Literary diplomacy as a phenomenon of Russian political discourse - on the case of V.V. Putin's speeches

Abstract

The article examines the phenomenon of literary diplomacy in the context of contemporary Russian political discourse. Particular attention is given to the analysis of the use of literary sources in the public speeches of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin as a tool for implementing communicative strategies and achieving pragmatic effects. The idea is substantiated that purposeful reference to fiction contributes to enhancing the persuasiveness of statements, fostering an atmosphere of trust and friendliness, as well as constructing a positive image of the leader in the perception of both domestic and international audiences. The study considers three main ways of incorporating literary sources into the politician’s speeches: direct quotation, interpretation, and recontextualization. The article is also devoted to a comprehensive quantitative and qualitative investigation of the frequency, genre affiliation of the borrowed works, and the thematic specifics of the contexts in which they are applied. The establishment of the frequency of use of literary elements in political speeches, the genre characteristics of the borrowed resources, and the content specifics of the contexts incorporating them demonstrates that from 2012 to 2023, in 466 speeches, the Russian leader referred to literary resources 118 times; preferences were given to allusions to novels, novellas, short stories, and tales (66% of all cases of literary resource use) and to the adaptive mechanism of recontextualization (47.5% of the total mentions of all adaptive mechanisms in the established text corpus). Notably, literary elements are more frequently used in the context of discussing issues of human well-being (28.81%) and diplomatic interactions (15.27%). The obtained data indicate the advisability of further research into the pragmatic mechanisms of using literary sources in political discourse, in particular on the basis of expanded text corpora, with the application of quantitative analysis methods and consideration of the dynamics of communicative situations across different periods.