Time Capsule Messages to Future Generations as a Genre of Soviet Public Texts

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2020.1.452

Keywords:

time capsule; message for descendants; Soviet literature; speech genre; image of the author; image of the addressee

Abstract

This article considers a special genre of Soviet lore, i. e. time capsule messages addressed to future generations who were thought to be living in a communist society at the time they received the message. In the USSR, time capsules were actively laid between the late 1960s and early 1970s, and many of them were unearthed in 2017 and 2018. The author analyses 148 published messages found in time capsules, making up around 250 pages of text. The article examines the general characteristics of the Soviet language, ideologemes, journalistic and bureaucratic clichés, and censorship; also, it focuses on the peculiarities of the texts and intertextual connections. The author reveals the sources of different levels of text typical of the traditions of world, Russian, and Soviet literature and films, futuristic science fiction of socialist realism, journalistic texts, and the media (reports about achievements, memoirs, and speeches made at meetings and congresses). The author also analyses the images of the addresser (a Soviet person) and the addressee. The texts not only have an explicit addressee in the form of a descendant but an implicit one too, in the form of power. This combination was typical of all Soviet official writings. However, in this case, the direct addressee (a descendant) was unusual, and so were their relations with the implied addressee (power). Ideologically, the latter was surprisingly dependent on the direct addressee despite them being non-material, both functioning equally as bearers of ideology. The author analyses three aspects, i. e. direct addressee (future generations), implied addressee (power), and relations between the addressees.

Author Biography

Vadim Dementyev

Dr. Hab. (Philology), Professor, Saratov State University.

83, Astrakhanskaya Str., 410012, Saratov, Russia.

ORCID 0000-0002-7532-5788

dementevvv@yandex.ru

References

Berilo, S. (2017). Poslanie potomkam: v Novorossiiske otkrylas' vystavka pisem iz 1967 goda [A Message to Descendants: An Exhibition of Letters from 1967 Opens in Novorossiysk]. In RIA Novosti [website]. 4 Oct. URL: https://ria.ru/society/20171004/1506167970.html (mode of access: 01.05.2019).

Budaev, E. V., Chudinov, A. P. (2009). Lingvisticheskaya sovetologiya [Linguistic Sovietology]. Yekaterinburg, Izdatel'stvo Ural'skogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta. 291 p.

Chto pisali komsomol'tsy 1967-go svoim potomkam v 2017-i [What the Komsomol Members of 1967 Wrote to Their Descendants in 2017]. (2017). In Komsomol'skaya pravda [website]. 14 Sept. URL: https://www.kp.ru/daily/26730/3757535/ (mode of access: 14.09.2019).

Gnilorybov, P. (2017). Akt vskrytiya. O chem pishut v kapsulakh vremeni [Unearthing a Time Capsule. What They Write in Time Capsules]. In Uroki istorii. XX vek. Internetzhurnal [website]. 17 Febr. URL: https://urokiistorii.ru/article/53679 (mode of access: 15.05.2019).

Kapsula vremeni. Nerzhaveyushchaya stal’ [Time Capsule. Stainless Steel]. In Graverton [website]. URL: http://www.graverton.ru/home/kapsula-pamyati.html?yclid=3110632747675452954 (mode of access: 28.06.2019).

Kashin, O. (2016). Kapsula vremeni [Time Capsule]. In Snob [website]. 14 Dec. URL: https://snob.ru/selected/entry/118062 (mode of access: 12.03.2019).

Kupina, N. A. (2009). Sovetizmy: k opredeleniyu ponyatiya [Sovietisms: On the Definition of the Concept]. In Politicheskaya lingvistika. No. 2 (28), pp. 35–40.

Neroznak, V. P., Gorbanevskii, M. V. (1991). Sovetskii “novoyaz” na geograficheskoi karte: o shtampakh i stereotipakh rechevogo myshleniya [Soviet “Newspeak” on the Geographical Map: About Clichés and Stereotypes of Speech Thinking]. Moscow, Znanie. 63 p.

Novoselova, E. (2017). Moda na kapsuly vremeni. Pochemu nam interesno pisat' pis'ma v budushchee? [Time Capsule Fashion. Why are We Interested in Writing Letters to the Future?]. In Rossiiskaya gazeta [website]. No. 202 (7368). September 7. URL: https://rg.ru/2017/09/07/reg-ufo/pochemu-nam-interesno-pisat-pisma-v-budushchee.html (mode of access: 05.10.2019).

Roerich, N. K. (N. d.). Adamant [Adamant]. In LitMir. Elektronnaya biblioteka [website]. URL: https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=183432&p=1 (mode of access: 20.05.2019).

Romanenko, A. P. (2000). Sovetskaya slovesnaya kul'tura: obraz ritora [Soviet Verbal Culture: The Image of a Rhetorician]. Saratov, Izdatel'stvo Saratovskogo universiteta. 212 p.

Shmeleva, T. V. (1997). Model' rechevogo zhanra [Speech Genre Model]. In Zhanry rechi. Saratov, Kolledzh. Iss. 1, pp. 88–98.

Skorenko, T. (2016). Kapsuly vremeni: pis'mo v budushchee [Capsules of Time: A Letter to the Future]. In Mir fantastiki [website]. 24 Jan. URL: https://www.mirf.ru/science/time-capsule-pismo-v-buduschee (mode of access: 09.05.2019).

Solganik, G. Ya. (2001). Avtor kak stileobrazuyushchaya kategoriya publitsisticheskogo teksta [The Author as a Style-Forming Category of Journalistic Texts]. In Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 10, Zhurnalistika. No. 3, pp. 22–24.

Tamarchenko, E. (2017). Vskrytie pokazalo. Chego nam zhelali predki v “kapsulakh vremeni” polveka nazad [It Turns out That… What Our Ancestors Wished Us in “Time Capsules” Half a Century Ago]. In The Insider [website]. 7 Nov. URL: https://theins.ru/obshestvo/78318 (mode of access: 10.05.2019).

Teksty vskrytykh kapsul [Texts of Opened Capsules]. In VKontakte [website]. URL: https://vk.com/topic‑95398143_34760826 (mode of access: 11.08.2019).

Uvarov, M. S. (1998). Arkhitektonika ispovedal'nogo slova [The Architectonics of the Confessional Word]. St Petersburg, Aleteiya. 246 p.

Vserossiiskii tsentr izucheniya obshchestvennogo mneniya uznal glavnye zhiznennye tsennosti rossiyan [All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion Learns about the Main Life Values of Russians]. (2017). In Vzglyad. Delovaya gazeta [website]. 1 June. URL: https://vz.ru/news/2017/6/7/873626.html (mode of access: 27.12.2019).

Vskrytye kapsuly [Opened Capsules]. In VKontakte [website]. URL: https://vk.com/topic‑95398143_32255339?offset=20 (mode of access: 12.04.2019).

Zemskaya, E. A. (1996). Klishe novoyaza i tsitatsiya v yazyke postsovetskogo vremeni [The Cliché of the Newspeak and Citation in the Post-Soviet Language]. In Voprosy yazykoznaniya. No. 3, pp. 23–31.

Published

2020-04-01

How to Cite

Dementyev, V. (2020). Time Capsule Messages to Future Generations as a Genre of Soviet Public Texts. Quaestio Rossica, 8(1), 132–149. https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2020.1.452

Issue

Section

Problema voluminis