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Abstract: The article deals with the peculiarities of the actualization of precedent phenomena from N. V. Gogol’s novella “Taras Bulba” in Ukrainian Telegram channels. The cognitive-discursive approach, which allows combining modeling of cognitive structures with analysis of the extralinguistic context of meaning generation, served as the methodological foundation of the study. With such an approach, precedent phenomena are considered not only as speech facts, but also as mental structures of a conceptual worldview, possessing cultural specificity and receiving regular objectification in various types of discourse. As the analysis showed, the actualization of precedent phenomena, dating back to Gogol's novella “Taras Bulba”, is a characteristic feature of modern Ukrainian Telegram discourse. The messages of the considered channels contain four main types of precedent phenomena: precedent name, precedent text, precedent utterance, and precedent situation. Two main conceptual features of the precedent name Taras Bulba (“Defender of the Orthodox faith” and “Punishment for treason”) are employed in the discourse under analysis, which is due to a complex of cognitive-discursive factors. Typical narratives in which this precedent name is regularly used include religious persecution, neglect of national interests, and Polish-Ukrainian contradictions. The aspiration of the authors to draw analogies between literary characters and contemporaries is realized through metaphorical transfer or conceptual integration. The Ukrainian Telegram discourse uses three methods of actualizing precedent utterances: citation, transformation, and allusion. A quote from a well-known work of fiction is intended to add authority to one’s own arguments, as the author’s thought looks more convincing to the reader if it coincides with the point of view of a recognized literary genius. In the analyzed corpus of data, examples of transformations of two precedent utterances are widely used: “I gave you life, and I will kill you!” and “Well, son, have your Lyakhs helped you?” The popularity of the aforementioned precedent utterances demonstrates the archetypicality of the scenario, according to which the history of Ukraine is represented as a succession of disappointments in foreign allies, replacing each other with the same result. When using allusion, the precedent utterance is not reproduced explicitly, but is easily reconstructed from the context and background knowledge. In most examples, precedent names, text and utterances serve as a way to actualize knowledge about a precedent situation, formed in the addressee in the process of reading Gogol’s novella. For this reason, there is usually no need to explicitly describe precedent situations, as they are easily reconstructed by the reader due to background knowledge. However, in the corpus under consideration, there are examples of description of the features of the precedent situations themselves in combination with phenomena of other types. The precedent text “Taras Bulba” is popular with the authors of telegram channels when describing internal political disagreements and contradictions between Ukraine and Poland. Since the Polish nobility plays the role of the main antagonist for the Cossacks in Gogol’s novella, the actualization of the precedent text “Taras Bulba” represents an archetype of the conflict, where ideals and historical grievances dominate pragmatism.

About the author(s) :

Eduard V. Budaev

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2137-1364

Natalia B. Ruzhentseva

Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1208-1202

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 10.10.2025; date of publication: 31.10.2025

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