Abstract: The article addresses the issue of the totalitarian type of power discourse which creates a fictive parallel reality lacking isomorphism with what is being described. I have set out to show the techniques used to put together a vocabulary and generate the conceptual tools for representing communications aimed at shaping a desired social attitude. As a result it also shapes the subject of a non-existing debate. More specifically, the article targets the propaganda language used in Russian mass media in the wake of the Maidan revolution early in the year, the annexation of the Crimea peninsula and the conflict with Ukraine, as well as the impact of these developments on the public at large. The article is based on news reports in different Russian TV channels, Russian newspapers, internet sites, blogs, online forums and posts as well as relevant publications in Russian language Ukrainian sources.

Keywords: power, mass of people, totalitarian discourse, language of propaganda, Russia, Ukraine, symbols, slogans, labels.

Rhetoric and Communications E-journal, Issue 14, October 2012, rhetoric.bg/, ISSN 1314-4464

Read the original of the article (in Bulgarian)