Franz Roubard, Last Look (1901-02). Museum of the Black Sea Fleet History, Sebastopol.

The Definition is owned by the Definers.1

Or

The power to define is the power to set the terms of the discourse.

BACKGROUND

During the night of February 21/22, 2014, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich fled to Russia from the violent protests in Kiev against his government. Less than one week later, on February 27, “little green men”—barely camouflaged Russian army troops—seized control of Crimea, a predominantly Russian-speaking peninsula in southern Ukraine that borders the Black Sea. Shortly thereafter (March 18, 2014), Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed a joint session of the Federal Assembly in Moscow to justify annexation of the Crimean region into the Russian Federation.2 In a 4600-word speech, Putin explained the rationale for this action, which was universally criticized in the West (although China expressed its approval). In this essay, we analyze the content of Putin’s Address from a rhetorical standpoint, emphasizing the manner in which he utilizes three historical analogies to buttress his denigration of Ukraine and Ukrainians as justification for Russia’s actions in Crimea. However, significantly, the official Kremlin translation of this speech into English sublimates these analogies—such that international readers are presented with a narrative significantly at odds with the import of the Russian text.

Throughout his multiple presidencies, Putin has re-defined the fundamental terms “democracy” and “freedom” to move Russian society away from anything the West would recognize as such. In addition, following a policy first promulgated during the Yeltsin years, Putin stressed that Russia was justified in defending the rights of “compatriots” wherever they might live—including the nations of the “Near Abroad,” as the former Soviet republics were called.

INTRODUCTION

Kenneth Burke rather famously declared that “situation is shorthand for motive.”3 He is referring not to the coercions of ontic conditions but rather to human encompassments of conditions and the relationships that obtain within them in linguistic frames—or, in short, how we define those conditions. David Zarefsky advanced a similar claim in his important keynote address to the Alta Conference on argumentation in 1997:

Although some of the political science literature still mistakenly regards problems as empirical conditions to be found, a growing number of writers recognize that they are categories to be created.

He continues

To define a condition as a problem is to invoke a frame of reference within which the condition is assessed, causality and blame are determined, and solutions are considered.4

In theories of symbolic interaction, definitions of situation are recognized as vital influences on human actions; specific actions may be understood as following from specific definitions of a situation. The link is that through definition, situations are inscribed with meaning, and we as humans, in the words of Herbert Blumer, “act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them.”5 J. Robert Cox offers further elucidation: “Human behavior is based upon the meaning the person attaches to objects, events, relationships, or activities of other individuals.”6 (emphasis added). To the extent that people may come to share a similar definition of a situation, they may also come to act in similar ways or collectively support a particular action in that situation.7

We contend that definitions of situation are products of definitional argumentation. In this essay, we will first examine definitional argument as it works to define situations for situated audiences. Our objective in this examination is not to be comprehensive but rather to focus on what Zarefsky has identified as “argument by definition” (as distinct from argument from definition or about definition), and specifically within that on “associative” forms of argument, particularly arguments by analogy. In our discussion of argument by analogy, we suggest that meaningful analogies can be explicitly or implicitly constructed from historical and cultural memories that form coherent and emotionally powerful arguments for a selected portion of the overall audience while remaining obscure or without emotional force for other portions of the audience.8 In this manner, the speaker may construct what we will call, with both gratitude and apologies to Stevenson,9 Walton,10 and others, “persuasive definitions of situations” for that selected portion of the audience.11

The notion of a “persuasive definition” derives from Stevenson, who, following the work of Ogden and Richards,12 emphasized that words have both descriptive and emotive meanings.13 “Descriptive meaning” is understood as “the core factual or descriptive content of a word, while the ‘emotive meaning’ represents the feelings or attitudes (positive or negative) that the use of the word suggests.”14 Stevenson’s theory is that a persuasive definition works “by redefining the descriptive meaning of the word while retaining its old familiar emotive meaning.”15

This circumstance where a persuasive definition of a situation is constructed by design for only a portion of the audience is accentuated when there are significant historical, cultural, and national differences among segments of the audience, and, as our case study will demonstrate, all the more so when issues of translation for different language groups are folded in. In the case study, we use this framework as a lens through which to analyze Vladimir Putin’s March 18, 2014, address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation concerning the situation in Crimea. We argue that through careful selection of historical analogies grounded in significant political and cultural memories, Putin is able to construct different meanings regarding the events in Crimea for the distinct Russian- and English-speaking audiences. Associative argument by definition, in some cases enhanced through strategic translation choices, is employed in the creation of analogies supporting the advocated definition of the situation in Crimea. We maintain that for the primary Russian-speaking audience, Putin creates a “persuasive definition of the situation” that in turn justifies specific types of actions in that situation.

DEFINITION OF A SITUATION THROUGH ARGUMENT BY DEFINITION

Although concerns with relationships between definition and argument have been evident since the classical period, the domain of definitional argument is less developed than many other aspects of argumentation theory. In his 1997 keynote address, Zarefsky maintained not simply that definitions are important in argumentation but also that definitional argument may take multiple forms, which he identified as argument from definition, argument about definition, and argument by definition.

The distinctions among these forms of definitional argument are important: argument from definition proceeds in a deductive form, with the definition taken as an essential or true premise. Argument about definition concerns the “real” nature of something; that is, what is the accurate, more true, or better definition of the “thing” (or concept) being considered. The third form of definitional argument developed by Zarefsky is argument by definition, and this is the form upon which we will elaborate.

In argument by definition, “[t]he key definitional move is simply stipulated, as if it were a natural step along the way of justifying some other claim.” In this sense, the key argumentative step of defining one’s terms

is taken by making moves that are not themselves argumentative at all. They are not claims supported by reasons and intended to justify adherence by critical listeners. Instead they are simply proclaimed as if they were indisputable facts.16

Zarefsky suggests four types of argumentative moves that can be employed in producing arguments by definition. These are associations, dissociations, ambiguities, and frame-shifting language.17 Of these, we will focus on techniques of association.

Arguments by definition are critical moves that are often deployed in the construction of broader situational definitions. As Zarefsky notes “what is really being defined is not a term but a situation or frame of reference.”18 This becomes quite clear in relation to the specific form of associative argumentation that we focus on most in Putin’s address: arguments by analogy, particularly analogies based on emotionally charged historical cultural memories. Through these types of analogies, we are invited to understand current events through the lens of these memories, to construct our understanding, our meaning, for the present events through their association with historical situations. And, as was indicated at the outset, we act on the basis of meanings we have for situations. Associations with highly charged historical cultural memories can significantly affect the construction of those meanings and thus have important implications for understanding actions taken in those situations.

DEFINITIONAL ARGUMENT IN PUTIN’S CRIMEA ADDRESS

We look at two varieties of argument by definition in Putin’s Crimea speech: 1) redefinitions of key terms that in turn function as over-arching interpretive frames for Putin’s orientation; and 2) definitional moves through associative analogies that function to create a specific definition of the situation in Crimea. The definition of the situation that Putin constructs justifies the annexation of Crimea.

On the first level, Putin defines/redefines “Russia” and the “Russian people” in ways that move those terms far beyond designations of the geographical state of the Russian Federation and its citizens. These are not new moves by Putin, but in the Crimea speech they take on specific implications relative to Crimea and eastern Ukraine that provide the broad overall interpretive frame for justification of the annexation of Crimea and, more implicitly, for subsequent events in eastern Ukraine. Russia becomes not a geopolitical state with fixed boundaries but rather a transhistorical, mythic creation. The image functions rhetorically as what Kenneth Burke calls a “utopia-in-reverse”:19 its historical mythos creates a yearning, a desire, for its recreation (or creation) in the present. It becomes an animating force, as the very phrase “mother Russia” suggests.

In Putin’s words, for the Russian government—and presumably by extension all ‘real’ Russians—“it pains our hearts to see what is happening in Ukraine.20 This surface expression of sympathy resonates with a prior statement affirming Crimean and Russian unity:

In people’s hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia. This firm conviction is based on truth and justice and was passed from generation to generation.21

From this perspective, the pain that arises is from the separation of Crimea (and perhaps Ukraine) from Russia proper. After voicing the “pain in our hearts,” Putin reinforces this interpretation:

[A]fter all, we [Ukrainians and Russians] are not simply close neighbours but, as I have said many times already, are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus′ is our common source and we cannot live without each other.

Putin bolsters this claim of “oneness” by boasting that “reunification” is the ardent desire of Crimeans and Russians alike. He cites the Crimean referendum on separation from Ukraine and unification with Russia as self-evident validation of this claim:

More than 82 percent of the electorate took part in the vote. Over 96 percent of them spoke out in favour of reuniting with Russia. These numbers speak for themselves.22

Moreover, he asserts that “the reason behind such a choice” lies in the above-desired “history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other.” He returns to this claim of mutual affirmation of oneness at the conclusion of the address when he cites polling data that

almost 92 percent of our people (in Russia) support Crimea’s reunification with Russia. Thus we see that the overwhelming majority of people in Crimea and the absolute majority of the Russian Federation’s people support reunification of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol with Russia.

This depiction of a common people—of one people—torn asunder by the vagaries of wars and (artificial) national divisions is constant in Putin’s address. “Everything in Crimea,” he declares toward the beginning of his address,

speaks of our shared history and pride. This is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptized. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Sevastopol is “the birthplace of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.” Crimea is depicted as sacred ground, the site of “Russian military glory and outstanding valour” where the “graves of those Russian soldiers whose bravery in 1783 brought Crimea into the Russian empire” are located.23 The ‘oneness’ of Russia and Crimea, their unity in the “Russian nation” was split only by what Putin clearly conceives of as artificial borders at the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The “Russian nation,” he claims, “became one of the biggest, if not the biggest ethnic group in the word to be divided by borders.”24

In this context, Putin posits, by definition, that “the fraternal Ukrainian people” are “of foremost importance for us.” Not only should “brothers” not be divided, but to leave the fraternal Crimeans vulnerable to repression by post-“coup” Ukrainian nationalists was unthinkable: “we could not abandon Crimea and its residents in distress. This would have been betrayal on our part.” (emphasis added).

Finally, with regard to Putin’s definition of Russia and the Russian people, a distinction—an encompassment really—emerges in the Russian language text that is not clearly evident in the official English translation. When discussing “all the ethnic groups living in Crimea,” Putin says “This is their common home, their motherland.” Here he uses a common term—malaya rodina “small/little homeland”—for “motherland.” In a bid for acceptance by “the people of Ukraine,” he attempts to calm their fears by invoking the unity among the nationalities living in Crimea.

Do not believe those who want you to fear Russia, shouting that other regions will follow Crimea. We do not want to divide Ukraine; we do not need that. As for Crimea, it was and remains a Russian, Ukrainian, and Crimean-Tatar land.

Through these various arguments by definition, which Putin invokes “in passing,” he creates a broad conception of a “Russian nation” not confined to geopolitical borders—a “nation” that encompasses the broader expanse of Russian-speaking people, including but not limited to ethnic Rus′ and those who find common cultural origins in Orthodoxy. It is a “fraternal” group that should be re-united. To underscore this last point, Putin also suggests that absent reunification with Russia, their Crimean “brothers” might well become absorbed by Western entities, particularly NATO and, implicitly, the United States. It is a “strategic territory” that “should be part of a strong and stable sovereignty, which today can only be Russia.”

To forestall such a possibility, Putin asserts, Crimea must be part of the Russian state.

Otherwise, dear friends (I am addressing both Ukraine and Russia), you and we—the Russians and the Ukrainians—could lose Crimea completely, and that could happen in the near historical perspective. Please think about [this].

Ukraine could join NATO and, in essence, deliver Crimea to NATO: NATO would make “itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory.” Crimea would no longer be in the ‘brotherhood’ of Russia; rather, Russians would be “guests” of NATO in Crimea.

[B]ut it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way round.

With this definitional backdrop of mythic, transhistorical Russia as an over-arching framework, Putin advances numerous analogies throughout the Crimea address related to Russia’s push for reunification: at various points he makes reference to international events, e.g. actions of the UN and the United States in Yugoslavia in 1999, US actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the varied “color revolutions, including Ukraine’s 2004 “Orange Revolution,” and the reunification of Germany. He also analogizes Crimean independence with the US Declaration of Independence.

We do not address those claims here. Rather, our focus is on three explicit or implied analogies included in the address:

• an analogy based on Ukrainian and Russian cultural memories of the Kiev Pogrom of 1919
• a complex analogy based on the Russian and Russian-Ukrainian cultural memories of Stepan Bandera, and
• an implied analogy based on Russian (and Ukrainian) cultural memories of the False Dmitry and other pretenders to the throne during Russia’s Time of Troubles.

We select these analogies for analysis because they draw upon embedded historical and cultural memories that activate emotional responses for the targeted Russian and Russian-speaking Ukrainian audiences, while appearing rather benign or fragmented for western English-speaking audiences—divergent effects which, as we will show below, are augmented by differences in the Russian and English language texts of the speech. Those differences account for the emergence of a “persuasive definition of the situation” for Russian-speaking audiences that is lacking for western English-speaking audiences.

These analogies work to target the leadership of the Ukrainian government that arose during and after the overthrow of the Yanukovich regime and to separate them from the Ukrainian people, including those peacefully protesting in Maidan. Putin claims that he understands and even supports the protesters “who came out on Maidan with peaceful slogans against corruption, inefficient state management and poverty.” However, those responsible for the events in Ukraine leading to the overthrow of President Yanukovich were, Putin states, different people with a different agenda:

they wanted to seize power and would stop short of nothing. They resorted to terror, murder and riots. Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites executed this coup. (emphasis added)

In this English translation, which is the official translation posted on the Kremlin website, there is no clear, embedded analogy. However, the Russian-language version is slightly different, and it does create an analogy based on cultural and historical memories, memories that could be expected to trigger strong and even incendiary emotional responses. In Russian, the text actually reads, “. . . terror, murders, and pogroms.”

The translation “riots” suggests chaos and violence, but not targeted violence and extermination, and certainly not anti-Semitic violence. In the context of Ukraine, the term “pogrom” does precisely that: it invokes a long history in Ukraine of antisemitic violence, but it invokes in particular the cultural memories of the Kiev Pogrom of 1919, an umbrella term for some 1,326 pogroms that occurred “across Ukraine around that time, in which between 30,000 and 70,000 Jews were massacred. . . . According to some estimates, overall, in the pogroms of 1918-1921, half a million Jews were left homeless.”25

Through the term “pogrom,” Putin suggests that Ukrainian nationalists in the past pursued vicious and deadly violence against Jews and might therefore be expected to do so again, perhaps especially if a need arises to identify scapegoats for their own failures in leadership. This potentiality is reinforced by Putin’s linking the coup leaders together as nationalists, neo-Nazis, and anti-Semites. Given the scope and severity of the Kiev Pogrom of 1919, Putin’s historical analogy could reasonably be expected to arouse strong emotional responses in the Ukrainian-Russian audience, responses that target the nationalistic leadership of post-Yanukovich Ukraine and tars them with the taint of antisemitic genocidal practices. And, again, this entire analogical construction is absent in the English-language version of Putin’s address.

The second analogy we examine also works to inflame Russian-Ukrainian and Russian passions while remaining obscure to western audiences. Putin invokes a comparison to Ukrainian nationalist Sepan Bandera at two distinct points in the Crimea Address. Immediately following his depiction of the Ukrainian leaders of the “coup” as “Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and antisemites,” Putin says,

The new so-called authorities began by introducing a draft law to revise the language policy, which was a direct infringement on the rights of ethnic minorities. However, they were immediately “disciplined” by the foreign sponsors of these so-called politicians. One has to admit that the mentors of these current authorities are smart and know well what such attempts to build a purely Ukrainian state may lead to. The draft law was set aside. . . . Nevertheless, we can all clearly see the intentions of these ideological heirs of Bandera, Hitler’s accomplice during World War II. (emphasis added)

Toward the end of the speech, in a section prefaced as addressing “the people of Ukraine,” Putin returns to this reference:

What [Crimea] will never be and do is follow in Bandera’s footsteps!

Stepan Bandera was “a Ukrainian nationalist who sought to create an independent Ukraine after the German invasion of the Soviet Union—only to be thrown into a German concentration camp.… Bandera remains a controversial figure in Ukraine.”26

David Marples is more explicit:

The name of Stepan Bandera is one that elicits emotional reactions simply from its utterance. . . . He has been depicted as a hero and a villain, as a liberator or potential liberator of an oppressed nation, as a terrorist and a Nazi collaborator. In the Soviet period, his name was associated with evil, terrorism, and treachery by Soviet authorities and propagandists.27

But in western Ukraine, in “various towns and villages,” “statues have been erected and streets named after him.”28 It is significant for Putin’s purposes that the very name “Bandera” is a red flag—or perhaps red meat—for Russians and eastern Ukrainians: Bandera is shorthand for betrayal and, perhaps more significantly in our analysis, for collaboration with the enemies of Russia. Bandera and his Ukrainian nationalist aspired to great things in 1940–1941.”29 “They imagined themselves not as Berlin’s underlings, but as Berlin’s allies. They hoped for an alliance with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union.” And, “(m)uch to the Nazis’ surprise, the Bandera nationalists issued a proclamation of independence of June 30, 1941 in which they declared their support of Hitler’s New Europe.”30 However the Nazis had no interest in an independent Ukraine; they imprisoned Bandera in mid-1941 and sent two of his brothers to Auschwitz. He was assassinated by the KGB in 1959.31 During the Soviet period, the name “Bandera” was used “as a term of opprobrium.” Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, however, Bandera was ‘rehabilitated’ in Western Ukraine because of his and his movement’s “implacable opposition to the Soviet Union.” Victor Yushchenko, who was elected as President of Ukraine during the Orange Revolution, promoted Bandera as a hero, officially decreeing him a Hero of the Ukrainian people.32

The implied analogy does not become complete until a surrogate for Nazi Germany is factored into the equation, and Putin accomplishes that through the previously cited assertions that the current Ukrainian national leadership (the leaders of the “coup”) are controlled by “foreign sponsors” who serve as their “mentors.” Who are these “sponsors” and “mentors”? In Putin’s address it becomes clear that it is “the West”—and specifically the United States and perhaps NATO—who stand-in for Nazi Germany in the current iteration as explicit threats to Russian security and territorial integrity. Putin says in his Address, “And with Ukraine, our western partners have crossed the line, playing the bear and acting irresponsibly and unprofessionally.” Bandera functions to unite Russians and eastern Ukrainians (and Crimeans) in opposition to the collaborationist Ukrainian government in its treachery against Russia.

The third analogy we examine is absent in the English translation of the speech, and even in the Russian it is a bit more sublimated but could nonetheless be expected to arouse Russian sensibilities. Putin states, “It is also obvious that there is no legitimate executive authority in Ukraine now.” To the extent that the elected President had fled the country and most of his inner circle had been replaced in the government without general elections, this claim has some credibility. A certain level of interregnum certainly obtained. However, Putin expounded in more striking language, claiming, “Many government agencies have been taken over by the imposters.” “Imposter” is a rather bland choice made by the government translators: while not incorrect, it lacks the connotative power of the source word—самозванец (samozvanets)—it represents in the original Russian. Literally that word means “the self-proclaimed.” But relative to cultural historical memories it refers unambiguously to the interregnum that occurred at the beginning of the 17th century when Ivan the Terrible died without an heir to the throne (having killed his own son in a fit of insane rage) and to the ascendance of the so-called “False Dmitry”—a peasant supported by Polish noblemen who claimed he was that son, still alive and come to claim his rightful place on the throne and to displace the reigning Tsar, Boris Godunov. Dmitry raised an army and began, rather unsuccessfully on the battlefield, to assert his “rights.” However, the death of Godunov suddenly cleared his path, and for ten months Dmitry reigned as Tsar. His enemies gained strength as Dmitry “surrounded himself with foreigners and openly flouted Russian customs.”33 He was killed when his enemies stormed the Kremlin, after which his supporters were massacred. This triggered a bloody and chaotic period in Russian history called the Time of Troubles that eventually led to the installation of the Romanov dynasty.

Upon hearing the word “samozvanets” most Russians will immediately think of the chaos and political instability that characterized the period. “Imposter” can never evoke to a Westerner the visceral impact generated by “samozvanets” in the hearts and minds of Russians. The sublimated analogy comes into focus with the addition of the knowledge that hostile foreign sponsors promoted Dimitry to his position. Again, foreign sponsors and mentors are constructed as the force behind the “imposters” in Ukraine who threaten Russian traditions and values, especially Russian Orthodoxy, and their reign can be seen as precursors to subsequent upheaval, chaos, and violence. The current Ukrainian leadership is thus depicted not simply as illegitimate but as dangerous to Russia and to eastern Ukrainians with Russian sensibilities.

The threat becomes overt, to Russian speaking audiences, as Putin goes on to say

This is not a joke—this is reality. Those who opposed the coup were immediately threatened with repression. Naturally, the first in line here was Crimea, the Russian-speaking Crimea.

Это не шутка, это реалия сегодняшней жизни. Тем, кто сопротивлялся путчу, сразу начали грозить репрессиями и карательными операциями. И первым на очереди был, конечно, Крым, русскоязычный Крым.

This translation is accurate, at least as it goes. Unfortunately, the English rendition leaves out one small element from the Russian text: “Those who opposed the coup were immediately threatened with repression and execution.”

CONCLUSIONS

What, then, is the definition of the situation that Putin constructs for his Russian-speaking audience? Given the above analysis, and focusing only on those posited definitions and associative definitions generated through the analogies we cite, we would summarize the created situation in this manner:

The Russian nation—comprised of one people characterized by a common cultural origin, a shared history, a common faith and value-system, and a common language—was divided by artificial borders following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and, later, the illegal “coup” in Ukraine. It is now threatened by collaborationist Ukrainian pretenders (neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and antisemites), who both would repress and kill Russians and Ukrainian Russians and imperil Russia itself on behalf of their western sponsors and mentors. Facing this situation, Russia was forced to annex Crimea and Sevastopol to re-unite and protect not only its people but also to protect the Russian state itself from insidious western threats.

Russia’s actions in annexation follow from this definition of the situation.

Through argument by definition, and particularly through the associative analogies we examine in this chapter, we submit that Putin created for the Russian people what we are calling a “persuasive definition of the situation.”34 In the analogies that emerge in Putin’s Russian-language text, we submit that the strong emotive dimensions of the historical anchors of those analogies are transferred to the descriptive representations of the current Ukrainian leadership and their western “sponsors” and “mentors.” That is, through these analogical arguments, the connotative affects of historical cultural memories are transferred to new contexts, imbuing the definition of the new situation (which remains denotatively distinct from the historical analogy) with the affective force of the historical memory. Through careful construction of these analogies and equally careful translation to the English text, Putin is able to craft this persuasive definition of the situation for his Russian-speaking audience while simultaneously disguising that definition from English-speaking audiences.

David Cratis Williams is recently retired Professor of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Florida Atlantic University. His scholarship focuses on argumentation, rhetorical theory, and criticism; he is a recognized authority on Kenneth Burke. His work on Russian political discourse began during a meeting in Russia in January 1992. Marilyn J. Young is the Wayne C. Minnick Professor of Communication Emerita at Florida State University. Her research has focused on political argument with an emphasis on the development of political rhetoric and argument in the former Soviet Union, particularly Russia. She remains an active scholar in retirement. Michael K. Launer is Professor Emeritus of Russian at Florida State University. In 1987 he interpreted for the first group of Soviet scientists visiting the United States following the Chernobyl nuclear accident. A State Department certified technical interpreter, he supported Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy assistance programs through 2012.

***

1     Tony Morrison, Beloved. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1987: 225.