To stay with the dying empire? (Cognitive-discursive model of Russias future)
Nowadays the problem of future has emerged with the utmost urgency. Faced with the complexities and challenges of the times, much effort has gone into the development of models and scenarios through which to comprehend the future of our country and to guide the navigation of policy-makers. In the world of forecasts the object of our analysis is political predictions, with the political system and political processes being its main targets. The advantage of the cognitive approach is the ability to determine mental schemes or cognitive models underlying any political text. The structure and content of these cognitive models are important to effectively study the mode of thinking of those who represent political and non-political institutions in a particular historical period; they also allow to build predictive models in political science. The discussed approach (cognitive-discursive future studies) is supposed to be a systemic junction of theories and conceptions of future suggested in philosophy, future studies, political science and political linguistics. Using tools of future studies and cognitive linguistics, this approach studies models of future, which are based on exploratory forecasts made by authors of political texts. The metamodel used in this approach is a matrix "methodology of forecasting and historical models" covering the evolution of various parameters of Russian socio-political system. A cognitivediscursive model is used as a tool to get the idea of possible options for future development of the society, helps to better understand the driving forces that shape it. The main force abroad that forms the image of Russia and its possible political future is Russiansensitive mass media. The process of constructing the metamodel (which in fact is a system of parameters) includes creating a conceptual model of political future, its basic components being domestic and foreign policies. Basic parameters (domestic policy and foreign policy), in their turn, can be divided into subsets (factors most frequently addressed in mass media when referring to the image of Russian future): politico-economic situation, population, natural resources, armed forces, relations with the USA, relations with Europe, relations with CIS ("the near abroad"), relations with Asian countries. The present article deals with the problem of modelling Russia's future in political discourse. The material for the analysis is "Russia Crumbles" from the National Review (April 20, 2007), which "predicts" the way our country will be developing in the first quarter of the 21st century. The paper presents a scenario, which is meant for further conceptual analysis of the model. It also gives a detailed description of basic components and their subsets, and analyses linguistic means used to create the image of pessimistic future.