Soviet “face of feminism”: manipulative potential of conceptual metaphors in polycode texts

This article deals with poster propaganda texts of the Soviet period (the 20s - 40s of the twentieth century). The aim of the authors is to identify conceptual metaphors producing manipulative meanings of socialist ideology about women, namely about their role and position in the “new” society. The study of the visual and verbal data lets the authors draw the conclusion that the power-makers deliberately create a particular way of thinking dominated by the state values: of the necessity of building a new society, the struggle with foreign enemies and the submission with necessary and active participation of the female population represented as equal in their rights and responsibilities to men. In other words, an individual conceptual system, which is continuously evolving, is affected by historical and ideological texts that can lead to generating dominant national consciousness of a certain time period, adapting judgments and stereotypes of the government.