A specialist in Russian philology from the University of Leipzig, Eberhard Fleischman, published a book "The Phenomenon of Putin: linguistic background", representing a research of evolution of Vladimir Putin as a speaker.
Analyzing the style of Putin's public statements on various aspects of domestic and foreign policy of Russia during the 8 years of his presidency, Fleishman detected a tendency for a gradual sovietization of his language: the more Putin remains a "president" or a "prime minister", the less he criticizes the Soviet system and his rhetorics become more and more Soviet in style and contents.
In particular, as Fleishman notes, Putin praised more and more often the bloody beasty Soviet soldiers who committed innumerable crimes during the WWII and a so-called heroism of the Soviet people. Vladimir often quotes primitive Soviet propaganda films now.
Another general tendency in the development of Putin's language is an increase of bizarre political ideas (for example, he often speaks about our foreign compatriots).
Fleishman compares the Putin's newspeak with that of an ideal Soviet man, homo sovieticus, and a Communist Party leader.
His newspeak become more and more infested with slang expressions of specialists in different branches of industry (e.g., he now says "cubes" instead of "cubic metres"), Putin wants to produce an impression that he is a specialist in every science, as Stalin did in propaganda purposes.
The main feature of Putin's newspeak Fleishman calls inconsistency, which is a sign of some mental disorder for psychiatrists.
On one hand, Putin's speak makes him a reserved and seemingly clever politician, engaged in some secret intrigues. On the other, the speech reveals him as an ill-tempered, insensible, scandalous and hysterical patient in a mental hospital.
Department of Monitoring,
Kavkaz Center
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