Features of the Image of the USSR on the Pages of the American Press in the Last Years of the Soviet Union

Abstract

The article discusses the features of the image of the Soviet Union in the American press in 1990–1991. Based on the analysis of the articles from the liberal weekly news magazine “Time”, the research aims to identify the characteristic features of the representation of the image of the USSR on the pages of the American press in the last years of the Soviet Union and to analyze the dominant stereotypes and the specifics of their formation. The author resorts to quantitative and semantic analysis of texts from “Time” magazine covering events in the USSR.The paper examines the problems of the collapse of the USSR but for the first time from the perspective of the imagological study. Based on the frequency analysis of lexemes, the author proposes a unique thematic list of rubrics that reflects the focus of interest of American journalists when covering events related to the Soviet Union. On the pages of “Time”, the concept of “Russian people” is presented as a passive object that has nothing to do with politics. There is also a division of political forces into positive ones, represented by M. S. Gorbachev and B. N. Yeltsin, and negative, pursuing a repressive policy, presented as abstractions “Kremlin”, “Moscow”, “Soviet Union”. The interpretation of the events of the August putsch deserves special attention - the persistent drawing of parallels with the revolution of 1917.