Аналіз та деконструкція основних ідеологем доктрини «Русский Мир»

Abstract

The article analyses the three prominent ideologues of the doctrine of “Russian world”: the myth that “Orthodoxy is the basis of an identity”; the myth of the openness and friendly attitude of the Russian people to other ethnic groups and religions, and the myth of the Eurasian/Russian civilisation that opposes the “rotten” West. The existence of these ideologues in the information and symbolic field of Ukraine and the world, manipulating them, and placing them in the actual context of the Ukrainian cultural space, lead to a distorted perception of relations between Russia and Ukraine and the war between them. The article attempts to reveal those distortions and semantic substitutions ontologically contained in the ideologies of the “Russian world”, which can be analysed as typical errors in the context of the argumentation theory. The study aims to develop a conditional “dictionary” of mythologists of the “Russian world”, which could be used during an all-out information confrontation. The author chose the myth “Orthodoxy – the basis of Russian identity” as the basic ideology because, firstly, most other ideologies derive from this thesis with the help of skilful semantic manipulations. Secondly, this myth is interpreted and used by Russian ideologues in various contexts. Based on the analysis of this and two other myths, the author concludes that the ideology of the “Russian measure” does not meet the definition of the criteria of clarity and unambiguity; the meanings of its key concepts are as variable as possible, depending on the context, used with the substitution of meaning in general formulations, which do not provide for clarification of non-standard use of the term; there is a substitution of identities, which makes it possible to manipulate the historical facts and memory of the people; such informal logical errors as recourse to force, alternative to fear, false Scotsman, wholesale bargaining, and source poisoning are always used by Russian ideologues in their argumentative practices. In the process of revealing the illogicality and paradoxical nature of these myths, it turns out that the very essence of these myths significantly contributes to the crisis of culture and politics, which speaks of the same ideologues who glorify the messianic role of Russia. This array of ideological myths cannot be called a balanced system of political dogmas but rather a rhizomatic system of manipulation, the fluidity of which provides its ability to evade counter-arguments and identify historical substitutions.