ФРАГМЕНТЫ ЯЗЫКОВОЙ КАРТИНЫ СОВРЕМЕННЫХ РОССИЙСКО‐УКРАИНСКИХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ В ЖАНРАХ СОВРЕМЕННОГО РУССКОГО СМЕХА

In the post soviet era the relationship between Russia and Ukraine considerably sharpened. Both the countries have had rich common culture, history and spiritual values, resulting from common historic background dating back as far as “Kyjevska Rus” and the early historical development of the eastern Slavs. After the fall of USSR there was a whole range of problems in relations among the former Soviet republics and although a new Union of Independent Countries was created, these problems and misunderstandings grew in intensity. The author is observing negative tendencies in relations between Russia and Ukraine through different genres of Russian humor. In this work a few thematic groups of such humor are detached and mainly those that deal with common past and different aspects of present situation. At the centre of our attention are mainly political and economical aspects of Russian – Ukrainian relations where the economic and gas crisis of 2009 appear to be one of the dominant topics. It is mainly problems with the transport of Russian gas via Ukraine to other European countries that have increased the tension between the two countries. The motif of the theft of the Russian gas began to repeat itself regularly, which immediately evoked associations with other Ukrainian problems, real ones as well as made-up ones. The gas crisis form the beginning of the year 2009 became the ground for laughter over Ukrainian present and past situation. In the process the present Russian humor uses well-known linguistic culturemes from different cultural sources. In this specific case, it is famous poem of S. Mikhalkov: So what’s up with you? which happens to fit into the context of Russian – Ukrainian disagreements during the gas crisis. In Russian humor related to Ukraine a certain fragment of linguistic picture of Ukraine in Russia is being created. Often famous political personalities of today Ukraine can be targeted by this humor or even problems in healthcare, social sphere, finances and so on. The author uses wide range of examples taken from the present Russian media, where regularly anecdotes, “chastushky”, and aphorisms appear in which critical view of the present situation in Ukraine is presented. This work emphasizes that one of the semiotic backgrounds of anecdotes is hyperbolism of reality that is, however, based on actual facts, that is why reminiscences of Gogol’s “laughter through tears” appear.