HOW LANGUAGE REACTS TO THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR (POLITOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-LINGUISTIC OBSERVATIONS)

Article

Abstract

[In Belarusian]

The subject of this article is the language of war (Russian-Ukrainian), language of authoritarianism, as part of the official propaganda. In the center of the work is the Belarusian language and how it responds to a war that takes place outside the country, how it describes the war, and transmits the ideological orientation of different political forces. The study covers the internal dimension: how the Belarusian language, more precisely Belarusian-speaking residents, create new words and idioms that describe authoritarianism, and often make fun of it. The language of war is being investigated through the prism of national stereotypes, which in radical conditions turn into hate speech and may lead to war. However, the article touches on an unexpected dimension: under the influence of the activity of Russian radical groups that are conventionally dubbed “Russian world” the Belarusian language became the object of attacks, criticism, the real victim of propaganda and war. Finally, the study included experience of similar cases both in historical and geographical perspectives. For example, the experience of the Ukrainian, the Kurdish, the Bosnian or the Tajik languages at the present stage and that of the French, the Belarusian and the Russian languages ​​in a historical perspective.

The issue of language, politics and nationalism in the context of authoritarianism remains central to the understanding of international military conflicts and often is underestimated in official social and humanitarian science. Conversely, alternative science helps to renew and analyze similar cases and, possibly, to help avoid their repetition.