Stockholms Universitet - Slavisk - publikationer

1. Constructing "us" and "them" through conflicts : Muslims and Arabs in the news 1990–2018

   This chapter concerns the evaluation of 105 nouns denoting Arab and Muslim nationalities and countries in the Czech news media over almost 30 years, using modifying adjectives from the Czech Subjectivity Lexicon (Veselovská, Hajič and Šindlerová, 2014). It is proposed that since the persons behind these nouns form an out-group (van Dijk, 1987, p. 12) in the focus country, the way they are reflected in the media is likely to be negative, especially in times of conflict. The polarization of this chapter concerns a) countries and b) nationalities of Arabs and Muslims, on the one hand, and two reference groups on the other. Four conflicts are the focus: the war in Bosnia, the attacks on September 11, 2001, the Arab Spring of the 2010s and the Syrian civil war thereafter. This chapter studies the case of the printed press from the Czech Republic, using approximately 33 million data points extracted from the Czech National Corpus, which makes it a larger study than any previously conducted on the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in this country. The results show that Arabs and Muslims indeed receive a clearly negative portrayal that has been unbroken since 1990, with the single exception of 1995, due to the peace talks in Bosnia.

2. Två gånger född, en gång död : En studie om fåglar i östslavisk folklore

   Fåglar förekommer i många uttrycksformer av östslavisk (rysk, ukrainsk och belarusisk) folklore. Denna uppsats syfte är att undersöka hur dessa olika fåglar porträtteras – på ett positivt, negativt eller ambivalent/neutralt sätt. Andra associationer och symbolik knutna till fåglar undersöks också – såsom kopplingar till solen, själen, eller en viss generation/åldersgrupp. Undersökningen har gjorts genom att samla och återge tidigare forskning inom ämnet och jämföra den med egna observationer om fåglar i folksagor nedtecknade av Aleksandr Nikolaevič Afanas’ev i Russkie narodnye skazki [Ryska folksagor] från 1873 (Afanas’ev 1984 [1873]). Undersökningen visar att bl.a. kråkfåglar i regel porträtteras negativt, medan exempelvis andfåglar vanligen porträtteras positivt. Fågeln generellt sett kopplas till själen.

3. Ryska böneskrifter från svenska Ingermanland : En textfilologisk analys av tolv suppliker från 1637

   I denna uppsats undersöks ett handskriftsmaterial bestående av 12 ryska suppliker från 1637. Syftet är att beskriva materialet och söka fastställa hur det passar in i V. M. Živovs system med skriftliga register. Analysen behandlar stilistiska, fonetiska och morfologiska aspekter. Jämförelser görs med texter från samma tidsperiod och ur samma genre. Den stilistiska analysen visar att supplikerna till sin struktur, utformning och sitt språk följer de förebilder som fanns inom genren. Den fonetiska och morfologiska analysen visar att det i supplikerna förekommer drag som var typiska för kansliregistret och att supplikerna överlag återspeglar 1600-talsnormen för kanslitexter. Živovs teorier om det ryska skriftspråkets utveckling visar sig falla tämligen väl ut på supplikerna.

   I arbetet inkluderas transkriberingar av detta tidigare opublicerade arkivmaterial.

4. Why nationality matters : in-groups and out-groups in the Czech news after 1989

5. The Burning Word : History and Myth in Maximilian Voloshin's Neopalimaia Kupina

   The book Neopalimaia Kupina: stikhi o voine i revoliutsii (The Burning Bush: Poems about War and Revolution) by Maximilian Voloshin (1877–1932) depicts the revolutionary period in Russia. This dissertation analyzes the work’s composition, showing how it was shaped and reshaped in response to the dramatic events of the first two and a half decades of the twentieth century, and how it remains open and mirrors the ongoing development of history. The revolutionary events are presented against the background of earlier turning points in Russia’s past. In addition to documenting contemporary events in poetry, Voloshin, who was closely affiliated with the Russian Symbolists and had a profound interest in anthroposophy and occultism, expressed a belief in theurgic art that could initiate a national revival.

   The analysis demonstrates that the poems in Neopalimaia Kupina are interconnected through a conglomeration of myths centering on transformation through death and resurrection. The poems also evoke a sense of recurrence connecting different layers of Russian history. By depicting episodes from a mythical as well as a historical perspective, the poems reflect correspondences which can be elucidated through Boris Uspensky’s semiotic model of a dual perception of time (linear and cyclical) as well as Zara Mints’ concept of neomythological texts. The analysis also considers performativity as a tool for life-creation in Voloshin’s work and connects it to his exploration of apotropaic genres: magic spells, incantations, prayers, and anthroposophical mantras.

   Against the backdrop of the Bolshevik takeover and the remolding of Russian society which was marked by war, terror and famine, these poems express a disbelief in the Communist utopia of the early Soviet period.