Как играется симфония : концептуализация Русской православной церкви на уровне масс-медиального дискурса

Abstract

After principal changes in the social paradigm, today's Russia has found herself in a state of an ideological vacuum. Unlike other countries of the former Eastern bloc, the producers of the public discourse, naturally, were not in the position to build upon the definition and delimitation of the evils of Communism embodied by the Soviet Union. In these conditions, Russian Orthodox Church started to shape as one of the principal constituents of the collective identity. In a relatively short period of time, the once-demonized religion was established firmly as a stable part of the political and social life of Russia, and, last but not least, as a part of the complex construction of the collective identity meant to mould and knead the society. Integrate and symbolic potential of the Orthodox religion was reflected in all decisive political dimensions. On the level of the Russian media discourse of these days, however, we witness the negation of the model of harmonic coexistence of State and Church by means of irony. Attempting to "capture" Russian Orthodox Church, Russian media discourse (re-)produces culturally constructed conceptual metaphors which carry the reference to precedent phenomena – Vladimir Putin and Soviet leaders. The analysis of the conceptual metaphors placed on the level of abstract terms rather than language, is meant to contribute to revealing structures of thinking and to the final result of the discourse analysis.