“Literatura mirovoj revoljucii”, 5-6, 1931 - [S021]
Communicative Intention: Emphasising the contrast between two worlds
Utterance Aim: Creation of a flattering image of US and an offensive one of the OTHERS
Concrete Linguistic Means/Tool: Antithetical constructions
Journal Title: "Literatura mirovoj revoljucii"
Journal Number: 5-6
Contexts & Examples: Нельзя же отрицать того, что литература, пропитанная крикливой экзотикой, упадочным психоанализом, половой распущенностью и извращениями, вскоре перестанет возбуждать организирующую мысль. С другой стороны, из самой гущи народных масс из молодых классов носителей будущего, появились могучие ростки.
Edited by Svetlana Slavkova
The post-revolutionary periodical press is characterised by a vivid and explicit manifestation of the ideological conflict between ‘our people’ and ‘the outsiders’. The following is a 1923 quote from the newspaper ‘Pravda’: “A true communist article – not only in newspapers but also in magazines, not only propagandistic but also scientific – is characterised by exceptional clarity and stylistic precision. Our enemies say it is harsh and crude, elementary and vulgar. It is truthful, sincere, bold, frank, ruthless…” (I. Vardin, ‘Pravda’, No. 56, 1923 – cited in Vinokur 1923: 110). In the texts of the ‘International Chronicle’ section we find rhetorical figures such as antithetical structures that effectively emphasise the opposition of two worlds (the reactionary and the revolutionary, the bourgeois and the proletarian), underlining their irreconcilability. As can be seen from the cited example, the concepts of ‘kriklivaja ekzotika‘ [noisy exoticism], ‘upadochnyj psihoanaliz‘ [decadent psychoanalysis] and ‘polovaja raspushchennost’‘ [sexual debauchery] attributed to the enemy (bourgeois) literature of the OTHERS are contrasted with the positive image of the popular masses that we consider part of US, as the ‘nositeli budushchego‘ [bearers of the future], the source of the ‘moguchie rostki‘ [vigorous shoots] of the new literature.