Rhetoric, the art of speech that unites theory and practice, is the oldest and most powerful form of linking language and politics. It is both a production manual for persuasive oratory and an analytical tool for political discourse. The book project aims to examine political rhetoric in late and post-Soviet Russia in its various manifestations, focusing on the speeches of leading politicians and their staging in the media. The focus is primarily on the current political rhetoric in Putin’s Russia, with special attention to the argumentative justification for the war against Ukraine. Current Russian political rhetoric will be analyzed systematically and historically: systematically with regard to various aspects such as genre forms, mediality, staging strategies and theoretical reflection; historically, above all, taking into account the transformation processes of political discourse in the late Soviet Union and early post-Soviet Russia in the field of tension between authoritarianism and parliamentarism. The project is guided by the thesis that although the current totalitarian escalation of monological-autocratic rhetoric in Russia represents the culmination of a long process, this process was by no means deterministic. Even during the Putin era, political rhetoric displayed dialogical elements. The Kremlin-controlled propaganda was in a constant process of situational adaptation and exploration, balancing the locally situated rhetoric in provincial centers with the innovative media strategies of the opposition.

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