The concept of just war in Russian and American linguistic cultures

Abstract

The study examines the concept of just war in the military-political discourse and technologies of manipulating the mass consciousness used by the leaders of the Russian and American states in speeches based on the idea of just war. Lexical and semantic analysis of the lexemes “just” and “war” in Russian and English is carried out. The relevance of the study is determined by the increasing attention to the military-political discourse and actualization of the concept. It received consistent substantiation and development in the works of medieval scholastics. In the 21st century, it serves the purposes of moral and ethical justification of modern military conflicts. The purpose of the study was to analyze the concept of just war at the lexical and semantic level and describe its ontological foundations and implementation in the Russian and American mental lexicons. Based on the analysis, the authors have identified general and particular aspects of the just war concept in the Russian and American mental lexicons and described the mechanisms of mind control in the political discourses of B. Obama and V.V. Putin.

Keywords

• just war
• military-political discourse
• consciousness