The image of Russia in Dmytro Dontsov's Der Geist Russlands ("The Spirit of Russia"): Metaphors, discourse strategies and tactics

This research is an attempt to uncover the key conceptual metaphors, discourse strategies and tactics that underlie the political essay The Spirit of Russia by a radical proponent of Ukrainian nationalism Dmytro Dontsov. The legacy of this political thinker is still widely used by the Ukrainian nationalists (OUN) who are inspired by his ideals of race struggle, national will and his strong opposition to everything Russian. Though Dontsov's writings have garnered much attention in historical research, there are few if any studies that mention The Spirit of Russia, where Dontsov paints a grim picture of the supposed Russian nationalism, messianism and barbarism, and portrays Russia as a threat to the Western world. The key conceptual metaphor (megametaphor) underlying the whole essay is RUSSIA IS ANTICHRIST. It is manifested through a series of mappings from the domains of the Christian religion (CHRIST, ANTICHRIST, DEVIL, POSSESSION, BEAST, etc.) to the domains of RUSSIA, UKRAINE, EAST, WEST, etc. While these conceptual metaphors are important cognitive devices by themselves, they also serve to implement Dontsov's discourse strategies: to persuade the reader of the danger inherent in Russia as a state, and to create the positive image of Europe (Ukraine being a part of it) as the last bastion in the fight against evil and the negative image of Russia as the very evil to be fought against and ultimately eliminated. The tactics or discursive moves used to implement these strategies include, among others, regular usage of pejorative epithets applied to both the Soviet Russia and the Russian Empire, parallel construction that seek to negatively compare Russia to Europe, and repeated inclusion of Ukraine into the list of European countries.

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