The bear in the Russian ethnocultural code and language

linguocultural and historical perspectives.

   The use of the image-symbol contributes to the Russian nation’s self-identification and unification.

   The study aims to explain the pivotal role that the word-concept medved’ (English bear) plays in the Russian linguistic consciousness.

   This word has metaphorically characterised Russia and its people for centuries; thus, to achieve the goal, synchronic and diachronic linguistic data were used. The research employed descriptive and comparative methods as well as contextual, semantic, and narrative analysis. The Anglo-Saxon pejorative emotional and expressive connotations of the word-concept bear, which was metaphorically used to characterize Russia and its people, had formed in the West by the 18th century and were imposed on us. However, the concept was gradually reinterpreted by the Russian intelligentsia and acquired ameliorative connotations that became dominant in the 20^th century. In the second half of the 20^th and the first quarter of the 21^st century, the final mental ‘appropriation’ of the bear image with the axiological ‘plus’ sign occurred in all socially significant discourses of the modern Russian language. The image-symbol "Russia the Bear" which, in conjunction with other sacred symbols capable of being the spiritual bonds between Russian people, is necessary both for the awareness of our mental isolation from Western ethnocultural traditions and for the Russian nation’s self-identification and unification. Its linguocultural significance is indisputable, which is especially important today, in a period of dramatically increased external threats.

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