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In:Metaphor, Nation and Discourse
Edited by Ljiljana Šarić and Mateusz-Milan Stanojević
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 82] 2019
► pp. 177–200

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Chapter 7
The meaning of state created through symbols and metaphors

German Heimat and Russian Motherland

Published online: 20 May 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.82.08cep
Abstract
This chapter compares the role of symbols and metaphors in constructing the meaning of the state in its relation to the nation. Building on Paul Ricœur’s theory, it considers symbols and metaphors as two different discursive devices and applies this theoretical approach to the analysis of pre-Nazi German (1871–1933) and late imperial Russian (1860s–1917) political discourses as reflected in political speeches, policy documents, government records, correspondence, and other texts produced by political leaders and thinkers. The findings are that the symbol of the German Heimat and the metaphor of the Russian Motherland contributed significantly to the discursive development of two distinct types of state-to-nation relations: in Germany, the nation legitimized the state, while in Russia the state dominated the nation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Imagining a state in symbols and metaphors
  • 3.The Heimat symbol: From individual memory of home to collective memory of homeland
  • 4.The Motherland metaphor: Consolidating the vertical state authority
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
  • Appendix
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Musolff, Andreas
2021. The Nation as a Body or Person in Slavic L1-Language Samples: Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian and Bulgarian. In National Conceptualisations of the Body Politic [Cultural Linguistics, ], ► pp. 113 ff. DOI logo

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