The Soviet speechwriters on the example of the Diaries of Teimuraz G. Stepanov-Mamaladze

This Tuesday the member of the project: ‘Applied GIS in Humanities: Linguistics, History, Project Work’, Kitaeva Yana, presented her own research. The presentation was called: "The Soviet speechwriters on the example of the Diaries of Teimuraz G. Stepanov-Mamaladze".

The focus of the presentation is directed to the speechwriter as the creator of the special political discourse. According to Alexei Yurchak the leading role of the Communist Party created special reality manifesting itself in repetitive rituals and a stable political discourse, which was created by political elites. However, with the perestroika period started the political program of "glastnost'". "A return to Lenin" undermined the authority of the Party making universal human values much more important than the idea of class struggle. It started the formation of the new political discourse, created mainly by the intellectual elites. The presentation define T. G. Stepanov-Mamaladze and other speechwriters (Shachnazarov, Medvedev, Yakovlev) as authors of the new political logic which predestined the end of Soviet Union.The research focus was directed to foreign relationships in Soviet Union. A new political language reviled into the world’s politics with Gorbachev. Speechwriters and T. G. Stepanov-Mamaladze in particular were involved in this new language creation.

This work considered Stepanov-Mamaladze as untypical worker for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. Thus the Ministry was always full of diplomats and experts in international relations. T. G. Stepanov-Mamaladze started his career not as a “nomenklatura worker” but as a journalist. That is why he could look on the Ministry’s apparatus and duties with fresh view. There he could make a participant observation. And he actually made it.

 Stepanov-Mamaladze (rus) (PPTX, 2.19 Мб)

Report is prepared by Kitaeva Yana.