Pejorative Lexis as Te Means of Criticism of the 16th Century Russian Realia in the Treatise of the Russe Common Wealth by Giles Fletcher

Abstract

Te research aims at analyzing the lexical aspect of foreign criticism of Russia at an early stage of establishing international relations. Te article focuses on the role of pejorative lexis and phraseology used by an English diplomat Giles Fletcher to expose to criticism Russian social, cultural and common realia in his treatise On the Russe Common Wealth written in 1591. Te research fnds out the main objects and grounds of the country’s negative evaluativity dispensed by the author, puts to analysis diverse lexical means with inherent negative evaluation, reveals their functions in the text. Criticism is underpinned by the author’s intention against the historical background of the deteriorating Anglo-Russian relations caused by the competing interests of the two nations. Te part that effects evaluation is the late 16th century English society represented by Giles Fletcher, a public ofcer and politician. Specifc objects of his criticism are persons and groups (monarchs, nobility, peasantry, clergy, etc.), national character of the Russian people, and social institutions (administration, political regime, law and judicial system, fnanceand economy, the Orthodox church, etc.). Criticism of Russian realia in the treatise is mainly manifest on the lexical level by virtue of the extensive use of pejorative substantives and metaphoric idioms. As to the function, negative evaluativity on the lexical level expresses the author’s emotions and presents the characteristics of persons and ethnospecifc phenomena.