Political Discourse in Transition in Europe, 1989-1991 (review)

This volume was inspired by a conference on political discourse held in Moscow in 1989, two weeks before the Berlin wall was torn down. Over the next two years the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, along with the institutions associated with them, would also collapse. The contributions to this volume focus on the impact of these momentous changes ‘on language use and cognitive patterns in the domain of the political’ (viii). The word ‘political’ is defined broadly to include both formal political discourses and ‘politically oriented language of the media and even everyday social intercourse’ (ix). The work of scholars from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, France, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine is represented.

The first point to make about this volume is the misleading reference to ‘Europe’ in its title and in the title of the introductory section. Europe is not the main focus of the volume. Of the sixteen articles, only three deal with countries outside the former Soviet Union: Germany after unification, Poland, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nine are specifically about Russia, one about Georgia, two are commentaries on the articles included in this volume, and one a highly abstract article on French discourse theory. Moreover, not all of the articles deal specifically with the 1989–91 time period.

The introductory section, ‘Political discourse and the European transformation’, includes three articles intended to frame the discussions to follow. Mikhail Ilyin, in his ‘A chronology of change’, provides a straightforward chronology of the pivotal events from the time Gorbachev became the General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Paul Chilton, ‘Making sense of the Cold War’s collapse’, and Jacob Mey, ‘The pragmatics of transition’, provide brief commentaries on the articles in the volume, each from a different perspective.

Part 1, ‘The collapse of Soviet discourse’, includes three articles. Victor Sergeyev and Nikolai Biryukov’s contribution, ‘The collapse of empire and search for cultural identity’, examines the changes in the relationship between Russia and her former Union partners which are now independent republics. The former paradigm of power which informed the relationship of the Russian Federation and other Soviet republics is now obsolete and has been replaced with the paradigm of cultural choice where Russia has to treat these republics as her equals. Georgi Pocheptsov’s contribution, ‘The processes of political communication in the USSR’, uses examples from Russian and Ukrainian public media to illustrate a shift in political communication from underground samizdat publications to a more open, Western-style political communication under the transition. Alexandre Bourmeyster’s article, ‘The restructuring of Soviet political discourse’, compares political discourse in the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union and during the Gorbachev era.

Part 2, ‘Political vocabulary in transition’, includes six articles dealing with changes in political terminology during the transition from communism to postcommunism. Ludmil Minaeva, ‘From comrades to consumers: Interpersonal aspects of the lexicon’, examines the impact of adaptation to a Western market economy on social relationships and everyday discourse reflected in the use of new terms of address as well as changes in conceptual and value systems. Marina Kaul, ‘Breakthrough and blind alley: The lexicon of perestroika’, focuses on terms that were popular during perestroika and their subsequent fate. Elena Borisova, in her ‘Opposition discourse in Russia: Political pamphlets 1989–91’, analyzes the language of political discourse during ‘late perestroika’. She notes that political discourse in Russia tends to be more emotionally oriented than in the West, and under conditions of serious societal stress there is a rapid increase in political terminology. Anatolii Baranov’s contribution, ‘Justice, equality and freedom: The structure of value concepts’, analyzes the changes in political discourse in early perestroika. While the word ‘justice...