The associative potential of the precedent onym Chernobyl in the Russian language picture of the world

The Internet space of the beginning of the 21st centuryis rich in wide selection of figurative language units, which reflect modern realities in network communication byreferringto alreadyknown events, facts, andsituations. The purpose of the proposed article is to identify the semantic-and-pragmatic and associative potential of the Chernobyl precedent situation onym as a component of the Russian language picture of the world. The analysis of the current Internet space allowed the authors to conclude that the frequency of appeals to the precedent toponym Chernobyl has increased in the last decade. Thus, in online media, chat rooms and blogs, parallels are drawn between the tragic events of 1986 and the alarming situations of our time. It can be noted that the image of Chernobyl is projected not onlyon states and political associations, but also on particular politicians, while the variety of integral components that underlie metaphorical images and scenarios attracts attention. The associative image of Chernobyl is constructed by means of linguistic units of the figurative system relevant to the representation of the disaster. Such words and constructions in media texts acquire new connotative backgrounds and have a high transformational potential. A wide range of connotatively labeled linguistic means used in modeling the image of Chernobyl is the basis for the formation of a fragment of the worldview ofa modern linguistic personalityreflected in actual network communication.