Russkiyor rossiyskiy? The question of identification and self-identification

Statement of the problem. A number of reasons, both linguistic and other, explain the continuing relevance of ethnonomical issues. This is due to the functions of names and self-names of ethnic societies and their representatives. Therefore, ethnonyms play not only the most important pragmatic role in the identification and autoidentification of individuals and collectives, but can also be actively applied in social, cultural and political processes. It is quite natural that ethnonyms and similar lexico-phraseological units and the nature of their use attract the attention of almost equally both specialists and a wide audience. The purpose of the articleis to analyze the modern nature of the use of the ethnonym Russian (russkiy), the ethatonym the Russian(rossiyanin), the adjective Russian (russkiy) in the texts on political subjects and determine the most likely direction of their use. The research materialsare the texts of political speeches in the media, and the contextual and discursive methodsused in their analysis have firmly established themselves as scientifically effective. Research results. The words Russian(russkiy), Russian (rossiyskiy), the Russian (rossiyanin) which, judging by many examples, are in a condition of the competition with each other. Moreover, such relationships between these lexemes are not accidental, but over the past three decades have been consistently designed in the discourse of the Russian media. It can already be said that the ethnonym Russian (russkiy) is in many cases negatively marked (due to the previously formed invective connotation of the adjective Russian (russkiy)) and replaced by the ethatonym the Russian(rossiyanin), and the adjective Russian (rossiyskiy) is introduced as allegedly semantically equivalent to the adjective Russian (russkiy). As sources of actual material, texts of political statements are used, due to the high power status of their addressers, which are required to possess significant public resonance and, accordingly, likely influence on speech preferences of many addressees. Conclusion. Information and propaganda operations carried out by replacing a substantivized adjective Russian (russkiy) with an artificially reanimated noun the Russian(rossiyanin), on the one hand, and replacing the adjective Russian (russkiy) by the adjective Russian (rossiyskiy), on the other, have a common vector. This is a radical minimization of national identity of most indigenous speakers of the Russian language. The author's contribution consists in describing the problem, collecting and analyzing the language material.