The article, focusing on Russian satirical journals research, dwells upon role of the symbol of the Motherland in discourses of Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The author points out that the symbol was exploited by majority of political forces. The authorities employed it in maintaining legitimacy of power. The author discerns two modes of delegitimation of power with the help of the symbol. The first one implies symbolic struggle for possessing the symbol, for the right to speak on behalf of the Motherland. It is based on the populist (the narodnik) image of the Mother Russia as a victim of the Russian state. The second, that was connected with the Bolshevik and liberal ideologies, implies devaluation and desacralization of the symbol.
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