The Individual Authorial Concept “Death of Russia” (Based on the Material of Yury Gauthier's Diary My Notes)

The object of this study is the concept “death of Russia” of the precedent historical period (1917-1922, the Revolution and the Civil War). Based on the analysis of the use of lexemes belonging to the semantic field of death and linguistic means that most clearly reflect the author's perception of the precedent historical period, the author aims to prove the presence and reveal the substantive structure of the concept “death of Russia” in Yury Gauthier's My Notes. The nuclear zone of the concept “death of Russia”, by analogy with the nucleus of the concept “death” in the Russian language picture of the world, is the death of Russia as a single system, metaphorically described by Gauthier as the death of an organism. The conceptual component of the nuclear zone of the concept contains the meanings of a process, taking place in time, scientifically justified, but not completed and having options for its end - including a complete loss (dying) or transformation into another country (Sovdepia). The figurative component of the nuclear zone of the concept includes metaphorical correlations of Russia with a sick person, with a dead animal. The component of violent death in the concept belongs to the nucleus and is expressed by the semantics of the danger of losing sovereignty and threat of foreign domination over Russia. These meanings are expressed via metaphors, comparisons, German words and expressions, singleroot or synonymous verbs with the semantics of death in various tense forms. The near-nuclear zone of the concept includes separate signs indicating the death of Russia. This is a description of the cessation of activity or degradation of all the most important components of the state (army, government, university, banks, church, people), which is shown using vocabulary with the semantics of death, destruction and general disadvantage, words from the church vocabulary. The conceptual component of the concept in the near-nuclear zone includes the meanings of the stupidity of the government, the closure of banks and the university, the loss of authority of the church, and the degradation of the people. The metaphors Kerensky's assistants as evil angels; people as suiciders, gorillas; elections as a menagerie; and the university as the Great Pan complement the figurative component of this zone. The peripheral zone of the concept, associated with the assessment of the contemporary events, is expressed by vocabulary with the meaning of the author's oppressed state of mind (na dushe tak tyazhelo [I am sick at heart], tyazheloe sostoyanie dukha [My heart is heavy]). Negative emotional assessment refers to the value component of the concept.

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