The Cultural and Anthropological Aspects of Linguistic Representation of ’the Other’ in the Ukrainian-Russian Border Region during the Full-Scale War

Author

Lytvynchuk Nataliіa

а Ph. D. in History, a senior research fellow at Ukrainian Ethnological Center Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine).

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0691-9662

The Cultural and Anthropological Aspects of Linguistic Representation of ’the Other’ in the Ukrainian-Russian Border Region during the Full-Scale War

Abstract

The submitted article is a logical continuation of the authoress’s interdisciplinary research aimed at understanding the process of transformation of interethnic relations in the Ukrainian-Russian borderland during the war. The communication practices of the residents of the Sumy and Chernihiv regions are the subject of the study for this time. In particular, linguistic markers intended to identify individuals associated with the aggressor country in times of turmoil include official and unofficial ethnonyms, allusions, comparisons, metaphors, etc., those change the matrix of ethnic stereotypes, express identity and establish the ethnocultural image of ’the other’ in the public consciousness. In total, about fifty different nominations are included in the analysis, recorded in oral history stories and testimonies published after the full-scale invasion of Russian army into Ukraine. The corpus of words and phrases collected at this stage has been systematized according to specific functional and semantic criteria. In accordance with the developed model in terms of content the cultural and anthropological aspects of the contemporary use of the established ethnonyms ’moskal’ and ’katsap’ have been understood consistently; a group of ethnonyms that are consonant with the official Ukrainian name and Russian self-designation; the ethnophobia ’ruscists’ and other names created through historical parallels; names alluding to literary and biblical characters; nicknames produced using various figurative means; designations with mythological and symbolic connotations; as well as a number of characteristic names used by narrators to describe the enemy and his deviant behaviour. It has been found out that markers of linguistic representation of ’the other’ have varying degrees of prevalence in the borderland. Their functioning, different etymology and connotations are based on ideas about ’us’ and ’them’ that have been shaped and confirmed by the experience of war, crystallising historical memory and social consciousness and reinforcing ethnic stereotypes.

Keywords

Russian-Ukrainian war, borderland, ethnic names, identification practices, ethnic stereotypes, othering.

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