestic conflicts. This means that the choice cannot be made in a void. The identification must rest on something real: an influential minority that might serve as a connecting link or a channel of identification, or a surviving cultural tradition. Korean or German minorities in Kazakhstan and Kirghizia or the ineradicable Islam might serve as examples. The numerous and influential Russian diaspora and the thick 'Russian layer' of the cultural 'pie' taken into account, Russia may still remain an alternative. And while support from the former parent state may improve their chances for power in their own countries, appeals from the Russian-oriented élite groups may also prompt the leadership in Moscow to reaffirm the old imperial identification of Russia itself. Notes 1 2

See Der Derian and Shapiro (eds.) (1989). For critical survey of the postmodern social science, see Wagner (1991). This standpoint is exemplified by Der Derian (1990).

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4 5

6

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The concept of cultural identity has been applied to analyse the internal political situation in Germany after fall of the Berlin Wall: see Wittrock (1991). For theoretical analysis of the problem see Giddens (1991). The literature on modernisation is abundant: see, for example, Habermas (1982) and Giddens (1985). Our own study of representative institutions in the USSR during the perestroika period have demonstrated that Russian political culture, at least, contains elements that have successfully survived the dramatic social changes of this century and continue to dominate the political thinking of a large section of the populace. See Sergeyev and Biryukov(1993). See, for example, Rummell (1972) as an attempt to empirically ascertain and demonstrate the interdependence of internal policies and foreign policies.

References. Der Derian, J. and M. J. Shapiro (eds.) (1989) International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books Der Derian, J. (1990) 'Fathers (and Sons), Mother Courage (and her Children), and the End of the World (as We Know it): A Reply to Rosenau,' paper presented at the 1990 meeting of the International Studies Association on 'Superpower Scholars', Washington, D.C. Giddens, A. (1985) Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge, Polity (1991) Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge, Polity Habermas, J. (1982) 'Modernity versus Postmodernity, ' New German Critique, 22 (Winter ) Keohane, R. O. and J. S. Nye (1977) Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition, Boston and Toronto, Little, Brown and Co. Lacouture, J. (1970) The Demigods: Charismatic Leadership in the Third World, New York, Knopf Mannheim, K. (1964) Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, New York, Harcourt, Brace and World Morgenthau, H. J. (1948) Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, New York, Knopf Rummel, R. J. (1972) The Dimensions of Nations, Beverly Hills, Sage Sergeyev, V. and N. Biryukov (1993) Russia's Road to Democracy: Parliament, Communism and Traditional Culture, Alder shot, Edward Elgar Wagner, P. (1991) 'Liberty and Discipline: Making Sense of Postmodernity, or: Once Again, Towards a Sociohistorical Understanding of Modernity,' paper presented at the SCASS Workshop 'Rhetoric and Realism: The Linguistic Turn and After,' Uppsala, 7-9 June 1991 Waltz, K. N. (1975) 'Theory of International Relations,' in N. W. Polsby and F. I. Greenstein (eds.), Handbook of Political Science, vol. 8, International Politics, Reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Wittrock, B. (1991) 'Cultural Identity and Nationhood: The Reconstruction of Germany, or the Open Answer to an Almost Closed Question,' in T. Nybom and M. Trow (eds.), University and Society, London, Jessica Kingsley

5 PROCESSES OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN THE USSR

Georgii Pocheptsov Ukrainian Institute of International Relations,

Kiev

1. Introduction Political communication is of a rather specific kind. In contrast to ordinary communication, independent of the channels and genres of political institutions, where the speaker and the hearer have a tendency to be individualised as much possible, political communication has a collective speaker and a collective hearer. The speaker is collective in the sense that different institutions of society stand behind him or her, since the texts go through a collective editing process. The hearer is collective in the sense that mass communication is always directed towards an individual consumer who always knows that he/she is not the only one who receives this information. In this situation we can speak of the emergence of an 'echo-effect': the consumer receives information which is simultaneously received by someone else. By contrast, the reading of, for example, a work of literary fiction does not result in this kind of effect, because its consumers are not so concentrated in space and time. Intending to produce such an echo-effect, political communication has a tendency to use newspapers and magazines in order to concentrate its consumers spatio-temporally. The same tendency works in the case of television and radio, where even the simultaneous listening to classical music, for instance, has no such effect, because this type of text gives the possibility of diverse multiple 'readings' and cannot concentrate the listeners. Political communication is also, by its nature, highly dynamic: today's news is always displaced by tomorrow's. News broadcasts come at the same informational place and inevitably compete with each other. The

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communication of fictional texts, however, seeks to establish a new place in the consumer's perception. Political communication gravitates towards momentary reading. Nobody attempts to re-read newspapers in order to receive enjoyment equalling the aesthetic pleasure of fictional texts with their multiple possibilities for perception and understanding. Political propaganda needs to be distinguished from political communication. Political propaganda includes institutionalised forms of information transmission, the nature of which varies for this or that society. In this sense we need to understand political propaganda as those forms of political communication which have made their own clichés, patterns and stereotypes, in consequence of which they reduce active participation on the part of the information-consumer. Stable communication flows can attempt to influence the consumer only in a standard way, viewing him/her as inert, passive ballast and not as an active participant. At the same time, newly emergent types of political communication in the former USSR cannot be realised without taking into account the hearer's reactions. Political meetings, for example, cannot be organised, and samizdat forms of the non-official press in the former Soviet Union could not have been sold, if consumers were not actively interested. These channels are dynamic forms of communication, where the role of the consumer of information approaches the same level as that of the creator of the information—indeed, sender and receiver may sometimes even want to change one another's positions. Equally, however, we may find some negative results of this type of communication. When the tendency to equate the speaker and the consumer is fully realised, we have a very serious re-ordering of such channels: at a meeting theoretically everybody can take the floor; in the samizdat everyone can publish an article. We can find a similar relationship between professional and amateur sport. Here, in the former type of sport only selected persons participate whereas in the latter everybody can be 'the speaker'. In the case of political communication a process of reader satiation takes place; different newspapers have a large percentage of stories based on the same events. In the case of fictional communication, repetition is not the crucial factor. For example, novels about Stalin by two different writers would obviously have serious differences which, in the eyes of consumers, would justify reading them. In the case of political communication, the attachment to the same chain of events results in constraining the possible communication structure, making it secondary to the fact itself, and to the source which initially reported the fact. In fictional communication, it is not the fact that is central, but rather its interpretation. And interpretations may be extremely diverse.

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2. Semiotic aspects of propaganda Propaganda forms its own communicative genre. Luckmann defines communicative genres as 'ways in which some, and usually the most important communicative processes are organised in considerable detail and with some rigidity with respect to their communicative elements' (Luckmann 1989, p. 161; see also Luckmann, 1987). As a result of such autonomous functioning, propaganda generates its own type of signs. They are highly specific because they are based on two distinct signification systems, originating on the one hand in language and on the other in ideology. Non-propaganda signs are based primarily on denotation and secondarily on connotation. The propaganda type of sign has a reverse direction: the connotation is primary and the denotation secondary. Fergusson makes the same point: It is characteristic of all propaganda that it seldom includes any evidence in support of its claim. It is designed to arouse united feeling, and it cannot afford to touch anything so debatable as a fact, for debate divides men. So the reliance is always upon an association of ideas rather than a consideration of facts. (Fergusson 1947, pp. 54-55) Ideological beliefs can be usefully thought of as signs of this 'reverse' type. Direct denotation is inconceivable in the case of ideological signs, since they carry no real information, but are essentially ritualistic. Consider a sign seen on the walls of buildings in the former Soviet Union: 'Glory to the CPSU.' This slogan was repeated many times in many places, so its real communicative value cannot have been in adding some new bit of information. In general, repetition was the main communicative mechanism of former Soviet ideology, rather than the generation of new information. 2.1 The semiotics of history and time Propaganda functions as if generating only declarative truth-statements. It is principally not connected with fiction-discourse, despite the fact that in reality fiction-discourse is precisely what it is. In the former Soviet Union it was mainly directed towards future or past events, since past and future are less easy for hearers to verify, and thus easy for speakers to control in discourse. From past events it is possible to construct the needed picture, selecting only what is fruitful for propaganda. Future events are entirely in the hands of the propaganda producer, since it is impossible to evaluate them on any scale of truthfulness and lying. All propaganda campaigns were directed to the future. For example, it was declared repeatedly in Khrushchev's time that 'this generation of Soviet people will live in communism', while Gorbachev is associated with the predictions that 'the food program will be fulfilled in 1990'

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and 'every Soviet family will have a flat in 2000'. Ordinary (nonpropagandistic) utterances, by contrast, concentrate on present events, or such past events as were recently the present, and for which there are always memories and eyewitnesses. Thus propaganda language and ordinary language work with different time intervals: one is focused more on imaginary events, the other on eyewitnessed events. Such imaginary, unverifiable events may be projected with 'realistic' detail. In newspapers, for example, propaganda language would frequently describe some building as actual rather than as merely projected, planned or imagined: a future factory might be represented as already in production, and its output in tons would for the people of such-and-such a region would be stated without any justification being given. The focus is on a future time point, represented in the most positive manner possible, in order to maximise credit. This type of discourse is possible because, as argued above, propaganda signs are reoriented away from denotation and onto connotation. The future desirable results of the not-yet-built factory are in the realm of connotation, and it is the connotation that propaganda foregrounds rather then the denotation—the actual process of building. In general terms, it can be said that in propaganda discourse, the unfurling of time is made symbolic in relation to some particular historical moment. Time has a beginning and intervals. For the former USSR the beginning of time was 1917. It was marked in propaganda as the crucial point in history not for one country alone but for the entire universe. This originary point was designated in metaphorical ways. For instance, it appeared in propaganda discourse not simply as 'the beginning of a new era', but also as 'the dawn of mankind'. All time that came before was counted as insignificant. Historians searched in it only for revolutionary groups—that is for signs that appeared to signify the presence of the same ideology as their own. Future time was marked as the 'way to communism'. (This was a common name, incidentally, for collective farms.) The expression 'the way' does in fact reflect a metaphor widely used to conceptualise time and the progress of history. It is based on the notion of a path that is well-defined, well-formed, and pointing towards a specific destination. In Soviet discourse this is certainly not a path leading to an unknown land or to a dead-end, but a path that goes to a definite place. Metaphor is one of the main instruments of political discourse and closely bound up with what we have referred to as 'connotation'.1 2.2 Speakers, hearers and power Propaganda signs have another interesting feature: propaganda simultaneously generates not only the signs themselves but also their approved contexts of use. The 'rule' involved may be thought of as a kind of prescriptive 'grammatical'

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rule. For example, a visual sign such as the portrait of a leader includes directions as to where it can be correctly displayed (office, demonstration, etc.). Strict prescriptive rules of this type were very sensitive to any violations. On festive occasions it was the rule that the portrait of a particular member of the politburo had to be put on show, whether on walls, or in the hands of people at public rallies. In reality it was impossible to violate such a 'grammatical' rule, and the disappearance of the portrait would in itself have significance. Thus, for instance, after some portrait had disappeared from public view, it might later came to light that a particular politburo member had been removed from office. Holding the portrait of a leader in one's hands was in some sense assumed to represent the people's love and admiration. But these sentiments were strictly ritualised; there was no possibility of displaying a different portrait. Feelings were thus prescribed from the top down. The same language of power was not uttered by those in power, but was reversed, projected onto other speakers. A crucial feature of propaganda is in this sense the imitation of speaking, speaking on behalf of people. It represents itself as communication from people to power, though in reality it is the communication of power over the people. It is therefore power speaking to itself, a kind of narcissism. Although in its 'deep structure' it issues from power, propaganda language appeared, on the 'surface', as the speech of the ordinary people. Consequently, it was impossible to evaluate it as power speech, since ordinary people appeared to be praising power. For example, 'glory to the CPSU', 'the plans of the party are the plans of the people', 'the decisions of the party congress will be fulfilled', and so forth. Embedded in such communication was the notion that the people is speaking to the people, and some of the slogans had the ordinary man and woman as their object of flattery: 'long live Soviet man, the builder of communism!' Because they are imitations of communication, such utterances are semiotically problematic.2 Thus the language of power appropriates not only communication from power to people but also the communication from people to power. Both forms are written by the same author. In such a situation, communication is necessarily highly ritualised. In the Soviet period, one text followed another with very little addition of new information. As a result a new type of language communication emerged which might be termed 'citation language', and which is distinct from oral language and written language. Citation language was the result of strict censorship, not only of texts but also of people. Who has the right to become an author was strictly controlled. Procedures operated indirectly so as to minimise the list of people who were potentially able to produce a book or to publish an article. If the number of authors and of texts is minimised, there is a gap in the total 'communicative space' that can be to be

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filled by propaganda. Few different texts in fact circulated in this space, while the number of copies of any single text was far greater than in Western countries. And the texts in question were the works of the leaders, which were not only published, but had to be read and quoted in any type of work. A totalitarian system models not only real but also the symbolic behaviour of its citizens. But, paradoxically, all power decisions and communications were verbally justified as meeting the needs of the people or fulfilling their direct requests. So one of the main symbolic co-ordinates of all types of communication was that of the people. We are concerned of course not with the real world of communication here, but with the imaginary world built by propaganda. The imaginary world can be best seen as a hyperbolised world, in which everything was in black and white. Only heroes and enemies inhabit such a world. Any action, any deed functioned as hyper-action. A working person became the sign of work. He was not represented sleeping or eating, smoking or laughing. He was work and nothing else, and as a result he was honoured as a hero. He could laugh or smile only after fulfilling his daily plan of work. Accordingly, visual representations showed the worker in working clothes; the coal miner had to be shown as grimy, because such concretisation reinforced the conceptual frame linked to the sign. However, although the primary image of the worker never showed him or her at rest, there were separate signs that did include images of resting workers. These were the 'concern for the people' signs, which were supposed to represent the state's solicitude and focused on the worker relaxing, but in a way that left work itself out of the picture. These signs—the 'worker' sign and the 'relaxation' sign—are not connected on the level of the referents 'people'; they are connected only by the workings of the communicative power of the state. It is the connotation plane that is foregrounded, not the denotation plane. The first sign (the worker and work) functions in order to illustrate someone's work for the benefit of the state; the second (the relaxation sign) shows the worker without marked characteristics other than that of being the beneficiary of the state. The marked member of the opposition state—people is state, while people function as an unmarked member, i.e. as the member that is taken for granted and which has no distinctive value. The communicative situation was one in which all the words and utterances were written in social memory before individual acts of communication. So speakers only had to use what can be termed a 'supersign', by which we mean a stable sign structure (visual, verbal, etc.) not originating from the individual speaker. Power dominated this situation. The 'supersign' made it possible to transform even negative situations in order to represent some kind of positiveness. Totalitarian ideology is obliged to be optimistic in order to

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compensate for the actual conditions of life, and propaganda can be regarded as a machine for generating positive information on the internal problems of the state and negative information on external problems. For example, newspaper reports on accidents (inherently negatively valued events) usually verbalised them as positive events, recounting the heroic deeds of doctors, police, etc. The 'supersign' operated by means of stereotypical phrases that had been coined in order to effect this negative-positive switching. For instance, the phrase 'all progressive people' was used to claim the existence of pro-Soviet 'elements' in the West. Although in reality such 'elements' were relatively minor, they were made verbally to appear to be major. And it was impossible to question the phrase, for if one objected that the Western groups in question were insignificant in number, it could always be replied that they were nonetheless the most progressive. Conversely, in order to obscure undesired positive valuations of the West, the emphasis was placed on negative interpretations. Western capitalist countries were metaphorised, for example, as being 'rotten', or in a state of 'decay'. Another feature was the use of the notion of 'contrasts'. Lectures on the West, for instance, might typically be called something like 'New York as a city of contrasts', and the method was to juxtapose positive and negative interpretations as required. The attitude towards the West was, however, ambivalent. In the case of positiveness, one might thus use a cliché such as 'servility to the West' (nizkopoklonstvo pered zapadom). Thus the imaginary world of propaganda was in a sense a very balanced one. Genuinely new information or knowledge could not easily be introduced; indeed, everything was known before one spoke. 2.3 Heroes, enemies and the politburo In this highly ritualistic society that generated itself through propaganda there was a need for a hero figure. The hero figure bears the major dynamic potential in the motivation of plot. In propaganda discourse life itself is imagined as the plot of a story. In its use of the hero figure propaganda does indeed come to resemble a fairy tale. The hero is a sign that hyperbolises the ordinary person. In the typical narrative of the hero there is a phase in which the hero is an ordinary mortal, with whom everyone can identify. But in order to become a real hero you have to become dead. Only death (or some state close to or resembling death) can transform ordinary people into symbols. The enemy, by contrast, is a person who brings death to ordinary people. They are converses of one another: the hero brings death to himself, the enemy to others. In the imaginary world an enemy comes from a country of death, and in propaganda that is exactly how America was usually portrayed (American aggressors, instigators of war, etc.). It is dangerous even to be near him, to eat his food, and so forth. By going

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through the ceremony of death the ordinary man becomes a hero, and has a privileged type of relation with the people. The hero is always close to the people. A song of the Soviet period actually had the words: 'Lenin is more alive than any living being. Lenin is always alive. Lenin is always with you.' In Soviet propaganda discourse the ultimate goal of the enemy is to do harm to members of the politburo. All the trials of the thirties, and later, were designed to defend politburo members, and of course to defend Stalin personally from his enemies. The role of the hero is to endeavour to stop such harm being perpetrated. In the fairy-tale narrative structure of propaganda the hero has the task of separating two worlds, the world of the of enemy and the world of the politburo member. Further, through his death or his contact with death the hero comes closer to he inner members of the politburo, even making physical contact. A member of the politburo may issue orders to the hero, sending him on a mission as a result of which he may be wounded as a sign of partial death, or the hero may take part in his master's funeral. Politburo members were always seen en masse. They would be seen on Red Square, for example, as one united organism. It was difficult for them to separate from their leader: Brezhnev always publicly shed tears on departure and embraced the politburo members on arrival. It was almost as if it was in itself some kind of heroic deed for a member of the politburo to go somewhere alone. In life such figures endeavour not to have individual features, and it is because of this that it is difficult to them to go through the trauma of separation. They have their power only collectively as a group. Consequently, the departure and arrivals of politburo members were shown through the massmedia as events of extreme significance. The appearance of physical perfection was also symbolically important. Thus Gorbachev was for a long time portrayed without the birth-mark on his head, just as Stalin had stood on a small bench in order to make himself taller in public, and had always appeared in portraits without his pock-marks. Heroes, even after death are not like ordinary mortals. A hero goes through death in order to become immortal; after death he is more alive than before. He is supposed to live on in the heart of the people; his monuments appear in the centre of the city, not in the cemetery on the outskirts. Soviet propaganda sought to create heroes. But in order to do so, three types of actors had to be signs: not only the hero, but also the enemy, and the member of the politburo. How was this achieved? In order to be individualised out of collective obscurity a hero has to submit to death, by a real physical act. The politburo member achieves individuality also in death, and like the hero may have his monument in the centre of the city. But there is also a symbolic death. In life politburo members sought to obliterate their individual features; their power resided in their group. Only outside his circle could a member be

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seen independently. Consequently, the departure of a member on a journey and his return were symbolically dangerous, and were treated solemnly by the media. In the last years of the Soviet empire, individualisation was also possible through the processes of delivering a speech on some ceremonial occasion. All the other politburo members would be present but one alone had the right to speak. Significantly, in an almost voiceless mass only the politburo member had such a right. He was like the clown in a circus, with peculiar rights of performance. The enemy, unlike the hero and the quasi-hero of the politburo, has no individualisation. He provides the context, the negative background, for the hero to emerge. The departures and returns of politburo members were often contexts in which heroes were present, and in which the politburo member would be engaged in some symbolic contact such as congratulating or awarding orders of merit. As for persons like Bukharin and Trotsky, their role in Stalin's time was to provide a context of historical error. Their mistake was to try to speak against Lenin. Later they were constructed as enemies within, producing a context the could be used to define he leader's behaviour as correct, as the only possible 'correct line'. There are further symbolic similarities between the hero figure and the politburo member. A semiotic feature of the hero figure is that he lives without sleeping, eating, and.other physical needs. The same goes for the men of the politburo. Semiotically speaking, they have no wife, no family. The first exception to this was the wife of Mikhail Gorbachev. In the West, Raisa's appearance on the world stage largely met with approval, but inside the country her new behaviour, the individualisation of her sign role, was not unanimously welcomed. Her mistake was to appear as something more than a wife, and as an individual, when even the man of the politburo himself is supposed to have no individual characteristics. Heroes and politburo members are by definition the authors of good deeds. For his supposed feats, and in Brezhnev's time even for his birthdays, the politburo member would receive some rank or order of merit. It was difficult for a member to escape from his status, just as it is for heroes and enemies to escape from theirs. Of course members could move upwards in rank, but the only available higher rank was that of general secretary of the Central Committee. The notion that the Central Committee was the 'collective brain of the party' placed the general secretary in a paradoxical position. From one point of view, he had to be individualised. From another, he had to be one of the comrades. The general secretary could only be held to be in error or to make mistakes if he was a general secretary of the past. In the present, every general secretary was the best one. At a transition point, when the person

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occupying the post was changed, criticism would become possible, but a newly appointed general secretary was once again the only truth-speaker. Thus we may say that what propaganda discourse did was to make signs out of real people and real positions. The discourse norm in totalitarian societies and in all forms of propaganda takes a hierarchical form: one particular verbally constructed reality is more important than any other reality, however constructed. Consequently, in such a discourse regime, only those facts have the right to exist which are taken up into this privileged verbal reality. For example, in the thirties, famine was non-existent since it was not described in the press or any official utterances of that time. The key semiotic properties of Soviet propaganda discourse discussed so far can be summarised as in the following table: sign construction ordinary signs from denotation to connotation propaganda from denotation to connotation discourse of signs ordinary oral, written propaganda citation, written, oral sign content politburo member does not die hero achieves life through death enemy agent of death 2.4 The spatialisation of good and evil in Soviet propaganda Propaganda needs to put its ideas in easily understandable forms. Metaphors are one important linguistic way in which concepts are constructed and conveyed: Metaphors seem to develop in discourse, and over time in languages (as 'idiomatic' expressions, polysemic sets, etc.) in the lexicalisation of abstract or innovatory concepts on the basis of mapping from the more concrete or better understood domains of experience. (Chilton and Ilyin 1993, p. 9). Metaphors form an important element of political language and can be indicators of different processes of social life. De Landtsheer (1991), for instance, links the use of metaphors with levels of unemployment and other aspects of economic prosperity and crisis. As we have already suggested, the antonymy friend-foe is a crucial co­ ordinate in the conceptualisation of all social and physical dimensions. Closely linked to it are metaphors deriving from various spatial concepts, including physical movement. One way in which this is apparent is in the Soviet

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metaphor of the 'path' to the bright future, the put' k kommunizmu (the way to communism). This particular path metaphor is based on the notion of a physical journey along a well-defined track. It does not resemble a journey into an unknown land, but rather a known route to an established place, not to a dead-end. Given that one knows 'the right way', only time is needed to arrive at one's destination. Hence the significance of the words of the great leader: 'You are going the right way, comrades.' This utterance appeared on monuments of Lenin in every city, town or village. Another spatial image from which propaganda metaphors were derived is that of the enclosed container that defines 'inside', 'boundary' and 'outside'. Inside space was looked upon as friendly, good for the citizens. Conversely, the space outside the country, beyond the border was regarded as hostile. Because of the evil abroad, tourists were instructed not to go alone but only in groups. The West was marked as a negative part of the world and working people had to be united in order to overcome the evil that lurked there. Certain occupational groups were symbolised in relation to the division of space into good and evil. Thus, border guards, for example, were honourable because they defended the good space from the bad. They were characterised as never sleeping, being ever on the alert. And the same ideas were use in children's verses in praise of Stalin. Just as the only windows alight in the night in the Kremlin were Stalin's, so the border guards defended the frontier from what was beyond. Not only border guards but also pilots and later cosmonauts were represented as heroes who pushed forward the frontiers of the good space. Thus also the figure of the mountain climber naming new peaks 'Stalin', 'Communism', and so on. At the same time spies and other foes brought the bad space closer. They were usually portrayed as having an evil appearance, eating abnormal (that is, foreign) food, smoking foreign cigarettes, listening to foreign radio, reading foreign texts. They generated little islands of bad space within the territory of the good. The same war was waged against the stiljaga—the term used in the fifties for the person flaunting unconventional styles of dress. Usually a stiljaga was caricatured as wearing blue jeans (first seen at that time) and shoes with thick crepe soles. His clothes were shown labelled in English ('made in the USA', etc.) to make evident that the source of his clothes was the bad external space. A popular fable of that time ended with the words 'and fat from Russia they are eating' (a salo russkoe edjat). The word 'American' had habitually had negative connotations. The socialist countries were 'friends', sometimes 'brothers', as in the case of the Soviet republics, the Russians being 'the elder brother'. Wild space inside the country had to be conquered, enlarging the good space. Some periods of Soviet history went under the banner of penetrating new space, for example, the tselina (the 'virgin lands' of

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the steppes extensively cultivated in the 1950s) and the BAM (the name of the new Baikal-Amur railroad). Moscow functioned as the centre of the earth: a conventional metaphor was mir slushaet Moskvu ('the world listens to Moscow). When presenting state festivities the habitual phrase of the TV commentator was: vzory vsego chelovechestva prikovany k Krasnoj ploshchadi (the eyes of all mankind are riveted on Red Square). Such occasions involved a conjunction of a special time and place that marked them as sacral. Another way in which good space was claimed and extended was by the naming of public places. Many locations were renamed after the revolutionary leaders, Lenin, Stalin, Kalinin and others. The objects were towns, streets, squares, but not usually natural phenomena such as rivers. Elements of parallel alien space, such as churches, were also claimed either physically by demolition or symbolically by change of function—for example, by using a church as a store house. A crucial aspect of the semiotic system of Soviet discourse can be characterised as compressing time and space into a single point. Many of these shifts of meaning have deep roots in the past. The power of renaming, which was so prevalent during the years of the former Soviet Union, lies in the primitive notion of equivalence between name and object: having power over the name, you have power over the object. The same deep roots can be seen in Soviet festivities. If one takes an anthropological perspective, such pivotal state occasions can be understood as sacred moments of return to mythological time and place. The 'cold war' between Russia and Ukraine which developed after 1991, used precisely the dimension of friend and foe that we have discussed above. The tendency was again to maximise Russian space, and in this instance to retain the incorporation of the Crimea and the Black Sea Fleet. In Ukraine, Russia was sometimes referred to with the phrase 'imperial forces', and there existed an 'anti-imperial anti-communist front' (AAF). Relations between the former republics of the Union are no longer referred to by means of the 'family' metaphor, and have shifted to a more hostile one couched in terms of inside and outside. But the general semiotic principle remains the same: to work more with connotations then with denotation. 3. Transformation of the channels of political communication Political communication in the former USSR had a different set of repeatable expressions for every type of political tendency. In particular there were well worn official clichés which were used to refer to communists and anticommunists. The effect of stereotyped repetition was eventually to induce indifference on the part of the receivers. This effect could be seen also in the

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later years of glasnost. The samizdat, 'self-edited' unofficial information sheet lost its bite as a genre. The reason for this was not only the journalistic imperfections of the samizdat, or that its format was that of the leaflet rather than the serious analytic article. The reason was that official newspaper communication had itself become seriously critical of the Soviet system and this had the effect of diminishing the attention that the public had previously given to the unofficial press as a vehicle of opposition. The appearance of some fact in an official publication meant that the same fact in the samizdat edition had been robbed of its interest. The author of a critical piece in a samizdat paper was a figure of attention, but such an author lost his or her value in a situation where official editions were not censored in the same way as before. The official publications were also, of course, far more operationally efficient and equipped with a more powerful system of information collecting. The samizdat simply did not have the capability of issuing information with the required speed to the greatest number of people. Authors concerned with in-depth analyses were in any case not so interested in samizdat publications. Among the reasons for this were the lack of prestige, residual fears arising from association with the unofficial press, and adherence to the old system of information distribution. When official publications received less strict censorship (editorial control as a type of censorship exists in any type of the society), critical authors received enough space for expounding their views, especially in the academic and serious journals. Because of all this, authors with interests in developing detailed discussion were better off taking the traditional way of publicising their ideas. The samizdat authors were as a rule not named and could not easily acquire personal prestige or exert influence as individuals. In any case, the tendency of the samizdat to function primarily as an information bulletin kept it from real competition with the official publications. The two types of press were oriented towards different types of communication and different communication networks. Thus in the later phase of glasnost, although the samizdat did not disappear, its real force was much less then before. There was no debate with samizdat writers in official newspapers. In the same way, the official newspapers no longer carried on what had previously been a perpetual polemic against foreign radio broadcasts, and even gave space to representatives of such news sources as Radio Liberty or Voice of America. In former times such sources could of course be only have been negatively valued. An extraordinary (at least by previous Soviet standards) chain of public communication began to be normalised, in which some Soviet representatives communicated with foreign radio and television stations, and were in turn broadcast back to the USSR. In

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this chain, the author and the consumer of information connect each other not directly but with the help of a foreign source, or mediator, of information. This strange line of communication can be understood from the point of view of the self-censorship of the editorial boards of the traditional publications, which were trying not to appear too radical, and were happy to let foreign radio take on that role. Radio channels, especially in such forms as interviews, provided an opportunity, without additional effort or risk, for critical voices to communicate with an audience which was eager to hear them and shared their perspectives. We can assume that these authors and consumers were close to each other in their thinking because of the obviously distinctive characteristics of Radio Liberty, and because it would have been much easier for the consumer to tune in to an internal radio channel. There was no 'dissident' Soviet newspaper that could cover the entire territory in the way that radio and television could. It was often unofficial channels that came to the fore in situations of emergency. The official systems, with their lengthy procedures for approving information, sometimes actually obliterated the original facts, transmitting only an expedient interpretation of them. This was the case in Kiev at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in April 1986. The true facts were not revealed during the first few weeks, but a non-specific kind of alarm had already begun to spread in the city the day after the incident. Again, when the Vilnius confrontation occurred in January 1991, Radio Russia (a radical, Yeltsin-oriented radio station) attracted listeners because it disseminated information contrary to the official station. Trying to establish where the truth lay, consumers made their choice in favour of a non-official source. As a result 'Radio Russia' was removed from the easily accessible medium-wave frequencies. The printing market of the former Soviet Union, in its non-official manifestation, lacked diversity with regard to political subjects. Because of the great difficulties connected with printing and distribution, books had practically abandoned political themes, apart from commercially interesting themes such as the life of Stalin. Lack of governmental support and the pressures of financial survival led to the avoidance of participation in the political debate. In this domain, political communication of a non-official character was limited in extent. The only possible way to survive was in orientation not to the mass reader but to the élite reader. The non-official press thus produced not large print runs but limited numbers of high-quality copies. None the less, such readers were in a position to exert influence on political communication, and even the limited quality book circulation was able to compete with millions of copies of the feeble official text.

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Ogonëk (small light, spirit), the most popular Soviet weekly magazine of the period 1989-1991, was reborn in an atmosphere of general silence. The absence of real competition had given Ogonëk the leading position in the former Soviet mass media. However, a kind of saturation point was reached. People began to be exhausted by the constant political approach, because the supply of themes that could arouse the interest of the mass consumer inevitably had its limits. A theme such as, for example, the highly popular issue of privileges for the higher classes, had its own termination point in the attention span of readers and journalists alike. In making itself dependent on the demands of the mass readership, Ogonëk had involuntarily narrowed the circle of possible themes. The situation was even more difficult because its existence depended not only on satisfying the mass consumer, but also on simultaneously satisfying the upper strata of society, and it was this orientation that had made it practically impossible for Ogonëk to be really critical. The phenomenon of Ogonëk as part of the system of political communication was a phenomenon of the transitional period. It had made a real step forward, but only with one foot; it was ahead but did not succeed in its leading position. The problem of Ogonëk has a further explanation: it had taken on itself the functions of political communication without in reality being specialised in an appropriate way. In the years of perestroika there had been a complete reorientation towards political participation that affected the communicating professions—writers, artists, producers, for example, became deputies. Ogonëk was no longer alone, but functioned as one current in a broad flood of political publications; it could not endure the torrent of the new forms of political life. It was not a specialised political edition but a mass magazine and in this respect it was not well placed to promote sophisticated political debate. It had a very selective type of theme, its scope for the detailed analysis of any political issue was rather narrow. It was concerned only with themes that attracted readers' attention and not with the flow of political themes that might sometimes be interesting but sometimes also uninteresting for the public. The prime place in the field of Soviet political communication of that period was occupied by Komsomolskaja pravda, Argumenty i fakty, Kommersant, Megapolis-Express. To the factors that influenced the political life in the former Soviet Union we must add the broadcasting of the sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. These broadcasts had resulted in the formation of an entire new communicative system of political life. The Supreme Soviet of Russia, associated with the name of Boris Yeltsin, had a certain unpredictability and the expectation of the unexpected attracted listeners to the broadcasts. Initially, listeners happily watched Supreme Soviet broadcasts late into the night, because they discovered in them a variety viewpoints quite unprecedented in previous Soviet TV, which led to the political polarisation of the whole of

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society. Yet listeners eventually became exhausted and disillusioned. When live broadcasting changed to broadcasting after the event, usually edited from a particular point of view required by the leading figures, the audience turned away from their TV screens. The Lithuanian crisis of 1991 in fact practically paralysed relations between the audience and the central Moscow television channel. There were protests against non-objectivity of a sort that had been unknown in the Soviet mass media before. The strong reaction was also bound up with changes at the top of the Soviet TV organisation, which the public linked directly with the lack of critical voices on the programmes. The usual tendency of supplying only positive information on domestic problems had prevailed again. But the audience had become accustomed to other trends during the years of glasnost and had no desire to return to old traditions. Another crucial form of communication had come into existence as a challenge to the official circulation of information—the meeting. Such meetings immediately attracted universal attention as they gave the right of freedom of speech to political minorities that had not had a channel of communication up to that time. Step by step meetings acquired a more constant audience and speakers, forming a real alternative to the official channels. The type of information'that circulated at meetings was shocking, since it had been almost forbidden in social communication before. Both the speakers and the audiences felt they were engaged in something very courageous. The practice of holding meetings and the system of political communication prevailing in such meetings determined the first candidates for elections; deputies were made there. The reaction of the electors was only to the verbal aspect of the situation, since it was impossible to know the candidates by their deeds. The only new reality was the word. And especially the word at the meeting. This exclusively verbal type of political life has its shortcomings. Mass perception reduces considerably the intellectual level of information: the meeting may be felt to be working only when there is a black-and-white division of information. Another disadvantage lies in the fact that political meetings tend to bring together only like-minded people. But it makes no practical sense to seek to persuade, influence and convince all the time people who already agree with you, your own supporters. So from the later phase of glasnost onwards, meetings had a tendency to shift from a real to a ritual form of circulation of political communication. They had a usefulness for their organisers insofar as they informed society (and not merely the persons at the meeting) that there exists such-and-such a viewpoint and that it has such-andsuch a number of direct supporters. A further shortcoming of political meetings lay in their habitual tendency to be oriented to towards past events. The

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meeting functioned only to give these events a new interpretation contrary to the interpretation given by the official communicative channels. The political hunger-strike by students in Kiev in October 1990 manifested a further new form of political communication—a form which, in this instance, ended with the resignation of the Ukrainian prime minister. This type of political behaviour was possible only because it was supported by the mass media. The positive view of it was created by influential Ukrainian newspapers. It changed the way the hunger-strikes were perceived by the Ukrainian population. In the glasnost years the whole system of political communication was in dynamic change. Non-traditional channels adopted very strong positions with the help of the gradual growth of their supporters. Events on which the official channels intended to keep silence received a more serious interpretation in alternative channels, and a system that had been very unbalanced before glasnost began to be equalised, creating new discursive potential. Political communication is communication that is either for or against some power structures of a society. And each side, group or party tries to enforce its own position. As new groups emerged, rhetorics that had no importance whatsoever during the Soviet period, or had been suppressed, now came into existence and played a new role. Political life in the former Soviet Union changed, and this change required above all new schemes of argumentation as well as new channels of communication. Notes 1 2

3

On metaphor in political discourse, cf. De Landtsheer (1991), Chilton and Ilyin (1993), Chilton (1996). The addition of the term 'Soviet' to any concept was of course one of the main characteristics of the language of power. The titles of journals are an example: 'Soviet Woman', 'Soviet Nutrition', 'Soviet Ukraine', etc. Perestroika introduced a new problem: how to make thousands of new titles without repetition. In the previous period it was possible to have hundreds of newspapers with the same title ('The Banner of Communism', etc.). See also Kaul's discussion in chapter 8 of this volume.

References Chilton, P. A. (1996) Security Metaphors: Cold War Discourse from Containment to Common House, New York, Peter Lang Chilton, P. A. and M. Ilyin (1993) 'Metaphors in Political Discourse: the Case of the 'Common European House', Discourse and Society, 4 (1), pp. 7-31 De Landtsheer, C. (1991) 'Function and the Language of Politics: a Linguistic Uses and Gratifications Approach', Communication and Cognition, 24 (3-4)

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Fergusson, H. (1947) People and Power. A Study of Political Behavior in America, New York, William Morrow Luckmann, T. (1987) Communicative Genres as an Elementary Form of the Social Transmission of Knowledge in Communication, 4, Linköping (1989) 'Prolegomena to a Social Theory of Communicative Genres', Slovene Studies, 11 (2)

6 The Restructuring of Soviet Political Discourse

Alexandre Bourmeyster Université Stendhal, Grenoble

1. Introduction The pace of political change in the former USSR from 1989 onwards made it very difficult to grasp the nature of the accompanying changes in political discourse and to propose a long-term model of the political culture, or cultures, in the successor states. Sovietologists who specialise in the study of Soviet political discourse may well feel nostalgic for the idyllic period of stagnation (zastoj), when what Orwell called 'newspeak', and the French referred to as langue de bois, presented itself in shamelessly static and scandalously irresponsible fashion. Soviet discourse rested on a self-confident narrative (skaz) of the Soviet past, present and future.1 The Soviet Union was presented in terms of a constantly repeated set of expressions. It was characterised, for examples, as being at the vanguard of nations. Again, people were expected to suppose that it was making its way forward towards a glorious future, both revolutionary and traditionalist, supporting as it went the fight for freedom of colonised peoples and for the freedom of progressive mankind in general, all the time keeping a jealous watch over orthodox Marxism-Leninism. Stalin, whose name was prudently left unmentioned as time went by, was the inspirer of the general line characterised by unflinching fidelity to principles, condemnation of deviations (uklony) towards the right, opportunism and reformism, idealism and voluntarism towards the left. The enemies of the Soviet Union were referred to by means of a limited set of terms: they were described as 'imperialists', 'exploiters', 'turncoats', 'flunkies of capitalism' (Western

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journalists in particular) and 'agents of the CIA' (in particular sovietologists in Western universities). 2. Gorbachev's new discourse At first Gorbachev's reforms of the late 1980s appeared as a variant of his predecessors' unsuccessful attempts to accelerate scientific and technical progress, to give financial autonomy to state units of production (xozraschët), and to pass from extensive to intensive development. Under the symbolic banner of 'New Thinking', Gorbachev spoke of 'perestroika', of 'glasnost', of 'democratisation'. He compared the process under way in his country to the revolutions in Britain, in France or in Germany which lasted nearly a century. He described it as an irreversible revolutionary movement and pointed a finger at a new enemy: the administrative system of government, the bureaucratic machine constructed by Stalin. This was no longer the anonymous and invisible adversary, 'bureaucratism', whose vices had been often enumerated during the period of stagnation. Now the system itself was a failure; it was no longer a mere variant of the desired goal but something separate and distinct. Glasnost developed a discourse that political observers and historians in the West could understand. Western commentators responded by speaking of Gorbachev's 'enlightened despotism' replacing Stalin's 'oriental despotism' and Brezhnev's 'feudalism'. The enlightened despot undertook a revolution starting from the top, and could be understood historically as following in the steps of his illustrious forbears, Peter the Great and Alexander II. In order to avoid a palace revolution of the sort that had eliminated Khrushchev, his unfortunate predecessor, Gorbachev had to destabilise his feudal opponents by raising against them the intelligentsia, the religious believers, the ecologists, the nationalists and finally the electors, his hand strengthened by modifications to the constitution which increased the number of candidates in all the elections. But might not this policy of defensive counter-fire have caused a revolution from below that would be difficult to hold in check? In fact, far from fearing such an eventuality, Gorbachev's supporters insisted that they would welcome it, since perestroika was meant to satisfy the wishes of the Russian people. The problem was that the identity posited between the interests of the Party and the interests of the people recalled all too closely the slogans characteristic of the not too distant past. But the new political vocabulary made the aims of perestroika less improbable, and, in the West, less foreign than traditional langue de bois, with its 'state of the whole people', 'real socialism', 'advanced socialist society', 'proletarian internationalism', 'internationalist duty', and the rest.

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How can we understand, in historical terms, the nature of the political shift that took shape around the year 1989? By coincidence, the revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe occurred at a moment when there was also public celebration of the 1789 Revolution in France. It is possible to view glasnost and perestroika as in some sense a return to the mainstream of European political thinking. This mainstream is a current of thought and practices initiated textually in the declaration of the Rights of Man, symbolically representing the liberation from the Old Regime and the beginning of modernity. Further, one may interpret what took place in October 1917 as actually being a counter-revolution starting from the left, and not from the right as was expected by the social democrats in power. It was a counter-revolution made by the Bolsheviks, temporarily allied to the anarchists and supported by the formidable ground-swell represented by a spontaneous, though transient, uprising of the peasantry. With regard to political discourse, what this picture implies is the following: Marxist-Leninist discourse was inherited from the Bolshevik counter-revolution that rejected the political discourses of modern times in the name of a conservative utopia. In this perspective perestroika can be seen as an exceptional opportunity to catch up with the threads of history, an opportunity created to tie again the destiny of Russia to the destiny of the other nations in Europe and beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Gorbachev's novel discourse replaced class interests with universal human interests. This shift can be viewed as a return to the so-called universal principles valued in France by the people who made the Revolution in 1789. These principles had been despised by Lenin, who claimed to pursue the revolution to its bitter historical end, but under glasnost they regained their attractive power for Russian opinion. 3. The redefinition of Left and Right The symbolic year of 1989 witnessed the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, and the disintegration of the discourses that constituted and sustained them. These discourses had already lost credibility, and were perceived as simply deceptive. The shift could be seen clearly in lexical substitutions in political discourse, first in Hungary and Poland, and subsequently in the German Democratic Republic and in Czechoslovakia. What the shift involved was a removal of various restrictive adjectives, which had been added to the earlier keywords of Enlightenment political discourse. For example, to the word democracy had been added socialist, popular, authentic, etc. In opposition and resistance discourses, and in the postcommunist regimes themselves, these accretions were removed. It was as if the

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meaning of words had been rediscovered; one can at least say that there had been a return to an older political vocabulary and set of concepts. It was not a question of shifting or replacing isolated terms, but of a systematic shift in a semantic field. The following set of words and concepts indicate the scope of the change: official communist discourse Socialist democracy new type of state undivided popular sovereignty the guiding party historicism ('history' as unidirectional and irreversible) real social rights what 'has to be' is what 'comes to be' legality is the same as legitimacy

opposition /post-communist discourse democracy state based on law separation of powers political pluralism free elections and alternation rights of man 'being' (universal values) legality is not the same as legitimacy

The last set of terms in this list is crucial. It is possible that a linguistic particularity underlies the contrast between the two discourses. Both French and English follow Latin in differentiating legalis and legitimus (both derived from lex, law), in the terms legality and legitimacy. Russian, however, until recently had only one term, zakonnost' (derived from zakon, law). The word legitimist figured in the dictionaries to designate the partisan of a legitimate dynasty with a particular historical referent, namely that of the Bourbon dynasty in France. A totalitarian or authoritarian regime, not legitimised by free elections as in a state based on law (what the French call état de droit), is able to play on this conceptual blurring, as can be seen from expressions such as: zakonnaja vlast' (legal power or legitimate power), revoljutsionnaja zakonnost' (revolutionary legality or revolutionary legitimacy). It is indeed possible to think of Gorbachev as a kind of 'enlightened despot', who borrowed from the dissidents, from the fragmentary democratic opposition that had been muffled and dispersed by his predecessors. He borrowed from them their arguments and their philosophical references—in short, he borrowed from a variety of political discourses. The parliamentary system which was installed with the Congress of the People's Deputies in 1989 did, in spite of its imperfections and its limits, create a new political landscape hardly imaginable only two years previously. The new parliamentary 'geography' made it possible to apply to Soviet political reality political metaphors of a spatial order that were familiar in the West, where formally there only existed the supposed reality of dynamic historicism. On this new terrain diverse political groups arranged themselves according to their affinities, to the left, the right, and the centre. With the understanding of

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course that the word 'centre' denoted a centrist coalition and not a 'centre of power', 'central power', or 'democratic centralism'. In 1988, at the time of the Nineteenth Conference of the CPSU, people spoke of 'informal groups', but in fact, the game was being played exclusively inside a party that had accustomed us to the conflicts of cliques fighting for power—even if Western observers, ill-informed by the 'organs', falsely identified hawks and doves, the hard-line and the soft-line, the ideologists and the technocrats. A totalitarian regime has neither a right wing nor a left wing, since it does not admit of political life. But from then on it became possible to differentiate a conservative right and a progressive left. The first was symbolised by its leader, Yegor Ligachev, and by Nina Andreyeva, the chemistry teacher who championed the opposition to perestroika in the columns of Sovetskaja Rossija. The second grouping, the progressive left, was animated by economists and sociologists. Both groupings declared themselves in favour of perestroika and referred themselves to Lenin in order to bring out the leading role of the party, the only force which could put the country back 'on the path to renovated socialism'. But the progressives had on their left a number of radicals keen to promote the only possible alternative: a market economy and legal rights. The progressives refused the ambiguity of half-measures and fuzzy terminology such as 'social market', 'social competition', 'social investments'. The conservatives had on their right the fundamentalists, the restorers of the Old Order. They condemned the radicals for their pro-Western liberalism, for their wish to restore a capitalist, bourgeois regime. Among themselves, they made distinctions in terms of the historical reference point for their project of restoration. Should they start again from the time of Lenin? Go back to Stolypin's reforms? Or return to Russia as it was before Peter the Great? To Russia as it was before the baptism of prince Vladimir in 988? Instead of the dogma of the irreversibility of the historical process, political discourse now allowed total freedom to go back over time as one wished, putting the dark periods between parentheses. By the 28th Congress in July 1990 the following 'frame' had emerged:

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Both the radicals (on the progressive wing) and the fundamentalists (on the conservative wing) spoke a language that was no longer related to MarxismLeninism. Alliances on the left or on the right, a polarisation towards the extremes, the preservation of party unity—all these were possible variants. The terms 'right' and 'left' had lost the particular political sense that had become conventional in traditional Soviet discourse and in all European discourse since the French Revolution. Different generations had to come to terms with a fundamental reorientation of political categories. A personal anecdote illustrates this point. While I was classifying piles of Russian newspapers on my desk in the spring of 1990, my mother, a Russian emigrant like my father, questioned me on the political orientation of these newspapers: 'Pravda,' she said, 'with Lenin mentioned in the heading, is apparently a leftwing newspaper?' 'It's the newspaper of the Communist Party which has been in power in Russia for seventy years,' I answered. 'It has become conservative. It's rather a right-wing newspaper.' 'Oh, I see. And what about Russian Thoughtl It's published by our émigrés in Paris, so it's a right-wing newspaper?' 'Not exactly. It promotes the radical currents of perestroika, human rights, and democracy. It's rather a left-wing newspaper.' 'I see! And what about Moscow News? It's published in Moscow, so it's Communist?' 'Not exactly. It finds fault with the Party apparatus and it's rather anti-Communist.' The disorientation experienced by my mother resulted from the differences between right wing and left wing which were valid in the West. The Russian émigrés were supposed to be right wing, while the Communist Party was located on the left. In the perestroika period, however, and indeed after that, in the conflict that opposed the defenders of legal government to the defenders of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, the Russian Parliament to the Russian Communist Party, and the state Duma at the Mariinsky Palace in 'Peter' to the 'headquarters of the Revolution' at the Smolny monastery, there was an extraordinary reversal of historical political discourses. In the reorientation of right and left, we might recognise a distinction that is actually prior to the antimodernist Bolshevist counter-revolution—a distinction that placed progressives against defenders of an ancien régime, defenders of the rights of man on the left, and legitimists on the right. 4. The redefinition of the 'normal' When the debates of the Congress of People's Deputies began to be televised directly, parliamentary discourse became publicly accessible and open to criticism and discussion. The interventions of certain neo-Stalinist die-hards were particularly revealing. The supporters of glasnost apparently tried to

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discredit the neo-Stalinists and to isolate them, but this strategy presupposed that public opinion accepted parliamentary discourse and the political culture of which it is an integral part, with its alternation of left and right, and a 'geographic' (pluralistic) vision of the political landscape. However, it appears that historicism and dirigisme still conditioned the political conceptions and behaviour of most people in Russia as the 1990s opened. It is true that televised debates always attract audience interest. This may initially have been less because of a new political understanding than because such debates satisfied the curiosity of spectators who had the impression of at last witnessing what takes place off-stage, in a domain until then regarded as somehow sacred. Was there perhaps a risk that the televising of parliamentary procedure might in the long run discredit democratic procedures, even be considered as sacrilege by some people and inefficient by others? There was indeed such a possibility, given the discontent among the radicals and fundamentalists—small groups of minority activists. For the first time they had an opportunity to attract the mass of people who had been content just to wait and see, but who were becoming sceptical and disillusioned. And such radical and fundamentalist groups were sceptical of any signs of power coming from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Government or the Supreme Soviet, and they were disillusioned by promises that never materialised. Between the radicals and the fundamentalists there existed a passive 'centre', an intermediate territory, a marais, as the French would say. This centre was well informed and open to influences from all quarters—but it was a centre that was unable to choose between the Western model and the socialist model. To the Western model were still attached grim notions such as exploitation, unemployment and pauperisation. As for the socialist model, its advent was for ever put back somewhere into the ever-receding future. The programme of the centrists was summed up in the phrase, 'we want to live normally'. This was something that could not even be explicitly formulated in glasnost. Could a political consensus be established around this wish? And besides what does it mean to live 'normally'? Conversations with Soviet citizens at that time suggest that the notion presupposes the possibility of a 'normal life' somewhere else (the West, capitalist countries) and the rejection of the 'abnormal' life which existed until around 1990, and was considered as 'normal' in the USSR before that. For the majority of people 'normal life' meant earning a good salary, frequenting stocked stores, owning a comfortable flat, a car and a dacha. In short, 'normal life' is what the French and others would (formerly) have called a 'petit bourgeois' ideal, the AngloSaxons a 'middle-class' ideal.

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For some groups of people, a 'normal life' meant rather the possibility to satisfy intellectual needs, the possibility to read, to go to the theatre, to travel without restrictions. For other groups the point of reference for 'normality' was the kind of life led by the Russian nobility in the nineteenth century, that is to say, an enlightened cosmopolitanism resting on traditional culture, the knowledge of foreign languages, relations with people all round the world, a leisurely life devoted to cultural activities. Was it an impossible dream? Some people only saw the dangers which threaten the present state of things. Mediocrity had reigned, life had offered little interest, but it was preferable to food shortages, social and nationalist upheavals and growing anarchy. After all, those people, somehow longed for the return of the 'normal life' of the previous period of 'stagnation'. The middle-of-the-road policy of Gorbachev was built around such diverse and ambiguous attitudes and expectations. As for the term 'centrist' itself, it bears very negative connotations in Bolshevik discourse: an opportunistic position, falling between two stools, neither for something nor against something, although it recalls a 'geographic' approach of the parliamentary type which existed before Stalinism. The militants were disoriented in this new political landscape. In search of direction, they would frequently send letters to the party representatives and to official organs, unable to rid themselves of the traditional historical perspective. Consider, for example, the following extract from a letter written to Pravda around this time: The Party must help us to find our way amidst present contradictions, in order to escape the demagogic manoeuvring of the 'liberals' and the 'democrats', or the manipulations of the 'conservatives'. The use of quotes shows clearly that, for those militants, there is a distance between themselves and a political vocabulary that remains foreign to them. The programmes proposed by the 28th Congress are no longer 'alternatives' for them but 'alternative variants' which cannot put in question the 'socialist choice' of October 1917. Let us say in passing that the irreversibility of that choice implies the total refusal to give back to the peoples of the Soviet Union the sovereignty confiscated by the Bolsheviks. The vanguard role of a Party which has been able to denounce Stalinism and stagnation does not exclude pluralism—but only on the condition that the resulting pluralistic parties do not question the socialist vocation of the country. In fact this is what Gorbachev himself said in his opening speech at the 28th Congress in July 1990, when he tried to reconcile the parliamentary role of a communist party, which was obliged to gain the confidence of the Russians, with its vanguard role in the frame of perestroika.

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5. The meaning of 'perestroika' The concept of perestroïka was at the core of the transitional discourse in the Soviet Union, and its semantic characteristics are worth analysing. In fact it is a lexical reconstruction which comes from the verb 're-construct'. In Soviet discourse of the 1980s there were many jokess playing on the words perestraivat'sja (to reconstruct or reorganise oneself) and pristraivat'sja (to get settled). The noun perestroïka, derived from the verb perestroit', makes it possible to avoid using a grammatical subject and referring to an agent. The verb itself, however, cannot dispense with it, and the question 'who is going to re-construct?' remained in play in political discourse. The answer was pragmatically evident: the Party, or perhaps the workers guided by the Party. There was also an inherent metaphor: socialism is a building, whence the Party is both architect and builder. The metaphor traditionally combined with the metaphor of history as a journey, and the Party as the guide. Thus the Party claimed to have constructed socialism (Stalin), and subsequently to have produced an advanced socialist society (Brezhnev). Familiar metaphors can, however, be reformulated in discourse. In fact Gorbachev went on to specify a somewhat different reference for the construction metaphor: it was now a question of constructing a state based on law and the economy of the market. The old metaphors were gradually discredited. People in the USSR came openly to question the historical fate which obliged them to construct constantly something new under the guidance of somebody. The emancipation of people, of civil society implied, or should have implied, the giving up of such unrelenting passion to construct.2 The word 'stagnation' made it possible to diagnose a disease: the interruption in the construction of communism. It was necessary to reconstruct the apparat which was in charge of giving guidance and direction (or, in the building metaphor, in charge of providing plans and supervising construction), but which had fallen victim to its own logic. Being faithful to the principles of democratic centralism, the highest spheres of the apparat, whose members were accustomed to following the instructions coming down from higher up, were awaiting in vain the orders of a 'governing centre' which no longer existed or which was limited to the program of the CPSU, to its dogmas and statutes. Gorbachev's 'new thinking' aimed at recreating a governing centre (with a general line) and defining a centrist policy. He made use of the well-known and well-oiled wheels of transmission of democratic centralism. Thus understood, this route to democracy was felt by the apparat to be simply a mild variant of previous attempts which did not question its monopoly.

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6. Discourses of democracy We may refer to Gorbachev's outlook and policies as a 'democratisation' of existing structures, the essentials of which would in one form or another remain intact. With this can be contrasted a 'transition to democracy'—the kind of break with the past experimented with in the other states of the Soviet bloc. The two distinct types of historical process can be compared in terms of several sets of assumptions. These sets of implied concepts are realised in divergent political discourses: implicit

faults exposed

solutions proposed

democratisation the regime is healthy the ideology is good the praxis is not correct

transition to democracy the regime cannot be reformed the ideology is undemocratic strong government is in fact weak the cult of personality the whole of the existing system voluntarism (accelerate the is incapable of fulfilling its course of history) promises reformism (going backthe system produces only wards), bureaucracy and inadequate people, both criminal laxism and anti-social. rehabilitations and purges make room for liberty increased role of workers defend rights of man increase discipline negotiate without violence greater sense of introduce pluralism and free responsibility elections suppress the leading role of Party eliminate political police

A transition to democracy was more or less accomplished in the various countries of the former Eastern bloc, and it was brought about 'from below', as a result of popular pressure. To varying degrees in the different countries, it was through negotiation that it came about, and through the constant definition and re-definition of new limits to the field of compromise possible between the Party apparat and the democratic opposition. In the USSR of 1985 such democratic opposition did not exist—apart, that is, from the dissidents, who were few and far between, and who were more or less oppressed and dispersed. Under the pressure of circumstances Gorbachev was obliged to assume all the roles in order to go beyond fake democracy, while keeping pace with the transition towards democracy. In the process, quite naturally, he was accused of beating about the bush, of being incapable of setting up a concrete protocol. In addition, he was accused of being unable to master the crisis, the inescapable crisis that perestroika itself gave birth to.

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The comparison of democratisation and transition to democracy which we have outlined above provides the basis for possible interpretations of Gorbachev's actions from a left or liberal standpoint. But of course, on the right wing of the new political spectrum, the process of democratisation undertaken by Gorbachev was open to being interpreted as a laxist enterprise, a programme that threatened the survival of the regime and gave benefit to its enemies. The thinking underlying Russian right-wing discourse around 1990 rested on a set of contrasts that arose from the loss of authority and prestige that the Party was experiencing. The character of the right-wing platform can be summarised as follows: democratisation

re-establishing the authority of the Party

Pretends that perestroika remains faithful to socialism. At the same time it minimises Soviet achievements. Tends to break the unity of the Party and to destroy the apparat. Tends to tarnish the prestige of the army and to bring back bourgeois capitalism.

Perestroika must renovate democratic centralism, develop Marxism-Leninism, reinforce the leading role of the Party and the unity of Party, Army and people, and be uncompromising in the analysis of errors.

In 1989-90 the competition opened for the annexation of irresistible terms such as 'liberty', 'equality', 'social justice', 'democracy' or 'national sovereignty'. For example, the application of the expression 'national sovereignty' uniquely to the Russian Federation was claimed exclusively by Russophile discourse. The anti-Western writer Valentin Rasputin, a representative in the Congress who enjoyed the support of Ligachev, was among the first to propose that Russia should leave the Soviet Union and proclaim its national sovereignty. This was a profitable political argument. And the notion of Russian identity (russnostr) was adopted in extremis by the democratic left wing at the moment of the election of Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Parliament on 29 May 1990. From 20 to 23 June a Congress was held for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of the Federation of Russia, a party that had disappeared in 1925 with the creation of the Bolshevik Communist Party of the USSR. In his violent critique of the policies of Gorbachev, Yeltsin would have dearly liked to have been the first to use the Russian patriotism argument that was already monopolised by the democrats.

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A race then began between the extreme wings of an organisation still held in the centre by Gorbachev, who proposed only two alternative possibilities. Either there could be a strategy of dialogue and compromise between a renovated party, which still held executive power, and a parliamentary regime on the way to an institution that incarnated the legislative power indispensable for legal government. Or else, the way was open to serious confrontation between the extremes. In a 'civilised' state the separation of powers must not degenerate into a struggle to the death between a legislative power springing from the ballot-boxes and an executive power clinging to its privileges. Otherwise the crisis will crop up again as in the constitutional monarchy in France between 1791 and 1792, where the problem was not to find a balance between the legislature and the executive, but between two sovereignties (the Nation incarnated in the new regime and future republic on the one hand, and the Monarchy of the ancien régime on the other hand) incapable of coexisting, and impossible to reconcile because representing different legitimacies. The year 1990 with the abrogation of the sixth article of the Constitution, and with the acceptance of pluralist party democracy, brought perestroika proper to an end. Its success brought about the possibility that an institutional frame would develop permitting 'normal' political organisation, coexistence, tolerance and alternation between a conservative right and a radical left. In such a transformation a right wing would no longer accuse the left of intending only to destroy order and the state and a left wing would not suspect the right of intending only to destroy liberties and the rights of man.

7. The putsch of August 1991 The 28th Congress of July 1990 disappointed those who expected the Party to be annihilated. The Party would have accepted a kind of implosion into the diverse platforms that had been constructed in the run up. Such an implosion would have made it possible for parties to emerge and to be legitimised by the programmes they had been elaborating in response to the concerns of the moment. As it turned out, the members of the CPSU, driven by their herd instinct and their desire to preserve existing achievements, opted for a compromise without a future—the reaffirmation in perpetuity of democratic centralism, combined with the right to promote separate platforms. Boris Yeltsin resigned in spectacular fashion, followed by the mayor of Moscow, Gavriil Popov, and the mayor of Leningrad, Anatolij Sobchak. It became evident that this attempt at democratisation by means of permitting pluralism within a single party was powerless to hold back the centrifugal nationalist forces. The CPSU exploded into national communist parties—Lithuanian,

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Estonian, Latvian, Moldavian, Armenian, etc., allied with the national movements that had been legitimised by the elections of spring 1990. The CPSU's destiny had been bound up with the empire, and it was destined to disappear with it following the attempted putsch of August 1991, led by a group of conservative apparatchiks. The 'Committee for the State of Emergency' set up by the putschists opposed point by point the democratic reforms (denationalisation, desovietisation, defederalisation) expounded by people such as Popov. What is significant is that it was within a newly emergent legislature that these reform programmes had been developed. The political situation just before the putsch can be characterised in terms of an emergent constitutional state based on the separation of powers: a new legislative power had been freed from the executive dominated by the apparat. However, this situation led not to a constitutional balance between legislature and executive, but rather to a confrontation between conservative apparat and reformist opposition. Immediately after the putsch, the roles were reversed: the democratic opposition seized control of the executive and began to execute its programme, while the apparat and the political forces representing it passed straight into the parliamentary opposition. Yeltsin, the legitimate inheritor of Soviet power, and recognised as such by the West, became the legitimate target of accusations made by this parliamentary opposition—accusations of abuse of authority and authoritarianism likely to lead to dictatorship. For his part, Yeltsin, and the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg, did exactly what Gorbachev had done before them: they accused the representative body of paralysing the executive and preventing it from realising the transition programme desired by the country, and threatened to appeal directly to the electorate. Without going further into the consequences of this virtually insoluble conflict between legislature and executive, it is possible to give a schematic outline of some of the continuous and persistent features of the 'frame' of political action that had emerged (see diagram overleaf). Under Gorbachev, as we have seen, this frame was established inside the Party, and within it reformers and conservatives opposed one another, closely watched by those who were positioned outside the Party—democrats on the left (radicals, liberals, and various populists), and fundamentalists on the right (reactionaries, neo-Stalinists and Russophiles). After the failed putsch of 1991 and the banning of the CPSU a new frame of political discourses rapidly constituted itself. Reformers and conservatives again opposed one another, while around the margins there existed movements that were outside the frame of rules constituting the democratic game. The principal difference from the preceding period was that during perestroika the

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nostalgia for tsarist Russia 'White Russians'

respect for rule of law, political freedoms, constitution, transition to market economy

nostalgia for USSR

authoritarianism Russia one and indivisible

conservatives reformers hyper-liberals entrepreneurs privatisation selective aid to state enterprise free prices strangle hyper-inflation stop de-industrialisation preserve standard of living

strong state the great Soviet people collectivism socialism purged of Marxism

Free Russia

Russia Democratic Civic Union

National Salvation Front

restoration of Russian Empire

renounce imperial ambitions

restoration of USSR

Orthodox Russia social justice

defend Russians beyond frontiers

rules of the game were those of the CPSU. The official objectives of perestroika were the same as those summarised by the leaders of the putsch in their Appeal. As the compliant executor of the decisions of the Party, the apparat submitted to a formal discipline. But after 1991, the rules of the game were to be those of a parliamentarism that wished itself to be 'civilised'. The players of this game never missed an opportunity to remind one another of this supposition, whether it was the hyper-liberal Gaidar, or his successor Chernomyrdin, or the speaker of the Parliament of Russia, the conservative reformer Khasbulatov, or the moderate conservative, Volskij, leader of the Civic Union, the rival of Democratic Russia. The divergence between the two broad groupings was clear enough, but their modes of argumentation and political action had much in common. The democrat-reformers wanted above all to eliminate the apparat, while Gorbachev had been content merely to denounce them as an 'administrative command system'. In using the economic weapon they destroyed not just the apparatus of the Party, however, but the apparatus of state itself. They applied Bolshevik methods in order to make their liberal revolution irreversible, in accordance with the old recipes of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The conservatives of the 'positive opposition' denounced these moves as a combination of democracy and dictatorship. They argued that the policy of 'the three de's' (de-nationalisation, de-sovietisation, de-federalisation) led to a dismantling of the state, in other words to 'Yugoslavisation', and to deindustrialisation, in other words the reduction of a superpower to the status of a

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third-world colony purveying raw materials and energy to the capitalist countries. At this crucial moment a new Russian communist party emerged, harking back to a golden age of socialism, defending the October revolution, launching verbal attacks on Gaidar for his 'criminal experiments', on Yeltsin and on his government 'opposed to the people'. This revival appeared as a kind of nostalgia for the past that was completely beside the point for the pragmatic politicians working within the new framework. It was possible nonetheless that the communist party of the Russian Federation could provide legitimacy for forces outside the central framework. The Red Russians, rediscovering the traditional mission of defending the workers, thrived on nostalgia and reflected the mirror image of the 'Whites'. 8. Conclusion What implications did this array of political discourses hold for the future? One might envisage a reconciliation of the nostalgic patriotic extremes, desperate to rescue the old empire and mobilising similar arguments against traitors and 'agents of Zionism'. Patriotic fervour and the 'idea of Russia' have been used by pro-Yeltsin democrats in the name of the sovereignty of Russia, but also by the Pamjat' movement, and by extremists such as Zhirinovsky. Stalin himself was capable of granting amnesty to the Russian émigrés and rallying them to the patriotic cause against Hitler. The fragile new institutional frame of democratic political discourses was potentially threatened by such an alliance. Yet its survival was crucial for the future of the country. For, while it did not meet the expectations of a public ready to support a regime capable of introducing democratic solutions, it nonetheless constituted the incarnation of a state. It was important that it should not be reduced to some theatrical confrontation between executive and legislature. If the framework were to collapse under pressure from the extremes, a form of 'Yugoslavisation' and descent into civil war would become inevitable. Numerous scenarios have been entertained, the most common being one in which neo-Stalinists allied with nationalists mobilise the lumpenproletariat. The historian Yuri Afanasiev describes this category as a remnant of the Soviet regime, consisting of workers on the poverty line, incapable of taking initiatives and dependent on meagre state benefits. To this category some observers add the victims of the economic 'shock therapy'—the retired, unqualified workers, anyone marginalised by the over-rapid pace of change. Frighteningly, the lumpenproletariat is tacitly identified, in the discourse of some Westernisers, with the Russian people themselves. Of course, the fact that this term is still used reflects the survival of an element of

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the Soviet mentality, even on the part of intellectuals well disposed towards the West and towards democracy. It is a mentality that can be exploited by the nostalgic patriots of right and left, who denounce the contempt in which the Westernisers are alleged to hold the Russian people, their traditions and their values. This is precisely the position taken by Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. His political discourse is not the traditional Leninist appeal to an organised proletariat conscious of its historical destiny as a class, but an appeal to those who are nostalgic. His discourse enables him to play on a vast range of emotions and to appeal to a wide and heterogeneous collection of disaffected groups, with scarcely a mention of the term 'communist'. Zyuganov does not appear to be tending in the direction of his peers in neighbouring countries, towards some form of neocommunism or social democracy. Equally, it must be said, his opponents hesitate to use the term 'democrat', which is seen by some as a Western term and is treated with suspicion. In this situation the future evolution of political discourse in Russia remains unclear. Certainly, a transition is taking place. But it is by no means certain that it will go along the road dictated by the West. Notes 1

2

The notion of skaz here refers to the intrusion into an utterance of a narrative, the utterer of which is not in fact the original author. One can think of it as the 'commissar' behind the utterance, dictating to Soviet citizens what they should think and say to confirm their 'Soviet identity'. The term used was raskreposhchenie,aword used in the 19th century with reference to the emancipation of the serfs.

PART TWO POLITICAL VOCABULARY IN TRANSITION

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From Comrades to Consumers: Interpersonal Aspects of the Lexicon

Ludmila Minaeva Russian State University for the

Humanities

1. Introduction It is probably the case that in all languages there is some system for identifying the relationship between interlocutors, in terms of both their communicative roles and their social roles in specific situations. Titles and special terms of address reflecting social roles are part and parcel of this system (see, for example, Brown and Ford 1961, Ervin-Tripp 1969). In what follows I shall consider the titles and terms of address which began to be institutionalised in Russian society in the years 1989-91. I proceed from the assumption that social roles are culture-specific functions recognised by the members of the society. They determine the selection of terms of address perceived as being appropriate in this or that situation. By using a particular expression the speaker indicates that he or she accepts a particular role vis-à-vis the addressee and is ready to follow the rules of language behaviour recognised by the speech community in question (see Lyons 1977, p. 575). Social role implies social structure, and social structures change over time, sometimes slowly, sometimes with dramatic speed. This was the case in the years 1989 to 1991. Before passing on to the discussion of one particular linguistic resource by means of which different social roles are formulated, it is therefore essential to consider briefly the social and political transformations in Russian society as a whole during this period. It should be emphasised right away that my purpose here is not to give a detailed account of the social transformations that took place in the period 1989-1991, but rather merely to reflect upon some isolated, though complex, socio linguistic phenomena which

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have become evident under the conditions of transition from the Communist USSR to new social and political structures. 2. Language and socieconomic change In recent years the world has witnessed unprecedented developments in Russia as it has moved towards democracy and economic reform. Through the policies that became known as glasnost' (translated as 'openness' in English-speaking countries) and perestrojka (literally, 're-structuring'), the Soviet Union began, in 1985, to initiate political, legal and economic reforms. Those measures taken since 1987 in particular were intended to increase reliance on the political activity of the people, and to promote political and economic freedoms. After the August coup of 1991, the process of reforming the Soviet Union accelerated. On 25 December 1991 President Mikhail Gorbachev became the first leader in Soviet history to resign. The next day the Soviet parliament formally voted the Soviet Union out of existence. From that time on each of the former 15 Soviet Socialist Republics began to search for its own way of developing its economy. Both economists and politicians have suggested an enormous number of programmes aimed at economic reforms. But all the programmes, ambitious or less so, radical or less so, comprehensive or less so, have one feature in common—the revival of private business. The private and consumer sector began to grow in 1987 when Gorbachev relaxed the laws on ownership in such a way as to allow groups of people to own businesses on a co-operative basis. Another form of private business activity was represented by 'joint ventures'. Although by 1990 there were more than 200,000 co-operatives employing 5 million people and a large number of joint ventures, the social status of the new businessmen was not yet clear. In comparison with the total size of the population these pioneering entrepreneurs were not numerous, and they remained on the periphery of society. More than that, those among them who were 'open' to the general public, for example, private traders, were despised by most people. The next phase in the development of the private sector and the consumer society was the appearance of commodity exchanges and banks during the year 1990-91. At the same time, the social class consisting of employers and selfemployed people began to grow with extreme rapidity. In addition to the economic motivation behind this expansion, there was a psychological motivation. This seems to have been the desire on the part of increasing numbers of individuals to prove that their way of life was different from what had been the norm experienced in Russia over the previous seventy-five years. People motivated in this way emphasised the social transformation not only by

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setting up millionaires' clubs but also in other forms of social behaviour, one of which was the use of words and phrases typical of pre-Revolutionary Russia. 2.1 gospodin A case in point is the word gospodin, its feminine form gospozha, and its plural form gospoda (approximating to Mr, Mrs, Miss, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen), when used with vocative function. Thus, for example, in a television interview an official representative of the Moscow commodity exchange remarked that the expression gospodin N had been proclaimed an official term of address at commodity exchanges throughout the country. This new (or to be more exact forgotten) social role of the independent entrepreneur required a term of address which would be situationally appropriate in several respects. It should be noted in this connection that in pre-Revolutionary Russia there existed a well developed system of terms of address. The titles gospodin/gospozha, like Mr and Mrs in English, Herr and Frau in German, monsieur and madame in French, had an honorific function, and were used in various formal situations. However, after the Revolution these words, when used with vocative function, acquired a negative connotation and soon disappeared from the speech of Russian people. The sociolinguistic connotativeness of gospodin was quite obvious and could be deliberately played upon in fiction. In 1936, for example, the producers A. Zarkhy and I. Kheifits shot a film called Deputat Baltiki, in which the hero, Professor Polezhaev, a member of Russian intelligentsia, welcomes the October Revolution. Workers, soldiers and the sailors of the Baltic Navy elect him as their deputy in the Petrograd Soviet. The central scene of the film is a session of the Soviet at which Professor Polezhaev is making a speech. When addressing workers and soldiers sitting in the hall he uses the form of address Gospoda! The reaction is not just surprise but anger. The professor has to raise his voice to explain himself, and he does so by claiming that what he really meant was a related meaning of the word gospodin: T have not made a mistake because now you are real masters (gospoda) of this life. ' This play upon the vocative use of the word gospodin and its basic meaning becomes possible because by that time the alternative system of terms of address was already institutionalised in post-revolutionary society. In Soviet society the situation was clear-cut. For over seventy years the use of the vocative gospodin was confined to formal situations in which one was addressing not Soviet citizens but foreigners. For example, one could say gospodin posol (Mr. Ambassador), gospodin Braun (Mr. Brown), damy i gospoda (Ladies and gentlemen). In other formal situations, when addressing

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Soviet citizens, one would of course generally use the word tovarishch (comrade). 2.2 tovarishch and grazhdanin Having lost a convenient neutral term of address, the Russian language tried to compensate by using some other words with the vocative function, but all was in vain. Russians had two options: either tovarishch or the word grazhdanin (citizen). Both words, however, are heavily charged with sociolinguistic connotations. The former was originally used by fellow members of the Communist Party. Before the Revolution the word tovarishch emphasised specific, very friendly relations between members of the Party; by using it one meant that one could rely on one's fellow Party members. In the course of time the word has lost this meaning and has become a formal 'handle' to a proper name. The term grazhdanin had a specific meaning in tsarist Russia: 'hereditary honorary citizen', a title bestowed on someone not of noble birth for services rendered. Immediately after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the use of the word was similar to that of the corresponding French title {citoyen) at the time of French Revolution. It aimed at emphasising the equality of people belonging to different social strata. Gradually its use was narrowed down to the situation of police investigation and the trial procedure (Ter-Minasova 1980, pp. 18798). l By the 1970s the words muzhchina (man) and zhenchina (woman) acquired the vocative function. It should be pointed out that both terms of address occur in colloquial forms of language use, and are even considered somewhat vulgar. There is consequently a tendency for people pretending to a higher degree of education to avoid them. Of course, one should always bear in mind that 'the concept of a uniform set of norms for the speech community as a whole is as unrealistic as the idealisation of the "homogeneous speech community" or the "ideal speaker-hearer" for the study of linguistic behaviour' (Dua 1981, p. 103). Nonetheless, a certain degree of uniformity in this sphere of language communication must exist, because speakers of the language have to control their linguistic choices and be able to relate them to the current culture-specific system of terms of address. Otherwise the situational inappropriateness of the term of address may lead to misunderstanding. 3. The characteristics of sociolinguistic change In order to become a language norm the words-titles gospodin and gospozha need to display the following characteristics:

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—they need to become a reference system by which users constantly assess their own performance or judge the performance of others —the reference system has to be associated with 'correct' or 'appropriate' use for some particular group and situation —specification must be made as to whom and for what purpose the norm has to be used —there must be some degree of acceptance of the norm by a significant group of people within the speech community (Bamgbose 1985, p. 154). 3.1 Role of the media The media (and its liberalisation) may play a considerable role in the promotion and generalisation of particular forms of speech. Thus, for example, the words under analysis have not so far acquired the above characteristics, but the fact that they are more and more often used by mass media as prestigious social terms of address makes it possible to predict their future standardisation. Language change is often initiated by powerful or prestigious social groups who have access to, or who constitute objects of interest for, channels of public communication including the electronic media. As has been shown above, the word gospodin is already accepted as a language norm by some groups of people within the Russian speech community, where it corresponds to a specific social role. In this case observance of the norm is a simple matter, because of hard and fast prescriptive rules which can be easily imposed on a small group of people. The rules can be specified in the regulations of the speech community in question, or they may be part of a generally accepted code of behaviour. To become typical of a larger part of the Russian speech community, the expression in question must be actually promoted as a prestigious social term of address (Bamgbose 1985, p. 158). This function can be performed by mass media. Thus, for example, the commercial TV channel '2x2' prefers gospodin and gospoda to other terms of address. Its programmes are meant not only for businessmen but for the general public as well. The abundance of pop music used by the channel makes it attractive for young people, who are thereby gradually habituated to a new system of terms of address. Some other popular TV programmes, such as 'Pole Chudes' ('Field of Marvels') and 'Chto? Gde? Kogda?' ('What? Where? When?') also adhere to the new system of address terms. In all commercials, which have become part and parcel of practically all Russian TV programmes, the words gospodin and gospoda are generally accepted terms of address. It should be emphasised in this connection that in the vast majority of cases it is the TV commentator who mediates a new term of address usage. The first public appearances of the new term were on those programmes in which the

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new entrepreneurs took part. The term of address was here quite legitimate, because it indicated the speakers' new social status and role in a changing Russia. But it was quite a shock for many TV viewers when a well-known commentator addressed the vice-president of Russia as Gospodin VicePrezident. This was soon after the August coup of 1991. Several years on, nobody is now surprised to hear the title gospodin in political debates or at sessions of the Supreme Soviet of Russia, in which representatives of different political movements take part. 3.2 Political discourses The use of terms of address in political discourse (that is, in the discourse of the political movements, parties and in the institutional settings of their utterances) changed significantly during the period of perestroika. At the first meetings of the Congress of People's Deputies, and at sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and subsequently of Russia, the term tovarishch was the only term of address. Subsequently, representatives of the political movement Demokraticheskaja Rossija (Democratic Russia) introduced the term gospodin in political discourse. By this means they wanted to show that they had severed all the connections with their opponents, the Communists. In 1989 gospodin still sounded unusual and strange. By the mid 1990s it was being used by various politicians. Its use has become semiologically relevant because the opposition tovarishch/gospodin implies the difference in the political orientation of speakers. Thus, for example, nobody would dream of addressing the leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party as tovarishch Zhirinovskij. He is called either Zhirinovskij or gospodin Zhirinovskij. The same holds true in the case of a leader of the Party of Economic Freedom, Konstantin Borovoj, who represents a large group of politically active businessmen and entrepreneurs. On the other hand, a leader of a radical communist movement (for example, Victor Ampilov) will hardly ever be addressed as gospodin. Adherents to the ideals of communism continue to use the title tovarishch when speaking to other members of their movement, but they use the title gospodin when addressing their political opponents. It follows from what has just been said that different political discourses are in part marked by the terms of address they favour. Increased social stratification and political pluralism are thus becoming signified by a more developed system of address terms. It should be noted in this connection that the role of terms of address in the new political context extends far beyond the vocative function which they generally perform. In political discourse they easily acquire expressive-emotional-evaluative overtones which are apt to

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become very conspicuous, since many sub-genres of political discourse are rhetorically oriented. The connotativeness of the words in question is borne out by their prosodic realisation in utterances. For example, the prosody of gospodin, when used by deputies of communist orientation leaves no doubt to a Russian speaker as to its negative connotation. Expressions such as 'Mr. Brown', 'Herr Hüllen', 'monsieur Verlinde', 'gospodin Volkov', etc., can be classified as appellative word combinations. In general, the components of appellative word combinations are not prosodically marked, because personal titles are conventionally treated as merely predictable 'handles' to introduce proper names into discourse. Their prime function is indicate degrees of social distance, status or situational formality. But in situations of the kind described above, the personal title is deliberately emphasised by means of slow tempo, increased loudness and a complex intonation contour. A discrepancy between the syntactically neutral personal title and its emphatic prosody affects the content plane of the word-combination as a whole: it becomes connotatively charged. Such a use of the word under discussion becomes a way of dividing the speaker's audience into different groups and mobilising them for and against the opponents' standpoint. 4. Conclusion: Social Change and Terms of Address What we are witnessing is a social and sociolinguistic system in the process of change. A consideration of everyday discourse and political discourse provides plenty of evidence of the instability of the system. A special investigation carried out by the sociological research centre Ostankino has yielded the following results: —22% of Muscovites prefer tovarishch as a term of address; 21% prefer grazhdanin —19% prefer muzhchinalzhenchina —17% prefer sudar'lsudarynja1 —10% only prefer gospodin/gospozha. It is quite clear that it will take a lot of time before the use of gospodin and its related forms ceases to evoke any evaluative connotations. This will happen when they are perceived to relate correctly to the social status of speakers. Or, putting it differently, when the terms themselves cease to be restrictively associated with a particular social status. At present, however, this perception seems to be rarely present. This is why humorists make fun of the discrepancy between the social status of speakers and the language they use. For example,

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in the satirical sketch 'Gospoda' ('Gentlemen') by L. Levin the main character insists on being addressed as gospodin by those who are standing with him in a queue for food products, and principally for vodka. It is to be inferred that the crowd of angry people struggling for food, and the drunkards wanting to get vodka, cannot possibly be called gospoda, given its current connotations. It is apparently taken for granted that a gospodin is a person who has property and whose social status as a 'gentleman' is not questioned. This is inconsistent with the representation of characters in the sketch as propertyless, penniless, and illbehaved; hence the word-title gospodin is by implication out of place. To conclude, the rapid transformation of society in Russia is leading to a gradual modification of the system of address terms. In some situations the title gospodin has already replaced tovarishch. It is commonly used by representatives of the new social group of entrepreneurs and those political movements and parties which try to oppose their views to the communist ideology. It will, however, be a long time before a new system of terms of address becomes a universally accepted language norm. Notes 1 2

On the origin of thpse terms see also Borisova, chapter 9 of this volume. An archaic form of address, corresponding to gospodin/gospozha, which has seen a recent revival; it cannot be used in appellative word combinations).

References Bamgbose, A. (1987) 'Language Norms' in Preprints of the Plenary Session Papers, XlVth International Congress of Linguists Organised under the Auspices of CIPL, Berlin, pp. 153-73 Brown, R. and M. Ford (1961) Address in American English', Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 62. pp. 375-85 Dua, H. R. (1981) 'Dimensions of Speech Community', International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 32, pp. 85-119 Ervin-Tripp, S. M. (1969) 'Sociolinguistics' in L. Berkovitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 4, New York, Academic Press, reprinted and abridged as 'Sociolinguistic Rules of Address' in J. Pride and J. Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected Readings, Harmondsworth, Penguin Lyons, J. (1977) Semantics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Ter-Minasova, S. G. (1980) Sintagmatika rechi: ontologija i èvristika, Moscow, Moscow State University Publications, pp. 187-98

8 Breakthrough and Blind Alley: The Lexicon of Perestroika

Marina Kaul Russian State University for the

Humanities

1. Introduction The turning points of history have a particular interest for linguists concerned with the interaction of language and society. It is at such moments that analysts can become eye-witnesses to linguistic processes the recognition of which takes decades if not centuries at less dramatic times. The social realities of the late 1980s, with their increased international contacts, led to the appearance of a great number of new notions and words on both sides of the rapidly disintegrating iron curtain. Familiar notions are reinterpreted or replaced, and enter circulation in new wording and new phrasing. The lexicon is strongly influenced by mass media, which is the main vehicle for the spreading of new interpretations of political concepts. In Russia the press developed its position as the fourth power in society, confident in its belief in its right to lead public opinion and to promulgate ideology. Sometimes the media operated in keeping with those who devised and controlled the policy of the state, but very often contrary to them also. The language of public discourse had acquired crucial importance for the Soviet regime; words became a tool, if not a weapon, in a political struggle that affected the whole of society. To paraphrase Bakhtin's reflections on language, practically every important public speech is able to infect language with its intentions, foisting its nuances and evaluative tones on different moments of the language, creating a slogans, and verbal formulas for condemning or for praising.

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2. Keywords of the Gorbachev period 2.1 Perestroika Changes in lexical meaning take place in complex ways. Certain words become detached, as it were, from their field and receive a particular value, while retaining their background links. The Russian writer Tynjanov expressed this in a way that also applies to the word perestrojka: In order to convince, there should be words which are smoothed down. These words carry very strong emotional conviction. When a word is smoothed down, it means that it has such a great volume of notions that in every particular case it loses its own specific meaning, but it gives its name to a whole package of notions. It absolutely breaks with its original background, but preserves all aspects of its real conceptual background which are fused into the whole, very emotional, but very ambiguous.1 The period of change started with a new political orientation, a new notion, a new word, launched by Mikhail Gorbachev in his speech at the April Plenum of the CPSU in 1985. At that time the word was used in a number of collocations, which included: 'the restructuring of economics' {perestrojka ekonomiki), 'the psychological restructuring of the cadres' (psixologicheskaja perestrojka kadrov). It was a year later that a one-word term perestrojka appeared in Gorbachev's report on the prospects of economic and social development of the USSR for the period 1986-1990, the first chapter of which was entitled: Pervye uroki perestrojki (First lessons of restructuring). The word perestrojka was part of a recurrent lexical field that included reconstruction, renovation, renewal, reorganisation, transformation, acceleration. Here is an abstract from M. Gorbachev's report at the April Plenum, in which he spoke about the necessity for changes in Soviet economic policy: But life and its dynamics dictate the need for further changes and transformations, for the achievement of a new qualitative state of society in the broadest possible sense of the word. This means, first of all, the scientific and engineering renewal of production and the achievement of the highest level of labour productivity in the world. This means the improvement of social relations, and, above all, economic relations. This means social change in the sphere of work, material and intellectual conditions of living. This means the activisation of the entire system of political and social institutions, the expansion of socialist democracy and people's self-government. {Moscow News, 28 April 1985) On 29 October 1985 the Daily World published an article by its correspondent, Theodor Breus, entitled 'Soviets present program for discussion', in which he wrote:

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Central in all these documents, as M. Gorbachev, General Secretary of the CPSU said in his report to the meeting, is acceleration. Gorbachev said that the Party is now putting the concept of accelerated development to the people. The Morning Star's Moscow correspondent, Kate Clark, wrote in her article T h e Second Industrial Revolution' (25 February 1986): He called for a new quality of growth: an all-out intensification on the basis of scientific and technological progress, a structural reorganisation of the economy, effective forms of management and organising and stimulating labour. Among other words in the set that are related in meaning, it was reconstruction (perestrojka) that was the most preferred term at that period of time. The general perception of the process did not go beyond 'the re-building of what has been built'. Widening the notion to political changes called for the word 'restructuring', which made it possible to show the significance and importance of the process going on in the USSR. The Morning Star (29 January 1987) published an abstract from Gorbachev's report at the January 1987 Plenum entitled 'Socialism's creative force', where the word 'restructuring' came to the fore: In this connection we must support the efforts of the mass media to develop criticism and self-criticism in our society. This position in the struggle for restructuring has been appreciated by the Soviet people. An early attempt to introduce the Russian word perestrojka (with explanation in brackets) was made by Carl Blois in the Daily World (27 June 1987) in his article 'Soviet leaders and people united on restructuring of society' : Thursday's opening session of the meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dramatically refuted recent Western media speculations about divisions in the Party leadership over the process of perestroika (restructuring), glasnost (openness), economic acceleration and democratisation. A lot of journalists followed this pattern. Some of them published glossaries with explanations of the words 'perestroika', 'glasnost', etc. The Moscow correspondent of the Canadian Tribune, Fred Weir, in his 'Political glossary of change' (29 February 1988) introduced the word to his readers thus: Perestroika: this is the key word, the overreaching concept which embraces all sides of the program for political, economic and social transformation. Perestroika derives from the Russian word 'stroit' (to build) and means literally a rebuilding or reconstruction. In everyday politics in the USSR the word 'perestroika' is used constantly, and often in contexts that give it the most superficial connotations of 'reorganisation', 'renewal' or 'renovation'. All of these ideas are appropriate, but it's significant that Mikhail Gorbachev and his

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Such articles paved the way for the word 'perestroika', and the whole package of concepts that accompanied it, to enter Western mass media. 2.2 Proryv (breakthrough) Webster's New Universal Dictionary defines the English word 'breakthrough' as 'the act, result or place of gaining by force, against set resistance, as of a flood through a defence line'. According to Russian dictionaries, one of the meanings of the word proryv relates to the notion of misfortune, a negatively valued event—for example, proryv damby, 'a break in a dam'), and it can mean 'hitch' or 'hold-up', in fact not a breakthrough but a breakdown. It seems that the two languages look upon the fact from opposite points of view. Whereas the Russian language appears to encode a tragic unforeseen result, the English word implies a planned energetic action with positive outcome. But no dictionary registers it as a political term in either of the languages. It is interesting to note that it began to appear as a political term after President Ford's speech at the 35-nation Helsinki Conference on European Security and Co-operation in 1972. The political correspondent of the Soviet daily Pravda wrote in one of his reports: The anti-ballistic missiles treaty of 1972 between the US and USSR and the interim agreement on some measures of the strategic offensive arms limitation, stressed President Ford, was the first important breakthrough in the long process of the strategic nuclear arsenals limitation. The positive meaning of word proryv, which seems to be implied here, comes from its use in military discourse and in the discourse of sport. With the connotations implicit in these domains, the word subsequently became a positive political metaphor. It appeared in the lexicon of Soviet policy-makers during the period of the INF (intermediate nuclear forces) discussions on the limitation of medium and shorter range nuclear missiles at the end of the 1980s. The new political realities of the time gave an impetus to the emergence of a new meaning linked with the proryv, a meaning involving some such notion as 'energetic act' or 'positive achievement of a collective intellect'. From that period on the word continued to acquire a wide range of associations, establishing and extending the use of the word in a positive sense in political contexts. Thus, for example, the word is used in the title of an article on the talks held in Washington between the US Secretary of State and his Soviet counterpart: Trudnyj proryv ('Difficult Breakthrough'). The results of the summit in Rejkjavik are discussed in an article entitled Proryv k istine ('Breakthrough to Truth'). An article in Sovetskaja Rossija (3 March 1990)

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about the new Nicaraguan leader had the title 'Proryv Donny Violetty' ('Donna Violetta's Breakthrough'). Gradually, the new positive meanings of the word proryv found their way into a number of articles reflecting different aspects of life in the former Soviet state. An article ín Izvestija, bearing the title Nastroit'sja na proryv ('Getting ready for a Breakthrough'), was devoted to the problems of the machine industry. The President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, G. I. Marchuk discussed the necessity of radical changes in science and technology in his article Strategija proryva ('Strategy of Breakthrough'). The tragic situation in Armenia after the earthquake of December 1988 was described in a piece that carried the title Spasitel'nyj proryv ('Rescue Breakthrough', Sovetskaja Rossija, 17 December 1988). The new political meaning was readily accommodated in the language system, because it coincided with a frequent and commonly-used word, though with a new range of concepts that had come to be conventionally associated with it. The previous meaning ('breakdown, hitch or misfortune') is preserved in the language and the ambiguity can be overcome only in the context: dostignut' proryva ('to achieve a breakthrough'), okazat'sja v proryv e ('to find oneself in a breakdown'). 2.3 Konsensus It was the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe that also gave new life to another word, a word which was mostly known in Russian as a legal term—'consensus'. For some time this was one of the most popular political terms. In July 1973 the word was used in the speech of the Chairman of the Helsinki Conference, Antti Karjalainen: Our Conference is based on sovereignty, independence and full equality of the participating states and it shall take place outside military alliances. This basis, I believe, is of paramount importance. It will ensure all of us the certainty that our points of view will be respected by others and that none of us should fear losing them in the course of the Conference. But at our Conference equality is not only a lofty principle, its practical application has also been ensured as we will take all decisions by consensus.2 Discussing Gorbachev's report at the February 1989 Plenum, S. A. Kovalev, a human rights campaigner and one of the first People's Deputies, observed that 'in 1975 in Helsinki practically no one knew the word [konsensus] and it required explanation. Now we all know it.' It took Russian journalists seventeen years to acknowledge the word. Before that they preferred the term soglasie ('accord') to konsensus. The difference

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between the two words can be easily seen through comparison. The word konsensus appeared in the Russian Concise Political Dictionary only in 1988. The definition reads: Consensus: a method of making decisions by agreement, rather than a majority vote. Consensus means that a state or states join in general decisions even if there is no absolute agreement in certain aspects. In his book Perestroika,

Gorbachev wrote:

In no way does the CMEA [Comecon] infringe on the independence of any participating state and its sovereign right to be in charge of its own resources and capabilities and to do everything for the benefit of its people. The CMEA is not a supranational organisation. In decision-making it relies on the principle of consensus, rather than on a majority vote.3 The fact that the word 'consensus' was widely used at the sessions of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and of the Congress of People's Deputies can be explained by the high percentage of lawyers among their members. Their desire to come to terms, to find ways out of formerly insoluble situations led them to seek consensus. Phrases and statements such as the following were frequent at the Congress: T want to say that if the proposal of the Editorial Board does not get passed now, they will have to discuss this problem again and again to look for ways leading to a consensus.' In the weekly Sovetskaja Kultura, A. Kiva clarifies his view of the meaning of the word in his article of 16 December 1989: There is a wide spectrum of political forces in the society. What should be the basis for their amalgamation? Only if they solve the problems of perestroika, essential to all of them. It requires quite different approaches to the consolidation of society, a search for adequate decisions on the basis of mutual compromise, consensus. A Pravda correspondent in Tallinn, I. Tetevin, in an article headed 'Estonia: Destiny of State', wrote: We need talks that are representative, just and consistent. These talks should be trilateral, because there won't be any difference between the 1930s and the 1990s if the two states (the USSR and Estonia) solve international problems without taking into account the interests of 600 thousand people who don't wish to lose their Soviet citizenship. I'm sure the destiny of Estonia can be justly decided only if the three sides reach a consensus. As in the case of the word 'breakthrough', 'consensus' was disseminated by the mass media and suddenly acquired extraordinary popularity. Further, it proliferated morphologically, in particular producing new adjectival forms. Thus, Supreme Soviet chairman Lukyanov was inclined to form such adjectives as konsensusnyj, konsensual'nyj', etc. Similarly, new collocations

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appeared, such as konsensusnyj plan (consensus plan), obshchechelovecheskyj konsensus (universal consensus, consensus common to all humankind), molodezhnyj konsensus (youth consensus). However, there are no grounds to predict the growing productivity of the word. Such derivatives may well have been only occasional formations; certainly, to a native speaker they are experienced as in some way 'unnatural' in Russian.4 Soglasie was by no means ousted by the word 'consensus'. A situation developed in which both the Russian word soglasie and the international political term konsensus were used in the newly emergent forms of political discourse. Since languages in general do not tolerate complete identity of meaning and function between two different words, the coexistence of the two words led to the process familiar to linguists as 'discrimination of synonyms'. Interestingly, although he had helped to put the word konsensus into circulation, Gorbachev himself preferred the word soglasie, both in his official statements and in occasional remarks. At the Congress, the deputies used both words, apparently with the following distinctions. In the case of mutual understanding and desire to co-operate, the word soglasie was used. If the idea of a joint decision was somewhat forced by circumstances, or was some kind of a compromise,5 then the word konsensus was preferred. The referential spheres of these two words seem to be clearly distinguished. The domains of use also were increased. Eventually, the word left its judicial and political spheres and entered all styles of speech, including humour. There were some unpredictable combinations, including the following: futbol'nyj konsensus (football consensus), and 'when there is no soap in the country, there can be no consensus'. 3. Political metaphor and post-communist transformations Lexical changes are not just interesting objects for the linguist. It is important to remember that changes in semantic content arise through historical changes in society. Perhaps it is precisely during such extraordinary events as those of 1989-91 that one realises clearly the closeness and interdependence of the word and its meaning, of language and mentality, of mentality and life. It is at such moments that we realise that the meaning of a word is not only what dictionaries give as its definition, but also the whole frame of associations and oppositions defining its value in the language, including its use in metaphorical expressions. Metaphor is understood here not only as an ornamental trope, but as an indispensable processes of the mind. We proceed from the assumption that a vast proportion of our conceptual life is metaphoric. This is a general position in cognitive approaches to the study of meaning and has been widely discussed (see, for example, Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1987).

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Complex historical, political and economic concepts cannot be explained solely in linguistic terms. But it is difficult to imagine them coming into being without the instruments of language and discourse. Nor can one imagine the remarkable changes that have occurred in Soviet society as having taken place without the medium of language. Linguistic and conceptual creativity go hand in hand, and are integral elements of social and political change. Metaphor is a key process in generating new concepts, naming them, and communicating them. There may of course be negative consequences implicit in particular metaphorical choices. Words naming new social concepts may carry implied concepts which are disregarded or unnoticed at the moment of formulation. In many such cases the word expresses, or implies, more than is originally intended by the speaker, and there may be powerful consequences for conceptualisation, which may in turn lead to unpredicted (but not necessarily pre-planned) actions. 3.1 Perestroika as metaphor The fate of the word perestrojka and the policy, or set of policies of that name, are interlinked. The metaphorical implications of the word and its political effect in the debate at the end of the 1980s are not unconnected. As the key word in Gorbachev's reformist discourse, it was instrumental in the conceptualisation, the promotion, and thus the execution, of the dismemberment of the socio-political system of the USSR. But its use in this context produced some interesting effects. In Soviet mass media one heard surprised questions as to why the transfer to new political and economic concepts should be accompanied by actions that were not constructive but actually destructive, and a generalised notion of destructive forces entered the domain of political dispute. This was partly inconsistent with the conceptual frame of the keyword perestrojka, which is morphologically connected with the notion of building a new structure in place of an old one (the prefix pere- corresponds to the English trans- and re-). The conceptual frame associated with the word involves a specific sequence of actions: the dismantling of an old building, levelling it to the ground, and clearing the way for a new structure. If it is the case that such conceptual structures, through discourse, have an impact on people's understandings, expectations and perhaps their actions, then it is no wonder that, guided by the idea of perestrojka, people started to break down the old before constructing the new. And no wonder that they became disillusioned, when no solid edifice arose to replace what was lost.6

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3.2 tupik (blind alley) Another crucial element in the political discourse of the disintegrating USSR was the word tupik (blind alley, deadlock, impasse). In general terms, the word tupik means motion halted by an insuperable obstacle, and implies impossibility or lack of opportunity for further motion. A further implication is that there is a search for a way out of the deadlock. What is interesting about this word is that it is a metaphor that seems to depend on a conceptual frame having to do with paths, journeys and directed trajectories. Furthermore, the whole metaphorical model is linked with historical memory constructed through decades of discourse. The entailments of the tupik metaphor are highly revealing. The process that has led to a tupik is seen as a movement along a one-way track, which is blocked at one end. In search of the way out, it is the way back that is by definition the only possibility for overcoming the insuperable obstacle. In this way, the use of the metaphor can, in principle, constrain the conceptualisation of a historical situation. It is arguable, therefore, that the metaphor and its entailments were related to a variety of ideas about returning to the starting point in history, where the wrong turn, so to speak, had been taken. However, the fact is that the metaphor of tupik does not imply a definite starting point; it does not help one to know where, in fact, one came from in the history of one's society or group. There is thus unlimited scope for societies, groups and individuals to claim some particular historical event as the crucial moment when the 'wrong direction' was taken. Georgians, for example, may see it in 1801 (when Georgia was made part of tsarist Russia). Lithuania may see it in 1940, whereas Latvia may locate it in 1919. The Tartar national movement goes as far back as 1555, when the Tartar territories were conquered by Ivan the Terrible. All such originary points are of course frequently contested. As for the disturbed and distraught Soviet thinking, the starting point of the movement towards the present-day deadlock is located in 1917, providing an argument to justify calls for the restoration of the monarchy. Others argue the case differently. The most economically successful years of Soviet rule are claimed to have been the period of the New Economic Policy (1922-26), and this makes the period a desirable point for some people to start history anew. Time and historical development is regularly conceptualised metaphorically as movement along a path. The road to socialism was supposed to be straight, there could be no turning back, and the end would inevitably (through historical necessity) one day be reached. The dead-end metaphor of post-Soviet discourse was in fact a continuation of the same basic mental framework. The word stimulates and provokes fruitless search for 'the way back'. An influential metaphor such as this may obscure alternatives, for instance the flow metaphor for time and history: 'you can't step into the same river twice'.

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Political speakers exploiting the metaphor of tupik introduce the notion of the means of transportation, which is indirectly implied in the idea of movement along a road. In the first years of industrialisation in the USSR the intensified development was metaphorically associated with a train dashing ahead along the rail track to its destination. Applied in the post-1989 situation, and combined with a dead-end metaphor, the train metaphor acquired a very ironic application in the discourse of political criticism. The absence of any specific concept of the means of transportation in the tupik concept meant that journalists could devise many different pictorial ways of illustrating the image. All of these creative alternatives had different political implications, and sometimes none, or none that were seriously applicable. For example, there appeared a great number of cartoons in which an oldfashioned train would come to a halt in a railway siding. Deputies to the Congress readily resorted to images of carriages, buses and the like. In their speeches these metaphors developed into picturesque images and descriptions. Frequently, they were so carried away by the images they created that the metaphors they used would lose their argumentational role and acquire a kind of artistic representational value. Comparing the country in the state of tupik with a bus stuck on a muddy road or a cart sunk in a swamp, sometimes the only action they could suggest in the situation was to change the bus or the cart for a plane or a spaceship. The suggestion to push the bus out with the help of the passengers may have had populist rhetorical appeal, but the metaphor hardly provided a serious scheme for political action. There are many other examples of metaphor providing a means of indicating a general orientation without offering concrete proposals. Many speakers used the metaphor of the ship of state in a stormy sea. R. Bykov, a film producer and former deputy, used the metaphor of a boat at its moorage. It should sail out to the high seas, he argued, in spite of the impending storm, but insisted that the crew should let children and women stay in the hold for the stormy period and not let them die of hunger and fear. It was by no means clear what specific policy was being proposed. Another deputy, the writer Boris Oleinik, also used naval metaphors as a means of representing the role of the President in the strained ideological situation of the country, and as a way of indirectly making political proposals. Within the framework of the metaphor he suggested that the 'captain of the ship' should take off his uniform, leave the sinking man-ofwar, and get on board the President's yacht, leaving the steering wheel to his legally elected successor. Other 'battleships' of the 'squadron'—that is, the other republics of the union, were urged to move into formation with the flagship, preserving their sovereignty, but without losing their ties, and all moving together to the 'ocean' of democracy and pluralism. What is interesting is that metaphor is resorted to in order to communicate complex, controversial

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and potentially hazardous political proposals. But the metaphor was far from proposing any concrete political and social steps to normalise the situation in the country. Metaphor was probably fulfilling two functions: on the one hand, it provided a cognitive instrument for representing new political scenarios, and on the other it provided an indirect means of expression that entailed fewer political risks to the speaker. But metaphorical discourse also has its costs. In the speeches of politicians these images could indeed be said to remain stylistic tropes without suggesting any real action, any way out. Carried away by metaphoric expressions developed into an allegorical Æsopian discourse, the speakers seemed to be led away from specific political purposes and concrete policy proposals.7 3.3 Eksperiment Yet another keyword in transitional discourse was the borrowed word whose Russian transliteration from the English word 'experiment' we can transliterate back as eksperiment. Its conceptual frame, in Russian as in English, includes the experimenter, his or her aims, methods, and experimental material, as will as his or her ability to begin, interrupt or stop the experiment at any moment. People using the metaphor seemed to disregard the fact that any historical development has its own laws, which are more powerful than the personal will of an experimenter. History is not a mechanical process to be begun, stopped or interrupted in the middle. What interests the users of the metaphor is the individual responsible for the 'experiment'. The stress is, furthermore, laid on the concept of the experimental material, whose real-world referent can only be understood to be millions upon millions of real people—an inevitable but backgrounded interpretation that gives the history-as-experiment metaphor a horrifying aspect. There is another word in Russian whose semantic field overlaps with the meaning of the English word 'experiment'—namely, opyt, which also means something like the English word 'experience'. This meaning could be activated if the word opyt were used, and it is arguable that political discourse chose the word ėksperiment in part to avoid that meaning. It was important to separate the conceptual domains associated with the two words for the purposes of the discourse. Unlike an 'experiment', 'experience' cannot be stopped or changed or started anew. It is as it is. It describes what one has 'been through', and responsibility for it lies with oneself. It is for this reason that the word opyt was not acceptable for the situation and the intended meanings of the users at this historical juncture. Its use might have made people think of what they are, what their own role in their experience had been. There would have been no other individual onto whom the blame could be projected for the misfortunes of their

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lives. It is arguable that the metaphors of tupik and èksperiment are related closely to the absence of real actions on the part of government and to the fruitless search for an individual at whose feet responsibility could be laid. 3.4 Bor'ba (struggle, fight) The Russian notion of bor'ba includes a whole series of English synonyms as its equivalents: 'fight', 'struggle', 'battle', 'confrontation', 'argument', 'opposition'. Its metaphorical use in political discourse had a long history before it got a second wind in the discourse of perestroika and its aftermath. 'Life is struggle': this maxim of the philosophy of the 19th century constituted a guideline for a long period of Soviet life. It is arguable that it was part of a mental attitude that caused a lot of tragedies and sacrifice of human lives. The conceptual frame of the metaphor includes the opponent forces, the battle field, the enemy, the winner, the loser, the victory, the defeat, and the search for revenge. The last element of the frame, 'revenge', makes bor'ba itself an endless process. Brought to life, the metaphor lost its 'metaphoric' nature and resulted in a constant search for enemies of all types, both inside and outside the country. As the keyword of life, the metaphor of bor'ba was introduced into political, economic, philosophic, industrial, agricultural and social spheres of life. Practically untranslatable clichés such as 'struggle for the harvest' (bor'ba za urozhaj), 'struggle for a sober way of life' (bor'ba za trezvyj obraz zhizni), 'struggle for quality [of production]' (bor'ba za kachestvo) characterise the Orwellian discourse of the Soviet period. In some combinations the word appears to have lost its usual conceptual components, having apparently become conceptually narrowed and conventionalised. Who, for instance, could be the enemy in the 'struggle' for the harvest? In the wake of perestroika, traditional thinking became aware of the inappropriateness of the metaphor and of its destructive impact on social mentality. Some attempt was made to remove the word from the political lexicon. The former leader of the government and early supporter of perestroika, Nikolai Ryzhkov, once declared that the word bor'ba was 'out of fashion', but nevertheless appealed to city dwellers to help farmers in their 'struggle for the harvest' (television speech, September 1990). Although in 1989-90 the word practically disappeared from the pages of magazines and newspapers, the situation in the country to some extent revived the word. It is worth noting for instance that the draft programme of the Communist Party of Russia continued to use the word bor'ba with discernibly high frequency in such collocations as the following: 'in the first line of political struggle', 'struggle without a compromise', 'struggle for perestroika'. The persistent mental effect of the metaphor is clear. If political life is viewed

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as bor'ba, then the idea of competing forces or opposing sides follows by metaphorical entailment. Any type of opposition may presuppose some kind of confrontation or argument, and in many kinds of society confrontation and argument are treated in terms of war.8 Thus, in an interview, the chairman of the Moscow City Soviet, Gavriil Popov, said: T am a politician. The political struggle is a real struggle. That is why you cannot expect me either to surrender or capitulate.' Nonetheless, there was a feeling that the literal application of the metaphor of struggle and conflict to human life had led to much sacrifice and created many victims. There was a tendency to seek ways of relinquishing stereotypical thinking of this type. In political discourse the word was avoided in speeches; the notion of 'consensus' provided a useful alternative. 4. Conclusion The linguistic processes taking place in the political lexicon reflect familiar tendencies in the change of word meaning. For example, synonyms are discriminated, as in the case of konsensus and soglasie. The Russian equivalent of the English word 'breakthrough' (proryv) demonstrates the development of its polysemic structure. New meanings, different both denotationally and connotationally from the word's previous semantic structure, appeared. The word now denotes a new step forward that is assessed as a positive achievement. The analysis of the word perestrojka shows expansion of the conceptual content of the word, which takes upon itself the meanings of the word combinations in which it has occurred. This fact accounts for the impossibility of finding adequate translation equivalents in other languages and the need for other languages to borrow it. Though it can be found in the secondary meanings of many words, metaphor seems to appear when the nature of a new notion, its mechanism and the rules it is guided by are vague. The human mind resorts to metaphor in order to formulate new ideas that have not acquired definite shapes. The variety of metaphors used by parliamentary speakers, journalists, public figures in the Soviet mass media reflects a general confusion concerning goals, ideas and assessment of the past. One particular metaphor, the metaphor of the dead­ end (tupik), seems to be formulated to conceptualise this state of mind. Together with metaphors of mechanical movement and transportation, the tupik metaphor implies that there is 'no way out of the situation. It implies criticism of the government for not taking real steps, while at the same time it implies one limited solution, presupposed by the word tupik and deeply rooted in the political culture.

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Political figures bear a particular responsibility in choosing words when giving names to social notions, for the chosen words are capable of leading to corresponding actions (or the prevention of action as in the case of the metaphor of tupik). Arguably, metaphors such as those we have considered may lead to a fruitless search for the individuals historically responsible for the present chaotic state, or to fruitless and historically impossible attempts to return to some point back in time, to start history anew. Certain undesirable actions of society, it could be argued, are the result of an involuntary disregard of particular elements in the conceptual frames of metaphorically used words. As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) note, certain conceptual spheres in metaphors can be obscured, others brought to light. One never knows what sphere is likely to dominate in social thinking. Although it was intended to emphasise the necessity for renovation, the metaphor of 'perestroika' concentrated social thinking on clearing the way for the new, and led to some destructive processes. The metaphor of 'struggle', in its application to all spheres of life, always carries a potential implication that there exists an 'enemy'. The choice of words has practical consequences. As the proverb has it, As you name the boat, so she will sail: name it a frigate and she will go sailing far across the seas, name it an old tub, and she will sink.

Notes 1 2.

3.

4.

5.

6

7

Tynjanov 1927. Translations of this and other Russian texts in this chapter are by the author. The last sentence of the Russian text reads as follows: Odnako, na nashem Soveshchanii ravenstvo javljaetsja ne tol'ko vysshim printsipom, no takzhe obespecheno ego prakticheskoe primenenie, poskol'ku vse nashi reshenija budut prinimatsja s obshchego soglasija (konsensusom). Gorbachev (1988), p.168. The last part of the text quoted runs thus in the Russian original: ...SEV—ne nadnatsional'naja organizatsija. V nej vs'é reshaetsja ne bol'shinstvom golosov, a na osnove konsensusa, to est'printsipa edinoglasija. In fact, after 1991, political developments and subsequent struggles for power led to a tendency for the word, and the concept, to lose its prominence, and even its positive evaluation. There was, for instance, an article in the weekly Moscow News about the Caucasian conflict, which ran under the title 'Consensus is inconvenient for all'. Kompromis is another synonym in this group of words. Unlike soglasie and konsensus, it has a clearly defined referential sphere—to agree on common actions against one's will. Folk language has registered the dependence of the concepts in the metaphor in the proverb: stroit' da perestraivat'—dobra ne nazhivesh' (build or rebuild—nothing good will be gained). Cicero wrote in his letters on rhetoric that metaphor should be modest (Letters, XVI, 17). The same point was emphasized by Quintilian, who asserted that a metaphor that seemed too bold should be turned into a simile (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoris, VIII, 6).

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Voltaire preferred simile to metaphor, arguing that the former is guided by the mind, whereas the latter is thoughtlessly passionate. Simile, being a more explicit form of metaphor, is easier for a hearer to challenge. Cf. Lakoff and Johnson (1980) on the 'argument is war' metaphor.

References Bakhtin, M. M. (1975) Voprosy literatury i èstetiki: Issledovanija raznyx let, Moscow, Xudozhestvennaja Literatura Gorbachev, M. S. (1988) Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and for the World, New York, Harper and Row Publishers Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, Chicago University Press Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago, Chicago University Press Tynjanov, Y. (1927) 'Slovar' Lenina-polemista', LEFF. Vol. 1

9 Opposition Discourse in Russia: Political Pamphlets 1989-1991 Elena Borisova Pushkin Institute of Russian Language

1. Introduction The period of 'late perestroika' (1989-1991) is of considerable interest from the point of view of the study of political behaviour at the micro-level. This was a period of rapid and in some ways brutal change for Russian citizens. Their reaction to political texts (slogans, articles, speeches, etc.) differed greatly, not only from those typical of state socialist society, but also from the political behaviour in the so-called 'countries of developed democracy'. The linguistic and, above all, the lexical analysis of such texts can show us the characteristics of that period of transition. It seems reasonable to assume that one particular text type—the political pamphlet—varying in form, length, style, etc., provides an insight into the increased potential for diversification in Russian political discourse. This chapter describes some lexical characteristics of the political leaflets that were disseminated in Moscow from January 1989 till September 1991. The total number of texts in the corpus reviewed is 64; in what follows they are numbered chronologically. Other text types were considered in order to make comparisons with the primary object of our analysis. The great majority of these pamphlets were produced by so-called 'democrats'—anti-communist opposition groups of Western orientation, who organised the electoral bloc known as Democratic Russia (Demokraticheskaja Rossija). Organisations styling themselves 'democratic' were somewhat numerous in Moscow. In the spring of 1990 they arranged huge demonstrations and won the elections to the Supreme Soviet, as well as to local councils. In the summer of 1991 they went

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on to win the presidential and mayoral elections. The main functions and topics of the leaflets were the following: —invitations to meetings, demonstrations, etc. (pamphlets numbered 3, 5, 8, 9, 10) —electoral leaflets (including leaflets issued before the referendum in March 1991(11-13,31-35,42) —invitations to newly organised groups, e.g. to Demokraticheskaja Rossija (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 20) 4) —others (appeals to strike, to support of strikers, information about the private life of political leaders, etc.) The length of the leaflets varies from one or two sentences (one slogan, for example) to 40-60 lines, but most often they were about 10-30 lines. As a rule every leaflet begins with some form of direct address to the intended recipient (e.g. 'Muscovites!'), and ends with a signature. The body of the text generally contains appeals of one form or another. 2. Lexis in political texts The language of political discourse, or what might be termed 'political slang' (see Bolinger 1973, p. 539) or, in the Russian tradition, 'mass media style' (see Kostomarov 1971), has many idiosyncrasies in comparison with everyday language. Such language is used, on the one hand, in texts that probably have high perlocutionary force, and, on the other hand, in texts concerning spheres of experience that may not be completely familiar to the hearer/reader. The linguistic idiosyncrasies of political discourse have been described in numerous works (see, for example, Lasswell et al. 1968, Mueller 1973, Burkhardt et al. 1989, etc.), and can be found on the levels of syntax, phonetics and even morphology. But the idiosyncrasies of political language are most in evidence at the level of word and word meaning. It is on the meaning of words that we focus here, and on their probable perlocutionary function. 2.7 Expressivity It is widely accepted that the lexis of political texts tends to be 'expressive'. By 'expressivity' here we mean that a given language unit attracts the special attention of a hearer/reader and produces a perlocutionary effect. The ways in which a perlocutionary effect works are various, and involve a variety of linguistic levels—for example, the use of informal or formal or literary lexical items, intonation patterns, and so forth. A perlocutionary effect arises usually when the speaker expresses her or his own attitude towards some object

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referred to in the discourse. The precise attitude in question again may vary. A perlocutionary term may involve an evaluation or an estimation—for example, when a speaker supposes something is good, bad, unexpected, etc. Evaluative lexical items are extremely frequent. They depend of course on the background culture, and the lexicalisation varies from one culture to the next. Russian examples would be: izmena ('treachery' or 'treason'), which is always taken to imply a negative evaluation, as opposed to prozrenie (sudden insight into the truth), which would always be taken to be positive. Various emotions may be associated with words of this kind, and it is important to underline that an emotive word does not always provoke the same emotion in all hearers at all times, though it may do. Sometimes, a word that can be said in general to be associated with negative evaluation may produce a different or an additional emotion. For example, if the word 'rabble' is primarily associated with the negative evaluation of contempt, it can also be used by a speaker to make a listener feel anger, etc. A rather common way to make a text expressive is the use of metaphors. The role of metaphor throughout the linguistic system has been elucidated by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). Particular metaphors may also, however, be associated with specific discourses. The characteristic metaphors used in Russian political texts have been catalogued by Baranov (1991). There exist metaphors that are so often used that they become clichés, i.e. words or collocations that are typical for some fixed discourses, such as political articles, official papers, etc. They may, by dint of repetition and predictability, lose their expressivity. For example, 'a bulwark of peace', initially a rather expressive metaphor, eventually became virtually obligatory when referring to the Warsaw Treaty states in the Soviet mass media. Whatever expressivity the phrase originally had eventually disappeared. An important feature of the type of words we are discussing is that they are not generally available for contestation or discussion. This means that they are highly effective for propaganda; they have the potential to make a hearer/reader feel or think or do what a speaker/writer wants. Metaphors have been called 'a sentence without a trial' (see Arutyunova 1980, p. 28), and the same can be said of other expressive units. It follows that highly expressive texts can suggest that an author is avoiding reasoned arguments and prefers to appeal to emotions, subconscious impressions and beliefs. In some traditions highly expressive lexical semantics are apparently avoided. This may, for instance, be the case for the English cultural tradition; at least, it may be the case that English speakers use emotive language less often and less openly (see Blakar 1979, p. 131). It seems reasonable to claim that the Russian political tradition in general is marked by high expressivity

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and open evaluation. The works of Tolstoy, and indeed of Lenin, are testimony to such a tradition. 2.2 Flexibility The second quality of the lexicon of political discourse that we wish to describe here is connected with the fact that political texts frequently concern spheres of life that are not totally familiar to hearer/reader. In this respect, political texts and advertisements differ in that the latter mostly deal with the immediate everyday life of hearers. A political text may, for instance, seek to convince an ordinary citizen that the economic programme of X is better than that of Y; yet the great majority of citizens know nothing or very little about economics and cannot form their own technical evaluation of economic programmes. A hearer/reader cannot find an exact reference for many words he or she meets in political texts: e.g. 'prosperity', 'reforms', 'economic sabotage', and many others. Moreover, the ordinary reader may come across words which may also have no sense, or at least not a very precise sense, in his or her semantic system. This situation will of course vary depending on such variables as education. But what is important here is that it also depends on the political experience of Russian citizens at a certain moment in history. Thus, there were, in and around 1989-91, very few persons who could specify what 'socialism', 'communism', 'democracy', etc., are Politics is not of course the only sphere where individuals come across totally unknown or little known words. Medicine, pharmacy, engineering also deal with facts and terms we are not obliged to know. In such cases the individuals defer to doctors, to authors of popular books, to specialists. But politics is the sphere in which individuals are required to participate, often in the form of responses to questions (elections, plebiscites, opinion polls, etc.). There is a requirement to make decisions and individuals are obliged to rely on those who are ready to explain what these words mean and how different phenomena of reality are being named. Such acts of nomination, however, may also create very different, even contradictory images of reality in different societies. To take an extreme example, compare 'the evil Empire' (President Ronald Reagan's representation of the USSR in 1980s) with 'the society of justice and equality, the hope of all mankind' (the Soviet representation of the same country). This quality of words—to have little or no connection with denotation (in the language perception of the ordinary native speaker) and therefore to be used not according to a shared reality but according to the desire of a speaker—we call flexibility. This quality has been mentioned by many linguists

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who have reflected upon political texts, though it is not only political texts that display it (cf. Bolinger 1973). It goes without saying that flexibility is connected with expressivity. Estimative lexis represents reality according to the point of view of a speaker, and it simultaneously evaluates the reality thus represented. So closely intertwined were these two aspects in Soviet discourse that it was sometimes difficult to understand whether some individual really was a 'murderer', a 'criminal', a 'father of the nation', a 'realistic politician' etc. In some cases the estimative value may change radically, as has been the case with the word sotsiatizm (socialism). In many Russian idiolects this term acquired negative colours once it was proclaimed that everything bad in Russia was a result of 'socialism'. We can make an attempt to be more precise about the notion of degree of 'flexibility'. Let us suppose that a word is more 'flexible' when there are fewer possibilities to verify propositions in which it is used. The verb 'to love', for example, is to some extent flexible, since there are many cases when it is impossible to confidently make an assertion such as 'John loves Mary' (is it real love, etc.?). Nevertheless, there are some situations when this sentence can be confidently asserted to be true or false. So the degree of flexibility is not so high in this case as, for instance, in the case of the verb 'to support': there are even fewer situations, one may argue, in which one may confidently claim that 'people support X'. Further, the degree of word flexibility changes in context—for example, it is more difficult to verify 'people support democracy' than 'Muscovites support Yeltsin', but mostly it depends on the properties of the lexeme involved, in this instance 'support'. 2.3 Manifestivity The lexis of political texts very often shows who the author is. To take an obvious example, it is clear that someone who uses a word such as 'treachery' (predatel'stvo) to describe the politics of the government estimates that government negatively and is probably in opposition to it. To take a more specific case, it is quite clear in the Russian context that a text which includes the noun phrase zhidomasonskij zagovor (Jewish-freemason plot) is probably not written or spoken by a politician of Western liberal orientation (unless it is in some quotative form). Certain words may indicate immediately by whom the text was produced: we term such words 'manifestive'. As in the case of flexibility, we can speak about a greater or lesser degree of lexical manifestivity—that is, the extent to which a word can manifest the political orientation of a text. The word trudjashchiesja (working people), for example, is often encountered in leaflets produced by communists, less often in leaflets authored by 'democrats', but not at all in nationalist texts (at least in 1989-

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1991). Manifestivity is characteristic not only of lexis but also of grammatical constructions; however, we focus here on lexis. Among highly manifestive words, proper names (both personal and geographical) are significant. The occurrence of the name 'Stalin' manifests that a leaflet was written by 'democrats', because, apart from a very few radicals, both communists and nationalists avoid speaking about him at all. In 1989 the word Rossija (Russia) showed that a leaflet was of nationalistic origin. Manifestivity can change very quickly (the word Rossija in 1991 became a sign of democratic orientation). But some cases have a very long life, and reflect the influence of historical experiences on political discourse. After the splitting of Czechoslovakia, because the German name for Czechia (the Czech Republic), Tschechei, was associated with the German imperial past, it was necessary to invent something else, namely, Tschechien. This explanation was in fact an official one found in Austrian newspapers of the time. The manifestivity of lexis is a result of the different approaches of authors to the reality which they reflect in political texts. Flexible lexis also very often manifests the political position of the author, as is evident from German vocabulary in the Hitler period (see Mueller, 1973, p.25, Burkhardt et al. 1989). 2.4 Political clichés So far, we have argued that three notions are especially significant for a description of political lexis: expressivity, flexibility and manifestivity. All these properties are scalar—that is, they can characterise a word to a greater or lesser degree. They are the qualities we consider to be the most significant when we characterise a political text from the point of view of the traditions of political discourse, relations between author and masses (or their image), and the means of perlocution. Expressivity shows how openly emotive an author is, to what extent he or she signals rationality or a preference for appealing to emotions, etc. The flexible use of lexis shows a more covert possibility for influencing the reader/hearer. It also signals the degree of rationality: an author who avoids marking causal connections generally prefers references that cannot be contested by readers/hearers, either because of the unfamiliarity of the terms themselves, or because the meaning of the terms is not a point of discussion in the text or the current political discourse. The great frequency of manifestive lexis suggests the powerful role of persons, political groups and the discourses which they are able to promote. It is not what is said that is important, but the recognisability of the lexis as belonging to an authoritative source: 'Never mind what is being said, what is important is who is speaking.'

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As has been suggested above, these three notions are not independent: one and the same word can be and often is expressive (very often both evaluative and emotive), flexible, and manifestive—for example, predatel'stvo (treachery). These three characteristics are able to tell us much about the nature of the relations between speaker and hearer. Other characteristics of political texts are less important from this point of view. Russian linguists, for instance, traditionally speak about clichés (shtampy, cf. 'rubber stamp')—word combinations typical for official or mass media texts, e.g. znamja perestrojki (banner of perestroika) (see Kostomarov 1971). Such expressions have two aspects: one the one hand, they have particular characteristics that are, broadly speaking, pragmatic ones, and on the other they have the syntactic property of being combinations of several words. As far as the broadly pragmatic aspect is concerned, clichés may involve metaphor, though the metaphor is often 'killed' by frequent usage. They may also show that we are in the presence of propaganda, mass media, or official texts of some sort. These qualities may be more or less the same ones that we described earlier—metaphor as a sign of expressivity, flexibility and manifestivity). As for the fact that stock expressions and clichés may consist of more than one word, word combinations very frequently occur in fixed collocations (see Kostomarov 1971)—that is, in instances where the occurrence of the second component is highly predictable from the occurrence of the first. Fixed collocations also are very typical, that is, predictable, for political texts. The authors of political texts describe or create an image of a reality that differs from representations of the everyday world known to everybody; words are required that are different from the currently used vocabulary. One way of generating new lexical units is to establish fixed collocations by frequent repetition. For example, the Russian word udovletvorjat'sa (be satisfied with) is sufficient to describe the feelings of a person in an everyday situation. But to denote a feelings of Soviet citizen, who exists only in the imaginary world of propaganda texts, a very complicated fixed collocation was used: ispytyvat' chuvstvo glubokogo udovletvorenija (to feel a sense of deep satisfaction). The collocation has the properties of considerable flexibility and very high manifestivity. 3. Political pamphlets 1989-91 Using the notions of expressivity, flexibility and manifestivity, we now describe some salient features of the language of Russian political pamphlets.

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3.1 Expressivity The great majority of leaflets issued in 1989-91 seem to show a marked degree of expressivity. Leaflet 8 includes 46 words (not counting prepositions and negations), 19 of which can be regarded as expressive. As a rule lexical expressivity correlates with other means of expressivity: exclamation, inverted word-order, size of letters, etc. This is predictable given the words' function— to cause an immediate reaction. Most leaflets were attached to walls and in most of them the greatest space is taken up by slogans. The degree of expressivity, however, varies considerably across the collection of leaflets. Some leaflets are not expressive at all. For instance, leaflets (27-29) simply provide information about the time and place of a demonstration to be held on 24 February and 10 March in support of Yeltsin, who had been criticised by six members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet for violating laws and issuing decisions without discussion. However, the tone changed as events unrolled. Anti-Yeltsin demonstrations took place, and as the Congress of People's Deputies gathered on 28 March to discuss criticisms of Yeltsin's authoritarian style of leadership, tension reached new heights.1 Correspondingly, authors of leaflets calling people to demonstrations at this time make their text much more expressive: leaflet (30), for example, contains 10 highly expressive words and collocations in a leaflet of 50 words. We can suppose that the degree of expressivity has to do with the urgency of persuading a larger number of participants to turn out, whereas on the earlier occasions the leaflets' authors had presumably considered the number of Yeltsin's supporters sufficiently large. There are also differences among leaflets issued at one and the same time and dedicated to the same event. For example, among very expressive leaflets devoted to a referendum on 17 March 1991, there is a comparatively low degree of expressivity (6 expressive words for about 60 words of the leaflet). The explanation in this instance seems to have to do with the function of the pamphlet, which gives the impression of offering objective advice to think everything through rationally (although its recommendation of particular solutions contradicts any claimed objectivity). It was addressed to those who had had enough of the insistent imperative style of many other texts issued by the democrats—for example, golosuj pravil'no (vote correctly).2 Lexical expressivity is very often achieved by an estimation that constitutes part of the word meaning. Nearly all expressive words indicate a positive, or, more often, a negative estimation on the part of the authors. Estimative lexical items belong to all parts of speech, of which nouns are the most frequent: nagleet (becomes insolent), rvëtsja (to be desperate [to do something]), splotimsja (let's close our ranks), nemedlenno (immediately, not-slowly). There are also estimative words derived from proper names, or proper names

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which have themselves acquired an estimative aura: 'Stalinists', 'Polozkovists' (after Polozkov the name of an organiser of the Communist Party of Russia in 1991, who was regarded as a conservative), Ligachev (symbol of the conservatives), Sakharov (symbol of democracy). Toponyms also can acquire expressive (specifically, estimative) qualities: Sumgait, where anti-Armenian pogroms took place, became a metonymic symbol of pogroms in general and thus a means to negatively validate a person 'who leads to new Sumgaits' (kto vedet k novym Sumgaitam). The amount of negative lexis is much greater than the amount of positive lexis in all the texts. The most frequent negative words in the pamphlets are 'apparatchiks' and 'privileges'. The most frequent positive words are: splotimsja (let's close our ranks), narod (the people), trudjashchiesja (working people), demokratija (democracy), svoboda (freedom), peremeny (changes), progressivnyj (progressives). It is interesting to note that the positive values of these words (if not their changing referents) were already quite normal in the political texts of the USSR before perestroika. The expressive lexical items are very often at the same time emotive ones. For example, obankrotivshiesja (bankrupts) indicates a speaker's contempt, disapproval or dislike, as do klika (clique), nagleet (becomes insolent), and stalinisty (Stalinists). It is significant that it was during the period of perestroika that some words acquired the potentiality for some speakers of an emotional connotation: for example, apparatchik, nomenklatura, and derivatives of the word pamjat' (memory, the name of a nationalist organisation). That period also gave an emotional aura to some proper names, at least when used in political texts. For example, Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, was a metonym for the bloody military action that was perpetrated in April 1989, and it also carries an aura of anger, hatred, pity and, to some extent, fear. Words like these seem to be associated with two (or more) emotions at once. In some cases the two emotions are linked to different roles in a cognitive frame. Thus, for instance, èkspluatiruemyj (the exploited), travit' (agitate) express hatred of the agents of the action on the one hand, and on the other hand pity and compassion for the receivers or victims of the action. Not all the expressive (and estimative) words are emotive. For example, demokratija (democracy), trudjashchiesja (working people) appear relatively neutral from the emotive point of view. However, there does seem to exist a correlation between the degree of expressivity of a text and the amount of emotive lexis in it. Leaflet 31, for instance, which consists of exclamatory sentences, and has 8 expressive words out of its total of 22, may be said to have high expressivity. This leaflet contains crucial emotive words or word combinations: opasnost' (danger), razval (breakdown), perechërkivat' zhizn' predkov (cross out the life of the ancestors), vedet k natsional'nym konfliktam (leads to national conflicts), obnovlennyj (renovated, in inverted commas).

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Conversely, many informative leaflets of low degree of expressivity (e.g. 29) include no emotive lexis at all. The semantic analysis of emotive lexis can suggest which emotions are most often expressed in leaflets, and perhaps stimulated in their readers. The most common emotions are anger and hatred. The words and word combinations that may be taken to express and excite these emotions were found in 80% of all leaflets. As a rule such feelings are addressed to certain persons or forces— such as 'Ligachevists', and 'bankrupt partycrats' (obankrotivshiesja partokraty). In addition to these emotions, fear seems to be expressed in such phrases as: proveli ataku ([they] began an attack), vzjat' revansh (take revenge), rvëtsja k vlasti (is desperate for power), zavtra budet pozdno (tomorrow it will be too late), diktatura (dictatorship), fashizm (fascism), vojna protiv nas (war against us). The fear is very often connected with impatience ('it will be too late'). One also finds contempt, and sometimes a kind of condescension, both linked with anger: obankrotivshiesja sanovniki (bankrupt officials), nauchites' razgovarivat' (learn to speak!). If the expression of anger and hatred with regard to others is the most frequent emotion, there is also the expression of firmness and decisiveness on the part of the speakers themselves. It is noteworthy that a number of these positively valued emotive assertions are expressed in negative form: 'we shall not wait patiently', Net! (refusing or rejecting something), pozorl (shame!) reaktsija ne projdët! (the reactionaries shall not pass!) zashchitim...! (let us defend...!) (mostly about Yeltsin), xvatit lit' grjaz'! (enough mud-slinging!). The set of emotions implied in the texts varies at different periods. For example, the most vehement leaflets are from February 1990, from December 1990, from January 1991, and from March 1991. These dates constituted peaks of political activity on the streets and marked high points of success for the democrats. The most optimistic emotions are most often expressed in leaflets of 1989. As for metaphors, they are very rare in the leaflets, and those that do occur are mostly metaphors that had already become clichés in the Soviet period: 'a detachment (otrjad) of working people', 'bankrupt politicians' (obankrotivshiesja dejateli), 'sucking out the life blood' (vysasyvanie sokov). The only new one is a quotation from the communists: 'leave the trenches' (vyjtij iz okopov). Another example is 'to set a trap' (postavit' lovushku), referring to the referendum of March 1991. All these metaphors are based on images of war or hunting. It is striking that there are no building metaphors in the leaflets, although they were popular at this period in the press (cf. Baranov 1991 ,p.49).

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3.2 Flexibility We have argued above that lexical items in political texts are flexible to a very high degree. It is not surprising that a reader of the leaflets constantly comes across lexical items that appear to be used in this fashion. At the beginning of the period in question (1989), the words demokratija and perestrojka certainly confront the reader with indeterminacies of meaning. And towards the end of the period examined (1991), the term 'putsch', whose precise sense or referent is also difficult to pin down, is frequent. It is interesting to note that many of the words in the corpus actually appear to have a comparatively low degree of flexibility. True, an example like 'low standard of living' (nizkij zhiznennyj uroven') may be judged a semantically rather flexible word combination, but nishcheta (poverty) may be judged more concrete and thus less flexible. In fact nishcheta occurs several times (perhaps because of its perceived expressivity) in (3) and (22). In general, the more emotive a text is, the less frequently can flexible words can be used. Thus in the highly emotive leaflet (32) the political situation is described as one in which the 'centre' is 'sucking the last drops'. This is an emotive hyperbole that can easily be countered; thus it is less flexible in the sense discussed above in 2.2. Nevertheless, it may be the case that in highly emotive texts the degree of belief is perceived as sufficiently strong, so that it is not necessary to hide experientially unverifiable propositions in flexible words. It goes without saying that many of the pamphlets include no argumentation at all. The notion of flexibility applies at several levels of syntactic constituency— not only noun phrases and verb phrases, where the content is often presupposed and pragmatically difficult to deny, but also in the overall propositions expressed in sentences, which frequently make unsupported and unverifiable assertions. The majority of such structures are used without explanation and help to form in readers' minds an image of events that authors desire to establish. It is worth especially considering those cases where an author asserts 'meanings'. An example of such pseudo-definition occurs in (34): 'to answer yes means to pronounce oneself in favour of a Russia deprived rights, in favour of price increases' (otvetit' da znachit vyskazatsja za bespravnuju Rossiju, za povyshenie tsen). Another interesting example of flexible lexis occurs in (44): 'we are not against critics, we are against persecution' (ray ne protiv kritiki, my protiv travli). Here, by substituting the estimative, highly flexible, and emotive word 'persecution', the author prevents possible counter-arguments. This leaflet is particularly interesting from the perlocutionary point of view since it appeals to the supporters of the Mayor of Moscow, Gavriil Popov, who was not popular at that time, in their struggle against the Moscow city soviet, which also used 'democratic' slogans.

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By using flexible lexis the authors of pamphlets create an image of political events, and this image changed during the period we analyse here. In the initial phase of the period (1989 till May 1990) the image is constructed on the basis of certain key formulations (words and word combinations), which refer indirectly—that is, 'flexibly'—to two opposing groups, 'them' and 'us'. On the one hand there is the nomenklatura, those appointed by the Communist Party to top posts in government and economic administration, on the other hand, there is 'we', the opposition liberals. The key expressions referring to the nomenklatura can be listed as follows: conservative forces (2) bankrupt officials (3) the Ligachev clique (10) those who reject basic human values (6) (otvergajushchie osnovnye obshchechelovecheskie tsennosti) embezzlers of public funds and takers of bribes (5) (kaznokrady i vzjatochniki) seeking a return to dictatorship and equality in poverty (stremjatsja k vozvratu diktatury i ravenstva v nishchete) (6) they launch provocations against progressive deputies (predprinimajut provokatsii protiv progressivnyx deputatov) (5) they encroach upon glasnost (nastupajut na glasnost') (9) they endeavour to make choice more difficult (pytajutsja zatrudnit' vybor) (12) Opposing this image is the image of the opposition movements: ...who supports radical reforms (kto stoit na puti podderzhki radikaVnyx reform) (5) adversaries of totalitarianism (protivniki totalitarizma) (6) ...to whom the ideas of Sakharov are dear (komu blizi idei Saxarova) (13) ...who do not wish the return of the Stalinist order (kto ne xochet vozvrata stalinskix porjadkov)(8) upright citizens (chestnye grazhdane) (3) do not intend to accept poverty and absence of rights (ne namereny miritsja s nishchetoj i bespraviem) (3) we shall close our ranks in the face of the danger from the right (splotimsja pered litsom pravoj opasnosti) (8) we shall go out on the streets (vyjdem na ulitsy) we shall take part in (the) demonstrations (primem uchastie v demonstratsijax), in the peaceful February Revolution (7 February 1990) (v mirnoj febral'skoj revoljutsii). At that time Gorbachev was mostly regarded in leaflets as a part of 'us', not of 'them', although it is true that there were anti-Gorbachev slogans at meetings and demonstrations. But after summer 1990 the image of 'us' and the

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'enemies' changed greatly. The enemies are now the 'centre', that is, the government and therefore Gorbachev. They are referred to as: 'the unitary centre' (unitarnyj tsentr), 'the government of the people's poverty' (praviltel'stvo narodnoj nishchety), and as 'communists who left the trenches (kommunisty, kotorye vyshli iz okopov) ('leave the trenches' was an appeal made by some communist leaders), 'reactionary colonels and generals [who] are desperate for power' (reaktionnye polkovniki i generaly rvutsja k vlasti). They are accused of failure to act (ne prinimajut mer, 'they introduce no measures'), or of solving the problem by raising prices (pavlovskaja reforma povyshenie tsen, 'Pavlov's reform is increasing prices'), of putting an end to 'independence' (suverenitet) of the republics (which were parts of the USSR) and of deceiving the people, who for the most part did not want demolition of the USSR (stavjat lovushku, 'they set a trap'). 'We' must defend Yeltsin and democracy and support the radical economic programme. It is interesting that among the hundreds of thousands of participants at a demonstration for the democrats' economic program—the so called '500 days' programme that proposed to privatise 80% of state property—there was hardly anybody who had read it, though everybody who was asked said that they were sure that it would manage the crisis without a drop in living standards and an increase in prices. 3.3 Manifestivity It is clear that pamphlets of the type we are considering need to include signs showing who is the author. Such indications serve to help the reader quickly understand what should be his or her reaction to it. There are different means by which such indications may be expressed, and Muscovites learned to recognise many forms, including such things as the quality of paper, the fonts used, the quality of the printing, and so forth. In 1988-89 the democratic opposition groups used mostly computers to reproduce their leaflets, and later there were photocopies of hand-written texts. High-grade printed texts were a sign of contact with the authorities. Here we shall discuss only the linguistic means of manifesting provenance, starting with the most obvious case—the naming of politicians and groups connected. It is not surprising that the leaflets are full of proper names that personalise political groups and movements. These names can be used in three positions: accompanying slogans (v zashchitu, 'in defence of), in the title of a leaflet ('The All-Moscow Demonstration In Support of Yeltsin'), in a signature at the end of the text (as in 6, 7, 12, 13), or in a list of persons invited to a meeting or demonstration. In early pamphlets proper names were comparatively rare, and they appeared mostly in the body of the text. Later, approximately at the end of 1989, lists of invited persons appeared. And in March 1990, during the

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elections, there appeared personally signed leaflets. At the beginning of 1991, numerous proper names of democratic leaders were replaced by the names of Yeltsin, of Sakharov and, less frequently, of Popov. This personalisation of politics was evident in leaflets devoted to the referendum of March 1991. The question posed in the ballot ('Do you think it is necessary to preserve the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics?') was referred to as 'Gorbachev's question' (leaflet 34 and many others). This formulation was used to provoke negative answers to the issue, although it is quite likely in my view that the great majority of Muscovites wanted to save the Union. Leaflet 34 begins with the words 'We are all for the Union, but...'. In the event, only 50% of Muscovites answered positively on this question—a success, one might think, for democratic propaganda. Another obvious way of manifesting authorship is by naming organisations—primarily those supported by the authors, but also sometimes those that they oppose. For example, in the case of leaflet (10), which included the rhetorical and indirect question 'Or leave the streets to Pamyat?', it is clear that the text is issued by those who regard Pamyat as an enemy. Organisations are often mentioned in the signature, along with those individuals who are announcing a meeting or appealing for votes, etc. Up to the end of 1990, several organisations were usually mentioned. Subsequently, it became normal for a particular pamphlet to be sponsored by only one organisation—as a rule it was Democratic Russia or Yeltsin's electoral team. Some leaflets were distributed without any signature at all (34, 37, 38, 41), and in such cases the authorship was clear from the context. Organisations are also named in appeals (leaflet (20),'Join Democratic Russia'), in titles which make some form of declaration of the organisation's policy (1, 2, 6) and in slogans: 'Support for the Interregional Group!' (Podderzhka Mezhregional'noj Gruppe!). In the great majority of leaflets the reader comes across a name of a supported or supporting organisation; however, in the specifically electoral leaflets (34, 37, 38) no organisation is mentioned. The important function of attributing leaflets to an organisation is underlined by graffiti that were often made on leaflets affixed to walls. On leaflets that had been produced and disseminated by the democratic organisations one could sometimes see a hand-written riposte in the form of an attribution to some other organisation. An example is the attribution 'on behalf of the Zionists' (17). On another leaflet, one which is criticising Yeltsin for lack of democracy in his methods of ruling the country, there was an inscription 'this is written by Pamyat' (èto písala Pamjat'). We turn now to manifestive lexis that reflects the authorship of leaflets in less obvious ways. Mentioning certain historic names is connected with

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specific political positions. For example, Stalin and Brezhnev (or derivatives) are met only in leaflets of the democrats. Other texts of political groups show the same tendency, though not so clearly. Other names of Soviet politicians (except Lavrenti Beria) were not used in leaflets. It is interesting to notice that twice we came across naming not by family name but by the given name and patronymic. There was one instance of 'Lavrenti Pavlovich' (Beria). The using of such forms can be regarded as a kind of irony. Another case was 'Boris Nikolaevich' in a leaflet of March 1991 (30). Since the name 'Yeltsin' was used just a few words before, the choice of form may have been due to a desire to avoid repetition. Nonetheless, the use of this form is a sign of familiarity and can indicate personal warmth. The names of political opponents appear frequently: Ligachev, then Polozkov, and Makashov (a general who raised his voice against Gorbachev). These names are also manifestive because other political groups, including followers of these politicians, did not mention them in their leaflets. Geographical names were also manifestive for leaflets. In particular the term 'Russia' (Rossija) was highly significant. Till the end of 1989 it appeared only in nationalist leaflets, referring not only to the Russian republic that was a part of the USSR, but to the Soviet Union as a whole. But when the elections to the Republican (i.e. Russian) Soviet were proclaimed, this word lost its manifestivity, since the democrats also used it very frequently (referring only to the Republic, not to the whole state). From May 1991, when Yeltsin became Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia, and the Russian Parliament was declared to be a stronghold of reforms (while the Parliament of the USSR was regarded as conservative), the adjective rossijskij (from Rossija) became manifestive for democratic pamphlets, while nationalists used the adjective russkij (from Rus', the ancient territory around Kiev), which is traditionally attributed only to an ethnic group. Taking all the lexical items that can show the authorship of leaflets as a whole, we can examine those words that were manifestive throughout the period 1989-1991 and those that have different connotations in 1989 and in 1991. The following words have the most stable manifestivity over the period: 'freedom' (svoboda) and its derivatives, 'radical' applied to reforms (a word also actively used by pro-communists, the nationalists alone preferring other words), prava cheloveka ('rights of man', 'human rights' as distinct from the pro-communist 'rights of working people'). To some extent chestnyj (honest, upright) was also manifestive, as was zdravomysljashchij (sensible). These are the words that democrat pamphleteers applied to themselves. The manifestive lexis used to characterise their perceived enemies were: 'totalitarianism', reaktsija ([conservative] reaction, stalinshchina ('the Stalinist order'), 'dictatorship' (which in 1991 was also used by opponents of Yeltsin), pravyj

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(as opposed to left, though the word 'left' was not used in leaflets to characterise democrats), 'bolshevik' and derivatives (occurring very seldom in nationalist leaflets, but avoided entirely pro-communists), zatjagivanie ('dragging their feet over [reforms]', and some others. In 1989 the words sanovniki (high officials), vzjatochniki (bribe-takers) and privilegii (privileges) cropped up frequently in democratic movement texts, but in 1990-1991 they disappeared. This can be explained by the fact that in spring 1990 the democrats came to power, at least partially, in the Republic, Moscow, Leningrad and some other places, thus themselves becoming sanovniki, and benefiting from privilegii. Some words acquire manifestivity, or increase the manifestivity that they already have. Thus the word suverenitet (sovereignty) became manifestive in spring 1990. Before then it had been rarely used by the democrats, though sometimes it was used by pro-communists. It was very important to pay attention to words used for addressing readers. The choice of address forms was clearly manifestive in 1989, when democrats used the expression sograzhdane (fellow-citizens, or 'co-citizens'), nationalists used sootechestvenniki (compatriots) and sometimes Moskvichi (Muscovites), while the pro-communist leaflets began, as ever, with the word tovarishchi (comrades). However, at the beginning of 1990, during the elections, democrats used all these variants, including tovarishchi. A further example of changing manifestivity is the word 'populism' (populizm) that was used by communists and other opponents of Yeltsin, including his democratic opponents, in order to characterise him negatively. So it was never used in democratic leaflets before September 1991, where it was used for perceived negative characteristics of the Moscow City Council: Net èkstremizmu i populizmu! (No to extremism and populism!). Maybe it was supposed that there would be no association with Yeltsin, who was at that moment a hero, the winner of a putsch, and the most dominant figure in the Soviet Union. There are a number of words that cannot occur in democratic pamphlets; they are positively manifestive for other political groups, but negatively manifestive for democratic texts. Examples of these are: the adjective russkij discussed above and characteristic only of nationalist discourse, the nouns 'freemason' and 'Zionist' again used by the nationalists to refer to Jews. Interestingly, the word for 'Jew' (evrej) is absent from the texts of almost all political groupings; only the extreme nationalists of Pamyat used the pejorative zhid ('Yid'). The words 'patriot' and 'patriotism' are also avoided by the democrats, presumably because they are used for self-nomination by the nationalists, and also by the pro-communists, who use it, though without the specific connotations of nationalistic ideology.

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It is also possible to isolate a set of words and specific collocations that were used only by the pro-communists, and not by the democrats. Amongst these are: 'socialist choice' (sotsialisticheskij vybor), 'unemployment' (bezrabotitsa), 'nationalism', 'separatism', 'bourgeois'. Of this set, the number of words that changed their manifestivity is greater than among the words of nationalistic manifestivity described above. In 1989 Such words as spravedlivost' (justice), ravenstvo (equality) were manifestive; even the word sotsialisticheskij (socialist) was used by democratic authors with a positive connotation. But in 1990-1991 these words disappear from democratic texts and certain terms, for example ravenstvo and sotsialisticheskij, became negatively manifestive for them: they were used only by pro-communists. Why are some words so typical for democrats? Why did some items of vocabulary became taboo? The obvious explanation is the connection with ideology: the democrats supposed that the most important item of struggle was human rights and related ideas, while the nationalists paid more attention to ethnic issues (hence the significance of the term russkij). The ideological framework has straightforward reflexes in the preferred vocabulary. In addition, manifestive lexis changes over time in relation to the focus of political debate. Thus, for instance, when democratic propaganda was giving its attention to the struggle for justice, the pamphlets used the Russian words for 'justice', 'privilege', etc. When the main point became the struggle against the 'centre', the words 'sovereignty' and rossijskij became manifestive. There are also some formal linguistic aspects of manifestive vocabulary. Nearly all manifestive words with positive, approving connotations are of Latin origin. This is a reflection of the route of these loan words—they entered Russian political discourse via Western liberal ideology. The nationalists, however, use foreign words mostly to designate their opponents ('masons', for example), the exception being the word 'patriot'. We must of course take into consideration that there were also manifestive words in Russian political discourse well before 1989. All the clichés of Soviet propaganda were highly manifestive. Anyone using them could obviously do so in order to manifest his or her support, perhaps selecting more standard or less standard clichés to show their strength of commitment or their inventiveness. But clichés could also be used to indicate that the text in question should not be taken for seriously—the authors were writing in that way because they were being paid for it. The clichés could even be understood as indicating that the text should not be read at all. Indeed, the great majority of ordinary people never read political articles or political speeches, and official clichés and slogans were the butt of many jokes (see Levin 1978). One might suppose that these words became negatively manifestive for democrats and would never be used by them. This is not at all the case. Many

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political clichés in fact became quite normal in democratic leaflets, and their frequency of occurrence is in some cases greater at this time than in Pravda, where the number of such clichés and fixed collocations had been decreasing since 1985 (see Borisova 1993). Typical examples are such collocations as 'exploited detachments of working people' (ekspluatiruemye otrjady trudjashchixsja), and words such as 'protégé' (stavlennik) and 'clique'. The great majority of manifestive words found in the democratic movement texts were widely used in Soviet propaganda, albeit applied to other objects, with exceptions such as 'totalitarianism', 'apparatchik' and 'nomenklatura'. 4. Conclusion: the characteristics of pamphlet discourse The above data are a selected and limited sample. Nonetheless, they suggest some tentative conclusions concerning Russian political discourse and its means of expression in the period 1989-91. The most important features characterising political discourse are images of the speaker, of the addressees, and of the relations between them. The latter include such relationships as those of trust, co-operation, interactive discussion, and the like. The connections with tradition, that is, with the political discourse of the Soviet period, should not be overlooked. We can conclude that the image of the speaker/writer and hearer/reader changed significantly during 1989-91. It was not simply a matter of image—to some extent persons changed also. In 1989 there were two types of texts: those that were highly emotional and those that come across as rather rational and moderate. The highly emotional ones were less numerous and also included some elements of argument. They were addressed to those who needed to be persuaded and convinced. At this stage the democrats were recruiting followers, and the authors of leaflets assumed they would find them mostly among educated individuals who were used to reasonable argument. After February 1990 the reasonability becomes rarer. Many of the leaflets are filled with emotional vocabulary. And texts that do not appear to express direct emotions have the appearance of orders—commands to those who are ready to receive them. This shift was connected with the personalisation of politics. Proper names, for instance, were used very frequently at that time. It may be the case that the change in discourse reflected a move toward belief, rather than reasoned argument. A little later during the elections a third type of discourse appears—a discourse type which is rather quiet and non-insistent. Proper names still play an important role. The leaflets of this period read as if they are addressed to people who are more ready to believe than to argue, but who still need to be converted to the democrats. In particular, the authors take popular patriotism

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into consideration, a factor that was not apparently regarded as important the year before. By the end of the elections the mere mentioning of Demokraticheskaja Rossija was enough to gain votes without any effort. Though the second half of 1990 was comparatively calm, political leaflets took on a vehement tone in order to draw people to the democrats, just as in February of that year. And in the following year, after the considerable success of the democrats, the leaflets were characterised both by an informative function and by the giving of orders, without any overt attempt to persuade. If we compare the political situation of the brief period 1989-1991 with the Soviet period as a whole, it might seem to many people that the political culture had changed dramatically. During the period of late perestroika, different political forces expressed the interests of many groups, and proclaimed their principles more or less openly. This was completely unimaginable in the Soviet period, when only official propaganda was possible and political life produced an impression of a ritual without content (see Levin 1978). Nevertheless, the language of the democrats, that is to say, the language of the unofficial and anticommunist groups, continued to display very many features that were typical for the language of Soviet propaganda. A large part of the political lexicon remained the same, although the objects changed. For example, negative vocabulary in the Soviet period was mostly applied to foreign enemies, while in democratic leaflets it came to be used to blame internal ones. The quantity of clichés and fixed collocations, so typical of Soviet propaganda, also did not change greatly. Finally, it is worth noting the fact that the leaflets seem to preserve the Russian tradition of highly emotive political discourse. Notes 1 2

On this period, cf. Ilyin, above p. 11. This information on the intended addressees was provided by the authors of the leaflets in question.

References Arutyunova, N. D. (1990) Metafora i diskurs. Teorija metafory, Moscow, Progress Blakar, R. M. (1979) 'Language as a Means of Social Power' in J. Mey (ed.), Pragmalinguistics, The Hague and Paris, Mouton Bolinger, D. (1973) Truth as a Linguistic Question', Language, 49 (3), pp. 539-50 Baranov, A. N. and Y. N. Karaulov (1991) Russkaja politicheskaja metafora, Moscow, Moscow Academy of Sciences Borisova, E. G. (1993) 'Politicheskaja listovka kak novyj zhanr teksta', Rusistika Burkhardt, A., F. Hebel and R. Hoberg (1989) Sprache zwischen Militär und Frieden. Aufrüstung der Begriffe, Tübingen, Narr

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Lasswell, H. D., N. Leites, et al. (1968) The Language of Politics. Studies in Quantitative Semantics, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press Mueller, C. (1990) The Politics of Communication. A Study in the Political Sociology of Language, Socialization and Legitimation, New York, Oxford University Press Kostomarov, V. G. (1971) Russkij jazyk na gazetnoj poise, Moscow, Moscow State University Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, Chicago University Press Levin, Y. (1978) 'Zametki o semiotike lozungov', Vienna, Wiener Slawistischer Almanach, 22

10 Justice, Equality and Freedom: The Structure of Value Concepts

Anatolii Baranov Institute of Russian Language

1. Introduction: cognitive consequences of socio-political revolutions The epochs of social revolutions are at the same time epochs of the restructuring of social consciousness. The collision of old beliefs with new ones results in a heated cognitive conflict, spilling over to the pages of newspapers and magazines, causing a political crisis, bringing increased life and vigour into democratic meetings, rallies, strikes. In some especially difficult situations the cognitive conflict leads to armed clashes between rival socio-political groups. What is at the centre of clashes of opinion is value categories, that is, constructs which are both semantic and cognitive. These constructs determine people's behaviour, their assessment of passing events and of other people around them, dividing them into friends and enemies. It is values and their hierarchy that form the conceptual basis of the political language of the new epoch. The revolutionary periods of perestroika and post-perestroika in the former USSR are no exception. After 1989 the average person was exposed to a torrent of disturbing information from newspapers and television, containing so many new, and sometimes alien, ideas that it was extremely difficult even for a specialist to really understand the content of a political programme. On the one hand, everybody was discussing new notions—notions as such as those expressed by the Russian terms perestrojka, post-perestrojka, demokratija, pravovoe gosudarstvo (lawful state, state based on constitutional law, Rechtsstaat). On the other hand, people seemed to be changing the meanings of existing words at will, almost in the manner of Lewis Carroll's HumptyDumpty. For example, the customary conceptual oppositions (our) socialist

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people's power versus (their) bourgeois democracy, (our) rights versus (their) rights (i.e. no rights for the poor but freedom for the rich), (our) unity versus (their) pluralism, which had up to then had a distinct conceptual correlate, namely, good versus bad, seemed to become less clearly differentiated, and in fact to end up by being obliterated. Such shifts occurred either because of the introduction of a new member into the opposition (for example, democracy as a human value common to all), or as a result of a change in the interpretation of one or both of its members. Simultaneously with this conceptual 'erosion' of the opposition of values, these oppositions lose what one might term 'their assessment correlate'—a crucial factor in decision making, in structuring our experience, and in turning our actions into conscious deeds. This 'erosion' of meaning can occur in all human societies. A society may, at a certain historical moment, have to deal with badly-defined values, and may even suffer from a shortage of values. The cognitive processes, specific to a revolutionary situation may, for instance, include the following: —creation of new values —revival of the values of the previous socio-political order —revival of culturally-conditioned values, which have deep roots in social consciousness. These cognitive processes, taking place in mass consciousness, lead to a differentiation of values, which triggers a cognitive conflict complicating any attempts at reaching consensus. 2. Values we live by: justice and freedom The periods of 'perestroika' and 'post-perestroika' in Russia offer a source of rich material for the analysis of changing value structures. There was at this time in the social consciousness of Soviet society a clearly-represented opposition of two polar values. One of the members of this opposition included two categories—the category of spravedlivost' (justice) and the category of ravenstvo (equality). The other member of the opposition was the concept of svoboda (freedom). Other values tend to be closer in political discussions to one of these two poles. The categories of spravedlivost' (justice) and ravenstvo (equality) have deep roots in the traditions of Russian culture—compare for example the conceptual world of the Russian notion of community. These categories are an inherent part of the system of values both of 'the society of developed socialism' (obshchestvo razvitogo sotsializma) and of the historical periods preceding it, including the 1917 revolutionary period. In modern Russian political jargon justice and equality often correlate with and imply sotsial'naja spravedlivlost' (social justice). The latter integrates the

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principle of equal distribution of material wealth with the idea of equal rights.1 The two main dimensions of equality—'I must have as much as you do', 'you must have as much as I do'—are very easy to understand. In political discourse spravedlivost' (justice) has a psychological correlate of redistribution of material wealth, and even the mentioning of 'justice' is enough to cause this association with the meaning of redistribution. That is why from a pragmatic point of view social justice is more likely to be interpreted in terms of distribution. In conditions of economic instability and a shortage of resources, the associated meanings of equality led society to the self-destructive idea, 'may you live as badly as I do'. The history of 'freedom' in Russia needs to be discussed separately. It must be noted that despite certain periods when this concept came to the fore, 'freedom' was not referred to as a priority value in the society of 'developed socialism'. It is only since the early 1990s that Russian society (more generally, post-Soviet society) is beginning to realise other meanings of this value. Generalising, one might speculate that it is in critical situations that one can observe the consequences of treating certain values as priorities for social consciousness. The tendency to use justice in problem solving considerably reduces the number of alternative solutions for an individual or for society as a whole. The concept of freedom, as a value, gives society more scope and flexibility to meet the challenge of the situation in which it finds itself. It seems likely, then, that the value structure of our political life and social consciousness in the period of perestroika and post-perestroika can be characterised in terms of an often disguised confrontation of justice/equality and freedom. But further questions suggest themselves. Which value prevails in the value structures of perestroika and post-perestroika? Which do we want, in fact, justice or freedom? Does the discourse of Soviet society possess what Tetlock (1986, 1988) calls 'integrative complexity' in the analysis and solution of problems, a capability that the new stage of the socio-political development of the country demands? In other words, is our way of thinking flexible enough? In analysing this conflict between justice/'equality on the one hand and freedom on the other it is natural to turn to first-hand evidence, that is, to the real discourse of argumentation. I shall concentrate here on the first period of the second Russian revolution—that is to say, on 'perestroika', rather than on 'post-perestroika'. 2.1 The argumentation potential of justice and freedom The conceptual opposition of spravedlivost' (justice) and svoboda (freedom), appeared consistently in public political discourse of the Soviet period. It is clear that the weight of the members of this opposition is different:

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spravedlivost' (especially sotsial'naja spravedlivlostr) is in fact understood as being in line with state policy, while svoboda played a very secondary role. 2 The enormous popularity of spravedlivost' and ravenstvo finds expression in certain typical schemes of argumentation used by politicians. For example, ravenstvo is often used to substantiate demands for resources. Such demands take different syntactic and semantic forms in actual discourse. The following examples are modalised sentences of the deontic type (dolzhen) modified by the conjunction poskol'ku (in so far as, to the extent that), and take the form 'if it is the case that y(X), then it ought to be the case that y(X')': as long as others have it, so should we (poskol'ku est' i u drugix, to i u nas dolzhno byt') so long as we vote once, so should others (poskol'ku my golosuem odin raz, to i drugie dolzhny golosovat' odin raz) so long as all adhere to the quotas, so you must adhere to the quotas [i.e., to the voting quotas for the Supreme Soviet] (poskol'ku vse priderzhivajutsja kvoty, to i vy priderzhivajtes' kvoty) if some deputies are frequently published in the mass media, so should we be (esli odni deputaty chasto vystupat' v sredstvax massovoj informatsii, to i my dolzhny chasto vystupat' v sredstvax massovoj informatsii). What one might call the 'cognitive pressure' of the concept of equality expression in universal propositions, such as the following:

finds

all the deputies are equal, all are awarded the trust of the people, there are neither clever ones nor fools (vse deputaty ravny—vse udostoeny doverija, net ni umnyx, ni durakov). In other forms of this type of argumentation, a comparison is presented by focusing on a category that is a recipient of some distributed resource (in a situation of 'doing justice'), singling the category out from the social background where distribution is effected. Such categories are given thereby a kind of autonomy, and acquire the special status of exemplars. Speakers who are constructing the argument appeal to the example and use it as a general principle of distribution, expressed modally (dolzhen). From a syntactic point of view, such types of argument involve two sentences, in both of which the thematic noun is the same, but the predicate or prepositional phrase (frequently denoting location) is varied: in developed capitalist countries the wages account for 70% of the sum total of the whole product, in the USSR it is only 37-38% (v razvityx kapitalisticheskix stranax zarplata sostavljaet sem'desjat protsentov ot stoimosti proizvedennogo produkta, a v SSSR—lish' tridtsat' sem'- tridtsat' vosem'protsentov)

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in developed countries the bank is independent, consequently, it ought to be independent in our country too (v razvityx stranax bank nezavisim, sledovateVno, i u nas dolzhen byt' nezavisim) in civilised countries leaders' wives carry out public functions, it should be the same with us (v tsivilizovannyx gosudarstvax zheny rukovoditelej vypolnjajut obshchestvennye funktsii, i u nas dolzhno byt' tak zhe). The value category of equality makes it possible not only to make demands, but to defend oneself from charges. In such cases speakers make use of a 'yes, but' structure, in which the speaker concedes his or her own fault, while asserting his or her own similarity to (or 'equality' with) others, pragmatically implying zero responsibility, reduced responsibility, or, at the most, coresponsibility. The following are examples: yes, I am bad, but others are no better (da, ja plox, no i drugie ne lushche) I have a hand in it, but others have a hand in it too (ja zameshan, no i drugie zameshany). The converse may also occur, with the 'others' thematised: everybody bears responsibility for this, and I, of course, also (vse nesut otvetstvennost' za èto, i ja, konechno, tozhe). In other examples the syntax (co-ordinated noun phrases) represents the self and the 'others' as 'equal' in some action: I and other workers of party, Soviet and juridical bodies share responsibility for this kind of situation (ja i drugie rabotniki partijnyx, sovetskix i pravooxranitel'nyx organov nesut otvetstvennost' za takoe polozhenie).3 Distributing and sharing portions of blame among all or many people according to the principle of 'equality' not only relieves individuals and groups of responsibility, but also reduces and changes the meaning of the blame itself, levelling it to a natural calamity. What I am arguing here is that pragmatically this argumentation succeeds because of the high value rating of the equality value category. Orwell's 'newspeak' obliterated semantic (and moral) opposites: 'peace is war'. Orwell was satirising the USSR of Stalin, but even in post-Soviet Russia the same tendency is apparent. Our rather short experience of the development of democracy has the effect of levelling the extreme terms in some of the conceptual fields typical of political discourse. The paradox of any political discourse is indeed that a given value, rating very high in the hierarchy of values relating to some field of action, is frequently used to validate or to justify actions belonging to a completely different field. The categories of perestrojka and demokratija examples of' such values. The etymology (and

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conventional understanding) of the term demokratija indicates the 'power' (or 'strength') of the 'people', or 'people's power'. But the Russian compound narodovlastie (popular power, power of the people) turns out to be a somewhat different conceptual category, not directly equivalent to demokratija', it is in fact a category sui generis. However, the values from the one (power of the people, belonging to the old Soviet discourse) may be transferred to the other (liberal democracy and its electoral procedures): direct elections [of the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet] will lead to an unjustified redistribution of power, because a new post will appear, not subordinate to the Supreme Soviet, and this will limit the power of the people (prjamye vybory privedut k neopravdannomu pereraspredeleniju vlasti, poskol'ku pojavljaetsja novaja dolzhnost', ne podchinennaja Verxovnomu Sovetu, a èto ogranichivaet narodovlastie). As it is difficult to argue against the fact that direct elections actually realise the ideals of demokratija, a category from a different discourse is introduced, namely, narodovlastie, and the new notion can be used according to different rules and in a different meaning. The speaker thus does not have to say the unsayable: 'elections will result in limiting democracy'. This means of argumentation is comparable with the method of semantic decomposition (cf. Parshin and Sergeev (1984), Baranov and Parshin (1986)). The categories of spravedlivost' (justice) and svoboda (freedom) are comparable in this respect with perestrojka and demokratija: spravedlivost' (justice) can very readily be used to justify ne spravedlivost' (injustice), and ravenstvo (equality) to justify neravenstvo (inequality). For example, at the first Congress of People's Deputies, one deputy accounted for the fact that certain groups of the population have privileges by using the argument that other groups have privileges too: let us all be equal in inequality! Similarly, the use of sila (force) as a parameter of distribution in the value of justice may lead to complete arbitrariness. Thus, values which are apparently polar in meaning, are not so in practice in political discourse. The high rating of these or other values in the structure of social consciousness shows up in the functioning of political discourse and, in particular, in political argumentation. Analysis of the discourse in the perestroika period shows that the argumentation potential of spravedlivost' and ravenstvo in the mentality of former Soviet people is all the greater as the argumentation potential of svoboda is almost zero. This explains the fact that most of the references to freedom made in the speeches at the first Congress were made not in terms of the argumentation potential of the concept of freedom, but in terms of a short comment on the speaker's own system of values. Thus appeals to freedom are not considered convincing arguments in the social consciousness of Soviet society. An argument that runs 'this is bad

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because it does not provide my freedom' (èto ploxo, potomu chto èto ne obespechivaet moju svobodu) is pragmatically inadequate in Russian political discourse. 2.2 The semantic worlds of justice and freedom The dominance of justice and equality in the value structure of Russian social consciousness favours the appearance of social myths, which can be in full measure traced in political discussions in the USSR and in the Russian public discourse that emerged in the perestroika period. To understand fully the connections between the social mythology and the axiological concepts it is necessary, at least in outline, to describe the semantic content of justice and freedom as categories of a natural language, in this case, Russian. The main problem in providing a semantic description that includes value meanings comes from the peculiarities of usage in political discourse. The fact that the words we are concerned with are used in demagogy means that there is no consistency, or consensus, as to conceptual or referential specificities, and that such words tend to be perceived as political 'labels' appropriated by speakers with various political commitments and motives. The notion of 'misleading labels' is reminiscent of the famous advice by K. Prutkov, a wellknown Russian poet: 'Don't believe your eyes.' 4 Compare, for example: 'democracy' and 'democratic games' (demokratija and demokraticheskie igry), 'pluralism' and 'political all-permissiveness' (pljuralizm and politicheskie vsedozvolennost'), 'equality before the law' and 'equality-levelling of wages' (ravenstvo pered zakonom and ravenstvo-uravnilovka). What can be seen from these examples is that the meaning of the value can be radically changed by the collocation. To give an even clearer example—svoboda cheloveka (the freedom of man) can be totally abandoned under the conditions of svoboda gosudarstva (the freedom of the state). Thus, the notions associated with one and the same word become quite opposite, depending on the collocation. The seeming arbitrariness of the content considerably broadens the actual potential of value words, and may even create an intuitive feeling of apprehension at the sight of them. Nevertheless, every lexical unit with value meaning has a peculiar semantic structure. Thus, spravedlivost', as we have seen, is associated in Russian consciousness with distribution. And in fact, the actions, which we are liable to judge as just or unjust may be understood as passing from one person to another or retaining some resources, such as money, rights, medical treatment, and so on. Thus it is possible to propose, as a hypothesis, a list of the main components of the semantic world, or frame, of spravedlivost': —the agent of distribution (the one who actually distributes the resource)

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—the recipient of distribution (the one, who receives the resource) —the resource of the distribution (material or spiritual benefits, power, etc.) —the parameter of distribution, i.e. the principle of the distribution. The number of these components is constant, and is characteristic of the constant areas of the meaning of justice as a value. But in every particular discourse case new meanings are assigned—variables of the area of the semantic world of justice. The moment we choose levelling as a parameter of the distribution, then spravedlivost' transforms into a very stable cognitive structure—ravenstvo (equality, in the sense of Aristotle's 'justice of levelling'). The stability of ravenstvo (equality) is ensured. On the one hand, it is guaranteed by the conceptually basic character of the parameter 'level' and 'levelling'.6 On the other hand, it is ensured by the easy control in the practical world over levelling-type distribution, compared with more complex parameters (distribution according to labour for example). The unquestionable nature of the parameter to a certain extent limits the arbitrariness of the agent in charge of the distribution; naturally, this is approved of by the recipients of the distribution. As noted above, the category of ravenstvo has a very high value rating. The two modalities of equality—'may you have what I have', 'let me have what you have'—reflect the initial attitudes of the agent as regards the resource. Given a shortage of the resource, the speaker in the first case expresses readiness to share it, and in the second case, readiness to share its absence. It has been noted more than once that in Russian public discourse it has been the second modality of equality that has dominated in the social consciousness of Soviet and Russian society: 'Let everybody live as badly as I do.' In Soviet political culture ravenstvo stands next to sotsial'naja spravedlivost', a variant of spravedlivost' that is targeted on the area of the resources which are especially scarce. For example, few people mention sotsial'naja spravedlivost' in connection with the ordinary every-day purchase of bread. But the distribution of apartments, cars, allotments in the country, etc., have been thought of as subject to the control of 'social justice'. The dynamics of the development of the economic and political processes in the USSR was such that more and more resources of different types were channelled into the sphere of influence of 'social justice'. Let us compare the structure of the concept of spravedlivost' (justice) with its axiological rival, the concept of svoboda (freedom), according to their respective places in the hierarchies of values. The semantic world of svoboda stands in polar opposition to spravedlivost' (justice) and ravenstvo (equality). In a sense, the concept associated with the word svoboda, in its prototypical form, has a simpler structure: it has only one agent and is extended into the

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inner world of the human subject. One basic variant of the svoboda concept is 'socially autonomous'. It is limited exclusively by the wishes of the subject and his or her opportunities. Thus, X is free, if the wishes and intentions of X (irrespective of whether they are translated into reality or not) are not limited by his or her opportunities (more precisely, are in keeping with his or her opportunities). A cognitive structure characterised in such terms may called 'prototypical' or 'non-reflexive' freedom. Such 'prototypical freedom' is socially autonomous in the sense that, being oriented to that value concept, the agent does not need a direct response from the social environment: indeed, the conceptual structure of 'prototypical freedom', as defined here, has no relation to society as such. From the linguistic point of view 'prototypical freedom' is not gradable. That is, one cannot speak of being 'free-er', one is either free or not-free: freedom either exists or is non-existent, otherwise it would pass into a different form. Furthermore, 'prototypical freedom' has little verbal expression in discourse—it is discussed only if there is a danger of losing it. And here we move on to the second interpretation of svoboda. In its prototype interpretation svoboda is to a great extent alien to our consciousness and is not always in keeping with social experience. The concept of prototypical freedom must be specially taught. Consider, for instance, its treatment in didactic or religious texts. In the Buddhist canon, it is defined as a special way of life and a special state of mind ('have few wishes and you will be free'). The pressure of reality on the existence of the concept of prototypical freedom in the cognitive system of humans causes reflection on the possible obstacles, making the realisation of wishes and intentions for definite aims more difficult, leading to the modification of the prototype interpretation of freedom. Let us analyse two basic instances of such modification. In the first instance, the subject realises that obstacles exist, but the actual aims of the subject are such that their realisation cannot be hindered by possible obstacles. This concept can be called 'reflexive freedom'. This concept, unlike the basic one, allows grading, because in this case obstacles may be fewer or greater in number. The most important thing is that the conceptual frame for reflexive freedom has a slot for a second agent. This slot is concealed by the concept of obstacles. The significance of obstacles, and of the image schema of motion toward a goal, increases considerably in the concept of 'external freedom'—the second modification of 'prototypical freedom'. External freedom does not only presuppose awareness of the effect of obstacles on the choice of aims. In such a situation there is no complete correspondence between wishes and opportunities. External freedom can be given, granted, provided, taken away,

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passed on to another person, etc. It is assumed that there can be more or less freedom depending on the number of obstacles. In granting freedom the controlling agent reduces the number of obstacles; taking freedom away increases this number. The interpretation of freedom as 'known necessity' (poznannaja neobxodimost') in its full measure corresponds to 'external freedom'.7 It is worth noting that the first meaning of the word svoboda given in the Russian-Russian dictionary edited by A. P. Yevgeneva, spells out the meaning of the concept of 'external' freedom as 'the ability of man to act in keeping with his interests and aims, making use of the knowledge of objective necessity (neobxodimost ') '. Graphically, the semantic development of 'prototypical' freedom (svoboda) can be presented in the following way:

The other meanings of the word svoboda, fixed in language usage, can be deduced from the prototype interpretation of the concept and its two main modifications. From the point of view of the analysis of discourse and argument it is essential that the semantic content of external freedom (and, partly, reflexive

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freedom) allows a second agent. This is a decisive factor which favours the introduction of modifications of prototype freedom into the cognitive structure of justice as a resource for distribution. The ability of justice to identify itself with the parameter of distribution in the structure of justice lowers greatly the argumentation potential of freedom in Russian political discourse. This is particularly characteristic of those societies in whose social consciousness justice and equality dominate, because in this case the appeal to the value in the argument is often focused on a comprehensive structure—justice—and not on the resource.

3. Myths in Soviet and post-Soviet social consciousness The specificity of the semantic structure of spravedlivost' and svoboda, as well as the position of these concepts in the value hierarchy of the social consciousness of the perestroika period, are manifest in the inadequacy of the argumentative potential of svoboda on the one hand, and in the current use of spravedlivost' on the other. Furthermore, the exaggerated value status of spravedlivost' is conducive to the cognitive stability of a number of 'myths' embedded in social consciousness, myths that are constantly revived in political discourse. 3.1 The myth of the enemy One such myth is the image of the enemy. The semantic structure of spravedlivost' and svoboda (primarily, reflexive freedom and external freedom) are similar in that they permit the existence of the external enemy: in the first case this is an enemy in relation to the whole situation of just distribution, and in the second it is an enemy in relation to wishes and intentions. It is well-known that the idea of 'the hostile environment of the USSR' played a decisive role in the development of Soviet society and to a significant extent channelled both domestic and foreign policy. It is difficult to imagine any state conducting a successful foreign policy under conditions where both the parties, more or less equal in military might, see each other exclusively as enemies and interpret their diplomatic actions in terms of metaphors of military confrontation. In the Soviet period the confrontational character of diplomacy is reflected in conventionalised military metaphors: 'the victory (pobeda) of the peaceful diplomacy of the USSR', 'the defence (zashchita) of our proposals', 'the peaceful diplomacy of the USSR is on the offensive' (v nastuplenii).

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In this regard, the conceptual frames of spravedlivost' and svoboda are similar. However, unlike svoboda, the semantic structure of the category of spravedlivost' supports a whole number of notion's about internal enemies. The cognitive phantom of 'the enemy within', which shows itself in attempts to personify any obstacles imagined to be in the way of the social, political or economic development of society, fits perfectly into the cognitive scheme of just distribution. The typological characteristics of internal enemies turn out to be connected with the agent and recipient slots of the spravedlivost' frame. The typical enemy-agent of just distribution in the period of perestroika was the 'administrative command system' (administrativno-komandnaja sistema), which was regarded as the enemy-agent, the equivalent of the 'kulaks' (rich farmers) and the vrachi-ubijtsy (killer doctors) in the discourse of the Stalinist period, while those who co-operate with the system were regarded as enemyrecipients. According to the theory of I. Shafarevich (1989), the agents and the recipients in the spravedlivost' frame are united in the image 'enemies of the people' (yragi naroda) and 'small people' (malyj narod). The conceptual world of svoboda, especially in its prototype variant, does not in principle admit the existence of internal enemies, because in this case the conceptual structure of svoboda would change beyond recognition and require totally different features. 3.2 The myth of order 'We have a rich land,' wrote the Soviet author A. K. Tolstoy. 'The only thing we do not have is order.'8 The idea that everything would be all right if only there were enough order—implying, let us establish the right method of distribution, let us control and everything will be good—fits quite naturally into the concept of spravedlivost'. Total stock-taking and control, including control over distribution, over the agents and recipients of distribution, control over the resources, and control over the controllers themselves—these are seen as the means of establishing order. It is easier to control levelled, standardised parameters. That is the reason why anything specific, out of the ordinary, different from the general standard often causes dissatisfaction and is perceived in social consciousness as dangerous. At the same time the 'mythologeme' of porjadok (order) supports, in its turn, the concept of spravedlivost', putting the very structure of the situation of just distribution outside the scope of discussion and analysis, it being taken for granted that distribution is the domain where porjadok must be established. Needless to say, the value concept svoboda has nothing in common with the idea of porjadok.

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3.3 Faith in the just distributor Another important mythologeme is that of the tsar, the chief, the leader, the boss, and so on. This is aptly illustrated by the famous lines of the poem 'Our abandoned village' by N. A. Nekrasov: The master will come soon, the master will do justice.9 Under the conditions of any just distribution, faith in the agent executing the distribution is absolutely necessary, otherwise the whole system of distribution, based on recognition of the agent's rights in the control of resources, will collapse. In this case, the structure of spravedlivost' perfectly corresponds to the conceptual structure of the mythologeme of the just agent. Faith in the agent executing the distribution can, under certain circumstances, be transformed into paternalism—consider, for example, such phrases as 'the father of the peoples' (otets narodov), 'the best friend of the Soviet athletes' (luchshij drug sovetskix fizkul'turnikov), which paralyses any initiative on the part of the recipient of the distribution. The semantic world of svoboda (primarily in its prototype interpretation) is compatible neither with faith in the agent, nor with the mythologeme of paternalism. 4. Conclusion The mutual connections among the mythologemes 'the enemy', 'order', 'faith in the agent of distribution', 'paternalism', and the relation of these mythologemes to the semantic structure of spravedlivost', are not accidental. These features of social consciousness are naturally built into the semantics of spravedlivost', supporting it and providing for its stability. The dominating role of spravedlivost' shows not only in the argumentative force of this category, but also in the longevity of the above-mentioned mythologemes embedded in social consciousness. It is not that spravedlivost' is bad as such. The problem is that this is not the only thing that supports human life and society. The flexibility and viability of the social organism are directly linked with the pluralism of value categories, and the category of spravedlivost' is one of the values that can help our society get rid of what Francis Bacon called 'idols', 10 especially the dangerous 'idols of the market place' (idola fori) and 'idols of the cave'(idola specus), which drag Russian post-Soviet society into the abyss of endless distribution and redistribution.

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Notes 1

2

3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10

For a semantic and pragmatic analysis of spravedlivost', see Baranov and Sergeev (1988). Cf. also Frank (1989): 'Socialism is a world outlook, where the idea of production is replaced by the idea of distributionÖ The theory of the organisation of economy is only a technical question for socialism; the essence of socialism is distribution. The moral inspiration of socialism is focused on the idea of the justice of distribution.' (pp. 171-2). This can be seen from a statistical analysis of the use of value terms at the first Congress of People's Deputies: justice and equality are used as the most important categories in more than one third of the speeches made by the deputies; freedom in its exact sense was mentioned in one tenth of the speeches. See Baranov and Sergeev (1989). These examples are from the proceedings of the First Congress of People's Deputies, 1989. Prutkov (1987), Aphorism 106, pp.43, 44. For this approach to lexical semantics, see Fillmore (1985). The Russian morpheme ravn-/rovn- is associated with physical notions of flatness and alignment, and with abstract mathematical and physical notions of equality, as well as with the socio-political notions discussed here. In Russian neobxodimost' is derived from obxodit' (move round (an obstacle), avoid), as does the English inevitability (from Latin evitare, go out of the way, avoid). This etymology supports the analysis of concepts of freedom in terms of image schemas involving obstacles on a path. It has been argued, amongst others by Sweetser (1990), that modal expressions (must, may, can, etc.) should also be analysed in this way; there are obvious links between modality and notions of freedom and necessity. Tolstoy (1969), 'Istorija gosudarstva rossijskogo ot Gostomysla do Timashova', p.371. Nekrasov(1971),p.43. Francis Bacon, Novumorganum,pp. 38-68.

References Bacon, F. (1889) Novum Organum, ed. T Fowler, Oxford, Oxford University Press Baranov, A. N. and P. Parshin (1986) 'Jazkovyje mexanizmy variantivnoj interpretatsii dejstvitel'nosti kak sredstvo vozdejstvija na soznanie', Rol' jazyka v sredstvax massovoj kommunikatsii, Moscow, Nauka, pp. 100-43 Baranov, A. N. and V. M. Sergeyev (1988) 'Estestvennojazykovaja argumentatsija v logike prakticheskogo rassuzhdenija', Myshlennie, kognitivnye nauki, iskusstvennyj intellekt, Moscow, Nauka Baranov, A. N. and V. M. Sergeyev (1989) 'Struktura diskussij na Pervom S"ezde Narodnyx Deputatov SSSR: Svoboda ili spravedlivost'?' Paper presented at the Soviet-American Symposium on Interdependence, Institute of the USA and Canada of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Moscow Fillmore, C. J. (1985) 'Frames and the Semantics of Understanding', Quaderni di Semantica, 6 (2), pp. 222-53 Frank, C. (1989) Ideja sotsializma i russkaja istorija, Moscow, Vexi, Nekrasov, N. A. (1971) 'Zabytaja derevnja', Izbrannoe, Moscow, Sovremennik

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Parshin, P. and V. M. Sergeyev (1984) 'Ob odnom podxode k opisaniju sredstv izmenenie modeli mira' in Printsipal'nye voprosy teorii znanii, Working Papers of Tartu State University (Estonia), no. 688, pp. 127-43 Prutkov, K. (1987) 'Plody razdum'ja. Mysli i aforizmy', Sochinenija, Moscow, Rabochij Shafarevich, I. (1989) 'Rusofobija', Nash sovremennik, no. 6, pp. 25-154 and no. 11, pp. 79284 Slovar' russkogo jazyka, 4 vols., ed. A. P. Yevgeneva, Moscow, Russkij jazyk, 1957-61 Sweetser, E. (1990) From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure, Cambridge, Cambridge university Press Tetlock, P. E. (1986) 'A Value Pluralism Model of Ideological Reasoning', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50 (4), pp. 819-27 (1988) 'Monitoring the Integrative Complexity of American and Soviet Policy Rhetoric. What Can be Learned', Journal of Social Issues, 44 (2), pp. 101-31 Tolstoy, A. K. (1969) 'Istorija gosudarstva rossijskogo ot Gostomysla do Timashova' in Sobranie sochinenij, vol. 1, pp. 371-86

11 Continuity and Change: German Discourse after Unification Christina Schäffner Aston University

Peter Porsch University of Leipzig

1. Introduction: Language in the GDR The German language in the two German states has been much discussed (for a survey cf. Hellmann 1989, also Fleischer et al. 1987). When in 1990 the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did come to its end, the question of how the political system had influenced the language was being discussed with new vigour. Many papers have been published since then on language, speech and speechlessness in the GDR, on how the peaceful revolution liberated the language, and on 'old' and 'new' language (e.g. in the journals Muttersprache, Sprachpflege und Sprachkultur, Der Sprachdienst, Deutsch als Fremdsprache). Many of those initial papers were devoted to collecting and enlisting GDRspecific words and phrases, sometimes speculating which of them might survive in a united Germany (e.g. Hellmann 1990). Kretzenbacher (1991, p 181) compared such endeavours to an archaeological search for remains, in this case the remains of 'GDR German'. The relevance of such a collection for the history of the language and the people should not be neglected. Some of these words, e.g. Kinderkombination, Absolventenlenkung, reflect complete scenarios of how life functioned. An interpretation of their meanings requires the activation of culture-specific knowledge (a Kinderkombination, or KiKo,

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was an institution of child care combining a crèche, for children up to 3 years of age, and a kindergarten, for children between 3 and 6, in one building, and Absolventenlenkung denoted the system by which universities would provide jobs for their graduates, who were as a rule not allowed to look for jobs themselves). Some of these research papers, however, lacked a serious methodology and aimed instead at collecting examples to prove the point that GDR-citizens were exposed to 'words that choked', to quote the title of one book of that period (Oschlies's Würgende und wirkende Wörter, published in 1989). Such a position seemed to underestimate the variety of discursive practices which existed in the GDR. What was missing was an analysis of language in use (also demanded by Kretzenbacher 1991). Communicative practice in the GDR was much more complex than is implied by the characterisation 'words that choke'. When we as linguists of the GDR try to contribute to an elucidation of how (life in) the system functioned, we have to confess that such 'choking words' were somehow, at least sometimes, 'our words'. They did not just come over us. There existed not only the official language of the party and the government. Language was diverse, multifarious, especially in everyday talk. This was often critical speech, the language of social experience, the language of change. But a simple dichotomy of official (party) discourse and private (everyday) discourse would not do justice to the complex communicative practice in the former GDR. What we are interested in is not language (or words) in isolation, taken as a mere object of research; what interests us is how social reality is created and shaped by language. An isolating and objectifying concept of language is one which contrasts collections of linguistic units and examines them for differences. Our assumption, however, is that social reality is not only reflected in language and in communication, but that it is also constantly renewed by and in communication. This perspective sees linguistic differences or changes not so much as something to which individual speakers are exposed, but rather as something in which they are involved (cf. Hartung 1990). For a thorough analysis of the communicative practice in its complexity we would have to consider the role of language in the process of reproducing, modifying and creating anew our social reality. We would have to ask about the involvement of speakers and hearers in this process. We would have to ask how language is related to and affected by processes in which identities change, are lost, and found again or rescued. Word lists become less important, while text-types and their linguistic make-up persist and become of central interest. We will limit our analysis to two questions. First, we look at mechanisms of how the negotiation of social reality functioned in the GDR (for more detail, see Porsch 1991). Second, we illustrate the characteristic features

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by which social reality is reflected and constructed in one particular text-type, namely the government declaration (Regierungserklärung). In conclusion, we attempt to answer the question whether these mechanisms and features are culture-specific or whether they are determined by functional aspects which are more or less independent of cultural and/or political systems. 2. Discursive strategies in public political speech of the GDR The negotiation of social reality occurs both in public and in private communication. It was the social conditions determining public speech which led to the impression of 'words that choke'. It was in public speech that the resulting peculiarities were especially obvious. We will list some of them, using a framework developed by Ehlich (1989) for his analysis of speech under fascism in Germany. This framework seems suitable not only for the period of fascism, but also as a general methodology for analysing public discourse in political domains. The title of Ehlich's book is Sprache im Faschismus—language in (or under) fascism. He warns that trying to explain the 'language of fascism', which for a fairly long time had been the objective of linguistic research (mainly in the 1950s and 1960s), faces a double danger: either one gets lost in cultural criticism, or one concentrates in a positivistic fashion on a sort of lexicological hoarding (the creation of a thesaurus), while neglecting the pragmatic analysis of speech acts. This warning is also of relevance for linguistic research into the 'language of the GDR'. The study of 'language in the GDR', just as that of 'language under fascism', should aim at another dimension—namely the socio-political conditions of communicative practice. One characteristic of public political speech, both under fascism and in the GDR, is that it displayed a particular solemnity, especially in staged mass meetings. The text-types Gelöbnis (pledge or vow) and Manifestation (demonstration) were characteristic of these meetings. On specific occasions, like May Day, we used to come together for Kundgebungen or Manifestationen, with a Manifestation being the more ritualised, solemn procedure. We did not come together for Demonstrationen, since the main purpose was not for the people to demonstrate in protest, but to manifest their will to fulfil the decisions taken by the leaders of the ruling Communist Party, the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands). The word Demonstration was hardly used in official discourse, and when it was, it was mainly with reference to people parading along the streets and marching past political leaders standing on rostrums. The whole procedure had become ritualised, with texts set up and approved before being delivered. For the people these 'manifestations' meant a kind of artificial participation, real

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participation having been eliminated (cf. Ehlich 1989, p. 21). For the mass meetings in the autumn of 1989 the word Demo was deliberately chosen because they were meant as protest actions against official policy (cf. Schäffner 1992). As a second characteristic feature of public political speech in fascism Ehlich lists 'propositional reduction', by which he means the reduction of complex social reality to a short phrase or a keyword. The whole politically relevant vocabulary was created and re-created in this way, resulting in the development and consolidation of concepts guiding social action. Propositional reduction holds the promise of a simple world. Changes are promised which will, without cost, relieve individuals of their current ideological and material problems (Ehlich 1989, p. 22). Public speech in the GDR, due to an excessive use of the attributes 'socialist' or 'communist' in political communication was characterised by promises of a better future, often seen as already having been realised, with 'communism' presented as the highest form of the development of humankind. When we look at another characteristic feature mentioned by Ehlich, the 'command', it is clear that propositional reduction is not sufficient to describe all the discursive strategies of public speech in the GDR. Although we speak today of a 'command economy' with reference to the GDR, 'command' does not cover adequately the phenomenon known as Partei- und Staatsdisziplin (party- and state discipline). Part of the illocutionary pattern of the command is, according to Ehlich, the systematic elimination of the decisions and the consciousness of the hearer, a transition from linguistic action to immediate force, an 'ordained speechlessness' (verordnete Sprachlosigkeit), of the addressees (Ehlich 1989, p. 25). The command in the GDR did not function in exactly this way, however. Rather, there was a feigned public discourse on all political and economic affairs, which was fairly complex and communicatively controlled by a variety of text-types. The famous slogan Arbeite mit planes mit, regiere mit! (Translatable as 'join in working', planning, governing', more literally as 'work with [us/one another]', etc.) Was indicative of this. The word mit (with) should have made us suspicious. It is almost a kind of Freudian error which we hardly noticed. There were people who worked, planned and governed, and we were allowed to join them in doing so. And this in the GDR was called 'democratic centralism'. Those who governed gave an account of themselves at party congresses, at plenary sessions of the Central Committee of the Party, etc. Such procedures encompassed all levels of social life; there was a discourse on everything and everybody. Three specific discursive strategies had been developed. First, there was the rendering of the account itself. Giving an account meant proving that

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the decisions taken at the previous congress were correct and were creatively put into practice—in a word, that the rulers had acted correctly but that there had also been unforeseen problems which legitimised the new congress. References to 'life itself to legitimise previous or future political actions were common in the official discourse: 'naturally life itself demands that the goals reached be perfected' (natürlich verlangt das Leben, das Erreichte zu vervollkommnen, SED Party Congress 1986). Second, there was the debate This section proceeded in a similar way to the first: the representatives of the lower level institutions (the Basis) reported how, in their own spheres, they had creatively applied the decisions taken at the previous congress. Problems could be mentioned: they were the result of insufficiencies which had finally been overcome, and they were also the result of further social developments which made new decisions necessary, thus legitimising another congress. The third strategy was to provide the new 'directive' (Direktive), whose elaboration could hardly be influenced by the Basis at the congress itself, but which had been completed beforehand under what could be termed 'the indirect influence of the base'. In this connection, the monthly report from the base to the top, required from all social spheres, was of considerable importance. The 'directive' could not be questioned discursively; rather, it was analysed and implemented. In 'instruction sessions' (Anleitungen) we were expected to make accessible to ourselves the richness of ideas contained in the decisions and to apply them creatively. We were not speechless as in the case of a command, but we spoke mainly about how things could be done better. There were usually references to the party decisions, which were always 'pointing the way' (richtungsweisend). Talking about social structures and the distribution of power, and also about alternatives to the 'directives', was not common in the public domain. The whole procedure was ritualised and almost identical on all levels of the party hierarchy. The higher the level, however, the more prepared and checked in advance were the individual contributions. At the lowest levels, that is, at the monthly meetings of the party groups in institutions, free speech and even criticism were possible. Criticism, however, did not bear on fundamental social structures. The account and the directive were meant to be applicable in all spheres of social life. Therefore, their linguistic structure was fairly general. They were texts composed of the most general (superordinate) terms whose semantic content could hardly be specified. In the account to the 11th Congress of the SED (1986), for example, it was declared that the task was to shape the socialist relations of production in such a way that they promote the dynamic development of the productive forces in the interests of the strengthening of socialism (die sozialistischen Produktionsverhältnisse so

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auszugestalten, daß sie die dynamische Entwicklung der Produktivkräfte im Interesse der Stärkung des Sozialismus fördern).

This brings us back to the notion of propositional reduction, which, however, we understand in the following sense: the superordinate term was maximal in its extension, and minimal in its intension. Language was made more and more complicated in an attempt to grasp the complexity of the social processes. But the less this attempt was successful, the more complexity turned into triviality and emptiness. The whole discursive system was no longer able to function. The more complicated social life in the GDR became, the more the command was re-deployed, though it was increasingly ignored and refused. In order to give in retrospect an objective account of the communicative practice in the GDR, its diversity and complexity have to be studied. Language and speech in the GDR were more than a list of specific words and also more than the highly conventionalised texts of the official SED discourse. As Teichmann (1991 p.253) points out, critical linguistic analyses of public speech hardly existed, mainly for ideological reasons. It has also repeatedly been stressed that the breakdown of 'real socialism' did not result in a linguistic or communicative breakdown as well (Hellmann 1990, Neubert 1994). Rather, what we experienced were changes in communicative practice in the discursive strategies in the new federal states. We continued to experience changes in text-types, both in everyday and in public discourse (cf. Porsch 1992). A striking example is the text-type of the editorial or leading article in newspapers. In the GDR, the main function of the editorial was expository: the correct policy of the ruling Communist Party was explained by a social subject (who thought her/himself to be in possession of the truth) with the aim of consolidating social consciousness. The function of the editorial today appears more as interpretative and argumentative. An individual subject (individual in the sense that no claims are laid to objective truth) articulates his or her opinion of an event, this opinion itself being open to objection. 3. Discourse in a transitional period It is not so easy, however, to pinpoint such changes, since it takes time before they have materialised and become conventionalised. In addition, old habits die hard: there will be traces of the old communicative strategies in the new ones. The autumn of 1989 undoubtedly was a transitional period in the GDR, both in social life and in discursive practices and structures. Previously, the only official and officially published public discourse was the discourse of the SED. The discourse of the four other parties (Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany (DBD), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD), National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD)) did not

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show any major deviation from SED discourse. The main reason for this was that these parties were not opposition parties but accepted the 'leading role' of the SED and were also represented in the GDR parliament (the Volkskammer). After German unification, however, it became fashionable to point out that having been a member of a party other than the SED had meant opposition, and the West German parties were quick to embrace them. (The DBD fused with the east German CDU, the LDPD and NDPD fused to form the Alliance of Free Democrats (Bund Freier Demokraten, BFD), and subsequently the CDU and BFD merged with their West German counterparts, the CDU and FDP). From about mid-October 1989 onwards, SED discourse was no longer the only discourse publicly available. As a result of the increasing mass demonstrations, documents produced by opposition groups, previously published and distributed illegally, now circulated freely. The SED-owned mass media began to publish articles, appeals, and letters to the editor which were not in conformity with the official line of SED policy. And even within the SED itself there were heated debates about its policy and basic principles. In the autumn of 1989 political discourse was clearly in transition. Elements of SED discourse merged with elements of dissident and opposition discourse. This is reflected, for instance, in the collocations containing the word 'socialism': 'democratic socialism', or 'better socialism'. More 'democracy' was demanded, 'free elections' and 'free speech' as elements of a democratic society. The original objective in the autumn of 1989 was to improve life and introduce more democracy into the existing system. The people wanted actually to be listened to and involved in decision-making. The slogans of the first mass demonstrations in October and November 1989 are proof of this: Neue Parteien—freie Wahlen (new party—free elections), Meinungs-, Medienund Versammlungsfreiheit (freedom of opinion, of the press and of assembly), Freie Wahlen—freie Menschen—lebenswerte DDR (free elections—free people—a GDR worth living in) (cf. Reiher 1992). Originally the SED tried to jump on the bandwagon of these new demands, even claiming to have initiated the changes (cf. Schäffner 1992). In his speech on 3 November 1989, Egon Krenz, who had replaced Erich Honecker as leader of the party and head of state, said (emphasis added): We are totally justified in saying that with the 9th session of the Central Committee of the SED a new phase in the development of our socialist fatherland has begun. The political changes that we have initiated have seized all areas of our society. (Mit vollem Recht können wir davon reden, daß mit der 9. Tagung des Zentralkomitees der SED eine neue Etappe in der Entwicklung unseres sozialistischen Vaterlandes begonnen hat. Die politische Wende, die wir eingeleitet haben, erfaßt inzwischen alle Bereiche unserer Gesellschaft.)

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The SED claimed to be open to a 'dialogue' with all 'social forces', but it wanted to be the active partner. The typical collocation den Dialog führen mit (literally, 'to lead the dialogue with' somebody) is a linguistic indicator for an initiated and thus asymmetrical type of dialogue; the verb führen (lead) is associated with unilateral directedness (cf. Reiher 1990). At the time of the important statement made by the Modrow government on 17 November 1989, German unification was not yet on the agenda. The text reflects the dilemma the SED was in: it still wanted to lead social development and to decide the direction of the changes, but it had already lost the initiative and the power to do so. Towards the end of 1989, and even more so at the beginning of 1990, the people were no longer interested in a 'better socialism' but they were longing for the wonders that the 'social market economy' was promised to work in a united Germany. This changed mood is illustrated in the change from the slogan Wir sind das Volk (We are the people) to Wir sind ein Volk (We are one people). Another interesting phenomenon of this transitional period is the fate of the word 'democracy'. The demand of the people to be more directly involved in decision-making was often called Basisdemokratie (translatable as 'base-level democracy') which was then indeed practised by the institution of the Runder Tisch (round table). This was the name given to meetings consisting of representatives of parties, associations and citizens' movements of different political and ideological orientations, and intended for the debating of future developments, in the GDR. The guiding principle of this rarely practised form of democracy was to achieve a consensus in all decisions. The Runder Tisch was abolished in March 1990, a week before the first free elections in the GDR, and with it the concept of Basisdemokratie died. The daily paper Berliner Allgemeine commented as follows in an editorial on 13 March 1990: The Round Table has of necessity come to an end. Whether it managed to establish anything politically permanent will only be seen in the future. Any attempts at resuscitating the Round Table are out of the question; after next Sunday its participants will belong finally either to the government or to the opposition camp. (Der Runde Tisch steht notwendigerweise am Ende. Oh er Bleibendes politisch festzuschreiben verstand, wird erst die Zukunft erweisen. Wiederbelebungsversuche sind ausgeschlossen, schließlich scheiden sich nach dem nächsten Sonntag seine Teilnehmer in Regierungs- und Oppositionslager.) Or in the words of the CDU premier of Baden-Württemberg, Erwin Teuffei: A round table is not the normal thing in a democracy, but the normal thing in a democracy is for the government to act. (Ein runder Tisch ist nicht das Normale in einer Demokratie, sondern das Normale in einer Demokratie ist, daß die Regierung handelt.)

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'Democracy' was thus said to mean having the majority to form a government and deciding on the policy to be carried out. In a letter addressed at the end of 1992 to members and friends of the CDU/CSU ('Brief aus Leipzig: Die Demokratie ist in Gefahr'), certain CDU members holding political office in Saxony even complained that [t]he highly praised mentality of the round table promotes a value-free streamlined uniformity. In issues where the CDU had been given a task by the majority of the voters it often loses this mandate by not making use of its majority (Die hochgerühmte Runder-Tisch-Mentalität fördert wertfreie Stromlinienförmigkeit. Wo die Union von der Mehrheit der Wähler einen Auftrag erhielt, verspielt sie oft ihr Mandat durch Nichtgebrauch der Mehrheit.

4. Specific and universal discourse strategies: the Regierungserklärung Changes in communicative practice, we want to argue, take time and are accompanied by a persistence of old practices and strategies. It would be methodologically and theoretically wrong to look only for new aspects and qualities in linguistic and discursive structures whenever there is a change in social structures, that is, in the extra-linguistic world. It is also necessary and useful to look for (the reproduction of) old, and even universal aspects. In this section of our paper, therefore, we present observations based on a textlinguistic analysis of tokens of one particular text-type. The objects of our analysis are written versions of the text-type Regierungserklärung (government declaration, or explanation), originally presented orally to the respective parliaments. We have used the texts in their official wording as distributed in official publications. We analysed three texts by Kurt Biedenkopf, the Premier of the federal state of Saxony, one text by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, one text by Lothar de Maizière, the first freely elected Prime Minister of the GDR, and one text by Hans Modrow, the Prime Minister of the GDR elected by the Volkskammer in the autumn of 1989. The following sample texts were analysed: 1. Erklärung von Ministerpräsident Hans Modrow vor der 12. Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR (Außenpolitische Korrespondenz, Herausgegeben von der Hauptabteilung Presse des Ministeriums für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. 33. Jahrgang, Nr. 46, 24 November 1989) 2. Regierungserklärung des Ministerpräsidenten der DDR Lothar de Maizière. (Neues Deutschland, 20 April 1990)

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3. Regierungserklärung von Bundeskanzler Helmut Kohl vor dem Deutschen Bundestag, 30. Januar 1991. (Presse und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung. Reihe Berichte und Dokumentationen) 4. Regierungserklärung des Ministerpräsidenten Kurt Biedenkopf im Landtag des Freistaates Sachsen. 1. Wahlperiode, 2. Sitzung, 8 November 1990, (Sächsischer Landtag des Freistaates Sachsen. Plenarprotokoll) 5. Regierungserklärung des Ministerpräsidenten Kurt Biedenkopf im Landtag des Freistaates Sachsen. 1. Wahlperiode, 11. Sitzung, 21-22 Februar 1991, (Sächsischer Landtag des Freistaates Sachsen. Plenarprotokoll) 6. Regierungserklärung des Ministerpräsidenten Kurt Biedenkopf im Landtag des Freistaates Sachsen. 1. Wahlperiode, 30. Sitzung, 25 Oktober 1991, (Sächsischer Landtag des Freistaates Sachsen. Plenarprotokoll). For a comparison we included the account delivered at the last Party Congress of the SED in 1986: 7. Bericht des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands an den 11. Parteitag der SED (Berichterstatter: Erich Honecker, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1986). We have concentrated on this text-type because it fulfils a particular function in the official political discourse. A government declaration is usually given by the head of the government at the beginning of a new legislative period, but also on the occasion of specific events of political relevance. The three speeches by Biedenkopf, for instance, were delivered at the first session of the newly elected Saxon Parliament (the Landtag), on the occasion of its first hundred days in power, and on the occasion of the first anniversary of the new government: The main purpose of the government declaration is to give an account of the policy of the government, both in retrospect and in prospect. This text-type did not exist as such in the GDR, due to the political power structure. What comes closest is the combined version of the account and the directive delivered at the congresses of the ruling party, the SED. The speech by Modrow was the first that was called a Regierungserklärung, a fact which makes it unique within the public discourse of the GDR. The six sample texts are related by their temporal situationality (we refer to the seven standards of textuality in de Beaugrande and Dressier 1981). All of them were delivered between the autumn of 1989 and the autumn of 1991, after the peaceful revolution in the GDR and the subsequent disappearance of the GDR as an independent state. All the texts have the purpose of presenting decisions and measures for intended political changes in the country, of explaining them, and legitimising them. In all six texts this intentionality finds its expression in dominant semantic macro-propositions which reflect the

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reconstruction of the new federal states in the united Germany and of the Land of Saxony. These sample texts also broadly reflect the transition in the German political structures and its discourse. We were interested in the following four questions: (i) What is the characteristic structure of this text-type? (ii) What are the typical concepts that are presented as the aims of political actions? (iii) What are the typical actions that have to be performed to achieve these aims, and by whom are they to be performed? (iv) Are there differences in the textual structure and its linguistic make-up, both on a global and a local level, between the government declaration in a democratic society compared to that in a more totalitarian system? The results of our analysis are of course tentative, given the restricted corpus, but seem nonetheless to provide valuable insights and pointers to further investigation. 4.1 Macro- and super-structures: PROBLEM-SOLUTION SCHEMATA Textual structures are the result of the conventionalisation of particular (types of) strategies in specific communicative situations. As a first step we therefore looked at the more global structures of our sample texts, that is, we started with an analysis of their semantic macro structures and their schematic superstructures (cf. van Dijk 1980). The texts revealed a fairly consistent PROBLEM-SOLUTION superstructure, with the exception of the Modrow text (which does not contain a PROBLEM block in the proper sense, but puts emphasis on measures to be adopted to achieve aims). This structure is characteristic of the argumentative text-type, for which the four characteristic c o m p o s i t i o n b l o c k s of SITUATION-PROBLEM-SOLUTION-EVALUATION c o u l d b e

identified (Tirkkonen-Condit 1985, Schäffner, Shreve and Wiesemann 1987). An example is the first government declaration delivered by the Saxon Premier Biedenkopf at the first (constituent) session of the newly elected Saxon Parliament. For simplicity, we provide the semantic macro structure which comes close to the textual surface formulation (translated from the German), instead of the propositional content in its more abstract format. The functional components, that is, the categories of the schematic superstructure, are given in capital letters (here only at the highest levels). A SITUATION (sentences 1-81) The year 1990 marks a new beginning for Saxony. With our first aim, the unification of Germany, having been achieved, forces are set free for the second part of our historic task. B PROBLEM (sentences 82-229) Our objective is to complete German unity. 1 LEGITIMISATION OF THE PROBLEM

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CHRISTINA SCHÄFFNER AND PETER PORSCH This objective is defined by the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) 2 EVALUATION OF THE PROBLEM The achievement of this objective is subject to prerequisites. C SOLUTION (sentences 230-487) In order to achieve this objective, Saxony and its government have to fulfil tasks. 1-4 SPECIFICATION OF PROBLEM AND SOLUTION 1 The government has to be built up. 2 Burdens left over by the old government have to be overcome. (a-d) FURTHER SPECIFICATION OF SUBPROBLEM AND SOLUTION a) Economic burdens have to be overcome. b) Ecological burdens have to be overcome. c) Damage to bodies and minds of the people has to be healed. d) Political burdens have to be overcome. 3 A social system based on the rule of law must be built up. 4 The relations to our neighbour states have to be developed. D OVERALL EVALUATION (sentences 488-499) Although the challenge is enormous, we will meet our responsibility.

LEGITTMISATION, SPECIFICATION, etc. denote 'text actions' (Rothkegel 1984) that function as a, kind of sub-procedure in text production and reception. We are interested in the social cognition processes that underlie these texts. We therefore examined rather more closely the relation between global and local levels of the text to find out which conceptual domains were referred to in establishing PROBLEMS and SOLUTIONS. PROBLEM and SOLUTION are closely related in the textual structures. The PROBLEM is formulated as doing something to achieve an objective, this action being made necessary by other PROBLEMS resulting from the past. The ultimate objective is a positive state of affairs in the future. The achievement of this state is also seen as a SOLUTION. The PROBLEM is related to the conceptual domains of 'damages', 'harm' and 'burden'; the SOLUTION complex is related to the conceptual domains of 'construction' and 'renewal'. That PROBLEM and SOLUTION are closely linked can be seen by the fact that very often we find collocations like 'overcoming the inherited burden of the past, overcoming the damages inflicted by the SED-regime'. When the PROBLEM is formulated as such, e.g. 'destruction and devastation of the country caused by socialist rule', it functions as a LEGITIMISATION for the SOLUTION envisaged. On the local level, that is, in the textual micro-structures, these conceptual domains are reflected in the choice of words such as 'damages', 'burden', 'destruction', 'deformation', 'havoc'; 'construction', 'reconstruction', 'restructuring', 'rebuilding', renewal'. The prototypical German phrase for all quotations is

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Schäden der Vergangenheit überwinden (overcome the damage of the past). The following synonymous expressions are encountered in the texts: Schäden (damages): Altlasten (old burdens), Erblast (inherited burden), Zerstörung (destruction), Verwüstung (ravages), Verheerungen (devastation), Verödung (desolation), Deformation (deformation), Verarmung (impoverishment) Vergangenheit (past): sozialistische Herrschaft (socialist rule), das zusammengebrochene SED-Regime (the collapsed regime of the SED), die alte Ordnung (the old order), politische Vergangenheit (political past), Zusammenbruch der alten Strukturen (collapse of the old structures), SEDDiktatur (dictatorship of the SED) überwinden (overcome): abtragen (do away with), Bewältigung (overcoming), abbauen (dismantle) The phrase 'overcome the damage of the past', represents the PROBLEM. The SOLUTION is expressed by the following German phrases: Aufbau (literally, 'building up'), Wiederaufbau (literally, 'building up again'), Neuaufbau unseres Landes (rebuilding of our Land), Ausbau (extension or, literally, 'building out'); Umstrukturierung (restructuring), Neustrukturierung (restructuring or, literally, 'new structuring'), Strukturwandel (literally, 'structure change'), Strukturanpassungen (literally, 'structure adaptation'), Strukturreform (structural reform), Erneuerung unseres Landes (renewal of our Land), Neubeginn (new beginning), Gestaltung (shaping, organising, arranging), Neugestaltung (transformation or, literally, 'new forming'), tiefgreifende Umgestaltung (far-reaching transformation), Zeit des Umbruchs Modernisierung und Wandels (time of change and transformation), (modernisation), Umwälzung (complete turn-round). These concepts function both on the global and on the local levels with different degrees of generality, e.g. 'reconstruction of the country/society' vs. 'reconstruction of the economy/administrative bodies'; 'renewal of the country' vs. 'renewal of the education system'. 4.2 The construction metaphor in the SOLUTION block The construction metaphor is of particular importance here. We understand metaphor in the sense of cognitive semantics (e.g. Lakoff 1986), which sees the essence of metaphor in 'understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another'. (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, p. 5). Metaphors not only map a source domain onto a target domain, but also correlate their internal structuring. Due to the reference to the conceptual domain of 'construction',

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we find metaphorical extensions mainly to 'pillars' and the 'laying of foundations': die Fundamente legen, auf denen wir...bauen können (lay the foundations on which we can build (Biedenkopf), Bau dieser Anlage als...Eckpfeiler im Rahmen eines...Konzepts (building of this installation as the cornerstone (literally, 'corner pillar') in the frame of a concept) (Biedenkopf), ... Grundlage gelegt (...laid foundations) (Biedenkopf), eine wichtige Säule bei dieser Entwicklung (an important pillar in this development) (Kohl), Grundpfeiler des Föderalismus (basic pillar of federalism) (de Maizière), Grundpfeiler der Regierungspolitik (basic pillar of government policy) (Modrow). These conceptual domains for the PROBLEM and SOLUTION blocks are fairly similar in the speeches by Biedenkopf, Kohl, and de Maizière. This is determined mainly by extra-textual factors. The socialist system in the GDR no longer existed, and at the time when the speeches by Biedenkopf and Kohl were delivered, the GDR itself no longer existed. The aim was to build a society based on new foundations and different values. This explains all the references to 'renewal', 'restructuring', 'reconstruction', 'transition from X to Y'. The Modrow text differs in this respect in that he does not speak of 'reconstruction' but almost consistently of 'renewal' as the main objective. The only PROBLEM is seen to be how to 'lead the economy out of the crisis' (die Wirtschaft aus der Krise führen), the SOLUTION being seen as 'measures for stabilisation' and 'reforms' (Maßnahmen zur Stabilisierung, Reformen). Although we find 'renewal' (Erneuerung) in all the speeches, there is a difference in the semantic content of the word arising from the textual determination. Modrow speaks of a 'renewal' of the existing system, which is illustrated by collocations such as 'renewal of socialist society' (Erneuerungsprozeß der sozialistischen Gesellschaft), 'renewal of socialism in our country' (Erneuerung des Sozialismus in unserem Lande). When de Maizière, Kohl and Biedenkopf speak of 'renewal', they mean a new social system with new structures, values and mechanisms. This becomes obvious from the collocations into which 'renewal' enters, especially 'renewal and reconstruction', 'renewal and restructuring', but also, on a more global textual level, by reference to the ultimate objective of all political actions. This objective is, for Modrow, a 'better socialism', 'a new socialist society'; for de

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Maizière it is a 'new order of freedom, democracy, and justice' (neue Ordnung der Freiheit, der Demokratie und des Rechts), in a word, a 'social market economy' (soziale Marktwirtschaft), which is also the key concept in the speeches by Kohl and Biedenkopf. In contrast to the previous official SED discourse, which was constantly speaking of the 'perfection of socialist society' (Vervollkommnung der sozialistischen Gesellschaft) and of 'the further formation of developed socialist society' (weitere Gestaltung der entwickelten sozialistischen Gesellschaft), Modrow's speech displays some new tendencies. In the previous SED discourse there was no real PROBLEM block, since the system was good, and the task was to make it better and better; production was high and still increasing. Although Modrow does mention PROBLEMS, he is still arguing along the traditional lines: the system is to be renewed by reforms, but it is still the same social system. That is, the basis of comparison for his kind of socialist society ('a better socialism') remains the same. 4.3 Legitimisation by means of propositional reduction In connection with the 'social market economy', one point was of particular interest to us. Above we referred to Ehlich's propositional reduction as a characteristic feature of public political speech, often related to the promise of a simple and better world. What we are experiencing in Kohl's and Biedenkopfs speeches seems to be exactly the same phenomenon. Soziale Marktwirtschaft and freiheitlicher Rechtsstaat ('liberal democratic state based on the rule of law') are magic phrases: they promise a future state of affairs in which life will be better and easier, when all current problems have been overcome. This positive future functions as a LEGITIMISATION for the SOLUTIONS offered in the government declarations. The SOLUTIONS are also LEGITIMISED by reference to the PROBLEM and its EVALUATION. The PROBLEM has been caused by the policy of the past, the policy of the previous system. Here again we find the method of propositional reduction which, in its retrospective function, is also a simplification of the world. The past is characterised in terms of expressions such as 'regime of injustice', 'arbitrary rule', 'rule by violence', and 'communist dictatorship' (Unrechtsregime, Willkürherrschaft, Gewaltherrschaft, kommunistische Diktatur), in short, the 'SED regime'. Sometimes, these two worlds are contrasted on the local textual level: e.g. 'free state based on the rule of law' as opposed to the 'dictatorship' of the GDR (Biedenkopf, 8 November 1990); 'to transform a socialist command economy into a social market economy' (Kohl); 'after decades of unfreedom (Unfreiheit) and dictatorship we want to create freedom and democracy under the rule of law' (de Maizière).

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LEGITIMISATION also functions through the use of adjectives such as 'proven' in phrases such as 'proven social market economy' (bewährte soziale It is a better future for the people in the eastern part of Marktwirtschaft). Germany, the former GDR, that is promised. But at the same time, this promised future is already a reality, namely in its western part, the Federal Republic of Germany. Related phrases are: 'rule of law'; 'freedom'; 'justice and preservation of creation'; 'a free community bound by the rule of law' (Rechtsstaatlichkeit; Freiheit; Gerechtigkeit und Wahrung der Schöpfung; ein freiheitliches, der Rechts Staatlichkeit verpflichtetes Gemeinwesen). Such references to simple worlds by the use of the LEGITIMISATION function are more or less common and more or less textually embedded, depending on the text-type in which they occur. They occur fairly often in the form of propositional reduction in spontaneous speech during parliamentary debates, as one of us (Porsch) has been able to experience personally. In this context, such statements also function as accusations. The two other aspects which are referred to in order to LEGITIMISE the objective to be achieved (i.e. the SOLUTION) are the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) and the outcome of the elections. Here are some examples of legitimisation (a) by reference to the Basic Law and (b) by the election results: (a) Unser Ziel wird durch unsere gemeinsame Verfassung, das Grundgesetz, bestimmt (our goal is determined by our common constitution, the Basic Law) (Biedenkopf, 8 November 1990) Aufgabe, zu der uns das Grundgesetz verpflichtet (a task to which we are bound by the Basic Law) (Kohl) (b) Die Bürger unseres Landes haben uns in freien Wahlen die Verantwortung für dieses Land übertragen. (the citizens of our Land have handed over to us the responsibility for this Land in free election) (Biedenkopf, 8 November 1990) Wir haben einen demokratischen Auftrag. Den haben uns die Bürger der DDR gegeben. (we have a democratic mission. It has been given to us by the citizens of the GDR) (de Maizière). LEGITIMISATION by reference to the outcome of the elections was also very common in spontaneous loud interruptions during parliamentary debates. Modrow stresses in his speech also the unity of the wishes of the people and of the government in order to LEGITIMISE his policy. He thus continues the tradition of the official SED discourse which had always stressed that the people and the party were one: This was achieved thanks to the unshakeable relationship of trust between Party and People...Party and People are in our country bound together by deep trust (Das wurde erreicht dank des unerschütterlichen Vertrauensverhältnisses

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zwischen Partei und Volk...Partei und Volk sind bei uns durch tiefes Vertrauen verbunden) (Honecker, 1986, pp. 7-8). The government will be bound to the people of the GDR, who want a good form of socialism (Dem Volk der DDR, das einen guten Sozialismus will, wird diese Regierung verpflichtet sein) (Modrow). As mentioned above, Kohl and Biedenkopf make reference to shortcomings of the previous political system, the 'SED regime', in order to LEGITIMISE current SOLUTIONS. Kohl also uses as LEGITIMISATION references to his own regime's successful policy in the past: ...our policy has led...to an unparalleled measure of economic dynamism and social security of (...unsere Politik...[hat] zu einem beispiellosen Maß an wirtschaftlicher Dynamik und sozialer Sicherheit geführt). Such references to the party's and/or government's own positive achievements were typical, even predominant, in official SED discourse, as illustrated by the following quotation from Honecker's report to the eleventh SED Congress in 1986: Since the 10th Party Congress our Republic has successfully continued its development as a politically stable and economically efficient socialist state... All aspects of social life...have been further perfected (Seit dem X. Parteitag hat unsere Republik ihre Entwicklung als politisch stabiler und ökonomisch leistungsfähiger sozialistischer Staat erfolgreich fortgesetzt... Alle Seiten des gesellschaftlichen Leb ens...wurden weiter vervollkommnet). In this connection, it should be noted that there is a semantic clash here between the comparative adverb 'further' (weiter) and the verb 'perfected' (vervollkommnet) implying an endpoint on a path of development beyond which there is nothing further. Text actions such as LEGITIMISE are probably necessary components of the text-type 'government declaration', which in a sense is a kind of 'success discourse'. The fact that we do not have these text actions—at least not to the same extent—in the government declarations by de Maizière and Biedenkopfis due to the fact that they were delivered in historical situations in which a programme had to be set out. We do, however, find statements praising the first successful measures of the new governments in the speeches by de Maizière and Biedenkopf, in the three Biedenkopf texts increasingly so. In relation to political discourse, Straßner (1991, p. 138) speaks of strategies such as, on the one hand, establishing one's own authority and competence, boasting of one's own success, self-legitimisation, and, on the other hand, devaluing and calling into question, which are directed at political opponent(s).

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4.4 Concrete vs. abstract agents Important aspects of the presentation of agency can be uncovered by closer inspection of processes and participant functions in clauses. Who does what, mainly in the SOLUTION block, to achieve the objectives? On the basis of a micro structure analysis concentrating on this question, we arrived at three groups, two of which refer to more concrete agents: (i) the government, (ii) the people and other individuals, whereas group (iii) comprises rather vague formulations that leave the agent more or less open, although on a cognitive level the agent may be inferred as being the government. The actions that are attributed to these three groups are the following. In the sentences of group (i) it is said that the government will 'elaborate and submit acts and laws', 'create and guarantee prerequisites', 'elaborate concepts and plans', 'take steps and measures'; it will 'aim at', 'promote', 'ensure', 'guarantee', 'strive for', 'encourage', 'support', 'help', 'do its utmost', 'see to it that', 'take care that'; it 'is responsible for', 'faces (enormous) tasks', has to 'face and to meet challenges'. These and similar expressions are equally used in the speeches by de Maizière, Kohl, Biedenkopf and Modrow. The concrete references in group (ii) are to institutions, such as factories, which will 'take investments', 'should make use of opportunities', and 'fulfill tasks', or to the people as a collective body who 'take part in the reconstruction'; who 'face problems', 'bear the (enormous) burden', 'will be affected and afflicted by X'; but who are also 'confident' 'optimistic', 'rely on their own power, on the government, and on the social market economy'. In the rather more vague formulations of group (iii), we encounter collocations such as 'the point is', '(doing X) will be necessary', 'X. will have to be assured/ taken into consideration' '(enormous) efforts will be necessary', 'X will be a challenge', 'the challenge puts demands on X'. These three groups of agent and action expressions are almost identical in the speeches of Kohl, Biedenkopf, and de Maizière. But the speech by Modrow shows similarity primarily with respect to group (i). In group (iii), the formulations are even more abstract. That is to say, whereas in the speeches by Kohl, Biedenkopf and de Maizière we usually infer the hidden agent as the government, the agents in Modrow's text are others, mostly the people. That is, the people as the agents are hidden in agent-less passive constructions such as 'prerequisites are to be created in all spheres of social life', 'measures should be elaborated', 'the quality of X is to be improved'. Sometimes the role of agent falls to a programme or a reform: e.g. 'a programme that should aim at...' (ein Programm, das zum Ziel haben sollte), 'the reform should lead to...' (die Reform muß führen zu...). Sometimes it falls to a process: 'the process of renewal calls for reforms' (der Erneuerungsprozeß verlangt Reformen).

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Sometimes agency is even ascribed to socialism: 'such socialism should be in a position to ensure...' (ein solcher Sozialismus sollte in der Lage sein, ...zu gewährleisten). The main difference, however, concerns group (ii). In Modrow's speech, the people in the GDR did not suffer and did not have to endure problems or bear burdens—at least not in the official public discourse. Because of his situation, Modrow could not afford to go on saying that 'socialism was good for the people'. He had to be more realistic, but he did not want to blame the system. In his speech, therefore, he says that 'the will to the renewal of socialism has gripped millions of citizens' (der Wille zur Erneuerung hat Millionen Bürger erfaßt), and they 'are called upon to work, to contribute to this renewal'. Abstract agents were highly characteristic of the official SED discourse before the autumn of 1989. A cursory reading of the account delivered at the last SED Congress (1986) left us stunned by their high frequency, and we wondered why we had not critically commented on them in the past. (We were probably so used to them, to this uniform, even monotonous, kind of successpropagating discourse in general, that we had become indifferent to it). In this discourse it was common to speak of the Party's economic strategy of 'combining...the advantages of socialism with the achievements of the scientific-technological revolution', or of the state developing in the direction of the 'further unfolding and perfecting of socialist democracy'. The following passages illustrate the point: The economic strategy of our Party with our gaze on the year 2000 is aimed at linking ever more effectively the advantages of socialism with the achievements of the scientific and technical revolution, which itself has entered a new stage. (Die ökonomische Strategie unserer Partei mit dem Blick auf das Jahr 2000 ist darauf gerichtet, die Vorzüge des Sozialismus noch wirksamer mit den Errungenschaften der wissenschaftlich-technischen Revolution zu verbinden, die seihst in eine neue Etappe eingetreten ist.) (Honecker 1986, p. 49) Our state of workers and peasants has developed further, socialist state power has continuously increased its authority. The main direction in which it is developing is the further unfolding and perfecting of socialist democracy. (Unser Staat der Arbeiter und Bauern hat sich weiter entwickelt, die sozialistische Staatsmacht hat ihre Autorität kontinuierlich erhöht. Hauptrichtung, in der sie sich entwickelt, ist die weitere Entfaltung und Vervollkommnung der sozialistischen Demokratie.) (Honecker 1986, p. 74) Such over-generalisations appeared necessarily true, in the sense that they could not be disproved. Their function was to integrate everybody into the highly politicised social life. They applied to everybody, and thus to nobody. Such presumed universal truths, couched in abstract sentences with abstract agents, combined with a success discourse which did not acknowledge any

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problems and which kept the people in the dark as to the real situation, contributed to the stagnation, the crisis, and the subsequent breakdown of the GDR. Many people were able to reproduce this kind of discourse when necessary, but only up to a point. To resist the SED's integration attempts, people developed counter-strategies, at first in their private discourse, but then more and more in public as well, until they were finally successful. 4.5 Fight and path metaphors When we look at these groups of agents in the speeches by Kohl, Biedenkopf and de Maizière, what is striking is that there too we encounter this general, abstract way of referring to the actions of the government. The conceptual domains that are of relevance here are SOLVING A PROBLEM, MEETING A CHALLENGE, DEVELOPING CONCEPTS, SUPPORTING AND PROMOTING ACTIONS BY OTHERS. The domain MEETING A CHALLENGE is closely related to two conceptual domains or conceptual metaphors. The first one is the conceptual domain FIGHT. The 'challenge' is the opponent who comes upon the fighter (in our case, the government), who has to take steps to be finally victorious. The second conceptual domain is PATH: the government stands at the beginning of a path which leads to an endpoint, an 'objective'. On the path to this objective, 'hurdles' and 'challenges' have to be overcome. The examples of the construction metaphor noted above illustrate the way in which image schemas enter abstract modes of thought. The conceptual metaphor PURPOSES ARE DESTINATIONS is part of an even more general metaphor, ACTIONS ARE MOVEMENTS. In a hierarchy of metaphorical mappings of event structure, these can in turn be derived from the more general cognitive metaphors CHANGES ARE MOVEMENTS and STATES ARE LOCATIONS (cf. Radden 1992). The path metaphor (in relation to challenges) is widely used in the speeches of Biedenkopf and Kohl. Both refer to the government standing 'at the beginning of a path', moving 'along the onerous path into the future', facing and 'meeting challenges on this path'—for example: ...den Herausforderungen gerecht werden, vor denen wir stehen. (...meet the challenges that confront us) (Biedenkopf) Der eingeschlagene Weg muß 1991 mit großer Intensität weiter beschritten werden. (The path we have taken must be trodden with greater intensity.) (Biedenkopf) Wir stehen am Beginn eines langen und auch beschwerlichen Weges. (We stand at the beginning of a long and arduous path.) (Kohl)

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...daß wir Deutschen diesen Weg in die Zukunft...gemeinsam gehen können. (...that we Germans can travel this path into the future together.) (Kohl) ...damit rechnen, daß...neue Herausforderungen auf uns zukommen. (...reckon with the fact that...new challenges confront us.) (Kohl) Wir wissen, daß wir einen mühsamen Weg vor uns haben. (We know that we have a laborious path ahead of us.) (de Maizière). There are hardly any references to the path metaphor in the Modrow text. But this does not mean that this metaphor was not used in the SED discourse. For example, a typical phrase was 'continue on the proven path' (den bewährten Weg fortsetzen). Challenges encountered on this path were put there by 'life itself: 'naturally life itself demands [us] to perfect the goals reached'. A second point that struck us when looking at the agents and their actions seems to be related to functional aspects of the text-type. Biedenkopf's third speech is primarily a report on PROBLEMS and not so much an account of successes achieved. There is a shift from governmental activities (such as 'laying foundations' or 'developing concepts') to strategies seeking to legitimise the fact that the government has not yet achieved as much as was expected by the people. This becomes obvious in references to having been frank enough not to conceal the size of the problems, or to having been all too aware of how employees would be affected. It also becomes obvious in the second sub-group, which illustrates that in relation to the people, the stress is on their suffering, their enduring powers, but also on their hope and confidence. In this way, the people are mainly seen as objects of governmental policies—mostly indirectly so, as bearers of the burden. There is both a negative and a positive aspect to this: their suffering is mainly due to the mismanagement of the previous political system (LEGITIMISING function) or to the measures that had to be taken by the government, such as closing down factories and dismissing workers, but which in turn had become necessary due to the previous policy of the SED regime. But since the people trust the new government they will easily shoulder the load. For example, Biedenkopf declares: If they have the prospect that things are progressing, this situation is easier to bear. (Wenn sie die Aussicht haben, daß die Dinge weitergehen, ist dieser Zustand leichter zu ertragen. ) Only in Biedenkopf's first speech do we also find examples whose surface structure reflects the fact that the people are objects of governmental policies. For example, he speaks of 'the workers in our Land [having] a right to be led, in their businesses and enterprises, by people they can trust' (Die Arbeiter in unserem Land haben ein Recht darauf, in ihren Betrieben und Unternehmen

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von Menschen geführt zu werden, denen sie vertrauen können), and of 'those who lead and those who are led' (die Führenden und die Geführten). This way of referring to the people as objects of the policy was typical for the official SED discourse, in which the collocation 'our people' (unsere Menschen) was the most characteristic phrase, with 'our people' always creatively applying the decisions taken by the SED and fighting to fulfil and surpass the plans. 4.6 Characteristics of the text-type 'government declaration' There are two sub-groups of the text-type 'government declaration', one which could be characterised as 'success discourse', and one which is rather a kind of 'problem discourse'. In the 'success discourse' the PROBLEM block is closely interrelated with the SOLUTION block, the PROBLEM being mainly to improve, further develop, increase, intensify, etc., the various fields of social life. Here we find text actions of LEGITIMISING with reference to past policy, supported by the speaker, and which is characterised as effective and successful, thus worthy of being continued. This success discourse was the one exclusively employed for the official SED discourse. The 'problem discourse', on the other hand, first of all emphasises the PROBLEM as such and adds specifications as to how complicated it is. SOLUTIONS are conceptualised as ultimate objectives to be achieved by measures to be taken. The path metaphor seems to be of particular importance in such a problem discourse (the measures are steps on the path to the endpoint, challenges have to be faced and overcome along the way, positive states of affairs are waiting at the destination, etc.). The destinations are often conceptualised as simple worlds (cf. the propositional reductions mentioned above), such as 'social market economy', 'free democracy', 'rule of law'. However, 'success discourse' and 'problem discourse' often go hand in hand in a particular text-token. 5. Conclusion At the beginning of our paper we asked if there have been changes in the communicative practice of the five new federal states. Complying with Ehlich's dictum that what we have to look at is not communication of a social system, but communication in a social system—that is, the variety and diversity of its communicative practices—we have to say that there are undoubtedly changes going on in the communicative practice of the ex-GDR, both in public and in private discourse. However, a systematic comparison of tokens of one particular text-type has also revealed aspects of continuity in addition to those of discontinuity. With respect to the text-type 'government

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declaration' (Regierungserklärung) there seem to be basic structures, such as PROBLEM-SOLUTION structures, LEGITIMISING text actions, which are relatively constant, independent of political systems, and which may depend rather on functional aspects of the text-type. We think it is justified to speak of a discourse of power here. Its function is to legitimise, justify, and ultimately reproduce power, and with respect to this function, such discourse seems to be universal. The comparison of text-tokens of this type of discourse revealed both differences and similarities. These similarities are independent of political systems, but dependent on textual and political functions. The most obvious similarities between the official SED discourse and the political discourse in the united Germany are related to the text action LEGITIMISE. The SED legitimised its political power by referring to the historic mission of the working class and tried to integrate the population by continuously stressing the confidence between the people and the party. Kohl and Biedenkopf legitimise their power and their policy by reference to the election results. This strategy, however, is only used by the party in power ('We are the party the people want, the party the people have voted for'). The GDR's election system was notorious for having all candidates put on one unified list. The only choice the East Germans had was to vote either 'yes' or 'no' for the list as a whole; they did not have a choice among various candidates for one position. The GDR's electoral system did not provide for rival candidates for a political office. The usual outcome of the elections was an overwhelming majority of about 99% for the candidates listed, which was celebrated in the media both as convincing proof of the people's enthusiasm and support for the SED's policy and as prelude to a new stage in the development of the socialist society. Surprisingly enough, an almost identical argument was used when Bernhard Vogel was elected chairman of the CDU in the Land of Thuringia in January 1993. As the only candidate for this office he got 220 out of 245 votes cast, i.e. 90.2%. The daily paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented that Vogel 'judged this election result as an expression of the will to begin, with the Party Congress, a new phase in the activities of the CDU in Thuringia' (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 November 1993). The other similarity as regards LEGITIMISING text actions concerns the reference to a better future (a simple world) to secure the political power both for the present time and for the future. This goes hand in hand with blaming the previous system for any problems and shortcomings, thus giving the impression that the new party in power is innocent. We find examples of these discursive strategies both in SED discourse and in the political discourse of the united Germany. For these strategies in particular, propositional reduction is

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employed. There is an almost ritual conjuring up of a new and better time to come (for instance, the SED's reference to 'communism' as the highest phase in the social development, Kohl's 1990 promise of 'flourishing regions' in East Germany within four years). The buck is consistently passed to the past regime for every negative experience in people's daily lives. The SED, for example, stressed (especially in the 1950s and 1960s) that at first the 'debris in the towns and in people's heads' had to be 'cleared away' (die Trümmer in den Städten und Köpfen wegräumen), and still in the 1980s shortcomings were characterised as 'blemishes of capitalism within socialist society' (Muttermale des Kapitalismus in der sozialistischen Gesellschaft). Kohl's 'flourishing regions' were no longer used as an argument at the end of 1992. Social developments had shown by then that transforming East Germany into a prosperous market economy was much more complicated (and expensive) than hoped for. The expression Solidarpakt (solidarity pact) was introduced to denote an agreement forged as a compromise by German political leaders to spread the pain of raising the money to be spent over the next ten years in the former GDR. The emphasis was then on everybody contributing their share— in other words, the social problems are individualised. To quote Biedenkopf: 'Now everybody has to share in bearing the burden, everybody according to their abilities' (quoted in Der Spiegel, 25 January 1993, p. 78). This is a strategy, however, that had not been used in the SED discourse. There we find the opposite strategy not of individualising problems but of socialising them, best exemplified by the slogan Mein Arbeitsplatz—mein Kampfplatz für den Frieden ('My workplace is my battlefield for peace'), used to emphasise joint responsibility for a stable country. It has sometimes been said that statements by CDU politicians, mainly in East Germany, are reminiscent of the SED discourse. There is still a lack of solid research to confirm this claim. However, one example should be mentioned. When a new bill for the reorganisation of universities and other institutions of higher learning was discussed in the Saxon Parliament in 1992, a CDU deputy said: 'The task is therefore to create, in a time limit set by the Unification Treaty, the prerequisites for responsibility to oneself and selfmanagement' (Es geht also darum, in einer vom Einigungsvertrag vorgeschriebenen Frist die Voraussetzungen für die Eigenverantwortung und Selbstverwaltung zu schaffen). That is, the universities are supposed to be selfmanaging, but it is not the universities themselves who decide on their new structure and curricula; rather, others create (by coercion) the prerequisites for the universities' self-management. This argumentation is reminiscent of the SED's concept of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat', meaning that because the proletariat is 'the leading class' and the Communist Party its 'vanguard', it knows best what is good for the people. And here it is the Saxon Parliament (to

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be precise, the CDU with its majority) that knows best what the universities should look like—before they are even granted their autonomy. One aim of discourse analysis is to increase our understanding of how in our societies people use language for particular purposes. Discourse analysis should thus pay attention to the relationship between sociocultural and linguistic-cognitive phenomena, and to their changes and effects (cf. van Dijk 1991). We do not wish to make sweeping generalisations, given the limited examples we have considered. What we have tried to do is to pinpoint some linguistic phenomena at a time characterised by fundamental changes in all spheres of social life. Such a linguistic analysis, going beyond individual words and phrases, should be part of a discourse analysis in the widest sense of—that is, one that takes account of its social and philosophical implications (cf. Luutz 1992). REFERENCES de Beaugrande, R. and Dressler, W. (1981) Introduction to Text Linguistics, London, Longman Ehlich, K. (1989) 'Über den Faschismus sprechen—Analyse und Diskurs' in K. Ehlich (ed.), Sprache im Faschismus, Frankfurt/Main, Suhrkamp, pp. 7-34 Fleischer, W. et al. (1987) Wortschatz der deutschen Sprache in der DDR, Leipzig, Bibliographisches Institut Hartung, W. (1990) 'Einheitlichkeit und Differenziertheit der deutschen Sprache. Bemerkungen zur Diskussion um die "nationalen Varianten", Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 11 (4), pp. 447-66 Hellmann, M. W. (1989) 'Die doppelte Wende—Zur Verbindung von Sprache, Sprachwissenschaft und zeitgebundener politischer Bewertung am Beispiel deutsch­ deutscher Sprachdifferenzierung' in J. Klein (ed.), Politische Semantik, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 297-326 (1990) 'DDR-Sprachgebrauch nach der Wende—eine erste Bestandsaufnahme', Muttersprache, 100 (2/3), pp. 266-86. Honecker, Erich (1986) Bericht des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands an den 11. Parteitag der SED (Berichterstatter: Erich Honecker), Berlin, Dietz Verlag Kretzenbacher, H. L. (1991) 'Das deutschdeutsche Du', Deutsch als Fremdsprache, 28 (3), pp. 181-3. Lakoff, G. (1986) Cognitive Semantics, Berkeley, University of California (Berkely Cognitive Science Report, 36) Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, University of Chicago Press Luutz, W. (1992) 'Soziale (Des)-Integration in und durch diskursive Sprachpraktiken', Berliner Debatte INITIAL, 1, pp. 78-85 Neubert, A. (1994) 'Auswirkungen des politischen Wandels auf die Sprache (aus östlicher Sicht)', Vortrag auf der Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Sprache und Wirtschaft, St. Gallen, October 1990 Oschlies, W. (1989) Würgende und wirkende Wörter—Deutschsprechen in der DDR, Berlin, Holzapfel

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Porsch, P. (1992) 'Alltag—Alltagsbewußtsein—Sprache', in G. Lerchner (ed.), Sprachgebrauch im Wandel. Anmerkungen zur Kommunikationskultur in der DDR vor und nach der Wendt, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, pp. 189-202 (1991) 'DDR: Alltag und Sprache. Was bleibt nach der "Wende", Vortrag auf der Tagung 'Deutsch—eine Sprache, wieviel Kulturen?' Kopenhagen, Oktober 1990 Radden, G. (1992) 'A cognitive approach to natural language', in M.Pütz (ed.) Thirty Years of Linguistic Evolution, pp. 513-41, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, Benjamins Reiher, R. (1990) 'Dialog in den Medien', Zeitschrift für Germanistik, 5, pp. 597-600. (1992) '"Wir sind das Volk". Sprachwissenschaftliche Überlegungen zu den Losungen des Herbstes 1989' in A. Burkhardt and K. P. Fritzsche (eds.), Sprache im Umbruch. Politischer Sprachwandel im Zeichen von 'Wende' und 'Vereinigung', Berlin, de Gruyter, pp. 43-57 Rothkegel, A. (1984) 'Sprachhandlungstypen in interaktionsregelnden Texten— Texthandlungen in Abkommen', Lunder Germanistische Forschungen, 53, pp. 255-78 Schäffner, C. (1992) 'Sprache des Umbruchs und ihre Übersetzung' in A. Burkhardt and K. P. Fritzsche (eds.), Sprache im Umbruch. Politischer Sprachwandel im Zeichen von 'Wende' und 'Vereinigung', Berlin, de Gruyter, pp. 135-53 Schäffner, C , Shreve, G. M. and Wiesemann, U. (1987) 'A Procedural Analysis of Argumentative Political Texts. Case studies from "The Economist'", Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 35 (2), pp. 105-17. Straßner, E. (1991) 'Maximenverstoß als Regel. Zum Grundprinzip politischer Kommunikation' in M. Opp de Hipt and E. Latniak (eds.), Sprache statt Politik? Politikwissenschaftliche Semantik und Rhetorikforschung, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. 124-55 Teichmann, C. (1991) 'Von der "langue de bois" zur "Sprache der Wende'", Muttersprache, 101 (3), pp. 252-65 Tirkkonen-Condit, S. (1985) Argumentative Text Structure and Translation, Jyväskylä, University of Jyväskylä (Studia Philologica Jyväskyläensia 18) van Dijk, T. A. (1980) Macrostructures. An Interdisciplinary Study of Global Structures in Discourse, Interaction and Cognition, Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum. (1991) 'Discourse and the Denial of Racism', Discourse & Society, 3 (1), pp. 87-118.

12 Translating the Transition: What is the Russian for 'Perestroika'? Kay Richardson University of Liverpool

1. Introduction There are some great pairs of words around, from fish and chips to Laurel and Hardy, from whisky and soda to Rogers and Hammerstein, but none to match glasnost and perestroika, perestroïka and glasnost. There can be hardly a person on this planet outside the Brazilian rain forests or the snowy wastes of Greenland who has not heard of the words or does not understand their meanings. Perestroika and glasnost, glasnost and perestroïka. They will still be secure in the vocabularies of all the languages of the world long after the children of the Soviet Union and its satellites have begun to ask: 'Mummy, who was Lenin?' or for that matter: 'Mummy, who was Gorbachev?' (Keith Waterhouse, 'Just Two Big Words', Daily Mail, 22 August 1991) As the date on the above quotation shows, Waterhouse was writing immediately after the abortive coup in the Soviet Union, August 1991. Although the coup was unsuccessful, the events were widely seen as marking the end of an era, and Waterhouse was not the only journalist to cast a retrospective eye over the Gorbachev years. For him, glasnost and perestroïka were words which together encapsulated the essence of that period, terms which had already conquered space in becoming international, and would conquer time too, by persisting through the ages to come. The present article, taking its cue from Waterhouse, is likewise concerned with the Gorbachev years, when the terms perestroika and glasnost first became familiar in languages other than Russian. I am interested in the way that these words, particularly perestroika, became so very generally recognised, and trying to understand a bit more clearly in both linguistic and political terms what exactly it was that happened—and what the significance of that development might be.

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English lexicographers agreed with Waterhouse that both terms had, in the late 1980s, begun to take on the status of borrowed words within the English language. In the Introduction to the Longman Register of New Words (1989 edition), John Ayto wrote: On the wider international scene it has been the era of perestroïka. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms have so swiftly captured the Western imagination that the two key Russian terms in this area have already developed wider metaphorical meanings in English and grown English adjectival endings (glasnostian and perestroikian), and other Russian borrowings are following in their wake. (Ayto 1989) By way of example of perestroïka following:

used metaphorically in English he cited the

Stockbrokers, merchant banks and Euromarket firms are hiring management consultants as fast as they lay off idle traders... This perestroïka should be good for the City's long-term health and reputation. (Ayto 1989, p. 287) And for glasnost: Watching 'Hamlet' in any language other than English may sound a daunting prospect but not, it seems, to Glaswegians, who are spending £2,000 underwriting a production of the tragedy in Russian by a touring Soviet theatre company. 'It will be a box office hit,' says Labour leader councillor Patrick Lally. 'We are operating a policy of glasnost—opening up to the world.' (Ayto 1989,p.l69) Ayto's examples date from 1989 and 1987 respectively, but the tendency continued into 1990 as my own examples here show: Mr Ian MacDonald, the barrister who chaired the inquiry into the playground murder of a Manchester schoolboy, last week called for glasnost and power sharing to help combat racism in schools. (The Guardian, 9 January 1990) HOME RULE FOR GARSTON—that's the call as perestroïka hits Liverpool. (South Liverpool Weekly Star, 2 February 1990) During 1989 and 1990 I found very many more examples of glasnost used for non-Soviet matters than of perestroïka so used. This may suggest that the former term was not only more familiar (it was certainly the earlier of the two terms to enter the vocabulary) but perhaps also that its 'literal' meaning was more determinate than that of perestroïka in the first place, so that there really is a meaning to extend to non-Soviet matters. With perestroïka, the vagueness of the term, particularly in the early period of Gorbachev's regime, when its use was highly programmatic, makes the idea of extending a specific meaning more difficult (On the three phases of perestroïka, see Sawka 1990, chapter 1).

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So the thesis that these are Russian words which became international is one that deserves further exploration, even if Waterhouse was exaggerating in his supposition that the words became known to every human on the planet. But more interesting, at least initially, and in the present context, than the extended, metaphorical meanings of perestroïka and glasnost, is the question of what the British reader might suppose their literal meanings to be. The entry of these words into the English language was effected largely through the press, through their coverage of Soviet affairs. The British press continued to produce reports on the Soviet Union throughout the Gorbachev years. But as the ground rules of public communication there changed, so did the role of the foreign correspondents, as well as the contents and the vocabulary of their reportage. With glasnost and perestroïka it is as if the novelty of events in their eyes warranted these new terms, transliterating rather than translating Gorbachev's chosen words (as claimed by Service 1989, p. 23). 2. The Semantics of Perestroika 2.1 Word meaning Cruse (1986) argues' for a contextual approach to word meaning. His first chapter presents a general case for this approach, and the rest of the book puts it into practice. By 'contextual approach' he means, essentially, linguistic context. That is to say, for him the meaning of a word is a function of the meaning relations it contracts in sentences of the designated language. His way of deciding what those meaning-relations are, for words of the English language, is to construct sets of sentences and employ disciplined semantic intuitions—for example, on whether sentences have equivalent truth-values or not, when word substitutions are carried out.1 What such an approach leaves out of account is the role of the social context in determining the meaning of a word. When, in 1979, Margaret Thatcher as Leader of the Opposition was described as politically 'radical', clearly the import of the term 'radical' was very different from the same claim made about, say, Vanessa Redgrave as a member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, in ways that ordinary members of British society would understand. The social identity of the speaker is 'outside' the linguistic context of 'she is a radical' (or the equivalent) but fundamentally important to correct interpretation. To marginalise that aspect of interpretation as 'connotation' merely, or 'pragmatic' meaning, is unsatisfactory. I also have less faith than Cruse in the validity of constructed sentences as data—and more faith than he does in the value of a corpus of naturally

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occurring sentences. My own view is that both modes of investigation should be used: insisting on one or the other suggests a kind of methodological purism which sets method above goals. The goal of the present inquiry is to try and determine what the words perestroïka and glasnost are doing in the lexicon of English. If it is true that we now have semantic intuitions about the meanings of these words, as we have about the meaning of parliament, say, then only by looking at actual usage, over a period of time, will it be possible to reconstruct how those semantic intuitions could have come into being. Unless we speak Russian as well as English we can't have semantic intuitions about them based on etymology. And the press quickly abandoned the habit of providing glosses and definitions to help the English-speaker. Notwithstanding the problems I have just mentioned with Cruse's approach, it has one feature which is enormously important for my purposes, and it is this: it becomes inappropriate, in his model, to try and draw a line between the meaning of a word, and 'encyclopedic' facts concerning the extra-linguistic referents of the word. The arguments through which Cruse comes to this conclusion are developed in his book and it is not necessary to summarise them here. But I will use the example of perestroïka to illustrate the point in a way that is relevant to my analysis. Perestroika in Russian usage did not come out of nowhere. In Russian the word has a history. This history is touched upon by Walter Laqueur as follows: It was originally used in the field of building, but it appeared in the political language more often in a slightly different form (perestroistvo) before 1917; it was used by historians and in the pamphlets of the extreme right. The far left at the time was in favour of revolution; the liberals advocated reforms, and the extreme right called for the rebuilding (or restructuring) of Russian society. Perestroika became a favourite word in the early Stalin period; we find many references to it in newspaper articles about agriculture, transport, and literature. In general, it meant some form of reorganisation; in the cultural field it usually implied something akin to Gleichschaltung, the elimination of 'alien' elements. Thus, to give but one example, an article about perestroïka in the field of education published in 1951 stressed the need to accept Pavlovian methods all along the line. In the 1980s it was by and large a synonym for change and reform. Since the word 'reform' was potentially more controversial, perestroika prevailed. (Laqueur 1989, p. 52) Not only did perestroika have a history, but in addition the morphological elements of which it is composed are transparent in Russian, and that transparency is obviously one of the factors that allowed for different interpretations in different contexts. It is possible, but difficult, to make that history count for readers of English language periodicals. English readers were

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even more unlikely than Russian ones to know what Stalin may have meant when he used it. And the morphology is also opaque to English readers. Nevertheless, the term did, for a while, become meaningful in English. Its meaning in the early 1990s had something to do with the fact that newspapers used to provide glosses with transparent English meaning (reconstruction was the preferred choice), glosses which were then internalised by the English readers. It has something, too, to do with the more extended commentaries that used to be offered. The Economist (11 October 1986) provided a particularly useful exegesis on glasnost, coloured by its own ideological perspective; perestroika has been less discussed. More important than either glossing or explicit discussion is usage. To understand these words from their usage it is necessary to go back to the Soviet context and the Russian language in the first instance. Even if you rely upon English translations of Russian texts, it is pretty clear that the way most Soviets used the term perestroika up until 1991 was as a label for what the Soviet leaders were trying to do, as here: Perestroika is our quest to achieve a qualitatively new condition of Soviet society—politically, economically, culturally, morally, spiritually. It is a quest to bring the Soviet Union to the forefront in all of these respects. It is the renewal of socialism, a striving to reveal the truly democratic and human face of socialism. To achieve this, radical reforms must be carried out in all spheres—in our economy, social structure, psychology, and our politics, where we need democracy. (Aleksandr Yakovlev in Cohen and Vanden Heuvel 1989, p. 39) In the real world of Soviet affairs, 1987 to 1991, the label's referent was not singular and determinate: perestroika involved goals, policies to achieve those goals, and various practices which constituted the implementation of the policies. Uses of the word Perestroika could foreground any of these aspects or (most commonly) embrace them all. Not only that, but different members of the ruling élite (not the same set of people throughout) had different ideas about the perestroika project. But the important thing is that the correspondence between form (signifier) and referent is the privileged relation, rather than the relation between form and sense. To argue in this way is to construe semantic relations not in terms of the Saussurean dichotomy of signifier and signified, but rather in terms of Ogden and Richard's 'triangle of reference' (Ogden and Richards 1923, p. 12). The referent, for all its indeterminacy, was allowed to determine sense. Perhaps not completely. One could imagine a Russian saying 'Call this perestroika—nothing's been perestroika'd round our way', thereby making current usage and current practice answerable to established sense. But in general this is not what happened in the late 1980s. In Russian the word's level of generality made that kind of critique difficult. Instead, critical comments about perestroika tended

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to be set in a hypothetical frame, allowing the leadership the right to pair a referent with a label as they chose: Pamyat's leaders are trying to arouse philistine sentiments among a broader segment of the population—cynical, philistine sentiments. And when they wave banners saying, 'We are for perestroïka', a person who doesn't make careful distinctions thinks: 'Well, if that's perestroïka, who needs it? Who wants that kind of perestroika?' (Aleksandr Yakovlev in Cohen and Vanden Heuvel 1989) In English the generality problem was overlaid by the fact that the word lacked a history, as we have seen. So for us in Britain the goal/policy/practice of perestroika became, more than in Russian, the primary source of information on the word's meaning. It is almost, but not quite, a proper name, like Moscow, or Gorbachev. But it was not simply a proper name. There is evidence that it designates less rigidly than that, though more rigidly than natural kind terms (On the concept of 'rigid designator' in language theory, see Cruse 1986, p. 141; Kripke 1972). I am not suggesting that perestroika could not become a common noun of the natural kind type. On the contrary: the perestroika metaphors I referred to earlier showed just such a tendency. The point is that the effectiveness of the perestroika metaphors still depends upon our knowledge of its literal referent, Gorbachev's perestroika in the Soviet Union. The evolution of word meaning in any language is a dynamic process, and I think Cruse is right that encyclopedic knowledge cannot ultimately be separated from dictionary knowledge for this reason: properties of the referent, not necessarily known when the referent was named, can become criterial in determining future uses with different referents. The question 'What does perestroika mean?' requires exactly the same answer as the question 'What is perestroikaT 2.2. The word perestroika as a contested sign So perestroika indexes a period in Soviet history with reference to a leadership project. As a term it has some things in common with 'Thatcherism' as an indicator referring to an overlapping period in British history, though there are important differences too. Perestroika, I have suggested, can be interrogated in respect of the goals, the policies and the practices it was associated with. Two points can be made about perestroika (these apply to glasnost too). Firstly, it was a contested sign, open to appropriation from different ideological perspectives. Secondly, its indeterminacy was a well recognised fact amongst Sovietologists: Like any shrewd political leader who is improvising strategy as he goes along, Gorbachev has kept manipulating the definition of that word to suit his purposes. In his hands it is a slogan for the general urge for reform, and also a label for

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whatever measures he chooses to implement. Sometimes, when Gorbachev is on the offensive, his perestroïka rings with what he loves to call 'revolutionary' change; it harbours gossamer promises of democracy, of private enterprise—and it smacks of heresy to the Soviet power establishment. At other times, when Gorbachev is on the defensive, the term has more limited, cautious connotations—of modernisation, of readapting Soviet socialism without dismantling the system founded by Lenin. Then, Gorbachev uses the term perestroika in ways that include protection of the establishment. (Smith 1991, p. xvii) Contestation certainly surrounded the goals of perestroika. Some, like Cohen and Vanden Heuvel (1989) saw it as overturning the effects of Stalinisation. Others, like Thorn and Regan (1988) thought the leadership regretted only Brezhnev's stagnation, whilst there was also a fear/hope that it might involve undoing the Revolution itself. Gorbachev himself in 1990 suggested that it was none of the above, but something new and yet to be discovered. Cohen and Vanden Heuvel provide a clear-headed statement on the policies of perestroika where there was more consensus: ...what Gorbachev calls perestroika is based on five kinds of major reform, each of which would expand society's freedom of activity by diminishing the realm of the state. One is glasnost or openness, which means a substantial reduction of state and party imposed bans and other forms of censorship in the mass media and in political, intellectual and cultural life generally. The second is managerial decentralisation, which seeks to free thousands of nationalised industrial and agricultural enterprises from the clutching directives of planning agencies and ministries in Moscow. The third reform is economic privatisation, which would reduce the size of the state economy itself, by turning over some portion of its functions to newly created co-operative and individually owned businesses. The fourth reform, economic marketisation, follows from the previous two. It would compel many state enterprises to compete among themselves on the basis of efficiency and profitability, as well as with private firms. Finally, there is Gorbachev's 'democratisation' program, which would sharply reduce the number of party-state appointed officials by permitting multi-candidate elections to the new national parliament, the network of governmental soviets at every level across the country, at workplaces and even inside the Communist party. (Cohen and Van den Heuvel 1989, p. 15) With hindsight one can see that the first reform, glasnost, pertaining to the cultural sphere, and the second, democratisation, pertaining to the political sphere, proved easier to bring about than those pertaining to the economic sphere. In Yeltsin's Russia these were replaced by the project of putting society on to a different economic basis, regulated, as in the West, by the principles of the market. Nor did Gorbachev's master plan as outlined above take any

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account of the crucial national question which proved to be so important to the future direction of events. The indeterminacy around the term perestroïka was generated largely by political scepticism from inside and outside the Soviet Union. Political scepticism can take the form of doubting whether some course of action will work, that is, have the intended results. Thus it is relevant to ask whether all participants intend the same results. Political scepticism can also take the form of doubting whether policymakers mean what they say. To test that kind of scepticism you look at policy in relation to practice. In the present case, the relation of policy to practice had a twist, for although the policies were policies of the Soviet State, part of the desired outcome (on one interpretation) was to decrease the power of the centre. It was, in part, for others to implement perestroïka: Press on, comrades—we from above, you from below. This is the only way perestroïka can happen. Just like a vice. If there's pressure from only one side, it won't work. (Gorbachev 1989, quoted in Smith 1991, p. 442) Here lay the risk for the leadership, since initiatives which suited the new liberalism in the form they took, could, and did, upset the apple cart in respect of their content. Glasnost is a case in point, for glasnost and democratisation helped produce effective, but unwelcome, nationalist movements—which had then to be portrayed as essentially anti-perestroika, whatever they themselves said: There is an anti-perestroika minority, but it is losing its ability to profit from the old stagnant ways. Such a minority might be able to attract some people by operating under the slogans and banner of perestroïka. We saw this in NagornoKarabakh, in the dispute between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, where militant nationalism paraded under the banner of perestroïka. (Aleksandr Yakovlev in Cohen and Vanden Heuvel 1989, p. 62)

3. The Rhetoric of glasnost On glasnost there are different positions regarding both its nature, what it was and what it was for, and its desirability. The destabilising effects of glasnost made it unpopular with Soviet conservatives; its 'incompleteness', its failure to equate with 'freedom of speech' as understood in the West, was a source of criticism from the other end of the political spectrum. There was no satisfactory legal basis for glasnost until the enactment of the Law on Press Freedom in June 1990. To criticise Soviet glasnost because it is unlike Western freedom of speech principles runs the risk of overselling what those principles have in practice given Western countries. In no society is freedom of speech an

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unqualified political right, nor could it be. It can come into conflict with other egalitarian principles such as anti-racism. The letter can be used against the spirit, as in the US broadcasting debates where deregulation is justified on the grounds of freedom of speech but leads in practice to less variety on network television, where corporate advertisers and sponsors determine the limits of what can be shown. Most Western states and Britain is notorious here— have ways of protecting information that they do not wish to be widely known, and can be disingenuous in invoking 'national security' as the reason for secrecy. Such a criticism, too, runs the risk of underselling the depth of the rethinking in the Soviet Union which glasnost made possible. For example, Young and Launer (1991) argue that the Western press constructed the Chernobyl catastrophe as a 'test' of glasnost, which the authorities failed because they were too secretive for too long. This construction implicitly took idealised Western views on information policy as the benchmark for the test. In doing this, the journalists and commentators were insensitive to ways in which that disaster provoked an official response qualitatively different than in comparable incidents before the age of glasnost (Young and Launer 1991, p. 104). Young and Launer also suggest that the original conception of glasnost as the 'handmaid' of perestroïka was neither about official truth-telling in general and for its own sake, nor about encouraging a plural political culture where diverse opinions compete. It was in the West that glasnost developed such meanings. Young and Launer were not the first to explain glasnost to Western readers as if a false view of it had already taken hold or might be likely to take hold. This issue hinged not upon whether glasnost was desirable or not, but on what it was in the first place: ...no single-word translation is really satisfactory. 'Publicity' has a commercial resonance which is absent in glasnost... 'Openness' conveys neither the sense of disclosure implicit in glasnost, nor the selective way in which glasnost is applied: the refreshing candidness is used when it suits the Gorbachev team (for example, to expose corruption or drug abuse) but not when it would embarrass it (open criticism of the general secretary himself, let alone of the one-party system, is still taboo). Might a short phrase convey the meaning of glasnost better? Among the suggestions made to this newspaper are 'letting things out' and 'make public that which you want publicised'. Nice tries, but these phrases suggest action, whereas glasnost is an abstract noun. 'Permission to speak' gets close, though it sounds a bit military. So, for convenience, perhaps 'openness', is best after all—but remember that the censor is still lurking in the background. (The Economist, 14 June 1987) Glasnost is generally translated in the West as meaning 'openness', with connotations of freedom of expression. To the Soviet citizen however, such connotations do not exist: the correct translation of the word should be

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'publicity'—meaning, of course, the publicising of wrongdoing, corruption and inefficiency. Glasnost was introduced for a variety of reasons. First of all it was necessary to prove to the population that this time something was really changing for the better: that from now on they could go to work knowing that effort would be justly rewarded and laziness, theft and misrepresentation punished. Glasnost is here to make Soviet subjects and the outside world forget their previous experience of Bolshevism and renew their co-operation with the regime as though nothing had happened. (Thorn and Regan 1988, p. 9) So glasnost did not mean freedom of expression, though we naive Westerners might have thought that it did, because of our own political and cultural traditions. To the extent that we did think so, and valued that freedom of speech principle, we should have felt favourably disposed towards Gorbachev as the instigator of the policy, and have wanted him to go further. Since Western political leaders—Thatcher, Reagan, Kohl—were indeed promoting Gorbachev at the time, Young and Launer find this misconstruction of glasnost a decidedly 'interested' move as regards international relations, whilst Thorn and Regan seem to be more concerned with the domestic context. Somewhat the converse as regards critique involves taking the line that glasnost is a good thing though the leadership is less so—and thus challenging the leadership's proprietorial stance towards it: Much more must be offered to the Soviet people than perestroïka (restructuring) and glasnost if the Soviet leadership is to gain their trust. Contrary to a belief popular in the West, Gorbachev did not invent glasnost—he borrowed it from the Soviet human rights movement. We were sent to jails and lunatic asylums for exercising or demanding it. (Bukovsky 1988) It is clear, however, that if The Economist is broadly right about the official significance of the term, then, although Gorbachev can rightly be said to have borrowed the word from the human rights movement, the meaning is not the same. In the latter context it is the right to hold and express unorthodox opinions which is at issue. 4. The Rise and Fall of Perestroika The person who is given the credit for reintroducing the term perestroïka in the 1980s is the sociologist Tatyana Zaslavskaya, the author of the 1983 Novosibirsk report, which Gorbachev is supposed to have known about before he took office in 1985.2 During the first two years of his leadership, perestroïka was not the keyword that it has since become. It was in 1987 that his book Perestroïka was first published, and that was also the year that British journalists and commentators began to use the term in their reports from the Soviet Union. At this stage the content of the term was programmatic and

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forward looking, as would be expected. Since all the change was to come, and there was uncertainty about just how much change would be possible or permitted, it is not surprising that the word meaning was highly indeterminate, as Smith (1991) pointed out. An example: For all the miles of red bunting festooning the streets of Moscow on this week's 70th anniversary of the 1917 revolution the ghosts of Communist party battles past and the threat of more fights to come spoiled the fun. Behind the scenes a Politburo split over the pace of perestroïka (restructuring) has made Mikhail Gorbachev look suddenly vulnerable. This could not have happened at a more awkward time. Just as he was preparing to lean hard on the party to do a little restructuring of its own, Mr Gorbachev for the first time found himself having to argue the case for caution and for that most unusual of all qualities, 'revolutionary self-restraint'. (The Economist, 7 November 1987) The important thing about this period of Soviet history is that traditional Leninist principles still applied. The Communist party was the vanguard party, and perestroika was the party line. So Party members would make considerable rhetorical effort to present themselves as agreeing with that line fundamentally and only disagreeing on less important questions like the pace of change. Perestroika's first public crisis was initiated by the famous Andreyeva letter, a 4,500 word essay published in Sovetskaja Rossija in March 1988, with the title T cannot forsake principles'. The Andreyeva letter was a warning against the danger that reform would ultimately lead to the abandonment of socialism, and was generally interpreted as an overt attack on perestroika. But even that letter keeps its options open to the extent that the need at this point in Soviet history for some reorganisation is recognised. As we know, there were more surprises in store for the Soviet leadership, and although for most users the meaning of the term perestroika remained tied to the policy and practices of the Soviet leadership, it also came to include the consequences of that policy and those practices. The following utterance by Gorbachev dates from a speech made in January 1989: we are only now truly understanding what perestroika is...the huge scale of the work to come (quoted in Smith 1991, p. 78). If that is the way the author of the policy feels about it, and most people up to that point have taken perestroika on his terms, the line of least resistance, then it would seem as if by 1989 the answer to the question 'what is perestroika, what does perestroika mean?' is 'wait and see'. Perestroika was ongoing but not yet completed and so it would be premature to try and answer the question. Meanwhile, in Britain, the word continued to be used to refer to the Soviet leadership project, whatever it might finally turn out to be: Kohl calls for more aid for perestroika (The Guardian 10 November 1990)

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Between January and mid-November 145,000 [Russian Jews] arrived [in Israel] driven by the economic and political uncertainties of perestroika and the older problem of anti-Semitism. (The Guardian, 10 November 1990). In contexts such as this, if you had substituted the more general (and English) word 'reform', qualified by 'Soviet' you would end up with sentences scarcely different in meaning from the originals. And so it continues right up until January 1991 and the Baltic crisis. The Baltic crisis dates from the second week in January, but even before that, during the first week of the year, I came across a reference to perestroika as something now finished. It is not meant as a complaint or a criticism: if anything the tone of the article, written by a non-Communist Soviet deputy, is that of celebration and hope. Perestroika is finished because the society has moved beyond the conceptual framework within which it was first conceived: The past year has marked a vital turning point in Soviet history. Perestroïka has ended and we stand on the brink of an unknown era. (Galina Starovoitova, The Guardian, 4 January 91) One week later many other people are ready to declare the death of perestroika too, but on very different terms. The use of force in Lithuania provoked the judgement that perestroïka was dead and that the Soviet Union had in effect returned to an earlier pre-perestroika state. It was either actually dead, or its life hung in the balance. It had opponents who would have killed it if they could: The tanks were on the streets of Vilnius yesterday, but the political crisis they signify is in Moscow. The immediate future of Lithuanian independence is in serious doubt, but the long term future of Mr Gorbachev's perestroika is a much greater casualty... large numbers of ordinary Soviet citizens, who still hope for the fruits of reform, will see this as the end of perestroika. A rapid shift to a real East-West system of European security and the disbandment of NATO would be a more tangible step in helping to disarm perestroika's opponents than offering the Soviet Union economic aid. (The Guardian, 12 January 1991) The important thing about the end-of-perestroika thesis is that such statements only make sense when the speakers who utter them are secure in their understanding of what perestroika was in the first place. It was not for Gorbachev, any more, to decree that perestroika would continue or that it had stopped. The nature of perestroika was now being treated as a matter of historical record, and the leadership can be held accountable le for their actions by reference to that record. This is why one cannot just say that

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perestroika became a proper noun and leave it at that. As the future of the former Soviet Union became more and more uncertain, the desire to treat perestroika as a noun with fixed signification became stronger. 5. Conclusion In the light of the foregoing discussion there are two points that I want to make. One is related to the question of lexical (in)determinacy, a theoretical issue, and the other, more political, is to do with the rhetoric of 'otherness' in East-West relations. Taking the theoretical point first, the perestroika example can stand as an example in discussions about 'the multi-accentuality of the sign' (from Voloshinov 1973)—an example which serves to show that there are real limits to how far the meaning of a word can be 're-accented'. If ever the conditions were right for doing a Humpty Dumpty and making a word mean what you choose it to mean, they were right for Gorbachev in 1987 or thereabouts. It was in his interest however to keep the meaning pretty indeterminate, as we have seen. That indeterminacy left space for considerable interpretative play. But with hindsight we can see that there were some changes which it could not encompass. Specifically: 1. it did not prove indeterminate enough to include the break-up of the Soviet Union itself; 2. it did not prove indeterminate enough to provide support for the antidemocratic use of troops in the rebellious republics; 3. it did not prove indeterminate enough to include the disestablishment of the Communist party; it did, however, apparently stretch to cover terminating the Communist Party's monopoly of power—a move that was not even on the official agenda before February 1990. As for the political significance of this case study, the point to make here is that the choice of Russian as against English words (openness and restructuring) can be usefully seen in the context of the rhetoric of international relations. In the rhetoric of East-West relations, the Cold War discourse long dominated representations. In the Cold War discourse the enemy was as unlike 'us' as it was possible to be. Hawks in the American administration were haunted by 'the spectre of moral equivalence', meaning with this phrase to condemn the peace movement for speaking as if the crimes of the two superpowers put their respective regimes on a morally equal footing. Even as the Cold War discourse was losing its grip upon our understanding, during Gorbachev's perestroika, there was room to play up the similarities

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between Western and Soviet society or to play up the differences, according to ideological preference. A consensus developed that glasnost and perestroïka were untranslatable terms. The resources of English permitted circumlocutory descriptions of what glasnost and perestroïka were, no less vague than the accounts on offer within the Soviet Union. There were no acceptable English one-word synonyms. This consensus about the non-translatability of the terms may itself be a reflection of the deeper consensus—that Western and Soviet societies themselves were non-comparable. Only a Soviet-style command economy could undergo something called perestroïka. Ideas like that were conceivable in the Soviet context but have no possible application in Western contexts where, accordingly, no such words existed. The best that English can do is to provide a word like 'reform'—a superordinate term having a much higher level of generality. The question of whether to treat the two forms of society as essentially comparable or otherwise is a question for political science as well as journalistic and popular forms of representation. But it certainly has a rhetorical dimension in many contexts. Consider the following difference. In explaining the nature of perestroïka, Soviet leaders had the option of finding similar events with which to compare it. Without disagreeing with one another, Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevardnadze found different comparators— Gorbachev evoked Lenin's New Economic Policy of the early 1920s: Perhaps this is the most important and most radical program for economic reform our country has had since Lenin introduced his New Economic Policy in 1921. (Gorbachev 1987, p. 33) Gorbachev in those days was clear that he was seeking socialist solutions to socialist problems. It was Shevardnadze (as Foreign Minister) who first hit upon the idea of telling Westerners that perestroïka could be compared with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s, though others followed his example. The analogy with the New Deal was almost certainly motivated by a desire to undermine the rhetoric of difference. The New Deal was of course an interventionist form of social reconstruction, perceivable therefore as socialism introduced to moderate the effects of capitalism. At the same time however it would serve as a reminder to Westerners, especially Americans, that they too had had crises which had necessitated extraordinary measures by way of remedy. Though of course it is only fair to point out that Sheverdnadze's analogy would not go down well with Americans who viewed the New Deal with hostility. As far as the British, English-language context is concerned, I have so far only argued that the use of the terms glasnost and perestroïka, Gorbachev's preferred terms, can be seen as a gesture towards non-comparability, a stance

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committed to the difference, not the similarity. It would be important also to look at the wider verbal context, to see whether that gesture is one which is supported and upheld in other ways too. How far was the vocabulary of macroeconomics—'market', 'privatisation', 'capital', and so forth—treated as adequate in constructing propositions to describe current events? At the beginning of this article I mentioned the use now being made in English of the words glasnost and perestroika in a metaphorical way, to refer to events and processes in British public life. (Such usages have undoubtedly declined since the overthrow of Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet state). This phenomenon too can be thought about in relation to the question of whether Soviet and Western societies are comparable or otherwise. There was undoubtedly a judgemental framework informing the use of perestroika and glasnost in their original or literal meanings. Perestroika in the Soviet Union was a good thing insofar as it represented change, movement away from an inefficient and reprehensible social order. Likewise with glasnost. The past was negative, the future positive—if perestroika succeeded. Where journalists contemplated its failure, then the past could take on a more positive, or at least neutral, aspect, insofar as the past was stable, where the present and future were highly unstable. It was rare to find any values other than stability attributed to the Soviet past, at least in mainstream journalism. In transferring the words to British institutions, the properties of the judgemental framework are likewise transferred. In these usages too, the past is played off against the future, and top-down interventions are motivated by the best of intentions. For the reader there is pleasure, as well as understanding, to be gained from seeing British institutions as places where perestroika and glasnost can be implemented. Any institution that can be represented as undemocratic, secretive, sclerotically bureaucratic is to that extent like the Soviet Union was and, like the Soviet Union, can only benefit from efforts to change it. If the institution in question is a small-scale one like a school or a football club, the pleasure is no doubt enhanced by the movement from the sublime to the ridiculous. Notes 1

2

Cruse's later work takes him further away from a purely structural conception of lexical semantics. In moving towards a separation of words from concepts (and their interrelations) he emphasises the cognitive. It is not, however, clear that this requires any greater attention to either the linguistic or the social context of word use than the earlier work. Zaslavskaya led a think-tank on economic reform authorised by Andropov. Its conclusions, known as the Novosibirsk Report, were leaked to the Washington Post in 1983; a full English translation appeared in Survey, 8 (1) (1984).

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References Ayto, J. (ed.) (1989) The Longman Register of New Words, London, Longman Bukovsky, V. (1988) 'Reforms Will Be Reversed' in E. W. Lefever and R .D. Van der Lugt (eds.), Perestroika: How New Is Gorbachev's New Thinking? Washington, Ethics and Public Policy Centre Cohen, S. and Vanden Heuvel, K. (1989) Voices of Glasnost, London, W. W. Norton Cruse, D. A. (1986) Lexical Semantics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (1992) 'Antonymy Revisited: Some Thoughts on the Relationship between Words and Concepts' in A. Lehrer and E. F. Kittay (eds.), Frames, Fields and Contrasts, Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Gorbachev, M. S. (1987) Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, London, Fontana Kripke, S. (1972) 'Naming and Necessity' in D. Davidson. and G. Herman (eds.), Semantics of Natural Language, Dordrecht, Reidel Laqueur, W. (1989) The Long Road to Freedom: Russia and Glasnost, London, Unwin Hyman Ogden, C. K. and Richards, I. A. (1923) The Meaning of Meaning, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul Sawka, R. (1990) Gorbachev and his Reforms 1985-1990, London, Philip Allen Service, R. (1989) 'Mikhail Gorbachev as a Political Reformer' in R. J. Hill and J. A. Dellenbrant (eds.), Gorbachev and Perestroika: Towards a New Socialism, London, Edward Elgar Smith, H. (1991) The New Russians, London, Hutchinson Thorn, F. and Regan, D. (.1988) Gorbachev, Glasnost and Lenin: Behind the New Thinking, London, Policy Research Publications Voloshinov, V. N. (1973) Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, London, Seminar Press (first published 1929) Young, M. J. and Launer, M. K. (1991) 'Redefining Glasnost in the Soviet Media: The Recontextualization of Chernobyl', Journal of Communication, 41 (2), pp. 102-124

PART THREE DISCOURSE, IDENTITY AND CONFLICT

13 The Construction of Nation and State: Discourse and Social Space Pierre Achard Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris

1. Introduction The political conjuncture following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the decay of the USSR and the events in former Yugoslavia gave a renewed importance to nationalist phenomena. There is a great need to understand them better, and the abstract notions that are used in the field of discourse analysis can make a valuable contribution in this respect. This chapter is concerned in the first instance with discourse theory rather than with analysis. We will not rely on specific corpora, but rather raise the question of how one might analyse such corpora, and what kind of corpora would be required. 2. We and others: a discourse theory of social space In order to understand the ways in which social relations, from the individual level to the level of large political entities, are organised and represented in discourse, it is necessary to clarify the ways in which languages provide the means for such organisation and representation. The French tradition of discourse analysis derived from the work of Benveniste provides some powerful tools of analysis. In this text, I shall use the term 'discourse' for any language use in a social context, whether in spoken or in written form, and the term 'text' to refer to the literal form of discourses (spoken or written). Any discourse involves 'enunciation'. I use the definitions of enunciation formulated by Emile Benveniste (1966-74), Antoine Culioli (1990), Jenny Simonin-Grumbach (1975, 1984) and Tzvetan Todorov (1981). In this perspective, any text is to be

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understood as having a sort of zero-point, or origin, for its enunciation, which could be described as I-here-now, and two kinds of operations, one designating an alternate enunciating position (you-there-theri) and another designating points outside the field of the present enunciation (she/he/it/they, (some)where, once-upon-a-time). This framework we refer to as the formal apparatus of enunciation. In our presentation of this apparatus, we have so far introduced three co­ ordinates: the category of person, the category of localisation and the category of tense. These three categories are relevant for languages like English at the level of grammar. There are, however, other dimensions which are relevant in discourses and which we may term 'modalities'—for example, the processoriented (as opposed to punctual) aspects, the deontic modes, and so on, that may characterise the enunciation. What also needs to be noted in order to describe semantic operations in discourse is that the basic positions that this model generates may be used for making oppositions or they may be neutralised. So when a discourse uses the term we with a meaning which includes I and you, it can be interpreted as marking a reference to a value which neutralises the opposition between I and you. We need also to distinguish between the enunciating position of a text/discourse and the expressions which, within the text, are traces of operations. As I treat the zero-position as an origin, it is clear that if there are no markers, the enunciating position will include at least all the zero-values of person, localisation, tense and modalities. It will include in fact more than that: it will include an indeterminate (open) vicinity of this origin. Let us take some examples from French (any example given without a reference has been invented.) In an ordinary conversation, when somebody says il pleut (it is raining), the process of raining is stated as valid for the current situation of enunciation. This includes of course I-here-now and its indeterminate vicinity. Usually it will include you, and in any case it presupposes, on the dimension of modality, that raining is not a point in time and space, but an extended process. It also includes sufficient local stability on other modal dimensions, in order that, for example, it is not just a drop of rain that is falling, but enough rain for the statement to be true if it rained just a little less. But if I am speaking over the telephone, the opposition I-you will be active, and the neutralisation which is manifest in the case of face-to-face situation will not be manifest: it can be raining at I's place, but this does not imply that it is also raining at you's place. Now by saying tu vois, il pleut (you see, it is raining), one is building up a situation in which I is aware that it is raining, but you is not aware of it. The presence of the word tu prevents the position of you from being the same as that of I. This example shows that when a speech event is taking place, the

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speakers and the hearers have to take account of the place in which they are located in the interpretation of the current state of the situation. That is to say, (i) they have to use the markers that are in the text, and (ii) they have to use their knowledge or their habits to operate on the 'free' part of the interpretation. Thus we have to distinguish between enunciative places which are defined in the abstract enunciative space on which the ongoing discourse is operating and the practical places in the social and psychological space of the speaker and hearer (or writer and reader). The problem of mapping these two spaces (enunciator with speaker, co-enunciator with addressee, etc.) is a problem of what one may term prise en charge, taking responsibility and control (from the participants' point of view), and of interpretation (from the analyst's point of view). As is well understood, however, a speech or writing event never occurs in isolation but is a part of a series of events organised as discourse formation, and the 'free' part of interpretation is in fact a way of linking the event as a part of previous discourses. Through this inter-discourse effect, the interpretation is constrained and effects of framing induce pre-interpretations. This explains how it comes about that some registers of discourse might have their own zeropoint for enunciation which is not the zero-point as linguistically described. So the same assertive statement might express an enunciation distinguishing I (who knows) from you (who does not know) if stated by a teacher in a classroom (the 'you see' situation) or under an enunciation where the I-you opposition is neutralised if stated in a scientific congress (a sort of 'we see' situation). Within this theoretical frame, we can then consider that there is a possible definition of social groups as discourse processes, in the sense that a range of practical activities are related to a discourse field in which there is a relatively stable we position that is presupposed. Thus, when I am writing a scientific article, I can state 'we can consider... ' and this will make sense by virtue of the fact that my reader (you) has a certain habitus of accepting the scientific posture of reading. This contributes to the constitution of scientists as an (occasional) group within the global social process. For an analyst it is possible to look into discourses and see ways of speaking/writing which rely upon certain presuppositions bearing on the we position. For this, there are two basic tools: (i) the explicit use of we, when it has an inclusive value and appears as having a validity which is not strictly local, and (ii) the use of objective categories in linguistic environments which show that they are external to the field of the enunciator. These categories mark an external domain which limits the possible (open) extension of we. As a rule, therefore, there is always the open field of enunciation (the undetermined vicinity of the enunciator) and external (closed) spaces which are

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beyond the limits of this extension. This would in a way describe social groups per se. But discourses are capable of reflexive acts referring to their own enunciation: the groups in themselves may be designated by nomination. This is only possible by way of a modal splitting of the enunciator—a very general we position 'looking into' the world in which the specific we position is involved. In fact, this general position is already present when an explicit we or I is used. But the effect of naming the we-position is stronger, since it uses, by implication, the virtuality of another enunciating position for which the I-we position can be seen as closed. 1 From this viewpoint, we are now able to propose a typology of inclusive we in use in concrete discourses. In this typology, we are supposing that the opposition I-you is neutralised (so-called 'inclusive' we). 1. At the lower level, the discourse-practical activity will need no internal marker of a we level, which means that the enunciative position is not split, and that it works locally as an open space without considering external points. For an observer, there is of course a we-position which can described, but for the enunciative viewpoint, it is a practical position, without internal local representation. This can be termed the open-assertive situation. 2. The use of the deictic marks of we introduces a virtual external position which can limit the extension of the vicinity in which the enunciation is stable. This situation can be termed the we/others situation. 3. The explicit designation of other enunciating positions (by names or thirdperson pronouns) introduces an actual external position. Even if we is not used, its open domain is co-constructed. In this situation, we is open and strangers' categories are closed. Such a situation can be called the we/strangers situation. 4. Naming the we-self category implies that theopen-wespace can be seen from an alternate enunciation point as closed. This situation can be called the we/they situation. In the field of political discourse, it corresponds to the we/foreigners situation. 5. Speaking of the whole classification in which the we-self category is a class implies a meta-discourse enunciation where the first level of enunciation is represented as a collection of open-closed classes. The specificity of this situation is not easy to see. The main difference between it and situations 1 to 4 is that the ongoing 'universal' enunciation is not a part of the enunciative space which is spoken about. If a French newspaper states that a certain French position at the UN is essentially correct, as a speaker the paper is certainly involved as French, but it presents its appreciation as independent of its relative real position, i.e. it presents it as universal enunciation. This situation could be called a we-as-a-fact situation.

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3. The construction of the state in discourse The first part of this chapter has dealt with local identities linked with discourse registers, which are in turn part of practical activities. It could be argued that each practical social activity regulates the place of the speaker as a legitimate actor in a discourse which has its own relative we as a specific zeropoint. In this section, we now consider politics as an activity together with its associated register or political discourse. We compare Western European states (the cases of Britain and France) and the Baltic states in transition in the year of 1989. 3.1 Defining the state in Britain and France In spite of the initial impression (which merely derives from the fact that we have a political background competence), the political we is not always a national we; on the contrary, the national we appears in political discourse as the result of certain specific political problems. Let us take an example from the print media. In the 24 November 1991 issue of the Observer there is an article titled 'Students' "Poverty" Sit-ins Spread' (p. 26). The third paragraph states: They are protesting against low grants, high rents and staff-student ratios so high that students claim academic standards are falling. Who is the we involved as the enunciation frame in this quotation? First, the use of the present tense in its incomplete aspect (progressive -ing form) tells us that the students' protest and the reading/writing process are in the same temporal vicinity. Protesting can be taken as a political activity for which students are legitimate agents (in so far as their legitimacy is not challenged by the text). However, there is a difference between some statements that we can be considered as making its own, and others for which it does not take the responsibility. Students as such are, thus, 'others' for the text (though nothing prevents a student from also being a reader). That grants are low, rents high and staff-student ratios high is not denied (though not positively stated) by the newspaper. The proposition that academic standards are falling, and that this is because of high staff-student ratios, remains the responsibility of the students. It can also be noted that there is no local opposition made between 'students' in general and protesting students (the previous paragraph mentions 'students' leaders'). In this way the newspaper is in fact considering the protest as a legitimate expression of 'students' as a group. The enunciating we of the text is a sort of universal political we which goes beyond the newspaper's we. As a journalist, the author's we is informing us of the students' protest, on the basis of the presupposed (pre-constructed) knowledge that the grants are low, etc.—

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knowledge that the reader should have from his or her own experience and that the newspaper as such is granting by the fact of publishing the paper. As an expanded we, we (author + reader, partaking of the quality of virtual citizens) are put in a situation of being the addressees of the 'protest'. Other parts of the article construct 'us' as distinct from the 'government': Government pressure has forced colleges to increase dramatically the number of students. This type of discourse is in this fashion building up the enunciative position of lay citizen as the zero-enunciative position of the text, facing the closed (particular) positions of protesting students and decision-making government. But the fact that the general frame of the text is Britain results from external considerations: Britain is the universe of the ongoing discourse. The term we is not used, and no external point relative to this universe is designated. What emerges through this particular text concerning the universe of political discourse is that it is a social universe with at least three roles: protesting (closed) groups (here, students), decision-making bodies (here, government, also closed) and an unmarked lay citizen we-position (public opinion, the open pole of enunciation). This is the enunciating position—the praxis—of this text as a political text. For politics to be a practice, it has to be conceived of as including as inter-discourses those discourses, among others, where we is built up from the 'students', or from the 'government'. In other words, the way in which students' and government's acts and discourses are reported is a way of taking a practical position about them. For example, the structure of the government, as an open practice, would involve at the time its open we (stable through all government acts, most of these being discourse acts), and the closed status that the government's discourse gives to the other political actors (students as a group, their leaders, newspapers, political parties, parliament, government members as such, and so on). Turning now to international politics, let us consider an example on the same page of the same newspaper—an article entitled 'Britain to Resist European Plan by Brussels', of which I will quote the last paragraph: Kenneth Clarke, Education Secretary, will tell his EC Education Ministers tomorrow that Britain is not prepared to meet the cost of the scheme. Our principles of reading show us that the universal enunciation is relying upon an expanded we, looking at the way in which Mr Clarke is going to speak in the name of Britain, i.e. a state or a nation (used here as analytic meta-terms) of which the expanded we is part (as a lay citizen). This gives some inkling of the difference between Britain and British citizens. In this text, they do not belong to the same plane of enunciation, Britain belonging to the plane of facts, and lay citizenship to the space of

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enunciation.2 The relationship between the political discourse and the citizens is usually, in the course of ordinary day-to-day practice, a matter of presupposition. In such circumstances there is no need to make national identity explicit. The ordinary task of the state is to regulate problems which are posed in connection with its ordinary relation to ordinary citizens in specific circumstances (e.g. when they are protesting students) or to ordinary foreign states (e.g. in the frame of the European Community). The notion of nation appears when there is some problem between practical politics and its citizenry—e.g. when an expanded we is considering that it deserves its own state, different from the one it is in, or, to take a frequent case in 'new' post-colonial countries, when the state does not rely upon a previous expanded we and has to build one up in some way through what is called 'development'. This is a phenomenon the sociologist Anouar Abdel Malek (1962) has called nationalitaire (a blend of the words national and totalitaire). I am referring here not to the state in general, but rather to the phenomenon of the 'modern' state. To understand this, it is necessary to keep in mind that the modern state is not so much defined through its local practices as through what Michel Foucault (1966) called 'the problematic of the closed world' (la problématique du monde clos). This problematic relies on some kind of international law, which means a discourse activity presupposing that the world is divided into a set of disjoint territories under the authority of states of the same kind. I will not try to establish this fact, but rather I will emphasise that it carries some important consequences. Modern states are considered (and this in spite of numerous local differences as regards their organisation) legitimate as long as they speak for a human group of citizens, and their power is to be exercised over a territory. Thus, through states, there is a phenomenon of appropriation of land by human groups. At the same time, it should be emphasised that this is a kind of proprietorship quite different from private ownership, which takes various forms within each state. In French national accounting, and, I suppose, in that of many other states, Tes comptes de la nation' (accounts of the nation) deal with two kinds of aggregates: interior and national. Interior aggregates are simpler: they consist of summing up values of operations occurring on the territory. National aggregates are much more complicated: they are computed by subtracting the values belonging to foreigners in France and adding the values belonging to French people abroad. In fact, even for the 'national' aggregates, the basis is the territory: With regard to the accounts of a nation, the first concern is to establish the distinction between the economic units belonging to the nation and those which, being foreign, will be classed in the sector 'rest of the world'. (S'agissant de la comptabilité d'une nation, le premier soin est d'établir la distinction entre les

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unités économiques appartenant à la nation et celles qui, lui étant étrangères, seront classées dans le secteur 'reste du monde'.) Considered as subjects of national accounts are the 'resident units' which are defined as 'units which have a centre of interest on the economic territory of France'. There is a centre of interest on a territory for a unit if such a unit carries out economic operations there for one year or more. (Sont considérées comme sujets de la comptabilité nationale les 'unités résidentes' qui sont définies comme 'unités qui ont un centre d'intérêt sur le territoire économique de la France'. Il y a, pour une unité, centre d'intérêt sur un territoire si elle y effectue des opérations économiques pendant un an ou plus...) (Marczewski, 1989) This text makes it possible to establish three things: first, that for economic purposes, the state apparatus is primarily concerned with territory; second, that the relation between the state and the economic units is that the economic units belong to the nation; third, that belonging in this sense has nothing to do with citizenship. Of course, other political problems raise the question of defining la nation. But it is interesting to note that locally (that is, within the scope of the open we defined in this chapter, which can be taken as representative of the whole discourse of French comptabilité nationale) no contradiction is raised by a definition of 'belonging to the nation' that is very different from the one applied in the law of citizenship. Thus, the relation between state and nation appears as an internal problem, and the relation between state and territory is an international one. The definition used above to define French economic units is closer to the international problematic, and virtually contradictory with citizenship, but the contradiction is not actualised because the scope of the comptabilité nationale discourse does not include the problematic of citizenship. 3.2 We and the nation:

France

In order to show how the problem of we and of nation might interact in concrete situations, I analyse an interview with two individuals, the sociologist Alain Touraine and the novelist Max Gallo, published in Le Monde (17 December 1991). The title was L'Europe et les nations vues par Max Gallo et Alain Touraine (Europe and the Nations Seen by Max Gallo and Alain Touraine), and there was a subtitle in the form of a quotation: Le grand danger est que la construction européenne soit le premier échelon d'une internationalisation pure, d'une société réduite à un marché. (The great danger is that the European construction will be the first step of a pure internationalisation, a society reduced to a market.)

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The quotation is unsigned, suggesting that it be taken as a consensual sentence, though when one reads the article it can be seen that it is a sentence of Touraine's. I use this newspaper interview as a mini-corpus showing the use of the word nation within the social field of political life in France, and so 'neglect' to discuss it at its own level. This should not be seen as contempt for Touraine's or Gallo's ideas, but rather as a way of examining some aspects of the conditions of possibility (in Foucault's sense) of these ideas. Neither does my analysis focus on the rhetorical level where both positions are in a concrete exchange; rather it treats the differences as a symptom of a dialogic and polyphonic component (in Bakhtin's sense) of political discourse in France. There is also a purpose for me in using the phrase 'in France' rather than 'French' for a definition of the horizon within which the analysis will be framed: I am aiming to describe a local functioning, involving the consideration of some wider pre-constructed formations, and not postulating the closed coherence of a global formation. That is, I make no attempt to confront this text with other discourses in the same space. The text we are dealing with is not to be taken as a first-order document. The text we have has been rewritten for publication, probably more or less revised by Touraine and Gallo, and framed by the journalists. It is true that this circumstance could constitute a strong argument against taking the interaction between the two participants which appears in the text as if it were the one which occurred in the real process of the interview. However, the same circumstance is a guarantee of the socially shared value of meaning effects. It is this text and not the real interaction which was published and widely read by the public. Each interviewee has six turns, Gallo having the first one, Touraine the last one. The paper, on five columns, has 547 lines of text, 214 for Gallo, 333 for Touraine. The speakers differ in the relative frequency of occurrence of the words nation and its derivatives, and the pronouns on, je, nous (including their related forms and imperative constructions): nation national other derivatives on je, moi Nous

Max Gallo 13 9 1

Alain Touraine 7 (8) 8 (13) 5 (2)

5 21 6

11(8) 14 (30) 29 (9)

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The numbers in parentheses are the approximate number of occurrences expected if Touraine's 'density of use' had been similar to Gallo's. This very rough computation shows that the two speakers do not have the same way of defining themselves in relation to the nation. While Gallo is (relatively) over­ using nation and je, Touraine over-uses on and, massively, nous. In terms of the framework outlined in the first section of this chapter we have, then, the possibility of thinking that Touraine is probably in an open-we discourse position, whereas Gallo would be in an open-closed one (nations being presented as clear-cut categories). Let us examine more closely the occurrences of nation (indicated by added italics). First, Gallo's pattern of usage: Gl. There is a consensus to say that one can no longer enclose oneself in national boundaries, that Europe is a reality, that it is necessary to have links between the European nations... (Il y a consensus pour dire que l'on ne peut plus s'enfermer dans les frontières nationales, que l'Europe est une réalité, qu'il faut des liens entre les nations européennes.) G2 I use the word 'nation' deliberately... (j'emploie volontairement... )

le mot

'nation'

G3. And within this Europe, what renunciations of sovereignty are there to be that the nations can consent to? (Et à l'intérieur de cette Europe, quels doivent être les abandons de souveraineté que les nations peuvent consentir?) G4. I believe that in establishing a convenient split between anti-Europeans and pro-Europeans, one is masking the deep reality of the debate, which is precisely the place of the nation. (Je crois qu'en établissant un clivage commode entre anti-européens et pro-européens, on masque la réalité profonde du débat, qui est précisément la place de la nation.) G5. The nation is in France a sort of 'thing unthought', a sort of black hole. (La nation est en France une sorte 'd'impensé', de trou noir.) G6. For me, the nation resists these simple analyses... (Pour moi, la nation résiste à ces analyses simples...) G7. There is, either explicitly or implicitly, in this exposé of the new definitions of the nation... (Il y a là, soit explicitement. soit implicitement, dans cet exposé de la nouvelle définition de la nation...) G8. ...a destruction of the nation. (...une destruction de la nation.) G9. Does that mean that in those areas, national principles, that is, the functioning of the nation-states, no longer figure? (Cela signifie-t-il que dans ces

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zones-là les principes nationaux, autrement dit le fonctionnement des Etatsnations, ne jouent plus?) G10. In other words, I see the outline not of large entities but of nations which have a certain strength, industries of world standing... {Autrement dit, je vois se profiler non pas de grandes entités, mais des nations qui ont une certaine force, des industries à la taille mondiale... ) G11. ...and which, consequently, make the balance of forces work in their favour from one nation to the other.] (...et qui, par conséquent, font jouer le rapport de forces en leur faveur d'une nation à l'autre.) G12. This altar, it's the altar of the French exception, of the rupture with the nation. (Cet autel, c'est celui de l'exception française, de la rupture avec la nation.) Gl3. Europe as it is being built will function to the advantage of a nation-state whose capital is Berlin and which is called Germany. (L'Europe telle qu'elle se bâtit va fonctionner au bénéfice d'un Etat-nation dont la capitale est Berlin et qui s'appelle l'Allemagne.) uraine's pattern of usage is as follows: T l . How are our places and our institutions of regulation of social life going to be distributed between the level of the present nations, the level of Europe and the infra-national one, which is larger or smaller depending on the country? (Comment nos lieux et nos institutions de régulation sociale vont-ils se répartir entre le niveau des nations actuelles, celui de l'Europe et celui, infranational, qui est plus ou moins grand selon le pays ?) T2. ...America is a nation which produces a civilisation. (...l'Amérique, c'est une nation qui produit une civilisation.) T3. Japan is a nation which produces a civilisation. (Le Japon, c'est une nation qui produit une civilisation.) T4. What we have the greatest need of in France is an active and living nation. (Ce dont nous avons le plus grand besoin en France, c'est d'une nation active et vivante.) T5. The nation, as a living political system, that is, which deals with the problems of society and makes laws out of them, to put it simply, it's not working any more. (La nation, comme système politique vivant, c 'est-à-dire qui traite les problèmes de société et qui en fait des lois, pour parler simple, ça ne fonctionne plus.)

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T6. ...what I say is: there is the political nation, I mean a unit for debating, for formulating, for the exchange of ideas, and it's that which is weak, (...moi je dis: il y a la nation politique, je veux dire unité de débat, de formulation, d'échange d'idées, et c'est ça qui est faible.) T7. This identification of everything with the nation has lasted a hundred years. {Cette identification de tout à la nation a duré cent ans.) Comparing the two lists, we see some characteristic features. First, both authors tend to identify 'nation' and 'state', or, more exactly, nations are considered as the human groups underlying the present citizenship of modern European states. Secondly, the way Touraine defines (T5, T6) 'nation' as a political system is close to what Gallo says in another sentence (without the word nation but closely following G6): ...there is this space, this reality which is at once memory, which is, as Renan said, the 'will to live together', which is a language, a space of economic decision, a state, a whole political culture, (...il y a cet espace, cette réalité qui est à la fois mémoire, qui est, comme disait Renan, le 'vouloir vivre ensemble ', qui est une langue, un espace de décision économique, un Etat, toute une culture politique.) The fact that Gallo mentions language could lead us to think that he has a more 'cultural' (in the sense of cultural anthropology) view of 'nation'. In fact, it is just an index of a specific French phenomenon: considering the French language as a part of the political world. Both Gallo and Touraine are using the word nation as referring to a political system. Both consider that 'nations' derive from the past ( T l : nations actuelles', G: mémoire) and that 'nation' is a practice rather than a group (T5: La nation...qui traite les problèmes', G: toute une culture politique). But if the absolute definition of 'nation' that both authors presuppose (and which is not the same as it would be in Belgium or in Switzerland or in Québec) is very similar, what is very different is the way in which they articulate their own we with regard to 'nation'. For Gallo, 'nation' is a readymade reality (G6: pour moi, la nation résiste à ces analyses simples). He never uses nous in the direct context of nation, precisely because his text is functioning as if it were framed in the natural frame of his own nation. If we look at the full sentence which follows G6, we read (emphasis added): I am a citizen of humanity, a European but at the same time there is this space, this reality... (Je suis citoyen de l'humanité, un Européen, mais en même temps il y a cet espace, cette réalité...). This is a kind of paraphrase of the sentence G6 (pour moi, la nation résiste à ces analyses simples). The subjective pour moi is echoed by je suis, and being a citizen of the world or a European is an opinion, but the nation which resists

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is something that 'there is' (il y a). His explicit expanded we is thus limited by this natural frame. Touraine's position is quite different. His first quotation uses an explicit we marker (nos lieux et nos institutions...). He distinguishes between nations actuelles, Europe and infranational in terms of levels. The expanded open field of the explicit inclusive we is Europe rather than nation or country. He distinguishes nation and pays. He cites as nation some countries that are outside Europe, while all of Gallo's discourse is inside Europe. In this connection, Touraine's sentences following T2-T3 are of some interest, since they display a characteristic European expanded we: If Europe has no political will, has no political and cultural personality, it is no more than a zone of commercial conquest. Now, we no longer produce either life-style, or television programmes, or a type of clothing, or perhaps even a type of food. (Si l'Europe n'a pas de volonté politique, n'a pas une personnalité politique et culturelle, elle n 'est qu 'une zone de conquête commerciale. Or nous ne produisons plus de manière de vivre, ni de programmes de télévision, ni un type de vêtement, ou peut-être même d'alimentation.) If we look at the sequence of his sentences, Touraine opens by stating: 'A national will is required' (Il faut une volonté nationale). Then comes TI, followed by the sentence which gives the subtitle of the article, and then T2-T3 followed by the sentence just quoted (Si l'Europe...). What this sequence implies is that la volonté nationale is clearly, though not explicitly, related to Europe taken at the level inclusive of Japan and America, and not considering the level restricted to France, Britain, Germany, etc. Moreover, these last two sentences establish a we directly connected to Europe. There seems to be a contradiction in Touraine's discourse between this analysis and quotations T4-T5. In these quotations there is a re-framing of the inclusive we at the level of France. In fact, Tl opens this possibility by considering [les] nations actuelles as a level. The statistical evidence showing Touraine's propensity to use nous, while Gallo tends to use nation, can be interpreted as an actual open functioning of Touraine's text. Gallo prefers the open-closed functioning, and makes his own change of level by constituting the open-closed units (les Etats-nations) as enunciators of a higher type. The open functioning of Touraine's open we is in fact characterised by the fact that there is no change of level of enunciation when there is a change of extension of the size of the referential unit. The change of level is objectivised as levels of the object about which we are speaking. The coherence of the position is in fact maintained because Touraine can use the word nation to mean 'what is nowadays a nation', while keeping the projected European nation outside of the scope of this noun by using the adjective form national. This also explains the fact that Touraine uses internationalisation and

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infranational, while Gallo does not use any such derivative of nation. Both of them use the derivative nationaliste, which has quite a different status. Another interesting piece of evidence concerning the difference between the two authors is the fact that Touraine uses the phrase les Français as a substantive and Gallo uses français only as an adjective. The way in which Touraine uses les Français is in fact quite similar to the way in which The Observer used the category 'students'—namely as a category of particular interests within the field of the political we. This objectivisation of les Français in Touraine's text does not exclude the enunciation from an identification with the referent of this term. In fact, he makes such an identification through the French pronoun on, a marker which has a very specific functioning. Let us quote (emphasis added): The French are now obliged, and so much the better, to defend their identity, not with the protection of a cocoon of exceptionalism, but in an open struggle on the political, economic, social and cultural market. I repeat: since 1984, the economy—and even, at the risk of surprising you, the French academic system—has been getting along rather better. One is recovering. One is on the rise. One has no reason at all to be afraid of open competition. {Maintenant les Français sont obligés, et c'est tant mieux, de défendre leur identité, non pas à l'abri d'un cocon d'exceptionnalisme, mais dans la lutte ouverte sur le marché politique. Économique, social, culturel, mondial Je répète: depuis 1984, l'économie—et même au risque de vous surprendre, l'Université française—se débrouille plutôt mieux. On se redresse. On remonte. On n'a aucune raison d'avoir peur de la compétition ouverte.) The use of on has at least three effects in French in this context. First. In contrast with English pronoun 'one', it has an effect of familiar style which marks a rupture with the rather sustained style of the surrounding discourse. This effect gives to the fragment a sort of 'free indirect style' value (style indirect libre), weaker than quotation marks, but nonetheless perceptible. Second, it has a value of indeterminacy as between an inclusive we (especially valid in spoken French, usually excluded in writing) and an impersonal form similar to the English use of the passive. Third, in the vicinity of the noun phrase l'Université française, and given the background knowledge of Touraine's own professional position, the use of on rather than nous can limit the effect of identification to the very local context without contaminating the whole position. Considering the dialogic situation, which makes a single text of the two authors' positions, it is interesting to note that Gallo's position appears as the 'basic' position that Touraine does not challenge directly. What Gallo takes as a hard fact, the existence of nations in Europe, Touraine modalises: des nations actuelles, maintenant les Français. By doing this, he builds up a space of enunciation in which an expanded we, able to work within the present national

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frame, is considered simply as a part of a possible expanded we of larger extension. He does not state at any point that he is in fact functioning in the frame of Europe and considers nations just as a characteristic of people within the Lebenswelt or universe of their ordinary life. But his last intervention is spoken-written initially at world level, and then shifts to Europe as the natural category for expanded we where nowadays nations are inessential: The present situation seems to me to be eminently favourable to the building of Europe. When one had the confrontation of the two super powers, it was a matter between the Americans and the Soviets, and the Europeans were left aside. Now we are in a position to put in our own word... (La situation actuelle me semble éminemment favorable à la construction de l'Europe. Quand on avait l'affrontement des deux supergrands, c'était une affaire entre Américains et Soviétiques et les Européens étaient laissés pour compte. Maintenant, nous avons notre mot à dire... ) I have marked in bold the modals, categories and personal markers which ensure the building up of the final enunciating frame of Touraine's text. It continues to the end in the we mode, using only one word of the nation series, namely international, in a context which leaves no doubt as to the nation level intended: We have a direct international objective, which is the incorporation of these countries, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, as quickly as possible. (Nous avons un objectif international direct, qui est l'incorporation de ces pays, Pologne, Hongrie, Tchécoslovaquie, le plus vite possible.) The marker nous, plus the fact that the set in which these countries should be incorporated is not actually mentioned, can only imply that for the text the political European project is the field of the open inclusive we. This analysis is of course not complete. Much more precise attention should now be devoted to the uses of nous and on, to the status of je, to the set of related words such as Etat, pays, the names of countries, the adjectives and other words derived from these related words, and the numerous markers of modalities and shifters—all of which have some effect on the enunciator's construction. But it is probably more useful to stand back and reflect upon the meaning of the results of this preliminary survey. It would be quite false to think that this text covers all the dialogism around the social meanings of nation in the French situation. Simone Bonnafous (1991) has made a very complete study of ten years of press articles about migrations and foreigners in France and especially studied the we markers as a function of their referential horizon. For the field she is concerned with, the European we that Touraine uses is quite rare, but the topic has to be considered, as in France migrants are not mainly Europeans. The different newspapers have their own use, and a substantial use of nation classifiers based

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more on culture, or even race, is not rare. It would be optimistic—or pessimistic, according to one's viewpoint—to assume that in France there is a consensus on the citizen value of the definition of nation. Taguieff's book (1988) bears witness at the same time to the fact that, when the subject is raised, a categorical discriminating discursive formation is clearly present around the idea of nation, but the book itself, as a text within the situation, shows that the so-called 'centralist' position is still an effective alternative. The fact that Alain Touraine as well as Max Gallo, former spokesman of the French government, are rather left-wing intellectuals has to be taken into consideration. But this text and its internal dialogism is nonetheless evidence of the particularities of the French discourse formation, and at the same time evidence of the way in which it is apt to react to the broader conjuncture on this issue. 3.3 We and nation: the Baltic states in 1989 During the session of a working group organised by Wanda Dressier in November 1991 in Paris on the comparison of nationalist movements in the east and west of Europe, the Estonian linguist Mati Hint presented a booklet, containing the text of a speech given by himself on the occasion of the Baltic Assembly in Tallinn, Estonia, on 13 May 1989. The title of this text is 'The Baltic Way', published in Tallinn by 'Valgus'. The signature is 'Mati Hint, Popular Front of Estonia'. On the cover, the title is given in five languages: the three 'Baltic' languages (the Estonian version being given as the original and placed first in the booklet with no translator mentioned), Russian, and English. The following analysis focuses on some political implications of the Russian and English texts contained in this publication. As a rule, and as Patrick Sériot (1985) has convincingly shown, the political implications of a text must be analysed in the text's own language (cf. also Fairclough 1992). What authorises us to work on the Russian and on the English texts is that an actual political organisation (the Popular Front of Estonia) did itself publish these translated versions. This act of publishing is a political act, which gives us grounds for claiming that these texts in a 'foreign' version are relevant. The choice of languages is important: using Estonian as the original language was not an unmarked decision in the political frame of 1989. As a part of the Soviet Union, Estonia was a place where the zero-choice was Russian. But in the frame of the Popular Front of Estonia, the Estonian language was not an independent or free choice: this choice is internally unmarked, it is the 'natural' choice of the discourse register 'discourse of the Popular Front'. Its marked value is the global markedness of Estonian independentism within (and already outside of) Soviet political discourse.

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Translating into Latvian and Lithuanian is a way of concretely acting within the 'Baltic way' which the title mentions, putting forward the 'equality within difference' of the three nations, and their (thus constructed) solidarity. Moreover, to give Russian and English translations is to act within an open field of international discourse, a way of reducing Russian to the status of just the language of another country, a privileged but nonetheless foreign country. English gives the document an international status. The text is five pages long. In the English version, there are only three explicit marks of we (in bold): Before us stands the monument that marks half a century since the most disasterous [sic] events of twentieth century Europe. But if we are to talk about a common European home for all the nations of Europe, then the possibility of peacefully rearranging the present structure must also be available. So help us God! In the Russian text, the first two occurrences are absent. The first reads, with literal English glosses: Priblizhajutsja poluvekovye jubilei are approaching themselves the half-century jubilees. The second one reads: Odnako esli govorit' ob obshchem dome Only if to speak about common house. Only in the third one can we be found: Da pomozhet nam Gospod' Bog! So will help us Lord God! In any case, the first two occurrences of we/us in the English text are related to the inclusive position of the (indeterminate) speaking-writing-hearing-reading situation of the text as text rather than to the expanded we of the speaker. The effect is ensured in Russian by the use of the reflexive middle voice (priblizhajutsja) for the first example (rendered here as English progressive form and reflexive pronoun) and by the impersonal infinitive (govorit') in the second one. The last sentence, which concludes the paper is thus the only explicit trace of the expanded we. The text itself is an impersonal narrative. It is a political act because stating the historical narrative of political groups is an important way of constructing these groups or these enunciative positions as legitimate, as Jean-Pierre Faye (1972) has shown in detail. Here, the fact of stating, in an impersonal way, as a

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common history of three 'peoples', the history of one's own group (identity being assumed through signature) is a way of assessing its legitimacy. The weeffect is thus divided between a universal inclusive we-you, able to recognise the truth of what is said, to take charge of it, and a non-inclusive I-we (the National Front), who has the legitimacy (who makes the claim) to assert its own group's situation 'objectively' (through third-person enunciation). The text is divided between narrative parts about what happened to they (with an underlying accountable T am one of them'), and performative statements, e.g. 'they are ready to... ', a statement which is true because it is in fact a promise. In virtue of this characteristic, it is a modality of we not far from the one Gallo uses in some fragments of the text analysed above. It is a way of giving a preconstructed value to the group in the name of which the text is speaking. It is also close to the way the Observer distinguished between the Education Secretary and Britain. This phenomenon is found throughout the text, except in the closing exclamation. So, in this text, the expanded we is for most part built up implicitly. This implicit we speaks of a reality viewed from outside, and its enunciating position thus goes beyond the institutional belonging of the speaker. The other side of the identity conveyed by the text is the closed object which it puts forward, and we focus here on the family of notions in the vicinity of the word nation. The word nation is quite frequent in the English text. There are 29 occurrences, among which only one is in the singular. The adjective national occurs 7 times, the noun nationalities two times and the adverb nationally once. The closer term in Russian, natsija, occurs only twice. Where the English text uses nation, we find three words: narod (people), strana (country) and gosudarstvo (government/state). But of course, these words also have occurrences which are not translated by nation in the English version. The English adjective national corresponds always in the Russian text to natsional'nyj (except once where it is not translated at all), and there are 13 occurrences of this adjective. The English term nation occurs only once in the singular ('the Baltic nations, even under the rule of a foreign nation') and this occurrence has no strict equivalent in the Russian text (pod chuzhoj vlast'ju, roughly, 'under an alien power'). In the plural, the most frequent form is 'the Baltic nations' (21 occurrences). The other forms are: 'independent nations', 'the league of nations', 'the rights of the new nations [i.e. the Baltic nations]', 'the three oldest nations in Europe [i.e. the Baltic nations]', 'all of the nations in Europe', 'the rights of nations', 'the principles of self-determination of nations'.

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'Baltic nations' corresponds to the Russian word narody in 10 cases, strany in 6 cases, strany i ix narody ('the Baltic countries and their peoples') in one case, and gosudarstvo in one case. The expression is omitted in one case, referred to as Baltika in one case, and referred to by a pronoun (oni, they) in the last case. If we look at the Russian text itself, we find 21 occurrences of narod and of strana in the plural. Their distribution is very similar: most of the time they are used either in the nominative as subject (9 narod and 4 strana), or as noun complement in the genitive (8 narod and 3 strana). The noun narod is also found 3 times after a preposition and once in the accusative; strana occurs once as an accusative. As the global distributions are too similar (given the size of the sample), the main distributional fact which we can use to show the difference of meaning between narod and strana is the phrase where they are both present—namely, 'the Baltic strany and their narody'. Even if one cannot exclude the possibility of the reciprocal presentation narody i ix strany, we can retain the idea that the countries belong to the peoples rather than the reverse. Looking at the genitive instances, we see that narod has 'culture', 'history', 'customs', a 'way', 'convictions', 'rights', and that one can speak of its 'awakening'. The strana has a 'fate', 'independence', 'wealth' and 'economies'. Similarly, examining the verbs with which it collocates, narod may 'fall under domination', 'be ready to do something', 'be killed', 'aim to do something', 'build up its own philosophy', 'prove that they are...', 'be ready to'; strana may 'possess', 'realise', 'do its utmost to...', 'find [itself] in a situation'. These distributions do not give the impression of a neatly separated meaning of the two terms. However, narod seems to be considered as a more natural entity, an entity which has some rights, among which is the right to independence. If independent, the narod which has a strana may itself be considered, by metonymy, as a strana. It is quite striking that the main intuitive difference between the two words (i.e. that a narod would be a set of people and a strana a geographical unit) cannot be found in the distribution of the uses of these terms. On the contrary, the main context for narod is baltiki (the peoples of the Baltic), and with strana the text uses the adjective baltijskij. So the natural, presupposed status of the people-on-the-land as a fact seems challenged by the chuzhaja vlast', the alien power which deprives the people of autonomy. The land belongs to the narod, not by right of private property, but by cultural and historical ancestry, by indefeasible inheritance. The English word nation appears thus to condense this metaphysical unity between country and people. As a matter of fact, the Russian term natsija, which has not lost its status as a Latin borrowing, is not appropriate for expressing this condensation, because its use in the framework of Soviet power

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has been to designate the dependent status of narody within the Union. It regains its value only when applied to situations outside the Union, for the awakening of central European nations during the nineteenth century, and, marginally, for the League of Nations. But while the noun does not have, in the Russian text, the broad and positive use of the English word nation, the adjective does not seem to have undergone the same process. Twice more frequent in the Russian text (14 occurrences) than its English equivalent (7 occurrences), it is used to qualify the Soviet policy of nationalities (2 occurrences), the minorities of the Baltic countries (1) and isolation (1), while in the 10 remaining occurrences it qualifies the consciousness, the individuality, of the Baltic strany and their narody, economic interests, economic activities, states, culture (3 occurrences), and language. Thus, in the local environment of this set of texts constituting Hint's booklet, there is a marker of the belonging of the enunciation, from the enunciator's viewpoint, to an open we within the Baltic countries (the final us in 'So help us God!'), while no enunciative difference between the three Baltic nations is built up in the discourse. This we-position is not the we-position of the previous text. In the text itself, the enunciation is universalist, which means that the we/you opposition is neutralised and the author's position is examined from the outside. The text is thus not addressed to compatriots but to a wider audience. Presupposing the existence of the Baltic nations, it pleads for their right to independent states and governments. In that framework, the meaning built up for the notion of nation is not given independently for the corresponding word in each language, but results also from the inter-text of the compared version in the five languages. We have been able to work on two of them, and the comparison shows that the broad, under-determined meaning of the English word 'nation' is definable from the Russian version as 'the country and its people'. It seems that this duality is mainly an internal problem of the discourse formation in the Russian language, and that the Estonian version tends to use a single word rahva, whose meaning would neutralise the opposition between 'people' and 'nation' itself: it is used even where the English text uses the word peoples. Contrary to what we saw in relation to the French situation, the fact of individuals belonging to the nation is never questioned. The individual dimension is indeed never mentioned, the national minorities within the Baltic countries being treated as a group problem. (It should be noted that the national character of these minorities is stated in the Russian text and in the original Estonian one, but not in the English one.) The notion of country is never mentioned as such in the English text (the word country does not occur). This could be interpreted as follows: if a nation implies a country, such an

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implication would not be challenged within the international environment, but in the Russian text it would be so challenged. The case of the word people is quite different, the word being used four times (in the plural) in the English text. It seems possible that what inhibits a more frequent use could be a linguistic constraint: the word has not only the meaning of narod but also an undetermined meaning (French les gens or Russian ljudi), and so is not 'strong' enough for the intended notion. The analysis of the discourse that constitutes this political pamphlet has considerable interest from the methodological point of view. In particular, it shows not only how concretely a discursive notion such as 'nation' finds its meaning through discourses in several languages, themselves functioning in several discourse settings, but it shows also that such usages raise problems of how the meeting-points between these specific and locally different discourse formations may be matched up. It is worth noting in addition that the interest of such a study relies upon the fact that we are not dealing with a mere set of translations, but with the publication of such a set as a meaningful social and political act. It would, however, be a mistake to think of such an act as a strategy. True, there is probably some strategic intent in the global choice of translating, of publishing the translations and in the choice of languages. But when we enter into the details of the discursive uses and their linguistic specificity, the choices made by the translator are submitted to the more global formation into which the new formulations are plunged, of which the translator has an intuition (a competence), though not necessarily at each step a rational, accountable view. Of course, this sort of spontaneous feeling is not to be taken as an objective reproduction of a pre-existing discourse, but rather as a filter from the local discourse setting, re-appropriating through a competence (or rather, a savoir-faire) the objective local apperception of the other's discourse. 4. Conclusion The short study presented here does not pretend to reach definitive conclusions. It merely brings out some theoretical and methodological problems. The ongoing process of development of some kind of international order relies mainly on the fact that any political situation in the world is part of a global phenomenon where the discursive processes are interrelated. The local developments of political life take their own form through the integration of solidarities around relations between the lived world of people and the political apparatus. These solidarities are concretised through the discursive formations of an open expanded we, limited by the designation of closed others. The translinguistic notion of nation is based upon the purported resemblance between the locally constructed expanded we and the supposed expanded we of the

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others in the interior of their own domain. Through this phenomenon, what is going on in other countries, reformulated through local conditions, has some bearing upon the local formation of action-concepts, that is, upon the lived world of political action at the local level. Thus, there is no objective meaning of the notion of 'nation'. In any relevant language in a local situation, there is a local meaning which is built up not directly for the notion as such, but for the locally used vocabulary. The meaning of words is the locus of confrontation between uses, in a Bakhtiniandialogical sense (Todorov 1981). However, some non-universal presuppositions are locally shared. For example, in the French situation, there is little or no opposition between nationality and citizenship, as in either Gallo's or Touraine's use, because both conceive nationality as a political adhesion to a form of state and government. Other positions may exist, as for example extreme-right nationalism, or minority movements, but they will have to state their position explicitly. The Baltic situation seems quite different, where the cultural and ethnic basis of the nations seems consensually granted. If set in the Soviet environment, it seems that the aspect of people (narod) prevails over the aspect of nation (natsija), and this for local reasons which affect the use of the substantive but not the use of the adjective. Comparative research into nationalism can thus be grounded on this approach, because any local form of 'reciprocal closure' of the horizon of an extended political we participates in the same discourse phenomenon. But the comparison cannot be made on the immediate level because the local discourses and the associated practices are different, even if they are related through the matching up and linking of discursive sets wherever they overlap. To go beyond the findings of a few examples, it is necessary to gather diversified corpora based on a systematic sampling of texts—a difficult undertaking because of the limits imposed by translation. Furthermore, in a discourse formation, although the most accessible documents are written official texts, ordinary speech events are in fact much more important, especially as far as the building up of the expanded we is concerned. Fortunately, there is probably a strong relationship between institutional discourse and ordinary speech, not so much in the apparent content as in the distributional and presuppositional structures—though this hypothesis remains to be tested. However, despite these methodological difficulties, the few examples we have analysed in this chapter should be sufficient to establish that nationalisms have a very different structure according to the local conditions, and that comparison between them cannot be made through the rough categories which might be at hand from the analyst's own imagination.

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Notes 1

2

In the formal mathematics of topology this may suggest the operation known as 'closure'. This discourse operation shows the real-we category 'through the eyes' of a formal-we external observer, and the we-class is thus both open and closed. If, further, the discourse postulates a full classification, i.e. an enunciative field in which a list of classes exhausts every possibility, the classes are treated as open-closed and the boundaries are presupposed to be empty. In topology the boundary is the set of the points which do not belong to the open set, but belong to its closure, and if the set is both open and closed, then there is no boundary, there are no litigious or unstable elements in the set. In topological terms, the plane of facts can be considered as a less dimensioned closed space, with its own induced topology.

References Abdel Malek, A. (1962) L'Egypte, société militaire, Paris, Seuil Achard, P. (1992) 'Entre déixis et anaphore: Le renvoi du contexte en situation. Les opérateurs "alors" et "maintenant" en français' in Marie-Annick Morel and Laurent Danon-Boileau (eds.), La déixis, pp. 583-92, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France Benveniste, E. (1966-74( Problèmes de linguistique générale, Paris, Gallimard Bonnafous, S. (1991) L'immigration prise au mot, Paris, Kimé Culioli, A. (1990) Pour une linguistique de l'énonciation: opérations et représentations, Paris: Ophrys Fairclough, N. (1992) 'Discourse and Text: Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis', Discourse & Society, 3(2), pp. 193-217. Faye, J.-P. (1972) Les langages totalitaires, Paris, Hermann. Foucault, M. (1966) Les mots et les choses, Paris, Gallimard. —( 1971 ) L'ordre du discours, Paris, Gallimard Hint, M. (1989) Balti tee (The Baltic Way), Tallinn, Valgus. Marczewski, J. (1989) 'Comptabilité nationale' in Encyclopaedia Universalis, vol. 6, pp. 271-4 Le Monde, 17 December 1991, 'L'Europe et les nations vues par Max Gallo et Alain Touraine' Mots, 1985, 10 (March), special issue, 'Le nous politique' The Observer, 24 November 1991. Sériot, P. (1985) Analyse du discours politique soviétique, Paris, Institut d'études slaves Simonin-Grumbach, J. (1975) 'Pour une typologie des discours' in Julia Kristeva, Jean-Claude Milner and Nicolas Ruwet (eds.), Langue, discours, société: pour Emile Benveniste, pp. 85-121, Paris, Seuil —(1984) 'Les repérages énonciatifs dans les textes de presse', in Altmuth Grésillon and Jean-Louis Lebrave (eds.), La langue au ras du texte, pp. 133-203, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille. Taguieff, P.-A. (1988) La force du préjugé: essai sur le racisme et ses doubles, Paris, La découverte Todorov, T. (1981) Mikhail Bakhtine: Le principe dialogique, suivi des écrits du cercle de Bakhtine, Paris, Seuil

14 Cognitive Dimensions of Identity: Ethnic Stereotypes in Poland Ida Kurcz University of Warsaw

1. Introduction In the post-Cold War situation in Europe, with the collapse of old systems in the East and the formation of new ones, the diagnosis of people's attitudes toward each other is' a very urgent aim for the political, sociological and psychological sciences. The collapse of the dominant political system has uncovered what was hidden and petrified; unexpected nationalisms and chauvinisms connected with xenophobia have emerged in different parts of Europe. This means that links of communication have been destroyed. To remedy the situation social scientists will undoubtedly postulate diverse kinds of discourse to contribute to the restoration of mutual understanding. But such discourse has to be prepared. One step for such preparation is to recognise the content and force of people's mental representations about themselves and 'others', which we usually refer to as ethnic stereotypes. The aim of this chapter is to present the notion of stereotype, its status in cognitive and social psychology, and to report studies that have been carried out in the Institute of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences toward the preparation of methods for studying descriptive and evaluative aspects of ethnic stereotypes. 2. What is a stereotype? The concept of stereotype is well established in social psychology, but the term itself was first used by the French printer Ambroise-Firmin Didot in 1798 to describe the printing process by which ready-made matrices were used to

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replace individual characters. A century later psychiatrists began to use the word to describe the behaviour of their patients characterised by an invariant manner of expression and perseverant repetitiveness. Ivan Pavlov also applied the term in this psychiatric sense to refer to the rigid unchanging behaviour of his dogs in reaction to variations of stimuli used by the experimenter. Social psychologists (in particular American) began to make use of the term stereotype under the influence of a book by the journalist Walter Lippmann called Public Opinion (1922). Lippmann described stereotypes as 'pictures in our head'. He considered that people are unable to attain a full mental representation of the external world because of its complexity, and so react by means of stereotypes. In present-day psychological terms, Lippmann treated stereotypes as cognitive structures that assist people to process information about the external world. At first, Lippmann, especially in his cognitive approach to the analysis of stereotypes, did not have much influence. It was only in the 1930s that the first studies on stereotypes appeared. In the later literature (cf. Ashmore and Del Broca 1981), three main trends in empirical and theoretical research on stereotypes have been distinguished, referred to as sociocultural, psychodynamic, and cognitive (for more details cf. Kurcz 1995). 2.1 Sociocultural and psychodynamic approaches The oldest of these trends (sociocultural) emerged in the 1930s. Culture defines social roles and social standards, including stereotypes. People intriorise them in the course of socialisation. By influencing social standards the content of stereotypes can also be influenced. The psychologists' task is therefore to register and describe stereotype contents. The question then arises whether stereotype content judged oversimplified or negatively distorted can or should be changed by means of new positive content—for example, by propaganda or the mass media. The psychodynamic trend in stereotype research emerged at the beginning of the fifties with the famous study of Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and Sanford (1950) on the authoritarian personality. One of the syndromes of this personality is the negative attitude to other national groups, and one of the components of this syndrome is stereotypy, or the tendency to place things mechanically in rigid categories. In reference to social groups this means perception of another group as invariant without recognition of individual differences between members. The psychodynamic approach emphasises unconscious drives as the source of stereotypes and underlines their defensive, anxiety-reducing functions.

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2.2 The cognitive approach The beginning of the cognitive trend in the understanding of stereotypes is usually dated at the end of the 1960s and is linked to the name of Henri Tajfel. In Tajfel's view (1969), stereotypes are based on the attribution of general psychological features to human groups. These are ways of classifying reality that result from the limited capacity of the human mind to process all incoming information. People fall back on reduction and curtailment in order to cope more easily with the world. These curtailments consist of over-rating differences across groups, and under-rating differences within groups. This holds for all categories, not only social categories. From his experiments Tajfel drew the conclusion that to under-rate within-category differences and over­ rate differences between categories is a general feature of the information processing system of the human mind. The three approaches I have presented accentuate different sources of stereotypes and look for their corresponding social mechanisms. But they need not be thought of as mutually exclusive. Firstly, the three approaches make for a more universal analysis of the phenomenon, which certainly cannot be reduced to one mechanism. Secondly, all three viewpoints in their classical versions lay emphasis on the same aspects of stereotypes, namely: (i) their simplificatory nature, (ii) their excessive generalisation, and (iii) their rigidity and resistance to change. In sum, they all treat stereotypes as a highly negative phenomenon. 2.3 Function and change of stereotypes Psychological research has led to several controversies concerning particular mechanisms, such as illusory correlation (Hamilton 1979, 1981), the solo phenomenon (Taylor 1981), and prototypical effects as the source of stereotypes (see below). Other controversies concern stereotype change, its negative or positive nature, and its descriptive or evaluative aspects. Let us look at some of these controversies. If stereotypes result from socialisation processes, and reflect the opinions and attitudes reigning in a given culture, which are in turn the result of too little or excessively generalised information, then new, more complete and enriching information (for example, through increased contact with the discriminated group) was thought to lead to stereotype change. The race integration policy in the United States was in line with this conception. Yet the findings of many studies are not unequivocal. It has turned out that considerably more effective in producing real stereotype change than a gradual accumulation of disconfirmatory data is what can be called a 'shock strategy' or, in terms used by Rothbart (1981), a 'conversion strategy', as opposed to a gradual

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'bookkeeping strategy'. On the macro-social scale, the effects of 'conversion strategy' were observed in the period following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, when a significant change was registered in public opinion polls on the attitude of whites toward the black population. A similar effect was found in experimental situations (cf. Gurwitz and Dodge 1977). The most fundamental controversy emerged when the understanding of stereotypy as so far presented here came into question. In their book Person Perception and Stereotyping (1979), three British clinical psychologists, Robert A. Stewart, Graham E. Powell and S. Jane Chetwynd, questioned the whole definition of stereotype as it is universally presented both in the literature and in everyday talk. They challenged the negative view of it taken by researchers—that is, its supposed destructive role in the social functioning of humans. In their opinion, stereotypes have a number of positive functions: (i) they serve to reduce excess information in sensory input and allow for its ordering into meaningful wholes; (ii) when input information is small, they add what is missing, thus serving a creative function; and (iii) in the case of discrepancies in the information, they allow for resolving uncertainty, ambivalence, etc. Thus the main role of stereotypes is, on this view, the facilitation of behaviour. At the same time these authors sharply oppose the treatment of stereotypes as rigid and invariant. In their view the stereotype adapts to the changing situation, and this they were able to show in their experiments on person perception. 2.4 The formation of stereotypes The phenomenon of 'illusory correlation', discovered by Chapman (1967), and Chapman and Chapman (1969) in studies of memorising associative pairs, refers to the fact that subjects thought that word pairs connected by association (e.g. bacon-egg) occurred more frequently than actually was the case on lists of pairs used in the experiment. Other authors treat illusory correlation as a mechanism of stereotyping. Hamilton conducted studies on the emergence of a group stereotype by means of the illusory correlation mechanism. Subjects were given a list of statements about groups A and B, the list concerning group A being twice as long as that concerning group B, and on each list there were twice as many positive as negative statements. The subjects read the lists of statements about group A and B, after which they received a new list of statements. Their task was to attribute these statements to group A or B. They attributed significantly more negative statements to group B than to group A. Group B was less well known (only one half of the information, compared to group A), yet negative statements, although presented in the same proportion as in group A, turned out to be more informative. This provided the illusory correlation effect on the evaluation of group B (cf. the discussion of the

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phenomenon and its implications for stereotypes in Hamilton and Sherman 1989). The 'solo phenomenon' refers to the fact that, if an individual belonging to a given social group appears alone in another group (e.g. a black in a group of whites), his or her influence on group processes will be rated higher than the influence of the same person in a mixed group (Taylor 1981). This probably has to do with the laws of contrast and assimilation discovered in studies of social perception, which we will not deal with here. Several authors (Bower, Bootzin, Zajonc and Hall 1987; Bewer, Dull and Lui 1981) observe an analogy between stereotypes and prototypes. This is typical for the cognitive approach to stereotypes which treats them as mental representations in human minds and looks for similarities and differences as regards other forms of mental representation, i.e. concepts. 2.5 Stereotypes and prototypes In all our research we have made the assumption that a stereotype is a form of mental representation that refers to a social category. Stereotypes differ from concepts in the strict sense of the term, in that concepts represent categories formed by isolation of necessary and sufficient features. The features isolated in a stereotype do not satisfy this condition, but this does not imply that a stereotype cannot co-occur with a concept referring to the same category. In common with many authors, we perceive an analogy between stereotypes and prototypes. However, prototypes can refer to any kind of category, while stereotypes refer only to social categories. But a precise definition of prototype is hard to find. Definitions found in the literature frequently state that a prototype is 'a typical exemplar', or 'the best case', or 'a central tendency'. Experimental studies have accumulated a large body of evidence to document the prototypicality effects in many cognitive domains. They have served to lay the basis for prototype theory in the mental representation of natural categories (Rosch 1973). It has been emphasised that these typical exemplars are, in the words of Rosch (1975), 'cognitive reference points' for categorisation processes. Emphasis has also been laid on the asymmetry phenomenon in these processes. This refers to the fact that the non-typical exemplar appears to be more similar to the prototype than the prototype to the exemplar (for example the number 102 is more similar to 100, than 100 to 102). It is important to recall that Rosch herself in 1978 warned against treating prototypes as cognitive structures that correspond to definite categories, and stated that they should be treated as surface phenomena having various sources. George Lakoff (1987) argues that the prototypicality phenomenon emerges naturally in categories with a graded structure (such as tall or short

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people) where boundaries between categories are fluid, but that it occurs as well in categories lacking such structure (as for example natural categories like dogs and cats). Their sources are not some kind of prototype lying about in the mind but a whole number of different phenomena such as accepted norms, ideals, typical cases, all sorts of labels (such as 'Uncle Sam' or 'sex-bomb'), metonymy (where a part replaces the whole), and so forth. The effects of prototypicality should therefore not be identified with the mental structure of categorial representation. They are universal enough to occur in cases of schematic representation, which can be broken down into parts, as in left hemispheric representation, as well as in cases of imaginai holistic right hemispheric representation. The problems sketched out here in the treatment of prototypes as structures functioning in the mental representation of categories refer obviously to stereotypes as well, if we treat the latter as a subclass of prototypes referring to social categories. We can treat stereotypes as forms of mental representation provided that we bear in mind that in given cases their mechanisms can be quite diverse. 2.6 Descriptive and evaluative aspects of stereotypes An unresolved problem for measuring stereotypes is how to distinguish their descriptive and evaluative aspects. The cognitive psychologists who treat stereotypes as forms of mental representation of social categories are mainly interested in describing their content (that is, the set of features forming a given ethnic or other stereotype, how cognitively rich or poor a given stereotype is, etc.). Social psychologists are mainly interested in the attitudinal, evaluative aspect of stereotypes (whether it is positive or negative, whether it leads people to approach or avoid the stereotype target, etc.). The evaluative aspect for many authors seems to be a necessary feature of the stereotype but not of a prototype. This is probably because social categories themselves imply evaluation to a greater extent than other (i.e. natural) categories. So in the study of stereotypes these two aspects have to be at least operationally distinguished, separately studied and eventually compared.

3. Stereotypes in Poland In our empirical research we assumed that a stereotype emerges as the outcome of a stereotyping (prototyping) process which involves selecting and blending excess information as well as supplementing information where there is a deficiency. A stereotype has the two aspects mentioned above and is

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emphasised by many authors in different formulations. One aspect, which we have called referential or descriptive, refers to the content of a stereotype, and can be presented in a list of characteristic features of the stereotyped object. The other aspect, which we have called the distance, or evaluative, aspect of a stereotype, amounts to the affective response which can be measured by the distance felt vis- -vis the stereotyped object, the extent of readiness or willingness to contact it in different dimensions, domains, or social spheres. Features descriptive of people usually contain an evaluation. There can thus be no precise way to separate evaluation from description. But at the same time, evaluation stemming from description seems to be something different from evaluation constituting an attitude toward a given object (e.g. an ethnic group) manifesting itself in distance felt toward that object. To what extent these two evaluations are linked we shall see from our results. 3.1 The semantic differential The most common method used in the study of the descriptive aspect of stereotypes is Osgood's semantic differential in its various versions. Osgood stated that one of the factors that can be isolated from his scales for measurement of word meaning is evaluation, the other factors being power and activity. The semantic differential scales have an advantage over ordinary feature lists (where subjects underline those features which they think characteristic of the assessed object) in that they allow for establishing the degree to which a given feature is ascribed to the assessed object to be established. However, Osgood's original scales contain terms so general that they can be applied to any describable object. The problem we faced was to select terms that best lend themselves to the description of ethnic groups. A pilot study was conducted to obtain a list of antonymic designations chosen most often by subjects to describe different nationalities. This pilot study is presented below (section 3.3). The traditional method for studying social distance is the Bogardus scale. We attempted to adapt this scale to Polish conditions so as to take into account those questions that reflect the actual relations among various nationalities. In the next section (3.2) we present this study and its consequences for the selection of questions having discriminatory power with regard to determining distance. In both studies, subject agreement (giving the same answer) served as the indicator of a stereotype. Various criteria were adopted for agreement, but in all cases they had to do with common rather than single responses. Our aim was to study social stereotypes and not individual stereotypes.

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3.2 Distance (evaluative) aspects of ethnic stereotypes The purpose of this investigation was to study two groups of people: an openminded or non-stereotypic group and a closed-minded or stereotypic group. Openness was measured by acceptance of representatives of all nationalities under study in at least half of the various kinds of contacts described in the social distance scale. Closedness was measured by total lack of acceptance of at least one representative of the nationalities under study. A study was then conducted of mental representations of socio-political concepts, such as 'freedom', 'democracy', in subjects of both groups.1 The present account covers only those results that provided the basis for performing the above selection, also allowing for the image of ethnic stereotypes to emerge. The way we proceeded in this research (conducted in spring 1990) was as follows. Some questions were added to the original Bogardus social distance scale, in order to achieve greater precision in the questions and to adapt them better to Polish conditions. The original order of the questions, which was meant to indicate increasing distance, was maintained. The questionnaire we used was essentially the following: Would you agree for a [name of ethnic group] Answer: YES or NO I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

to visit Poland as a tourist to live in Poland permanently to invest money, to conduct business here (added) to work with you to be your closest collaborator (added) to be your immediate superior (added) to live near you to be your next-door neighbour (added) to be on friendly terms to be a close friend (added) to become a member in your family circle (added) to become a member of your immediate family (your spouse or your child's spouse)

As names for ethnic groups we chose representatives of several different European nationalities: Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Jewish, Lithuanian, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian. Subjects in this study were 118 parents and grandparents of children in two Warsaw kindergartens: their ages ranged from 25 to 65; 77 women and 41 men; 19 persons with primary education, 67 with secondary school education, and 32 with higher education. The sample is not representative of Polish society. There was an overrepresentation of women and people educated at secondary and higher levels.

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The dependent variable consisted here of all Yes responses to each question, taken together for all nationalities under study. This was the measure of the distance evoked by each question. The expected distance was the order obtained by Bogardus from American subjects in the early 1930s. Table 1 presents the number of Yes responses to each of the questions ranked from the highest to the lowest number of acceptances. In a separate column the original positions of the items in the questionnaire are presented. Question 1 tourist 2 friendly terms 3 live nearby 4 invest money 5 work with 6 close neighbour 7 closest collaborator 8 relative 9 friend 10 permanent stay 11 work superior 12 immediate family

Order as presented I IX VII III

rv

VIII V XI X II VI XII

number of Yes 1009 792 734 727 716 679 664 612 611 474 474 415

proportion of Yes to all Yes possible 0.93 0.73 0.67 0.67 0.66 0.62 0.60 0.56 0.56 0.43 0.43 0.38

Table 1

Subjects produced a total of 15,576 Yes/No responses, with a majority of Yes answers. Only the three final questions (II, VI and XII in the original version) evoked more No than Yes responses. We can say that our subjects did not accept foreigners as an immediate family member, work superior, as an immigrant or person permanently residing in their country. We used chi square comparisons to see if this ranking revealed significant differences between particular questions. We treated all responses to each question as a separate measure. Significant differences appeared between items 1 and 2 and therefore between 1 and all the other questions (at the .001 level), between 2 and 3 (but this one only at the .05 level), and between 2 and 5, 5 and 6, 6 and 8, 9 and 10, 11 and 12 (all at .001). So the discriminative questions are: 1, 2, 3 or 4, 5, 6, 8 or 9, 10 or 11, and 12. The underlying idea of the construction of our questionnaire was to have four categories of human relationships: impersonal contacts (I to III, tourist, permanent stay, invest money); contacts at the workplace (IV to VI, work with, closest collaborator, work superior); loose social contacts (VII to IX, live nearby, next-door neighbour, friendly terms); close social contacts (X to XII, friend, relative, immediate family). We expected that the distance would grow

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from the impersonal contacts to the close contacts. As can be seen from Table 1, the impersonal contact (II, permanent stay) and contact at work (VI, immediate superior) evoked a very strong distance response (more than 50% of No answers), while a loose social contact IX (friendly terms) was even more accepted than an impersonal contact (III, invest money). There were some differences between groups as a function of sex, age, and educational level. Women tended to accept foreigners as money investors more than men, but less than men as co-workers, superiors and close friends. Younger people and more educated people tended to accept foreigners significantly more on all items (the only exception being tourists, where there were no differences) than did older and less educated people. Turning now to our investigation of reactions to specific ethnic stereotypes, the total number of Yes responses to each ethnic group is presented in Table 2 opposite. This table shows the ranking of acceptances {Yes responses). The statistically significant differences at the .001 level (calculated by chi square comparisons) are between French and Italian, Italian and Lithuanian, Hungarian and Czech, Czech and German, Jewish and Ukrainian. There is also a statistically significant difference at .05 level for the comparison between German and Russian. Ethnic group Swedish English French Italian Lithuanian Hungarian Czech German Russian Jewish Ukrainian TOTAL

Total Yes answers 1023 978 935 849 760 754 630 595 543 541 443 8051

Mean Yes answers 10.30 9.86 9.40 8.60 7.70 7.61 6.36 6.00 5.48 5.46 4.47 7.40

Proportion of Yes to all Yes possible 0.86 0.82 0.78 0.71 0.64 0.63 0.53 0.50 0.45 0.45 0.37 0.61

Table 2

There are some shifts in this order if we compare men and women or people differing in age or educational level. In the men's group, Swedish, the most preferred nationality, differs significantly from all the rest. In the age groups, some differences were found for the older group (over 50 years old): Russian and Jewish are more preferred than Germans. As for educational level, the most highly educated group was the least likely to reject other groups. But

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even in this group there were some differences in acceptance of the nationalities under study. There were no differences between Swedish, English, French, Italian and Hungarian, but Lithuanian differed significantly from the above nationalities, Russian was above German, but Czech was lower than German and Jewish, with Ukrainian still located at the bottom of the ranking list. The rule is simple: the farther geographically a given nationality and/or the higher the economic standard of living in a given society, the less the psychological distance in relation to them. As mentioned already, the group we studied is not representative of Polish society. 3.3 Descriptive aspects of ethnic stereotypes This section is concerned with the pilot study referred to earlier. The aim was to construct a tool for investigating the descriptive aspect of stereotypes. The assumption was that the best method developed so far for studying stereotypes is a sort of Semantic Differential. To find the right antonym scales for the description of people we conducted several exploratory studies: (1) an adjective checklist (of the type used by Katz and Braly in 1933, 1935) (2) generation of personal traits (3) free associations (4) Osgood's Semantic Differential (5)a kind of REP-test.2 The ethnic stereotypes of the following 12 nationalities were investigated: Americans, Arabs, Byelorussians, Chinese, Germans, Gypsies, Jews, Lithuanians, Romanians, Russians, Ukrainians, Vietnamese. These are either minority groups living in Poland or potential immigrants or persons intending to live permanently in this country. Our subjects were 300 persons between age 17 and 85, 60% of them women, differing on three educational levels, from urban communities in Poland. All five exploratory studies were conducted in the winter of 1992. The procedures for each separate study were as follows. (1) A checklist of 87 trait descriptions in adjectival or nominal forms was used in two versions A and B. Each version was constructed of the antonyms of the other list. The task of subjects was to underline those traits which in their opinion best described the given nationality. 100 persons described each nationality under study using version A, and 50 using version B. Those traits which were used by 25% of the subjects for the description of at least one nationality were treated as potential candidates for the construction of Semantic Differential scales.

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(2) 50 people were given the name of a nationality and asked to generate traits which best described this nationality in their view. Traits generated by at least 20% of the subjects were considered to be candidates for our Semantic Differential scales. (3) 50 people gave their first responses to the nationalities under study. Again, 20% of inter-subject agreement was considered to be a common response. (4) Osgood's Semantic Differential in its classical version was used. The criterion of 33% or more of responses located at one or the other pole of the scale was adopted for a given scale to be considered as a good description of a given nationality. This meant that at least two thirds of responses were located on one or the other pole of the scale. (5) REP-test: 50 subjects received 12 cards with the name of one nationality under study on each card. Their task was to choose 3 cards and then put two together and one apart, stating what was common for the two and on what trait the third differed. The next selection of three nationalities was made from the remaining 9, then from 6, and finally from the last 3. The names for traits (both common and differing) were considered in the construction of the main procedure. The list of antonymic scales, for each ethnic group, was constructed after analysis of all the data taken from the pilot studies, and can be presented in the following form:

active untruthful industrious miserly wise poor aggressive meticulous cruel progressive ambitious crooked materialist enterprising obstinate hostile intelligent undignified

--'

-

passive truthful lazy generous stupid rich calm disorderly gentle conservative without ambition straight idealist helpless compromising friendly dull dignified

ETHNIC STEREOTYPES IN POLAND clean rigid honest garrulous tough arrogant strong frank noisy distant cold

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dirty relaxed dishonest taciturn spineless polite weak deceitful silent close warm

The following is a list of descriptions underlined by the respondents to lists A and B on the original adjective checklist for the twelve ethnic groups: AMERICANS

Version A: active, materialist, rich, ambitious, sociable, educated, domineering, energetic, independent, industrious, cultivated, firm, individualist, responsible, practical, immoral, strong, noisy, conscientious, presumptuous, reckless, wise, conceited, wasteful, persistent, reasonable. Version B: enterprising, progressive, free, clean, realist, civilised, resourceful, without prejudices, tolerant, kind, merry, economical, liberated, intelligent, bold, logical, controlled, mature. ARABS

Version A: faithful, domineering, conservative, aggressive, intolerant, immoral, revengeful. Version B: lazy, obstinate, unscrupulous, untidy, riotous, impulsive. BYELORUSSIANS Version A: no common responses (on 25% level of agreement). Version B: obstinate, poor, good-natured, hostile, insincere. CHINESE

Version A: conscientious, industrious, persistent, practical, wise, meticulous. Version B: kind, modest, poor, calm, submissive, economical, silent, resourceful. GYPSIES

Version A: deceitful, untruthful, revengeful, miserly, aggressive, arrogant, careless, immoral, suspicious, noisy, cold, egoistic, ungrateful, conceited, materialist. Version B: dishonest, lazy, uneducated, quarrelsome, garrulous, disorderly, resourceful, untidy, merry, impulsive, bold, unscrupulous, untruthful, hostile, uncultivated.

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JEWS

Version A: materialist, miserly, industrious, wise, faithful, conscientious, ambitious, deceitful, active, rich, persistent, meticulous, suspicious, domineering, practical. Version B: resourceful, enterprising, intelligent, garrulous, obstinate, kind, avaricious, economical, logical, dishonest. LITHUANIANS

Version A: intolerant. Version B: obstinate, hostile, unfriendly, riotous, dishonest. GERMANS

Version A: industrious, aggressive, ambitious, meticulous, cold, firm, conscientious, strong, practical, conceited, materialist, egoistic, responsible, rich, active, deceitful, wise, arrogant, miserly, honest, cultivated, reasonable, spruce. Version B: economical, enterprising, clean, tough, realist, logical, resourceful, progressive, civilised, hostile, intelligent, controlled, cruel, bold, avaricious. RUSSIANS

Version A: courageous, friendly, uncivilised, dull. Version B: gushing, poor, straight, merry, rude, disorderly, obstinate, collectivist, atheist, untidy. ROMANIANS

Version A: helpless, uncivilised, resourceless, dull, miserly, immature, suspicious, untruthful. Version B: untidy, poor, without ambition, lazy, disorderly, dishonest, undignified, uneducated, silly, uncultivated, unreliable, insincere, confined, passive, disloyal. UKRAINIANS

Version A: :aggressive, uncompromising, revengeful, courageous, strong. Version B: hostile, obstinate, cruel, riotous, insincere, unfriendly, tough, quarrelsome. VIETNAMESE

Version A: courageous, industrious. Version B: poor, silent, modest, calm, obstinate. The traits are presented in rank order from the most to least frequently used, the least being 2 5 % of agreement. The traits were attributed to the nationalities on different levels of agreement, i.e. the trait 'intelligent' was attributed by 50% of subjects to Jews, by 30% to Germans, by 26% to Americans, by 12% to Chinese, and only by very few or 0% to the rest of the ethnic groups.

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Two general remarks can be made. First, the presented descriptions differ in richness, if we consider only the number of common responses. Byelorussians and Lithuanians have the fewest descriptions, then Ukrainians and Vietnamese. This is also confirmed by the trait generation method. In the case of refusals to generate a description, refusals were highest (more than 50%) for Byelorussians, Lithuanians (40%), Vietnamese and Ukrainians (about 25%). There were no refusals for Germans, and only one for Americans. When we look at the REP-test results, we observe that some nationalities were more often than others distinguished as different: Americans 33 times for 200 possible cases, Arabs 29 times, Germans 25, Jews 24, Chinese 18, Vietnamese 15, and the remainder less than 10 times each. Some ethnic groups under study do have a rich descriptive stereotype in the sense of common responses given by a group of subjects, while others do not have a well discriminated stereotype. But what is interesting here is that most of our close neighbours appear to have a rather limited descriptive stereotype. Second, if we compare the results for description to those for distance from given ethnic groups, we observe that they are not in accord. Unfortunately we have only a few nationalities which overlap in two studies: Lithuanians, Germans, Russians, Ukrainians and Jews. We do not find any correlation in their descriptive and evaluative stereotypes. A poor and rather negative image of Lithuanians goes along with a middle position on the distance scale. On the other hand, the four ethnic groups, Germans, Russians, Jews and Ukrainians, all rejected by 50% to 60 % of the subjects, received quite different descriptive images. Germans and Jews received quite a lot of positive descriptive traits, Russians half positive half negative, and Ukrainians only negative. So the descriptive and evaluative aspects of stereotypes do not overlap except for Ukrainians. Possibly a solution to these and other questions emerging from our findings could be approached through discourse analysis, which might be useful in revealing the interpretative processes involved and their conditioning contexts. What is also interesting is the prevailing use of negative traits in all the descriptions given by our subjects: this needs a separate explanation. 4. Conclusion This presentation has concerned only the pilot studies that served to elaborate methods for the study of ethnic stereotypes in Polish society. In our research (see Kurcz 1994) we investigated the characteristics of self-images (or selfstereotypes) of Poles and of minorities living in Poland. We compared a group of western Poles with a group of eastern Poles using the Semantic Differential presented here in addition to other methods. The analysis shows that their self-

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images are practically identical. Then we investigated the Polish image of two minorities living in Poland, Germans and Byelorussians, as well as the selfimages of these minorities. We compared the two images, that is, Germans as seen by Germans and by Poles, Byelorussians as seen by themselves and by Poles. We also studied the German and Byelorussian images of Poles, and also what Poles think is the German image of Poles and what Germans think is the Polish image of Germans. We compared all these images (obtained by the same Semantic Differential method). The preliminary analysis shows that the self-image of each ethnic group is richer and more positive than the images others have of them. At the same time each group thinks that others evaluate them lower than they evaluate themselves (and in fact others do so). The conclusion so far is that the self-image of the group as a social stereotype is shared in a rather stable form among the members of a given ethnic group but at the same time its content might be manipulated from different perspectives or points of view. The problem of ethnic stereotypes has become a problem of great interest in the new states and societies that have emerged after the collapse of the Communist system. The nationalisms we observe around us have to do not only with the self-image of a given ethnic group but also with their images of others. I rather think that evaluative stereotypes based on motivation (maybe even unconscious) are more responsible for people's behaviour than descriptive stereotypes. It follows, then, that to influence the course of dialogue between social and national groups the evaluative aspect of people's stereotypes should be particularly borne in mind. Notes 1 2

This study is reported in Kurcz (1993) and in Kurcz et al. 1990. The REP test is used in studies of personality (in terms of cognitive complexity). The subject receives a list of objects (usually persons) which she/he compares in threes in such a way that she/he finds two similar and one dissimilar, giving the criteria for both judgements.

References Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J. and Sanford, R. N. (1950) The Authoritarian Personality, New York, Harper and Row Ashmore, R. D. and Del Boca, F. K. (1981) 'Conceptual Approaches to Stereotypes and Stereotyping', In: D. L. Hamilton (ed.), Cognitive Processes in Stereotyping and Intergroup Behavior, Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum Bewer, M. B., Dull, V. and Lui, L. (1981) 'Perceptions of the elderly: Stereotypes as Prototypes', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, pp. 656-70

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Bogardus, E. S. (1933) 'A Social Distance Scale', Sociology and Social Research, XVII, pp. 265-71 Bower, G. H , Bootzin, R. R, Zajonc, R. B. and E. Hall (1987) Principles of Psychology Today, New York, Random House Chapman, L. J. (1967) 'Illusory Correlation in Observational Report', Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 6, pp. 151-55 Chapman, L. J. and Chapman, J. P. (1969) 'Illusory Correlation as an Obstacle to the Use of Valid Psychodiagnostic Signs', Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 74, pp. 271-80 Gurwitz, S. B. and Dodge, K. A. (1977) 'Effects of Confirmations and Disconfirmations on Stereotype-based Attributions', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, pp. 495-500 Hamilton, D. L. (1979) 'A Cognitive-Attributional Analysis of Stereotyping', in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 12, New York, Academic Press —— (1981) 'Stereotyping and Intergroup Behavior: Some Thoughts on the Cognitive Approach', in D. L. Hamilton (ed.), Cognitive Processes in Stereotyping and Intergroup Behavior, Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum Hamilton, D. L. and S. J. Sherman (1989) 'Illusory Correlations: Implications for Stereotype Theory', in D. Bar-Tal, C. F. Graumann, A. W. Kruglanski and W. Stroebe (eds.), Stereotyping and Prejudices: Changing Conceptions, New York, Springer Verlag Katz, D. and K. Braly (1933) 'Racial stereotypes in One Hundred College Students', Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 28, pp. 280-90 —— (1935) 'Racial Prejudice and Racial Stereotypes', Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 30, pp. 175-93 Kurcz, I. (1993) 'Mental Representation of Political Categories' in M. Denis and G. Sarah (eds.), ModËles et concepts pour la science cognitive, Grenoble, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble ——(1994) Zmiennosc nieuchronnosc stereotypów, Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Instytutu Psychologii PAN ——(1995) 'Inevitability and Changeability of Stereotypes: A Review of Theories', Polish Psychological Bulletin, 26, pp. 113-28 Kurcz, I., Polkowska, A., and A. Potocka-Hoser (1990) 'Cognitive Aspects of Political Stereotypes', Studia Psychologica, 32 (1-2), pp. 5-22 Lakoff, G. (1987) Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press Lippmann, W. (1922) Public Opinion, New York, Harcourt Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J. and P. H. Tannenbaum (1957) The Measurement of Meaning, Urbana EL, University of Illinois Press Rosch, E. (1973) 'On the Internal Structure of Perceptual and Semantic Categories' in T. Moore (ed.), Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, New York, Academic Press —— (1975) 'Cognitive Reference Points', Cognitive Psychology, 1, pp.532-47 —— (1978) 'Principles of Categorization', in E. H. Rosch and B. D, Lloyd (eds.), Cognition and Categorization, Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum. Rothbart M. (1981) 'Memory Processes and Social Beliefs' in D. L. Hamilton (ed.), Cognitive Processes in Stereotyping and Intergroup Behavior, Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum Stewart, R. A., Powell, G. E. and S. J. Chetwynd (1979) Person Perception and Stereotyping, Westmead UK, Saxon House Tajfel, H (1969) 'Cognitive Aspects of Prejudice', Journal of Social Issues, 25, pp. 79-97 Taylor, S. E. (1981) 'A Categorization Approach to Stereotyping' in D. L. Hamilton (ed.), Cognitive Processes in Stereotyping and Intergroup Behaviour, Hillsdale NJ, Erlbaum

15 Defining Democracy: Transitional Discourse in Georgia 1990-1991

Christina Teichmann Berlin

1. Introduction Although the investigation of social processes does not strictly fall in the domain of linguistics, linguistic research has broadened its horizons in the sense that linguistic enquiry in particular areas can be of considerable interest for other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. It is precisely the relationship between language and society, in many of its aspects still inadequately researched, that makes such interdisciplinary approaches necessary. Political events in social structures that are in the process of disintegration, such as the events that took place in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1990-91, are by their very nature of crucial importance to the social sciences. Because of the fact that practical action and verbal action in the political domain stand in a close relationship to one another, the value of linguistic inquiry for the understanding of the public language of politics is clear. Linguistic investigations into the relationship between language and society cannot replace the analysis of social processes and structures from a social science standpoint, but they can in a specific way meaningfully and usefully complement them. Such complementarity is still not fully taken into account, either by linguists themselves or by social scientists in other disciplines. On the one hand, the challenge to linguists is to view their research in this area not just in terms of their own concerns but also as a possible offering to other fields of knowledge. On the other hand, researchers in the humanities and social science need to have a greater openness in regard to the scope of their research goals and methods. In general, the results of linguistic discourse analysis can

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contribute to fuller description and understanding of socio-political structures and process. Investigations into the functioning of language in its social context have had a particular significance in modern linguistics, given the close interweaving of linguistic and extra-linguistic data. Using various theoretical concepts and applications taken from sub-disciplines of the field, the concern has been to describe and analyse this interconnectedness of language and non-linguistic context. During the 1960s these efforts led to a new linguistic sub-discipline, which established itself at the interface between linguistics and other human sciences. From the outset, the aim of linguistic discourse analysis was to relate texts to historical circumstances. The concept of discourse used in my own work, and briefly described below, rests on this basic line of thought.1 Discourse represents a collection of texts which follow one another in sequence and belong together (preceding, parallel and future texts) in an interweaving with events in time—a relationship that is manifested in the thematic linking between individual texts. Because of the close relationship between the individual text and discourse (in the my usage of the term), methods and procedures from linguistic text analysis are taken up piecemeal or used in an extended fashion. This concept of discourse goes beyond the concept of text to the extent that it attempts to capture the linguistic realisation of the connection between past texts, parallel texts and potential (future) texts. The texts of a discourse stand in linguistically demonstrable relationships to one another (intertextual relations). They condition one another in their production and reception. Relation-producing features between texts are even to a certain extent responsible for the specificity of individual texts. In other words, a whole range of phenomena in a single text (e.g. the implicative structures of linguistic expressions) are only at all understandable for the recipient (or explicable for linguists), if the text is integrated in a corresponding discursive frame. Only in a complex approach of this kind, which goes well beyond a mere inventory and description of linguistic expressions, does it become possible to adequately characterise the working of language inside and outside of social praxis. 2. The political situation between October 1990 and October 1991 By way of introduction to the linguistic commentaries given below, it is necessary first to briefly explain the extralinguistic data. The aim here is to investigate the verbal behaviour of the president of the Georgian Republic, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who contributed decisively to the detaching of this former Soviet republic from the Soviet Union and to the démocratisation of the country. At the beginning of his presidency the making and mediation of his

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policy took place largely through verbal action. The following investigation focuses on a period of time in which a serious conflict grew up between the president and opposition groups. In accordance with what was said in the preceding section, it is necessary to clarify the 'pre-history' of the texts we are examining. Only in this way is it possible to understand how in a particular political context the particular utterances of the different speakers came to be made. The first free parliamentary elections in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, in which eleven different parties and organisations participated, took place on the 28th October 1990. The overwhelming majority of the voters decided for the organisation known as 'Round Table Free Georgia'. In midNovember, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who was the organisation's spokesman, was elected by the parliament to be its president. One of the most important tasks of parliament subsequently was to prepare a referendum on the restoration of Georgia's independence as a state.2 The referendum took place on 31 March 1991 and 98.9% of the electorate declared themselves in favour of the republic's independence. At a solemn ceremony in memory of the victims of the events in Tbilisi of April 1989 the restoration of the full sovereignty of Georgia was declared.3 At the same time the office of president was introduced, and assumed by Gamsakhurdia. This assumption of the presidency was unambiguously legitimised by voters in the first presidential elections at the end of May 1991. Shortly afterwards, an opposition grouping constituted itself in the parliament under the name 'Democratic Centre'. There thus emerged a new reality in Georgia, after almost seventy years of Communist autocracy. Dealing with this new reality was not simple. For, while the political forces of the country were unanimous in refusing all forms of Communist rule, there was little clarity or unanimity with regard to the concrete steps and measures that could lead to a Republic of Georgia that would be sovereign in every respect. Disputes and discussions on this problem totally dominated the public media. It was a complicated, and also in part a painful process that had got under way amongst the Georgian public. The president, as well as the political forces that had set themselves up on the 'opposition benches' after the May 1991 elections, had no experience, or very little, of dealing with democratic institutions. In spite of the declaration of Georgia's independence after the referendum of March 1991, the central Soviet authorities gave only scant indication that they were ready to recognise Georgia as an autonomous or independent republic. Under these circumstances the August 1991 putsch in Moscow presented new warning signals for Georgia. These events forced the still emergent democracy of Georgia to draw up positions, to take decisions, and also to adopt a specific linguistic self-presentation. Linguistic and political

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action had to be co-ordinated, and the aim of this was above all to avoid any use of violence. The political context thus demanded urgent understanding of the following issues: what a democracy actually is; what an opposition is, or how it should conduct itself in a democracy; how particular political events and circumstances are to be evaluated. Differing conceptions held by the various political forces of the country could lead to a situation in which the resulting conflicts were no longer negotiated verbally, but were likely to be resolved by violence. It appears to me that the Georgian president was aware of these possible alternatives, and that in consequence he made efforts to exclude a violent resolution of the conflicts by pursuing the path of verbal confrontations with the political forces of his country. These confrontations, as they were conducted on the president's side, stand in the foreground of the investigations described below.4 I must stress that the verbal behaviour of the president is not in any way being given political evaluation on the basis of the linguistic analysis. However, this does not rule out the possibility that in recognising the specific political situation (which is closely tied to the texts analysed), Gamsakhurdia's utterances may be set in relationship to their conditions of production and reception, and correspondingly assessed. 3. The instability of political discourse The situation in Georgia, as it presented itself at the time of Zviad Gamsakhurdia's take-over of power, was extremely complicated. Severe economic problems inherited from communist mismanagement, national conflicts in large part manipulated from outside, complex political and economic relationships of dependency on the central power in Moscow, and much more besides, imposed on the president the all but impossible task of bringing about visible social transformations in a relatively short space of time. Since there were, as already noted, widely varying conceptions of the 'how' of such transformations amongst sections of the political forces of the country, it was not surprising for the attentive observer that, after the August putsch in Moscow, the conflict of opinion in Georgia over the future of the country became sharper and harsher. At the beginning of September 1991, it reached a peak, and the president himself referred to an 'attempted putsch'. What, then, happened in Georgia at this point in time?

TRANSITIONAL DISCOURSE IN GEORGIA 3.1 The concept of democracy in the discourse of the Georgian

237 president

On the 2nd September 1991 an unofficial demonstration was broken up; weapons were used and casualties sustained. The use of firearms had not been ordered by the president. After this, the controversy between government and opposition degenerated, mainly at the instigation of the opposition, into isolated armed incidents which also claimed victims. From September 12 to October 4 the television transmitter building in Tbilisi was occupied by opposition forces who demanded the president's resignation, accusing him of dictatorial methods of government that contradicted his democratic claims. Gamsakhurdia, however, regarded his actions as completely 'democratic', and saw the cause of the conflict as being primarily in the conceptual domain. That is to say, he assumed that the opposition had a completely different understanding of democracy, an understanding that was not compatible with his own. Consequently, on numerous occasions he publicly took up a position on the concept of democracy. The way he did this was revealing in two respects. On the one hand, he made clear his own understanding of democracy (thereby making it possible to explain his reaction to the opposition); on the other hand, from the implicit structure of his utterances it is possible to glean central elements in the opposition's concept of democracy. In an interview with Czechoslovak and Lithuanian journalists at the beginning of September, Gamsakhurdia defines what democracy in his opinion means and does not mean: To my mind democracy is first of all the supremacy5 of laws that have been approved by the people (narod), of laws elaborated by a parliament elected by the people... Democracy first of all is respect toward legality (zakonnost') (Demokratija—èto mne kazhetsja—v pervuju ochered' verxovenstvo zakonov, kotorye odobril narod, zakonov, vyrabotannyx parlamentom, izbrannym narodom... Demokratija, èto, v pervuju ochered', uvazhenie k zakonnosti, k verxovenstvu zakona.) (Svobodnaja Gruzija, 19 September 1991, p. 1) The president goes so far, in his understanding of 'democracy', as to oppose 'democracy' and 'true democracy'. Yes, the etymology of the word does in fact have such a meaning. But true democracy is the rule not of the demos but of the laws. (Da, ètimologija slova dejstvitel'no imeet takoe znachenie, no istinnaja demokratija—èto pravlenie ne demosa, a zakonov.) (19 September 1991, p. 1) In a similar way he stipulates what democracy does not mean and refers to concepts used by the opposition: Democracy is not to be understood6 as the pressure of the people, although it seems exactly this way to some. With us, some consider that any individual or group of people can govern. (Demokratija nelzja ponimat' kak prjamoe davlenie

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naroda, xotja nekotorym èto viditsja imenno tak... U nas nekotorye shchitajut, chto pravit' mozhet ljuboj individ libo gruppa ljudej.) (19 September 1991, p. 1) The referent of 'some' is, in this context, relatively easy to recognise, as is the identity of the (logical) subject of 'understand'. It is not a question of a straightforward polemic attack on the opposition; rather, the president points to the concepts of the opposition implicitly—by way of negation, for example. In a speech during a parliamentary session he expresses himself again on the subject of the concept of democracy: The essence of democracy.. .consists in the supremacy of the government (vlast") elected by the people and the supremacy of the laws adopted by this authority, after extensive discussion and approbation by the people, by all strata of society. I think that another understanding of democracy does not exist. (Sushchnost' demokratii...sostoit v verxovenstve izbrannoj narodom vlasti i verxovenstve zakonov, prinimaemyx ètoj vlast'ju, posle shirokix diskussij, aprobatsij ix narodom, vsemi slojami obshchestva. Dumaju, drugogo ponimanija demokratii ne sushchestvuet.) (17 September 1991, p. 1) The same sort of evaluation is taken up by him in a speech to deputies, a speech which appeared in print on October 11 : We still do not have true democracy. Yes, there is no true democracy. Genuine democracy is the unity and harmony of action of the government (vlast') and opposition. (U nas eshchë net istinnoj demokratii. Da, net istinnoj demokratii. Nastojashchaja demokratija—èto edinstvo i garmonichnost' dejstvij vlasti i oppozitsii.) (11 October 1991, p. 1) In this passage the president already speaks of the role of the opposition, something which I shall go into in more detail about below. With the same kind of consistency he defines what democracy is not: But when there is no regard for the supremacy of the democratic law, for the supremacy of the government (vlast") elected by the people, then that is in itself not democracy—it's a putsch. Going for one another with one's fists, catcalling, and hurling insults at one's opponents—that's not democracy, it's anarchy. (No kogda ne schitajutsja s verxovenstvom demokraticheskogo zakona, s verxovenstvom vlasti, izbrannoj narodom, èto uzhe ne demokratija, èto putch. Brosat'sja drug na druga s kulakami, osvistyvat', oskorbljat' opponentov—èto ne demokratija, a anarxija.) (11 October 1991, p. 1) And at another point he repeats: Yes, gentlemen, I can tolerate criticism, sharp assessments, but not armed struggle! (Da, gospoda, dopuskaju kritiku, ostrye otsenki, no ne bor'bu s oruzhiem v rukax! ) (11 October 1991, p. 1) By way of this verbal rejection and the condemnation of the opposition's conduct that is implicated in it, Gamsakhurdia once again refers to the

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opposition's concept of democracy. In his understanding, 'going for one another with one's fists' is, amongst other things, quite 'undemocratic', and he applies to this kind of action the concept of 'anarchy'. Directly or indirectly, Gamsakhurdia's utterances refer repeatedly to the opposition's concept of democracy, which he rejects. His rejection manifests itself in the immediate linguistic context in which the particular concept of democracy is embedded. On the one hand, 'democracy' stands in the immediate environment of 'law' or 'sovereignty of the law', 'government elected by the people', 'parliament' and 'people'. On the other hand, the context here is formed out of the words 'putsch', 'anarchy', 'catcalling and hurling insults', 'armed struggle', 'fighting with weapon in hand' and 'direct pressure'—that is, out of lexemes which take on strikingly negative connotations. 3.2 The discourse of opposition President and opposition in Georgia had severe difficulties in their dealings with one another. This is clear not only from the occupation of buildings in Tbilisi and the use of firearms, but also from the linguistic behaviour of the president himself. However hard he tried to capture verbally, and to describe, the opposition and its role in a democracy, he hardly succeeded in getting the necessary dialogue going in the interest of the country. The conceptions of the participants in the political process were too controversially divergent. And the presidential utterances aimed at the opposition scarcely contained offers that signalled readiness to co-operate. Gamsakhurdia distinguishes clearly in his texts between the 'parliamentary' and the 'extra-parliamentary' opposition. The latter is not respected by him as a negotiation partner. In this regard he is relatively explicit, as the following examples show. He explicitly marks the distinction between the opposition 'that is still in parliament (poka chto ostaetsja v parlamente)' and an opposition outside parliament: there exists also an external opposition, (sushchestvuet i vneshchnaja oppozitsija.) (11 October 1991). 'External opposition' functions as a neutral concept and simply localises parts of the opposition. Further on, however, the president uses expressions which have an unambiguous evaluative role in relation to the opposition. In order to characterise the 'parliamentary opposition' he describes it as 'constitutional' (konstitutsionnaja), and formulates his expectations of this opposition by means of a comparison with the opposition in the British parliament. This is in effect an indirect challenge to the 'constitutional' opposition: In the English parliament the opposition co-operates with the ruling party, and they act together for the sake of the better future of the nation. (V anglijskom

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parlamente oppozitsija sotrudnichaet s pravjashchej partiej, i oni dejstvujut sovmestno vo imja luchshego budushchego natsii.) (11 October 1991) The 'extra-parliamentary opposition' is referred to in a pejorative way as a 'street opposition' {ulichnaja oppozitsija), which 'nowhere exists in cultured countries' (ne sustshchestvujet nigde v kul'turnyx stranax) (17 September 1991). By way of a remark addressed in the first instance to the 'parliamentary' opposition he criticises, indirectly, the actions of the 'extra-parliamentary' opposition: If we want to start a dialogue with anyone, it is precisely with you, within the frames and norms of ethics and culture. Because you conduct yourselves as befits parliamentarians and don't strew the streets with garbage, don't permit yourselves displays of outrageous and unworthy hooliganism, (esli my xotim zavjazat' s kem-to dialog, to imenno s vami, v ramkax i normax ètiki i kul'tury. Potomu chto vy védete sebja, kak podobaet parlamentarijam, a ne zasypaete ulitsy musorom, ne pozvoljaete sebe projavlenij nedostojnyx, xuliganskix vyxodok) (17 September 1991, p. 1) Again, speaking of the role of the 'extra-parliamentary' opposition he implies an evaluation by evoking a vague threat of an outside enemy: I don't want the so-called opposition to become a blind weapon in the hands of the enemy. {Ja ne xochu, chtoby tak nazyvaemaja oppozitsija stala slepym oruzhiem v rukax vraga.) (17 September 1991, p. 1) Again he refers to the 'so-called' opposition: Our so-called oppositionists are in fact not democrats but anarchists, not recognising the laws, not recognising the constitution, not recognising the government (vlast), not recognising the will of the people. They are concerned about only one thing—gaining power (vlast). (Nashi tak nazyvaemye oppozitsionery—èto na samom dele ne demokraty, a anarxisty, ne priznajushchie zakonov, ne priznajushchie konstutsiju, ne priznajushchie vlast', ne priznajushchie voli naroda. Edinstvennoe, chto ix volnuet—èto zavoevanie vlasti.) (19 September 1991, p. 1) The opposition is brought into association with 'bandit armed organisations' that have sought the destruction of Georgia and committed robbery and murder: Behind the oppositionists is the armed bandit organisation 'Mchedrioni', whose leader has been arrested. Behind them are people who have desired to destroy Georgia, and who have committed robbery and murder... These are political bankrupts, bankrupts who have no serious political platform. (Za oppozitsiej stoit banditskaja vooruzhennaja organizatsija 'Mxedrioni', lider kotoroj arestovan. Za nimi ljudi, zhelavshchie pogubit' Gruziju, sovershavshie grabëzhi,

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ubijstva... Eto politicheskie bankroty, bankroty, u kotoryx net ser'ëzznoj politicheskoj platformy.) (19 September 1991, p. 1) And in a further speech before the parliament the president says: It is becoming clearer and clearer that this is an unconstructive opposition. It is a group of people which has set itself as an aim the overthrow of the lawful government (vlast') elected by the people, the usurpation of power (vlast). (No vsë bolee javnym stanovitsja, chto èto nekonstruktivnaja oppozitsija. èto gruppa ljudej, kotoraja postavila sebe tsel'ju sverzhenie izbrannoj narodom zakonnoj vlasti, zaxvat vlasti.) (21 September 1991, p. 2) In sum, the role ascribed to the opposition by the president is clearly specified: they may 'exercise criticism' and 'undertake rigorous assessments', but 'struggle with weapons in hand' is not permitted. Somewhat more precisely, he formulates the demands that are made of the opposition: If it is a question of a democratic state, then the opposition should respect the laws adopted by parliament and approved by the people. The opposition should operate within the framework of legality. It should not call violation of the law freedom and democracy, or use those words to cover up wilful lawlessness. (Esli rech' idët o demokraticheskom gosudarstve, to oppozitsija dolzhna uvazhat' zakony, prinjatye parlamentom i odobrennye narodom. Oppozitsija dolzhna dejstvovat' v ramkax zakonnosti Ona ne dolzhna nazyvat' narushenie zakona svobodoj i demokratiej, prikryvat' ètimi slovami bezzakonie.) (19 September 1991, p. 1) When he speaks of what the opposition 'may not' do he refers by means of a general formulation to specific actions of the opposition which he simultaneously submits to evaluation. He also makes reference to his own understanding of democracy; but the exact constitutional function of a democratic opposition remains unclear. The distinction between 'parliamentary' and 'extra-parliamentary' opposition follows from the criterion of possessing weapons. It is important to note that the president asserts that both would pursue the same goal—the overthrow of the president and the seizing of power: The parliamentary opposition is, I regret to say, linked with those who broadcast in the streets. They work together. They are united by a common idea—they want to break through7 to power, usurp parliament, topple the president. Only the non-parliamentary opposition is armed... (Parlamentskaja oppozitsija, k sozhaleniju, svjazana s terni, kto veshchaet na ulitsax. Oni dejstvujut vmeste. Ix ob"edinjaet odna obshchaja ideja—ona xotjat provatsja k vlasti, zaxvatit' Parlament, sorosit' Prezidenta. Tol'ko neparlamentskaja oppozitsija vooruzhena...) (11 October 1991, p. 1)

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The President constantly struggles to define the role of the (parliamentary) opposition. His acceptance of a legitimate opposition is tied to vague conditions: I turn to you, since I recognise you as the parliamentary opposition. It is your right to argue for the views of the opposition and to put forward constructive proposals, if they serve the good of Georgia. (Ja orashchajus' k vam, tak kak priznaju vas parlamentskoj oppozitsiej, vashe pravo otstaivat' vzgljady oppozitsii i provodit' v zhizn' konstruktivnye predlozhenija, esli oni sluzhat na blago Gruzii.) (17 September 1991) At this point a question immediately presents itself. Who judges what exactly serves 'the welfare of Georgia'?

4. The linguistic construction of events in Georgia, September 1991 The events in the Georgian capital at the beginning of September 1991, during which the president's resignation was demanded, shots were fired and buildings occupied, required a political resolution that was closely tied up with the linguistic construction of events. With the verbal description and evaluation of events by the president, the corresponding actions were prepared in advance and given prior justification. The core question is, in my view, how what happened in September 1991 was linguistically described. Gamsakhurdia uses in this connection a clear and unambiguous set of terms, speaking of a 'putsch' or 'attempted putsch' in Georgia. Anti-government forces have declared on us open military struggle. In all civilised countries it is called a revolt (bunt), a military and civil revolt or putsch. The term 'putsch' is not probably a legal one...but it expresses the essence of the event. There is no exaggeration, and in my view if the Supreme Soviet respects itself, if it respects the country of which it is the highest legislative body, it should describe the event as a coup d'Etat or a putsch. (Antipravitel'stvennye sily ob"javili nam prjamuju vooruzhenuju bor'bu. Eto vo vsex tsivilizovannyx stranax nazyvaetsja buntom. Vojennym i grazhdanskim buntom Hi putchem. Termin 'putch', vozmozhno, ne javljajetsja pravovym...no ono vyrazhaet sut' javlenija. Tut net preuvelichenija, i, po moemu mneniju, esli Verxovnyj Sovet uvazhaet sebja, esli uvazhaet stranu, vysshim zakonodatel'nym organom kotoroj javljaetsja, to dolzhen kvalifitsirovat' èto javlenie kak go sudarstvennyj perevorot ili putch.) (11 October 1991, p. 1) In Georgia, there was a putsch, attempts at a violent overthrow of the legitimate government (vlast'). We should not close our eyes to that. We should give all that a juridical, constitutional (pravovuju), political and moral evaluation. (V Gruzii—putch, politiki nasil'stvennogo sverzhenija zakonnoj vlasti. My na èto ne

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dolzhny zakryvat' glaza. My dolzhny dat' vsemu ètomu juridicheskuju, pravovuju, politicheskuju i moral'nuju otsenku.) (21 September 1991, p. 3) Equally unambiguous is the language used to characterise those who are seen as 'instigators' of the 'putsch': I do not insist that the idea came only from the provocateurs, those who organise this excess. The bitter truth is that both in the army and in the militia there are forces of a hostile disposition... At the same time it is clear to everybody that there are enemy forces at work, directed by the centre... And to everyone it is apparent that it has been a conscious provocation both on the part of the militia and on the part of the demonstrators (mitingujushchie). I am deeply convinced that all this has come from a single centre and has a single author. (Ja ne utverzhdaju, cinto èta ideja isxodila tol'ko ot provokatorov, ustroivshix ètot èkstsess. Gor'kaja pravda sostoit v torn, chto i v divizione, i v militsii est' sily, nastroennye vrazhdebno...I v to zhe vremja kazhdomu jasno, chto i tam dejstvujut vrazheskie sily, rukovodimye tsentrom... / vsem stanet ponjatno, chto èto by la soznatel'naja provokatsija, kak so storony militsii, tak i so storony mitingujushchix. Ja gluboko ubezhden, chto vsë èto isxodilo iz edinogo tsentra i imeet odnogo avtora.) (17 September 1991, p. 1) He speaks of 'forces hostile to the government', 'hostile forces', which he sees both in the 'militia' and in the 'armed forces', but in the end they are all in his view manipulated from the 'centre'. Yet it remains unclear to which forces the 'centre' is actually ascribed. In the following passage, the phrase 'third force' appears, with the same reference, instead of 'centre': ...the third force is already dictating, is already laying claim to the priority of resolving these problems. The third force is already shamelessly declaring that it will settle the conflict... The third force is preparing itself to settle the internal problems of Georgia for us and for you... (...tret'ja sila uzhe diktuet, uzhe pretenduet na prioritet v reshenii ètix problem. Tret'ja sila uzhe besstydno zajavlaet, chto uladit ètot konflikt... Tret'ja sila gotovitsja reshat' za nas i za vas vnutrennie problemy Gruzii...) (17 September 1991, p. 1) The president's attitude towards these forces finds its expression in combinations that receive a negative valuation, such as: 'dictate', 'lay claim', 'shamelessly declare'. In another passage the president himself explains who lurks behind this 'third force': Moscow wants to somehow hold on to Georgia and it is using all the criminal (banditskie) hooligan opposition forces. Both Shevardnadze and others from Moscow are active all the time... Behind our opposition there are Shevardnadze and Yakovlev. Behind Shevardnadze and Yakovlev there is probably Gorbachev. We have information that they are directing the opposition from Moscow. (Moskva xochet kak-to uderzhat' Gruziju i ispol'zuet zdes' vse banditskie, xuliganskie oppozitsionnye sily. I Shevardnadze i drugie iz Moskvy

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postojanno dejstvujut... Za nashej oppozitsiej stojat Shevardnadze i Jakovlev. A za Shevardnadze i Jakovlevym mozhet byt', Gorbachëv. U nas est' dannye, chto oppozitsiej rukovodjat iz Moskvy. ) (19 September 1991, p. 1) The most important goal pursued by the Georgian president in his utterances is to achieve acceptance on the part of the addressees or recipients of the texts, both with respect to his evaluation of the political situation and with respect to his proposals for the resolution of the pressing political problems. To this end he makes use of a triad of speech acts which can be loosely designated 'threaten-demand- invoke'. Thus he turns to the parliament with a kind of appeal, using expressions which are evidently intended to invoke certain ideas and thoughts: Remember all the good that unites us, that has helped us in the struggle for the future happiness of Georgia. (Vspomnite vsë xoroshee, chto svjazyvaet nas, chto pomoglo nam v bor'be za budushchee schast'e Gruzii.) (17 September 1991,p. 1) There must be a strong president and a strong presidential authority (vlast"). Remember, without this there exists no salvation for Georgia, without this everything that I have just spoken to you about will come to pass. (Dolzhen byt' sil'nyj prezident i sil'naja prezidentskaja vlast'. Pomnite, bez ètogo spasenija Gruzii ne sushchestvuet, bez ètogo utverditsja vsë to, o ch'ëmja vam tol'ko chto govoril) (11 October 1991, p. 1) Let us save our parliament and save our Georgia, since we have no other way out. (Spasem nash parlament i spasem nashu Gruziju, poskol'ku drugogo vyxoda u nas net!) (11 October 1991, p. 1) A central theme of these expressions, which can be characterised as appeals with an invocation-like quality, is that of Georgia as a free and independent state. The particular national sentiment of a small but highly cultivated nation has played a substantial role during long years of often changing foreign domination, and it is this sentiment that the politicians so frequently refer to, since they can be sure that any aims they link with it will have a large measure of success. Utterances that can be assessed as threats function according to the schema 'If not X, then Y will occur' , where Y is viewed by the speaker as a negatively valued consequence. The following examples illustrate this: ...if in the nearest future...we do not resolve the urgent political problems together with the opposition, this would lead to catastrophic results. (...esli v blizhajshee vremja...my sovestno s oppozitsiej ne reshim nasushchnye politicheskie problemy, eto privedet k katastroficheskim rezul'tatam.) (17 September 1991, p. 1)

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When the president tried to initiate a unanimous condemnation of the attempted September putsch in the Georgian parliament, he availed himself again of this schema: In the opposite case, I, as the president, decline all responsibility for what may happen, for the further development of events. (V protivnom sluchae ja kak Prezident snimaju s sebja vsjakuju otvetstvennost' za to, chto mozhet proizojti, za dal'nejshchee razvitie sobytij.) (17 September 1991, p. 1) Gamsakhurdia himself partially explicates the character of these utterances by means of metacommunicative expressions which he places at the front of the actual text. He seeks to steer the pragmatic interpretation of his utterances: I would like to declare straight away that my speech should not be considered as some kind of ultimatum or a threat or a statement of a desperate person driven to extremity. (Ja srazu zhe xochu zajavit', chto moë vystuplenie ne sleduet rastsenivat' kak nekij ul'timatum Hi ugrozu, Hi zajavlenie otchajavshegosja cheloveka, doshedshego do krajnost'.) (11 October 1991, p. 1) Gamsakhurdia is quite conscious of the fact that, under the particular political conditions, his utterances can be understood by his recipients as threats. As a democrat he evidently distances himself from such verbal behaviour and even prefaces his main speech act with what we might be call metacommunicative interpretational markers, intended to guide reception in the desired direction. Thus, he first establishes how his speech is not to be interpreted (see the above quoted passage); then he gives his own interpretative framework: What I am going to tell you is the reality, the objective reality. I shall give an impartial evaluation of the situation that has emerged and will talk with you about the possible consequences of all that... (To, chto ja vam sejchas skazhu, èto—real'nost', ob'jektivnaja realnost'. Ja dam bespristrastnuju otsenku sozdavshejsja situatsii i pobeseduju s vami o vozmozhnyx posledstvijax vsego ètogo...) (11 October 1991, p. 1) In spite of the declared intention (not to threaten), the selected linguistic expression does not always satisfy this intention. (Indeed, perhaps it is essential that it does not, if a particular purpose is to be achieved.) Indirect threats are also introduced into the utterances in which the president reflects, in a quasi-prophetic style, on the future of Georgia in the event of his resignation. In the very near future it will provoke the complete disintegration and destruction of the state integrity of Georgia as such, complete anarchy throughout the whole territory of Georgia and particularly in Tbilisi... Tbilisi would turn into a city divided into several sectors. The only power would belong to the armed gangs and their leaders... Quite possibly Tbilisi will turn into a dead city and quite possibly cease its existence... Georgia would fall victim to

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total anarchy, and the existence of Georgia, its future in general will turn out to be in question. That is what may follow after my possible resignation, which certain opposition parties are so ardently demanding. (V blizhajshee vremj èto polnuju dezintegratsiju i narushenie go sudarstvennoj tselostnosti Gruzii kak takovoj, polnuju anarxiju na vsej territorii Gruzii i, v chastnosti, v Tbilisi... Tbilisi prevratitsja v gorod, raschlenennyj na neskol'ko raionov, edinstvennaja vlast' budet prinadlezhat' vooruzhennym bondam i ix rukovoditel'jam... Tbilisi, vozmozhno, prevratitsja v mertvyj gorod i, vozmozhno, prekratit sushchestvovanie... Gruzija stanet zhertvoj total'noj anarxii, i sushchestvovanie Gruzii, eë budushchee voobshche okazhutsja pod voprosom. Wot chto mozhet posledovat' za moej vozmozhnoj otstavkoj, kotoruju stol' gorjacho trebujut nekotorye oppozitsionnyepartii) (1 October 1991, p. 1) Gamsakhurdia uses metacommunicative utterances in an attempt to rule out the interpretation of his words as a threat, although such an interpretation is quite a plausible one, given the context. In the text of September 17, quoted above, in which he predicts the dire consequences of opposition, he incorporates the following self-commentary: All that I have just said is not a threat, not an exaggeration, not an imposition on you of my point of view and naturally not an attempt to remain in this post at any price. (Vsë, chto ja sejchas skazal—ne ugroza, ne preuvelichenie, ne navjazyvanie vam moej tochki zrenija i, konechno, ne stremlenie vo chtoby to ni stalo ostat'sja na ètompostu.) (17 September 1991, p. 1) He reacts in a similar way regarding the question of the form of government of Georgia: ...but we have a parliamentary republic—the downfall of the nation is the downfall of parliament. Remember that, (...au nas parlamentskaja respublika— èto gibel' i gib el' parlamenta. Zapomnite èto.) The more or less categorical form of the expressions shifts such expressions very close to the domain of direct threats, at least in so far as hearers may interpret the utterance as a threat. The 'if...then (jesli...to)' form, found in the following passage, illustrates such cases: ...without this qualification our activity is impossible, inadmissible. If the parliament intends to exist, then it must tell the truth to the Georgian people. (...vne ètoj kvalifikatsii nevozmozhna, nedopustima nas ha dejatel'nost'. Esli Parlament nameren sushchestvovat', to dolzhen skazat' pravdu gruzinskomu narodu.) (11 October 1991) An important function is assumed in the president's texts by those expressions in which he states his demands, the fulfilment of which is supposed to further the resolution of the conflict. He frequently combines such utterances with others, which can be evaluated as threats, when he indicates the consequences of non-compliance with his demands:

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It is necessary to have a consolidation of the parliament around the president. There must come about a harmonisation of the actions of the president and the parliament. I do not mean a diktat and do not want any diktat whatsoever. It is necessary to have a resolution of the elementary questions, a restoration of order, a characterisation of ongoing events as a putsch or an armed uprising. And in this we should be united! The parliamentary opposition should support us in this, if it does not want to look like the ally of the putschists and to participate with them in the downfall and destruction of Georgia. (Nuzhna konsolidatsija parlamenta vokrug Prezidenta, dolzhna proizojti garmonizatsija dejstvij Prezidenta i parlamenta. Ja ne imeju v vidu diktat i ne zhelaju nikakogo diktata. Neobxodimo reshenie èlementarnyx voprosov, vosstanovlenie porjadka, kvalifikatsija proisxodjashchix sobytij kak putch ili vooruzhennyj bunt. I v ètom my dolzhny byt' ediny! Parlamentskaja oppozitsija dolzhna podderzhat' nas v ètom, esli ona ne xochet vygljadet' sojuznitsej putchistov i vmeste s nimi uchastvovat' v gibeli i razrushenii Gruzii.) (11 October 1991, p. 1) The demand-like character of these utterances rests on the use of modals, in particular: nuzhno (must, be necessary that), vynuzhden (must, be forced, be compelled), dolzhno (must, should, ought), neobxodimo (must, be essential that, be imperative that): .. .but on the question of the salvation of Georgia, of the restoration of order and establishing of civil peace we ought (dolzhny) to be united. If we do not unite ourselves in this, then the existence of this parliament does not have any sense. I say directly and openly that I will be forced (vynuzhden) to dissolve this parliament and to resign if you do not support me in it being imperative (neobxodimo) to restore order in Georgia, and I do not know whether this step would turn out to be to salvation or downfall for us. (...no vot v voprose spasenija Gruzii, vostanovlenija porjadka i ustanovlenii grazhdanskogo mira my dolzhny byt' ediny. Esli my ne ob"edinimsja v ètom, to ne imeet nikakogo smysla sushchestvovanie ètogo parlamenta. Ja prjamo i otkrovenno skazhu, chto budu vynuzhden raspustit' ètot parlament i sam ujti v otstavku, esli vy ne podderzhite menja v torn, chto neobxodimo vosstanovit' porjadok v Gruzii, i ne znaju, stanet li ètot shag spasenijem ili gibelju dlja nas.) (11 October 1991, p. 1) It is worth noting that in Russian, modality (whether deontic or of objective necessity) is expressed by a predicative adjective (e.g. my dolzhny), or by means of an impersonal expression using the neuter form of the adjective. The latter is particularly frequent, and provides political actors with the means of presenting potential choices as if they were objectively constrained by external necessity. This clearly plays a role in the direct and indirect expression of the demands, warnings and threats issued by Gamsakhurdia to the opposition.

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5. Conclusion The social transformations which began in the Soviet Union with the policies of perestroika and glasnost led in a very short period of time, owing to the specific political-historical conditions in some republics, to the total collapse of the communist structures of power. This was the case in the Soviet Republic of Georgia. The building of new social structures requires considerable time and is shot through with conflicts and contradictions. It has been the aim of the above linguistic analyses of the verbal behaviour of the Georgian president to enhance understanding of a political conflict that was extremely complex. In accordance with his conception of democracy, and with his claim to democracy, the Georgian president attempted to control this political conflict linguistically, that is, without armed force, although the national opposition had already taken up arms. He subordinated his verbal behaviour to this option and at the same time made efforts to prepare his practical-political actions on this basis. In his texts it becomes clear that he had recognised important aspects of the origins of the conflict—it was in the first instance a question of coming to an understanding with the leading political forces of the country as to what a democracy is and what role an opposition plays in a democracy. To the extent that Gamsakhurdia chose to engage in a verbal confrontation, and to the extent this was intended to yield an agreement with the other political actors, new possibilities were available for non-violent action in Georgia. Yet Gamsakhurdia's very conceptualisation of democracy was problematic. As the above analyses also suggest, he worked with a concept of democracy that included notions of harmony and unity. The notion of opposition seems to have been regarded by him as fundamentally incompatible with this conception. His concept of democracy also seems to have involved notions of sovereign authority that were also incompatible with opposition. The notion of a democratic opposition, a 'loyal opposition', and the associated parliamentary institutions and discourses, are underdeveloped. By the autumn of 1991 there was still no solution of the conflict, although the parties had come to a kind of cease-fire. The end of the year saw developments draw to a dramatic crisis. At this point the president's readiness to engage in talks, and perhaps his ability to do so, decreased visibly. The opposition forces assessed this as an expression of the president's dictatorial claim to rule, and they for their part resorted to undemocratic methods—in fact, to arms—in order to further their own claims. Under these conditions the few efforts made on both side sides to negotiate the conflict by verbal means collapsed in a short space of time and the respective positions hardened to an extraordinary degree. After street fighting which led to many dead and wounded the president managed the situation after a fashion by fleeing at the beginning of 1992, first to Armenia and then later to the North Caucasian

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Republic of Chechenia, whose president had offered him asylum. He continued to hold regular sessions of a 'shadow cabinet', considering himself still to be the rightful president of Georgia. In the spring of 1992 the former Soviet foreign minister, and former first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, Eduard Shevardnadze, was appointed to the office of president of the state council of a transitional government in Georgia. Given his reputation as a diplomat in the international arena, Shevardnadze's appointment raised great hopes for a peaceful settlement of the Georgian conflict. The hopes were not fulfilled. The country was on the brink of civil war, with Shevardnadze struggling to bring about a reconciliation of the political forces in the interests of a democratic future. What was required, in my view, was a dialogue—the readiness and ability to negotiate the conflicts between the political forces which had already arisen under the Gamsakhurdia government, and whose roots in fact reach far back into the history of the former Soviet Union.

Notes 1

2

3

4

In the 1970s and 1980s this tendency established itself in particular in French linguistic research. See for instance, Ducrot (1972), Maingueneau (1976, 1987), Courtine (1981), Maldidier (1986). For examples of German work in this area, see Klein (1989), Liedtke et al. (1991). In its chequered history, Georgia has always struggled for self-determination against foreign domination. At the beginning of the twentieth century, in the aftermath of the civil war in Russia of February 1917, the country became an independent republic with a social-democratic government. In 1921 this government was made powerless and a system of communist rule was established which governed for 70 years, producing a closed dependency on the central power of the Union in Moscow, with all the political, economic and social consequences. The Georgians rebelled repeatedly during this period against the ubiquitous domination of the communist rulers in Moscow. It was not until the removal of the one-party system and the first free parliamentary elections in 1990 that there was a possibility of the demand for an independent Georgian republic becoming a reality. In the early morning of 9 April 1989 a demonstration of Georgians in front of the parliament building was broken up by special units of the Soviet army and ministry of the interior in a bloody action that cost 20 lives. For several days people had been assembled, in a peaceful fashion, unarmed, and some of them on hunger strike, in order to demand free and independent elections in Georgia. Moscow failed to disclose who had been responsible for this massacre of defenceless individuals The linguistic situation is not straightforward. Zviad Gamsakhurdia drafted his speeches almost exclusively in the Georgian language. Georgian was almost completely repressed from public life. The 'official language' was Russian, as in all the former Soviet republics. This was in itself a political act, since the public life of the republics was dominated by representatives of the central government who mostly were only capable of speaking Russian. Gamsakhurdia, however, consciously used Georgian in political discourse in order to achieve the greatest possible identification of political power with a population which was opposed to any domination from outside. In the present article,

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however, all the speeches and other texts examined are taken from a Russian language source—the daily newspaper, Svobodnaja Gruzija (Free Georgia), published in Tbilisi. The publication of texts in this newspaper can be seen in a certain sense as a translation process authorised by Gamsakhurdia, since the newspaper was the official organ of the Georgian government. Although it had in fact been the organ of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Georgia, its general position at this time was neither pro-Soviet nor proRussian, but unambiguously committed to the Gamsakhurdia government. Its chief mission was stated as being to 'mediate the truth about Georgia to the hundreds of thousands of readers in the republic and beyond its borders, to inform them about each stage of the struggle of the people and the government of Georgia, who endeavour to achieve the freedom and independence of our homeland' (21 September 1991, p. 12). One might additionally note that the Soviet authorities would also be so informed. It would be of interest to examine the Georgian texts produced by Gamsakhurdia, but in the present article the focus is on their Russian manifestations. This means that Russian linguistic characteristics are significant, and the translations and annotations are designed to indicate these where appropriate. verxovenstvo: also 'majesty', 'domination'. 'understood': not a passive in the original, where 'understand' {ponimat") is the complement of an impersonal modal verb, a common construction in Russian, permitting non-mention of agents: demokratija nelzja ponimat' kak... On 'breakthrough' (proryv), see Kaul, chapter 8, this volume.

References Courtine, J.-J. (1981) Analyse du discours politique, Lang-ages, 62 (special issue) Ducrot, O. (1972) Dire et ne pas dire, Paris, Hermann Klein, J. (éd.) (1989) Politische Semantik. Beiträge zur politischen Sprachverwendung, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag Liedtke, F., M. Wengeler and K. Böke (eds.) (1991) Begriffe besetzen. Strategien des Sprachgebrauchs in der Politik, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag Maingueneau, D. (1976) Initiation aux Méthodes de l'analyse du discours, Paris, Hachette —— (1987) Nouvelles tendances en analyse du discours, Paris, Hachette Maldidier, D. (1986) Analyse de discours—nouveaux parcours, Langages, 81 (special issue)

16 Language and Identity in Bosnia-Herzegovina Jasna Levinger Formerly University of Novi Sad 1. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina To begin, it seems necessary to give a basic idea of the situation in BosniaHerzegovina and its capital Sarajevo in the period from 1989. As is now wellknown, this is a multi-ethnic region with three major national groups, Serbs, Croats and Moslems, who until the late 1980s lived together sharing territory, language, alphabets, and, to some degree, customs. The first free multi-party elections, at the end of 1990, brought national parties to power, so the government was supposed to be a coalition government of three national parties sharing influence in the administration. With the fall of Yugoslavia, it seemed that a peaceful division of power among the parties became impossible. Antagonism among the parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which later turned into armed conflict, seemed somehow to have been the continuation of the conflicts already very much alive between the two constituent republics that had majority Serb and Croat populations, that is, Serbia in the eastern part of ex-Yugoslavia, and Croatia in the west. But matters became considerably more complicated in the region due to the fact that there was a third party which took active part in the conflict. This was the party of the Moslems, who were officially proclaimed a separate nation in the early 1970s, being recognised formally in the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia. Thus was the terrain for the serious fighting that followed. Sarajevo, as the capital of this republic, reflected the progress of the conflict occurring in the republic as a whole. Bosnia-Herzegovina, as a Socialist Republic, was created in 1943. It was a multi-national community, 'not of any one of the nations, but of all the nations living there', as was stated in the AVNOJ (Antifascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia) constitution, with 'brotherhood' and 'unity' as its strongest features. The central idea was not that of the 'melting pot'. Rather, it was a region where the three major nations lived either close to one another in

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villages or together in towns and cities. Serbs, Croats and Moslems were referred to as 'nations', rather than as ethnic groups; the term is a political one. 'Nation' is defined according to a number of criteria (territory, language, culture, customs, religion, etc.), but in the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina it was religion that seemed to be the strongest and most significant criterion determining national membership, since the nations involved shared all other features to a very high degree. Croats are Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox, and Moslems followers of Islam. 'Ethnicity' had not been mentioned until the beginning of the war—early spring of 1992. The political parties taking part in the 1990 free elections, each representing a particular group, were called national parties. Although some other parties (such as Socialists, Reformists, etc.) also took part in the elections, it was the national parties who won the elections and they formed a coalition government in early 1991. Animosity among the three parties in the government was obvious in the voting tactics practised in the Parliament. Two-party coalitions were formed with the sole purpose of making it impossible for the third party to have a say, as happened in the case of the voting for a sovereign Bosnia-Herzegovina. In fact, the majority of the Serbian population voted against the sovereign BosniaHerzegovina at the referendum of 3 March 1992. This referendum finally triggered off open conflicts. Legal representatives of the Serbian national party left the presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina in early April 1992 and formed their autonomous Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina (later to be known as Republika Srpska). Even though the central government included representatives of Serbian nationality, they were not considered legal representatives by all of the Serbian population in the republic. The actual fighting in Sarajevo started on 6 April 1992, after the European Community recognised Bosnia-Herzegovina as a sovereign republic. As a result, each side attempted to gain as much power as possible. The Bosnian Croats formed their autonomous region called Herzegbosnia at the beginning of July 1992. In the city of Sarajevo at that time (April to the end of August 1992), Moslem paramilitary groups were active alongside the official government. Thus each faction had, to a certain extent, its own government and/or military forces. At the same time there was a central three-nation coalition presidency in Sarajevo (presided over by the Moslem leader) with its own armed forces. Since this chapter is an attempt to describe the situation in Sarajevo from the victory of the national parties, the beginning of the conflict, till the end of August 1992 (the period the author spent in Sarajevo), it has to be pointed out that the administration in Sarajevo was at that time mainly a Moslem-Croat coalition (ever since the departure of previously elected legal Serbian representatives). The whole of political life in Sarajevo was determined by that fact. This of course included language policy.

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2. Linguistic pluralism In the period from 1943 till 1990 national consciousness existed but it was purposely, if not ignored, given very little significance. In a situation in which 'togetherness' was favoured, language also played a significant role. Linguistic pluralism in this period was, absurdly enough, not the sign of ethnic division, but on the contrary, the sign of ethnic cohesion. Speakers of the language used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, officially called Serbo-Croatian, were encouraged to mix elements of different variants (eastern Serbian, and western Croatian) in the same text. On the other hand, both in Croatia and in Serbia, people were not generally happy with calling their languages 'Croato-Serbian' or 'Serbo-Croatian'. There were frequent arguments put forward by politicians and linguists regarding language issues in the two republics. Attempts had been made to divide SerboCroatian into two distinct languages, but those disputes had always ended up in some sort of compromise. For example, the Novi Sad Agreement in the 1960s stated that the language was to be called 'Serbo-Croatian' in Serbia and 'Croato-Serbian' in Croatia, and that each variant (eastern and western) had to incorporate some elements specific to the other, thus seeking to force into each language a certain proportion of elements borrowed from the other. This was primarily a political decision—not happily accepted by everyone, and severely criticised during the nationalist conflicts in the early 1970s. In BosniaHerzegovina, however, people seemed on the whole quite happy to call their language either Serbo-Croatian or Croato-Serbian., and to use the mixture of eastern and western variants that was then the common language of all ethnic groups living in the republic. This calls for further explanation regarding the criteria for defining language variants. A variant, sociolinguistically speaking, may be thought of as a set of linguistic phenomena with particular characteristics making it different from another in some recognised sense. A variant has a number of specific phonological, lexical and/or structural features, which are relatively few in number and not sufficiently significant to mark it as a separate dialect, or a separate language. The distinctive features of a variant are mainly produced by the influence of social, cultural and historical factors. Serbo-Croatian as a standard language was, in ex-Yugoslavia, spoken by four nations—Serbs, Croats, Moslems and Montenegrans. It had developed or diversified into two variants (eastern and western) owing to the fact that the two biggest nations (Serbs and Croats), using it as a standard language, gave it some specific features. But more significant in this respect seems to be the fact that language is a powerful political instrument and its name and status is very often decided by politicians for their own purposes.

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As mentioned earlier, in Bosnia-Herzegovina the view of the language on the part of those involved with the issue was that it was one language with two variants; they did not consider that there were two languages. The claim that Serbo-Croatian is one language with two variants can be defended from a linguistic point of view, on the grounds that the distinctive features of the two variants are, or were, not sufficiently significant or numerous to give each the status of a dialect or a language. The difference between the two variants might be compared to the difference between British English and American English, for instance. The variants are mutually intelligible, with some phonological and lexical differences and a few structural ones. Unfortunately, there is (at the time of writing) no up-to-date description of the differences and it is impossible here to systematise them properly. The following examples, however, illustrate the kind of differences at issue: Eastern variant alphabet Cyrillic (mostly) Ekavian1 phonological mleko belo rec SUV

okean svestenik morphological krastavac (masc.) minut (masc.) kvalitet (masc.) doktorka sudija sugerisati lexical differences voz uslov stanica syntactic (present tense with da vs. Infinitive) ja ću da otvorim to bi moglo da pomogne ja moram da citam

Western variant

English equivalent

Roman (mostly) Ij ekavian mlijeko bijelo rijec suh ocean svećenik

milk white word dry ocean priest

krastavica (fem.) minuta (fem.) kvaliteta (fem.) doktorica sudac sugerirati

cucumber minute quality doctor judge suggest

vlak uvjet kolodvor

train condition station

ja ću otvoriti to bi mogllo pomoci ja moram citati

I shall open it that could help I must read

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The official language policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina was, prior to the conflicts, to enforce the use of both language variants. Thus the standard language in Bosnia-Herzegovina included both variants of Serbo-Croatian (the eastern Serbian and western Croatian) and both alphabets (Cyrillic in the case of Serbian and Roman in the case of Croatian), while Albaniann, and other languages (such as Ruthenian), were clearly separate languages, belonging to minority groups in the region. Such languages were recognised, but were not considered official languages of any region. As to the Serbo-Croatian variant in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this was a mixture of eastern and western variants, in which the proportion of features of each variant varied depending on the part of Bosnia-Herzegovina in which the language was spoken, as well as on the individual speaker. As for the alphabet, the policy again was that of equality. In elementary schools, first-graders started learning either of the two alphabets depending on the decision of the school authorities. Children were expected to master both alphabets in the first grade, so half of the first-graders started with the Cyrillic, and the other half with the Roman alphabet. Then, in the second term, those who had started with the Cyrillic alphabet were taught the Roman alphabet, and vice versa. At a later stage of their education, children were free to use either alphabet, except when writing Serbo-Croatian compositions. SerboCroatian compositions were written again according to the equality principle: one was written in Cyrillic and one in the Roman alphabet, continually, both in elementary and secondary schools. The same principle was accepted, or forced, in the mass media. A single newspaper would print one article in Cyrillic and one in the Roman alphabet on the same page. Even the newspaper title was often printed one day in Cyrillic and another day in Roman. The same was the case with television. Names of streets, institutions and the like always followed this rule of 'equal distribution'. However strange it may sound, this never caused much trouble or confusion, except for the occasional dispute. Every literate citizen of BosniaHerzegovina mastered both alphabets with equal skill in their printed forms. The same cannot be said for the hand-written texts, since when it came to handwriting it was a matter of individual choice. As for the rest of Yugoslavia, especially in Serbia and Croatia, the practice was different. In both of these republics children in school had to master both alphabets, but the mixing of the variants and the equal use of both alphabets was not favoured. The Cyrillic alphabet was widespread in Serbia, and the Roman alphabet in Croatia.

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3. Language and political Identity Such, in broad outline, was the political and linguistic situation in BosniaHerzegovina. If this situation seems complex, it is because the political situation in the entire region was also complex. The complexity had an impact on most areas of life. Language as a means of national identification has always played an important role, and it is not surprising to see that language was affected by the political changes taking place in pre-civil war BosniaHerzegovina. During one-party rule there was also the 'one-party' language policy. The multi-party system, with national parties fighting for power had serious consequences for language. Each party, at the same time as putting forward its own programme, immediately introduced innovations into the language. They shifted toward the use of only one variant, and/or they began to use lexemes previously not commonly used. This shift provides the opportunity for a reallife test of some linguistic theories. Thus, for example, Rado vano vić (1974, p. 11) stated that language is not merely an instrument of communication but an instrument for grouping and dividing differently organised social institutions (group, tribe, nation, etc.). He was not making a prediction, but he was certainly aware of the problem, and his point was proved in BosniaHerzegovina, when political leaders instigated a linguistically divisive process in order to promote their parties and policies. Ingelhart and Woodward (1972, p. 372) claimed that there are examples 'of the role of ambitious political leaders turning to language as a device to inflame the masses against the central government'. In this case it is more a matter of turning the masses against the 'central language' as well, that is, turning them towards linguistic pluralism. Indeed, linguistic pluralism was one of the first visible and obvious dividing lines among ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the beginning of the new political organisation of this republic preceding the civil war. In the fight among national parties language was one of the first weapons used, since language and nation are inextricably intertwined. This means that in Sarajevo, because of the political circumstances, the Cyrillic alphabet and the eastern variant of Serbo-Croatian were gradually reduced to a minimum. The Roman alphabet, and a very high proportion of elements of the western variant, were used officially and widely by the population. The language itself had not changed much, but for political purposes this language variant had to be considered a medium, which, if not radically new, was certainly region-specific. There was a strong need at the time to prove that a republic seeking to be sovereign had many features demonstrating its sovereignty, language being one of them. Consequently, along with the new political situation arose the idea that this language had to be given the status of a new, separate language with a new name. Of course, this

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has been a well-known phenomenon in sociolinguistic theory. Haugen (1972, p. 103) pointed out that 'every self-respecting nation has to have a language. Not just a medium of communication, a "vernacular" or a "dialect", but a fully developed language'. It was for this reason that the minorities in BosniaHerzegovina had been trying hard to proclaim their variant of Serbo-Croatian the new language of the nation. This caused many problems, one of which— and it was not a minor one—was the name. Various teams including linguists and politicians produced suggestions. The 'Bosnian language' was among the first. It did not prove to be a good solution, since the name of the republic was Bosnia-Herzegovina. Names such as 'Herzeg-Bosnian language', and 'SerboCroatian-Moslem language' were also proposed. Obviously, the language problems were closely connected with the problems of the different nations (ethnic groups being referred to thus at that time) which lived in the same republic. The question whether these groups should be referred to as 'ethnic groups', 'nations' or 'nationalities' calls for further definition of these categories. The 'nation' itself in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the beginning of the conflict was neither defined nor labelled. Again there were many discussions, with one of the solutions being 'Boshnjaks', a name which was supposed to include all ethnic groups living within the borders of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This again raised the question of the Herzegovinians, and led to proposals such as the term 'Herzegbosnians'. Thus the initial disputes started in a way with the definition and labelling of nation and/or language. Once again the reality bears out the sociolinguistic theory. Haugen (1972, p. 104) asserts: Like any unity [a nation] minimises internal differences and maximises external ones. On the individual's personal and local identity it superimposes a national one by identifying his ego with that of all others within the nation and separating it from that of all others outside the nation... Nationalism has also tended to encourage external distinctions. In language this has meant the urge not only to have one language, but to have one's own language. Trudgill (1974, p. 140) notes that language loyalty can be a powerful weapon, and has often been manipulated to political advantages. Such remarks are confirmed by the actions and policies of the national parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina. One of the first things they did was to gradually introduce specific linguistic variants, mostly through the mass media. As argued above, the term 'linguistic variant' is appropriate here. The resulting language system can hardly be defined as a dialect, let alone a language. It was, rather, still a mixture of the two variants, except that there was now a higher proportion of words taken from the western variant at the expense of eastern

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one in the parts under Moslem/Croatian jurisdiction, and vice versa in the Serbian parts. Some of the newly introduced elements were loan words from Turkish (again in parts under Moslem/Croat) jurisdiction, and some were newly coined words. Most of these words were introduced for what can be regarded as demagogic purposes. It has to be stressed that there was a low proportion of such elements and that it is thus hard to consider the language in Bosnia-Herzegovina significantly changed. The fact is, however, that leaders of the national parties in BosniaHerzegovina suddenly started using a forced 'purified', carefully selected variant of the language that they had previously used, calling it now the 'New Bosnian Language'. This actually meant that leaders of a particular national party tried hard not to use both variants, but rather to force the introduction or coining of words that were exclusively associated with the variant they had switched to. As already indicated, this meant the extensive use of the western variant and overuse of words of Turkish origin. At the time it was more or less officially inaugurated (that is, after the election of the multi-national government), this 'New Bosnian Language' had very few characteristics that could be said to mark it as a separate language. Indeed, it was not so much a language as a rhetoric of war. Its function was to fulfil the desire of politicians to have 'one's own language', a desire that became evident as early as 1990. However, as the conflicts increased, the idea of a Bosnian language was put aside, and each ethnic group endeavoured to use only its own specific variant of the once common language. Having a separate 'language' is frequently cited as one of the key defining characteristics of ethnic group membership. But the point being made here is that it is not always what one would regard as full-blown 'languages' that have this function. In such cases, as Trudgill puts it, the 'separate identity of the ethnic group is signalled, not by different languages, but by different varieties of the same language' (Trudgill 1974, p. 60). The case of the former Yugoslavia involves this type of differentiation, as well as differentiation by totally different language systems. Interestingly enough, as one of the examples of such a situation, Trudgill mentions precisely the situation in Yugoslavia, long before the war. On the one hand he notes the sort of case where language may act as a defining characteristic: Slovene, Macedonian, Albaniann, Hungarian are spoken by ethnic groups...who go under the same name as the language. On the other hand, he also notes that different ethnic groups speak the same language, and here language may act as an identifying characteristic (although not, today, a particularly important one). This is true of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, where the three main ethnic

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groups in the city, Serbs, Croats and Moslems, all speak Serbo-Croat, the most widely used Yugoslavian language. Historically speaking this ethnic-group differentiation in Sarajevo has to do with religion (Serbs are or were Orthodox, Croats Catholic) and partly to do with geographical origin (Serbia is to the east of Bosnia, Croatia to the west). Today these factors are of no very great importance, but individuals are still aware of their ethnic group membership. (1974, p. 61) Trudgill also claims that the three groups in Sarajevo do not actually speak distinct varieties but rather that the differences are only tendencies and appear to be entirely lexical. He also mentions that the Serbs and the Croats have linguistic differences which are largely geographical in origin—the words they use are those employed in Serbia and Croatia respectively. The typical Moslem words are loan words from Turkish, borrowed under the influence of Islam and centuries of Turkish rule. What happened is that the tendencies Trudgill observed as early as 1974 became much more than just tendencies. They were used as a very strong weapon in the political battle among the three national parties. Ethnic groups started using so-called 'languages' (or rather, imported a selection of lexemes) which had not been in use in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They even began to revive archaic words which had not been used for some time even in those geographical regions with the majority of the particular ethnic group. The use of what amounted to no more than a relatively small set of different lexemes did not make each variant mutually unintelligible. There was no problem of communication, since only a very low proportion of lexemes was foreign to members of other ethnic groups. The words the Serbs or the Croats used, even those newly produced, were easily understood, or the meaning could easily be inferred from context. These were mostly new compound words, or newly coined words of Slavic origin, and their meaning was easily grasped. For instance, the word priopcenje used by the Croatian ethnic group members is very similar to the word saopštenje used by the Serbs, as the basic meaning 'communication' was given in the root of both words opcenje lopstenje. However, there were some problems with words of Turkish origin used by the Moslems, though in these cases also the words in question had either been previously used by the elder Moslem population, or their meanings could be guessed from the context. Insistence on the use of the separate 'purified' language forms by each ethnic group was the first instance of 'cleansing' which was to progress into a drastic, anti-human form of dealing with people of 'other' ethnic origin. And this was the beginning of a language war, or, more precisely, of a political conflict embodied in a language war. An interesting example is the language variant used by the leader of one of the national parties before the elections and afterwards. Before the elections, he had adopted a forced, archaic variant of the

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language not commonly used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a variant that was presumably meant to show his deep belonging to his ethnic group. But. after the elections, when he was safely confirmed as the leader of that particular national party, and when his wing of the party decided to fight for the so-called 'unitary Bosnia-Herzegovina', he switched back to the variant he had used before he became a politician. The current development of Serbo-Croatian, under the impact of political divisions, shows a number of rapid and significant changes that make it difficult not to think in terms of the appearance of two or three 'languages' with Serbo-Croatian as a common root. 4. Language and violence There is another sense in which language can be the instrument of war. Bugarski (1992, p. 13) has argued that 'verbal artillery systematically prepared the ground for the talk of weaponry.' A 'language game', according to Wittgenstein (1980) reflects the world, and helps to form, maintain or destroy that world. The new language games of Bosnia-Herzegovina became more and more dirty, destructive and inarticulate. This was, of course, true not just of language, but of the other constituents of the world where this language was used. Bugarski's concern is to analyse the use of language for political and military purposes. Very generally, he believes that language in such situations has three functions: '(a) to produce reality, (b) to cancel reality, and (c) to turn reality inside out.' Producing reality, according to Bugarski, was achieved by the use of 'loaded' terms denoting national(ist) military groups (chetniks/Serbian, ustashi/Croatian and later mujahedins/Moslem in Bosnia-Herzegovina) at the time when there were no or very few such groups.2 But as the war progressed, such military groups, conjured up by going back to the past, became a present reality and their number became significant. Bugarski's explanation of the language function in cancelling reality refers to the use of inadequate terms or euphemisms. Of course, the same can be said for the language use in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and it can be illustrated by terms such as kompleksna situacija (complex situation), used to denote actual conflict in some area, or krizom zahvaceno podrušje (crisis stricken region), denoting a region where the war had already started. Language turns reality inside out according to Bugarski by means of all those terms where prescribed language is used not only to give a different shade of meaning, but where it is used to give an opposite meaning in order to present 'official' truth. Amongst the most serious examples given by Bugarski (1992) are the terms oslobodioci (liberators) and osloboditi (to liberate). The same 'language game' was played in Bosnia-Herzegovina—the same terms

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Bugarski gives as being used in Serbia were also used in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Each army was said to oslobadja (liberate) certain towns and regions by the use of heavy artillery and the destruction of human life, while the other side is always agresor (the aggressor). There are always 'our good boys' on one side and 'their bad boys' on the other. 'Our good boys' brane (defend) a town by a lot of shooting, then by winning, and then by driving away osvajafe (the invaders). This very same pattern is used by all armies: they all brane (defend) the territory and they all oslobadjaju (liberate) it. There is not a single army which osvaja (invades) or which apada (attacks) the enemy. They are all branioci (defenders) and oslobodioci (liberators). Much confusion can arise in such language use. For example, choosing between the words osvojiti (invade) and osloboditi (liberate), which have some similarities in sound, can be problematic. This was indicated by an almost Freudian slip of the tongue made during a television appearance by a distinguished politician, who said, when referring to fighting in a certain area, that '...our military forces su osvojile...oslobodile (have invaded...liberated) this area, so we can resume... ' The new terminology, the first weapon of war, soon became the terminology used to distort the true picture of this monstrous, dirty, destructive war. Something that, among other things, began as language war progressed into the real war, which in turn had language as its means for fighting the enemy. War language, or war rhetoric, in Bosnia-Herzegovina had a lot to do with ethnicity. Like all group rhetorics, and like all war rhetorics, it had specific psychological aims—to stimulate feelings of group belonging, emotional reactions, the formation of value systems, etc. The following examples present some of the words used in the mass media in Sarajevo up to the end of August 1992. These words were readily accepted by the majority of people in everyday communication. In giving examples, the ethnic aspect of regional government (i.e. the Moslem/Croatian coalition at that time) has to be mentioned, because nation and language both have to be taken into consideration in a sociolinguistic analysis of this type. Data are restricted to only one area, since terminology from other regions under other 'ethnic governments' was not available. The new 'national' terminology can be divided into three groups: (i) newly coined words, (ii) euphemisms, (iii) loan words of (a) Turkish origin and (b) words borrowed from the Croatian language dug out from a late nineteenth-century dictionary, and which had already once before been forced upon the nation (during World War II, under the fascist regime of the NDH, the Independent Kingdom of Croatia). These are not 'slang' words, but words officially and frequently used in the mass media.

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JASNA LEVINGER

(i) Newly coined words podrumasi

cellar people; those who hid in cellars during shelling; negative connotation—people not ready to fight, cowards

juke

Juka Prazina, the leader of one of the police force groups in the centre of Sarajevo; his policemen were calledjukas after his nickname 'Juka'

ljiljan

a lily; member of the Bosnian army, lilies being the symbols used on the Bosnian coat of arms

aprilci

'Aprilians'; people who left Sarajevo in April at the very beginning of the war; usually negative connotation—they fled without permission, later occasionally granted only to the sick and old

(ii) Euphemisms etnicko ciscenje

ethnic cleansing; driving people away from their homes, or even killing them

radna ob aveza

work obligation; working in a firm with a salary; also, working duty with no pay, compulsory work

akreditacija

accreditation ( a sort of ID), showing that one had either work obligation, or army or police duty; men up to 60 years of age and women up to 50 were suspect without it, and could be arrested if caught without it on the street

čekanje

not working but on firm's payroll with minimal financial support (a laid off worker); literally 'waiting'

(iii) Loan words (a) words of Turkish origin sehit

martyr, especially in newspaper obituaries; printed in front of the name of the deceased)

marhamet

sympathy; also name of one of the humanitarian organisations

mesihat (mesihat islamske zajednice)

office (Islam Community Office)

LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA ulema medzlis

supreme Islam religious authority of a region or republic

selam aleikum

hello; Sarajevo Hayatt television station started its programme with this greeting; also used among people in the street

263

(b) Croatian language (mostly used in the Independent Kingdom of Croatia) povjerenik

sort of a commissioner in charge, e.g. of apartment building

časnik

officer; the word used in Sarajevo until the war was oficir supreme command; the word used in Sarajevo before the war was glavna komanda

glavni stzoer vojarna

army barracks; word previously used was kasarna

pucanstvo

people; word previously used was narod

There is another group of words or syntagms, more often used for demagogic purposes. This group includes words used to trigger thinking in images, words with strong emotional charge, such as 'blood', 'hearth', 'our people'. Eliciting emotional reactions is of course a prime aim for war rhetoric. There are at least three other techniques: (a) sensational news ('enemy officer admitted that the commanding officer was drunk when in command'), (b) pejorative words, often specifically invented phrases such as jugounitarističke srbocetničke banditske grupe (Yugo-unitaristic Serbochetnik bandit groups), (c) strongly emotive words whose precise referent may be unclear, such as genocid (genocide). The last example was used so frequently that it sometimes lost its previously understood meaning. A good example of linguistic efforts to provoke emotional responses to support a political position is the statement made in a Sarajevo radio station news report, in which a journalist declared that the enemy army was performing 'genocide and even robbery' {genocid, pa cak ii pljacku). Such a formulation, which appears to downgrade genocide, could, of course, be accidental, but it does inevitably reflect the perversions of war rhetoric. On the one hand, it is clear that it reflects an attempt to represent the enemy as evil, while 'we' should react and defend ourselves. On the other hand, it could be said that it shows an unbelievable value system, or, as is more likely, that the author did not know the exact (previously accepted) meaning of the word

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'genocide'. Normally, this is a 'strong' word on the scale of values, but in Bosnia-Herzegovina it was used so often that its precise accepted meaning was either not grasped by the users, or it changed its meaning and came to denote something that was simply dirty and ugly. Along with the loss of specificity (something like 'killing of a people') there was a change in its position on the scale of moral values that was related to the increased vagueness of its meaning. And finally, language war is waged not only on the official level, but within a building, among neighbours, in a store, or anywhere where more than three people meet. It starts with greetings. Will one be recognised as a member of a particular ethnic group? Will one accordingly be rejected or accepted? How to decide which form of a greeting to use—one's usual greeting or the one used by the other person? If the selected form is the one the other person uses, will he or she take it as a provocation or as a courtesy? But the same question arises if the selected form is the other one, not the greeting used by the other person. This a problem of practical life. Will one get a piece of bread if one calls it hjleb (eastern variant) or kruh (western variant)?

Notes 1

2

Serbo-Croat is usually divided into three dialects: štokavsk, kajkavski, and čakavsld. Stokavski, regarded as a standard, is considered here. But even the standard stokavski dialect can be divided into three groups, or 'accents'. These are: ekavian, ijekavian, and ikavian. The distinction is based on the historical development of the i/ phoneme, the so-called 'jat'. In ekavian it was replaced by /e/, in ijekavian by either /ije/ or /je/, while in ikavian it was replaced by /i/. Of the three, only ekavian and ijekavian are considered standard. These terms are connotative of earlier and foreign political conflicts: those before World War II (chetnik and ustashi) and those outside of Yugoslavia (Islamic guerrillas in Afghanistan and elsewhere). All these terms have distinctly derogatory overtones in the contexts referred to here. [Editors' note]

References Bugarski, R. (1992) 'U početak bi nakaznareč' in Borba, 21-22 November, Belgrade, p. 13. Haugen, E. (1972) 'Dialect, Language, Nation' in J.B.Pride and J. Holmes (eds.) 1972, Sociolinguistics, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books Inglehart, R. and M. Woodward. (1972) 'Language Conflicts and the Political Community' in P. P. Giglioli. (ed.), Language and Social Context, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books Radovanović, M. (1974) Sociolingvistika, Novi Sad, Dnevnik Skalji, A. (1989) Turcizmi u srpskohrvatskomjeziku, Sarajevo, Svjetlost Skiljan, D. (1980) Pogled u lingvistiku, Zagreb, Školska knjiga Trudgill, P. (1974) Sociolinguistics, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books Wittgenstein, L. (1980) Filozofska istraživanja, Belgrade, Nolit [Serbo-Croat edition]

INDEX

INDEX Achard, P., 32, 191, 213 Adorno, T.W., 216, 230 agency, 22, 39, 164f. Albania, 255, 258 Alexander II, 70 America, See United States of America Ampilov, V., 92 Andreyeva, N., 6, 73, 183 antonymy, 60 apparat, 77, 81f. Arab, 225, 229 Armenia, 5, 9, 99, 248 Arutyunova, N.D., 113, 129 Ashmore, R.D., 216, 230 Ayto, J., 174, 188 Azerbaijan, 5, 44, 46f. Bacon, F., 143f. Bakhtin, M.M., 33, 95, 109, 199 Baktin, V., 10 Baltic republics, 11, 45f., 73, 89, 184, 195, 206ff. Bamgbose, A., 91,94 Baranov, A.N., 19f., 29f., 113, 120, 129, 131, 136, 144 Benveniste, E., 32, 191,213 Beria, L.P., 125 Berlin, 3, 7, 16, 49, 94, 156, 171f„ 191, 201,233 Berlin Wall, 3,7,49, 191 Bestuzhev-Lada, I., 5 Bewer,M.B.,219,231 Biedenkopf, K., 155f., 160ff. Biryukov, N., 13f., 18, 21f., 24, 26f., 37, 49. Blakar, R.M., 113, 129 Blatt, J., 24 Bogardus, E.S., 221f., 231 Bogar dus scale, 221 Böke, K., 250 Bolinger, D.D., 34, 112, 115, 130 Bolsheviks, 71, 73, 76 Bonnafous, S., 205, 213 Bootzin, R.F., 219, 231 Borisova, E.G., 29f., 94, 111, 128f. Borovoj, K., 92 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 251, 253ff. Bower, G.H., 219, 231 Braly, K„ 225, 231

Brezhnev, L.I., 18f., 58ff., 77, 125, 179 Britain, 33, 70, 178, 181, 183, 190, 195f., 203, 208 Brown, R., 49, 87, 89, 93f. Buddhist, 139 Bugarski, R., 260, 264 Bukovsky, V., 182, 188 Burkhardt, A., 112, 116, 129, 172 Byelorus, 9 Bykov, R., 104 capitalism, 17, 22, 69, 79, 170, 186 Carroll, L., 131 category, 83, 132, 134f., 142f., 192, 194, 204f.,213, 217, 219 Chapman, J.P., 218, 231 Chapman, L.J., 218, 231 Chechenya, 33 Chernobyl, 4, 64, 181, 188 Chernomyrdin, V., 82 Chernyshevsky, N.G., 3 Chetwynd, SJ.,218, 231 Chilton, P.A., 15, 24, 60, 67 China, 47 CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), 13 citizen, 90, 114, 117, 181, 196, 202, 206, 255 citizenship, 100, 196, 198, 202, 212 Clarke, K., 196 cliché, 57 cognitive, 20ff., 29f., 32f., 42, 101, 105, 119, 131ff., 138f., 141f., 159, 164, 166, 171f., 187,215ff.,230f. Cohen, S., 177ff. Cold War, 5, 15ff., 24, 67, 185, 215 collocation, 96, 100, 106, 113f., 117f., 127f., 153, 158, 160, 164 communism, 3, 22, 53f., 114, 150, 170 Communist Party, 3ff., 7, 12, 74f., 80, 84, 90, 97, 106, 119, 122, 149, 152, 170, 185,249 conceptual opposition, 131, 133 concrete reference, 164 Congress of People's Deputies, 7, 11, 75, 92, 100, 118, 136, 144 connotation, 27, 54f., 56, 58, 60, 89, 93, 119,127, 175,262 consensus, 29, 99ff., 107 contextual approach, 175

268 corpus, 111, 121, 157, 175, 199 Courtine, J-J., 249, 250 CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), 3f., 6f„ 9, 11f., 53, 55, 73, 77, 80ff., 82, 96f. Crimea, 12, 62 Croatia, 251, 253, 255, 259, 261f. Cruse, D.A., 175f., 178, 187f. Culioli, A., 191,213 Cyrillic, 254ff. Czechoslovakia, 7, 19, 23, 71, 116, 205 de Beaugrande, R., 1.56, 171 De Landtsheer, C , 60, 67 deictic, 194 Del Boca, F.K., 230 democracy, 5, 17f., 22f., 33, 71f., 74ff., 77ff., 88,96, 104,111, 114f., 119, 123f., 132, 135f., 153f., 161, 165, 168, 177, 179, 222, 235ff., 248 demonstrations, 52 denotation, 27, 53f., 56, 60, 62, 114 Der Derian, J., 48f. dialogue, 80, 154, 230, 239f., 249 dictatorship, 10, 125, 161 Didot, A.F.,215 discourse, 3ff., 15ff., 26ff., 30ff., 38f., 42, 48, 53f., 57ff., 60, 67ff., 71ff., 84, 92f., 101ff., 111ff., 126ff„ 133ff., 148ff., 161, 185ff., 191ff., 206ff., 210f., 229, 233f., 249 Dodge, K.A., 218, 231 Dressler, W., 156, 171, 206 Dua, H.R.,90 Ducrot, O., 249f. Dull, V., 219, 230 Duma, 74 Ehlich, K., 31, 149f., 161, 168, 171 elections, 7f, 12, 66, 70, 72, 78, 81, 111, 114, 124f., 122, 136, 153f., 162, 169, 179, 235, 249, 251f., 259 emotions, 84, 113, 116, 119f., 128 enemy, 5, 17f., 40, 57ff., 70, 106, 108, 124, 141ff., 185, 240, 241, 243, 261, 263 English, 29, 31, 61, 72, 88f., 94, 98, 102, 105f., 113, 144, 174ff., 184ff., 192, 204, 206f„ 222, 224, 239, 254 Enlightenment, 18, 22, 25, 28, 71 entailment, 103

Index equality, 9, 19, 30, 79, 90, 99, 114, 122, 127, 132ff., 141,144,207,255 Ervin-Tripp, S.M., 87, 94 Estonia, 9, 44f., 100, 145, 206, Estonian, 33, 81, 206, 210 ethnic, 12, 21, 33f., 44, 47, 125f., 212, 215, 220ff., 251ff„ 256ff., 264 ethnicity, 5, 252 etymology, 135, 144, 176,237 euphemism, 260 EC (European Community), 18, 197, 252 evaluative, 33, 93, 95, 117, 215, 217, 220ff., 229f., 239 expressive, 93, 112ff., 117ff. Fairclough, N., 206, 213 fascism, 120, 149f. Faye, J-P., 207, 213 Fergusson, H., 28, 53, 68 Fillmore, C.J., 144 Fleischer, W., 147, 171 Ford, M., 87, 94, 98 Foucault, M., 197, 199,213 frame, 16f., 28, 56, 73, 77, 80ff., lOlff., 119, 136, 139, 142, 160, 178, 193f., 202ff., 234 France, 33, 70ff., 77, 80, 195, 197f., 213 Frank, C , 144 freedom, 18f., 22, 30f., 66, 69, 73, 119, 125, 132ff., 144, 153, 161f., 179ff., 222ff. 241, 250 French Revolution, 28, 74, 90 Frenkel-Brunswik, E., 216, 230 Gaidar, Y., 82f. Gallo, M., 198ff., 208, 212f. Gamsakhurdia, Z., 33, 234ff.., 242, 245ff. GDR (German Democratic Republic), 31, 147ff., 152ff., 160ff. Geertz, C., 16, 24 genocide, 263 Georgia, 7, 22, 33, 41, 44, 103, 119, 233, 235f., 239f. German, 3, 31, 41, 48f., 71, 89, 116, 147, 153f., 162, 170, 222, 224f., 230, 249 Germany, 41, 49, 70, 147, 149, 152, 154, 157, 162, 169,201,203 Giddens, A., 49 glasnost, 4, 6, 12, 28ff., 63, 66f., 70f., 75, 88,97, 122, 173ff., 186f.,248

Index Gorbachev, M.S., 3ff., 28, 31, 53, 58ff., 70ff., 76ff., 80ff., 96ff., 100ff., 122ff., 173f., 243 government declaration, 149, 155f., 163, 168f. graffiti, 124 Gurwitz, S.B.,218, 231 Gypsies, 225 Habermas, J., 49 Haggard, S., 19, 24 Hall, E., 203, 214 Hamilton, D.L., 217f., 230f. Hartung, W., 148, 171 Haugen, E., 34, 257, 264 Hebel, F., 130 Hegelians, 25 Hellmann, M.W., 147, 152, 171 hero figure, 57, 59 Hint, M., 206, 210, 213 history, 6, 22, 25ff, 29, 34, 41, 43, 47, 53f, 61, 71f, 77f., 88, 95, 103ff., 114, 133, 147, 176f., 183f., 208f., 235, 249 Hitler, A., 17, 83, 116 Hoberg, R., 130 Hoffmann, S., 24 Honecker, E., 153, 156, 163, 165, 171 Hungary, 20, 23, 71,205 ideology, 32, 40, 46, 52, 54, 56, 78, 94f., 126f. illocutionary force, 150 Ilyin, M.V., 3, 60, 67, 129 indeterminacy, 177f., 180, 185, 204 INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces), 98 Inglehart, R., 264 interview, 89, 107, 198f., 237 intonation, 93, 112 Iraq, 17 Islam, 22, 24, 47f., 252, 259, 262 Ivan the Terrible, 103 Japan, 47, 201,203 Jewish, 115,222,224 Johnson, M., 101, 108f., 130, 159, 171 jokes, 77 journalism, 187 justice, 19, 30, 79, 82, 114, 127f., 132ff, 129ff, 138, 143f., 148, 161f. Kalinin, 62 Karaulov, Y.N., 130 Katz, D., 225, 231 Kazakhstan, 5, 9, 46f.

269 Kennan, G., 16 Keohane, R.O., 24, 38, 49 Kerensky, A.F., 28 KGB, 12, 73 Khasbulatov, R., 82 Kheifits, 89 Khrushchev, N.S., 53, 70 Kiva, 100 Klein, J., 171,249,250 Kohl, 155f., 160f„ 182f. Korea, 47 Kostomarov, V.G., 117 Kovalev, S.A., 99 Kravchuk, L., 13 Krenz, E., 153 Kretzenbacher, H.L., 147f, 171 Kripke, S., 178, 188 Krjuchkov, V., 12 Kurcz,I., 32f., 215f.,229ff. Lacouture, J., 40, 49 Lakoff, G., 98, 101, 108f., 113, 130, 159, 171,219,231 language policy, 252, 255f. Laqueur, W., 176, 188 Lasswell, H.D., 112, 130 Latin, 72, 127, 144, 209 Latvia, 9f.,44f., 81, 103,207 Launer, M.K., 181f., 188 law, 4, 31, 72, 77, 82, 131, 137, 158, 161f, 168, 197f., 238f. legislative, 7, 80f, 156, 242 legislature, 80f., 83 legitimacy, 8, 31, 72, 83, 195, 208 Leites, N., 130 Lenin, V.I., 5 Levin, Y., 94, 127, 129f. Levinson, D.J.., 216, 230 Levinson, S., 216, 230 Levy, M.A., 24 Lewis, P.G., 24 lexeme, 115 lexicon, 29, 95, 98, 106f, 114, 129, 176 liberal, 79, 82f, 115, 127, 136, 161 liberalism, 73, 180 Liedtke, F., 249f. Ligachev, Y.K., 4, 73, 79, 119, 122, 125 Lippmann, W., 216, 231 Lithuania, 9f, 45, 103, 184 Lithuanian, 66, 81, 184, 207, 222, 224f., 237

270 loan words, 127, 258ff. localisation, 192 Luckmann, T., 53, 68 Lui, L., 219, 231 Lukyanov, 100 Luther King, 218 Luutz,W., 171 Lyons, J., 87, 94 macrostructure, 157 Maingueneau, D., 249f. Maizière, L. (de), 155, 160ff. Makashov, A.I., 125 Maldidier, D., 249f. Malek,A„ 193,213 Mannheim, K., 38, 49 Marczewski, J., 198, 213 Marxism, 25, 82, 188 Marxism-Leninism, 5, 7, 20, 28, 69, 74, 79 meaning-relations, 175 media, 12, 17ff, 28, 58f., 65ff., 91, 95, 97f., 107f., 112f., 117, 134, 153, 169, 179, 188, 195, 216, 235, 255, 257, 261 meetings, 12, 52, 66, 92, 112, 122, 131, 149, 151, 154 metacommunicative, 245f. metaphor, 3, 6, 29, 32, 54, 61f., 67, 77, 98, 101ff, 113, 117, 159ff., 166ff. metonymy, 209, 220 Mey, J.L., 25, 27, 32, 34, 130 modalities, 192 Modrow, H., 154f., 160ff. Moldavia, 9 Moravcsik, A., 24 Morgenthau, HJ., 37, 49 morphology, 112, 177 Moslem, 251ff., 259 Mueller, C , 112, 116,130 mythologeme, 142f. myth, 27, 31,40, 137,141 Nagornao-Karabakh, 5 narod, 21, 119, 142, 208ff., 237, 262 nationalism, 11, 22f., 32f., 127, 180, 212, 215, 230, 257 NATO, 184 Nekrasov, N.A., 143f. Nelson, D.N., 23f. Neubert, A., 152, 171 new thinking, 4, 10, 75 Nicolaïdis, K., 24 Nietzsche, F., 41

Index 'Novo-Ogaryovo' process, 12 nuclear, 4, 15, 17, 47, 64, 98 Nye, J.S., 24, 38, 49 Ogden, CK., 177, 188 Oleinik, B., 104 opposition movement, 122 Orthodoxy, 22 Orwell, G., 30, 69, 106, 135 Oschlies,W., 148, 171 Osgood, CE., 221, 225f., 231 pamphlets, 30, 111f., 115, 117, 119ff., 176 parliamentary, 21, 23, 72, 75ff., 80f., 107, 162, 235, 238ff., 246ff. Parshin, P., 136, 144f. Pavlov, V., 101ff., 123, 216 Perestroika, 4ff., 12, 23ff., 41, 49, 65, 70ff., 97ff., 11l, 117,119, 130ff., 141ff., 173ff., 248 perlocutionary force, 112, 121 Peter the Great, 18,70,73 pluralism, 7, 44, 72, 76, 78, 81, 92, 104, 132, 137,243, 145,253,256 Poland, 33, 41, 71, 220, 222, 225, 229 Politburo, 4, 58, 183 political culture, 18, 49, 69, 75, 107, 129, 138,181,202 political identity, 256 Polkowska, A.,231 Polozkov, I.K., 119,125 polysemic, 60, 107 Popov, G., 81,107, 121, 124 Porsch, P., 29, 31, 147f., 152, 162, 172 postmodernism, 25, 39 Potocka-Hoser, A., 231 Powell, G.E., 218,231 power, 4, 7, 8, lOff., 15f., 18, 21, 25, 27, 31, 37ff., 54ff., 62, 67, 71ff., 80f., 95, 108, 120, 123, 126, 132, 136, 138, 154f., 164f., 169, 174, 179f., 185, 197, 208f., 221, 236, 240f., 245, 248ff., 256 pragmatics, pragmatically, 11, 26, 34, 37, 77, 121, 135, 137 presupposition, 6, 197 private sector, 88 problem-solution schema, 157 pronouns, 194, 199 propaganda, 17f., 27, 52ff., 113, 117, 124, 127f., 216 proposition, 195

Index propositional reduction, 31, 150f., 151f., 169 prosody, 93 prototype, 139ff., 219f., 231 Prutkov, K., 137, 144f. Pugo, B., 12 Pushkin, A.S., 17,24., 111 quotation, 120, 163, 173, 195, 198f., 203f. racism, 32, 172, 181, 214 Radden, G., 166, 170 radio, 51,61, 63f., 263 Radovanovic, M., 256 Raisa, C, 59 Rasputin, 79 Reagan, R., 4, 114, 182 Redgrave, 175 referent, 32, 72, 105, 121, 177f., 204, 238, 263 Regan, D., 179, 182,188 Reiher, R., 153f., 172 religion, 21, 252, 259 REP test, 230 revolution, 18, 71, 74, 89f., 97, 122, 165, 179 Richards, I.A., 177, 188 Roman alphabet, 255f. Romanian, 225 Roosevelt, F.D., 186 Rosch, E., 204,231 Rothbart, M., 217, 231 Rothkegel, A. 158, 172 round table, 154f. Rummel, R.J., 49 Russia, Russian, 3ff., 6ff., 11ff., 16ff., 21ff., 31ff., 41ff., 16ff., 22, 28, 30ff., 41ff., 61f., 70ff., 82ff., 125ff., 173ff., 184f., 192ff., 206ff., 222, 224f., 247, 249f. Ruthenian, 255 Ryle, G., 16 Ryzhkov, N., 9f., 106 Sadam Hussein, 17 Said,E.W.,24 Sakharov, A.D., 7, 119, 122, 124 samizdat, 28, 52, 63 Sanford, R.N., 216, 230 Sawka,R., 174, 188 Schӓffner, C, 29, 31, 147, 150, 153, 157, 172 Schöpflin, G., 21, 24

271 script, 17, 45 security, 15, 18, 24, 67, 98f., 163, 181, 184 semantic differential, 225f., 229 semantics, 29, 113, 143f., 159, 187 semiotic, 59f., 62 Serbia, 251, 253, 255,259,261 Serbo-Croat, 259, 264f. Sergeyev, V.M., 14, 18, 21ff., 26f., 37, 49 Sériot, P., 206,213 Service, R., 175, 188 Shafarevich, L, 142, 145 Shapiro, M.J., 48f. Sherman, S.J., 219, 231 Shreve, G.M., 157, 172 Shushkevich, S.S., 13 Simonin-Grumbach, I , 191, 213 Skaljic, A., 265 Skiljan, D., 265 Slavophiles, 16, 21, 23, 41 slogan, 31, 53, 112, 150, 154, 170, 178 Smith, H., 179f., 183, 188 Sobchak,A., 81 social role, 87 social science, 33, 48, 233 socialism, 4, 5, 8, 22, 71, 73, 77, 79, 82f., 103, 114f., 132f., 144, 151ff., 160f., 177,179, 183, 186 sovereignty, 8f., 12f., 72, 76, 79, 83, 99, 104, 126f., 200, 235, 239, 256 Soviet Union, See also USSR, 3f., 13, 16, 19f., 21ff., 26, 28, 37, 41ff., 62ff., 76ff., 88, 97, 125f., 173ff., 180ff., 206, 234, 248f. speech community, 87, 90f. Stalin, J.V., 17, 52, 58f., 61f., 64, 69f., 77, 83,116, 125, 135, 176f. Star Wars (SDI), 17 stereotypes, 33, 52, 215ff., 229ff. Stewart, R.H., 218, 231 Stolypin,P.A.,73 Straßner, E., 163, 172 Suci, G.J., 231 superstructure, 157 Supreme Soviet, 7, 9f., 14, 65, 75, 92, 100, 111,118,125,134,136,242,250 Swedish, 222, 224 Sweetser, E., 144f. symbol, 3, 119 syntax, 112, 135 taboo, 127, 181

272 Taguief.f., P-A., 206 Tajf.el, H.,217,231 Tajikistan, 9, 44, 46 Tajiks, 47 Tannenbaum, P.H., 231 Tartar, 44, 103 Taylor, S.E., 217, 219, 232 Teichmann, C, 32f., 152, 172, 233 television, 10, 51, 63f., 66, 89, 106, 131, 181,203, 237, 255, 261f. Ter-Minasova, S.G., 87, 91 terms of. address, 21, 29, 87, 89ff. Tetevin, I., 100 Tetlock, P.E., 133,145 Teuf.f.el, E., 154 text-token, 168 text-type, 149, 152, 155f., 162f., 167f. Thatcher, ML, 175, 182 Thatcherism, 178 Thorn, F.., 179,182, 188 Tirkkonen-Condit, S., 157, 172 Todorov, T., 191, 212, 214 Tolstoy, A.K., 30, 114, 142, 144f. topology, 213 totalitarian, 27, 37, 42f., 56, 60, 72f., 157 Touraine, A., 198ff., 212f. translation, 31, 107, 181, 188, 212, 250 Trudgill, P., 34, 258ff., 265 Turkey, 42, 47 Turkish, 47, 258ff. Tynjanov, Y., 96, 108f. Ukraine, 9, 11, 13, 27f., 47, 51, 62, 67, 222, 224f. United States of. America, 57, 63, 68, 201, 203 USSR, See also Soviet Union, 7f., 12ff., 17, 22, 27, 29, 49, 51ff., 62ff., 75, 77, 79ff., 88, 92ff., 114, 119, 123, 125, 131, 134ff., 141, 191 Uzbekistan, 9, 46 van Dijk, T.A., 157, 171f. Vanden Heuvel, K., 177f., 180, 188 Vietnamese, 225, 229 visual, 20, 24, 55ff. Vladimir, I, Grand Prince, 73 vocabulary, 20, 28f., 70f., 116f., 127ff., 150, 174f., 187,212 Vogel, B., 169 Voloshinov, V.N., 185, 188 Volskij, A.I., 82

Index Wagner, P., 41, 48f. Waltz, K.N., 37, 49 Warsaw Pact, 26, Waterhouse, K., 173f. Wengeler, M., 250 White, S., 12, 19, 24, 32 Wiesemann, U., 157, 172 Wittgenstein, L., 260, 265 Wittrock, B„ 49 Woodward, M., 256, 264 Yakovlev, A., 4, 177f., 180, 243 Yanayev, G., 10, 12 Yeltsin, B., 4f., 8f.f., 45, 64f., 79, 81, 83, 115,118,120, 123ff., 179 Yevgeneva, A.P., 140, 145 Young, M.J., 181f., 188 Yugoslavia, 23f., 34, 191, 251ff., 255, 258, 264 Yugoslavisation, 83 Zajonc, R.B., 219, 231 Zarkhy, A., 89 Zaslavskaya, T., 182, 188 Zhirinovsky, V., 22, 83 Zyuganov, G., 22, 84