Key Meanings Transmitted by the Names of Russian Newspapers and Magazines of the Soviet Era (1917 - 1991)

Abstract

The article analyzes the names of newspapers and magazines published in the Republic of Tatarstan (a constituent entity of the Russian Federation) from 1917 to 1991. The research object (hemeronyms) is considered by the authors as an artifact of culture; the authors prove that among all the onyms, hemeronyms seem to be the most dependent on cultural, historical, and ideological factors. Based on the application of the methods of keywords and key meanings, the semantic field of the media onomastic regional space of the studied period is reconstructed. It is shown that the nuclear idea of a semantic field constructed as a result of systematization of empirical material is an idea that can be designated as “building a society of a new formation”. The nuclear idea is revealed in specific key meanings: “struggle” (namely ‘active actions to overcome or achieve something’ and ‘active actions aimed at achieving labor success’), “renewal”, i.e. ‘aimed at building a new socio-economic formation - the communist’, “path”, “collectivization”, “labor as the supreme value”, “guiding the role of the communist party (communists)”. The research results obtained by the authors reflect the specifics of not only the regional (Tatarstan) media onomastic space, but also the whole of Soviet Russia. The algorithm of the study of Russian hemonyms of the Soviet era presented in the work can be extrapolated to the similar material of other national-cultural formations or of the Russian one, but covering other time periods with its own specific worldview dominant.