In a polemically coded discourse, the chaining of verbal units is decisively influenced by the affective principle of polemical instances, on whose emotional exaltation is based the interaction, aimed at dissenting speech acts. Polemics is a non-fictional genre whose grounding in reality can be very dangerous, even fatal for polemical instances. Namely, fictitiousness, as the basic distinguishing property of a literary text, also acts as a protective covering that forms around the author, because "inventiveness" frees him from responsibility, and a critical perception of reality moves him to the "metaphysical quality" of fiction. However, in the polemic, fictional protection is abolished, and the author is left at the mercy of the power centers, whose actions he critically analyzed. In addition, due to the immersion of polemics in the social context and the current ideological and political situation, the power of polemical discourse in terms of social semiotics is enormous, and consists in imposing cognitive models (epistemes), ideologues and value positions on a wide range of recipients.
Therefore, the language of the polemic should be adapted to the horizon of expectations of the wider socio-cultural community, because the pragmatic aspect of the sign, that is, the attitude of the user towards the sign, becomes crucial in the non-fictional genre of exceptional social engagement. Emphasized social semiotics of polemic introduces numerous populist strategies into the organization of polemical discourse and leads to the activation of the symbolic potential of a certain semiotic space, which often implies the manipulation of collective traumas and memory. But precisely because of the great ideological (value) capacity of polemics and its social semiotics, polemical instances are often targeted by power centers, which brings a considerable dose of emotionality, both to the polemical discourse itself, and to its social context.
Polemical discourse is extremely active in identity semiosis, especially in the constitution of Montenegrin identity because it grows on strong resistance to the Serbian identity narrative, which, in its most extreme form, is aimed at the assimilation of all identity models in the South Slavic semiosphere. Sociocultural communities in which nationalism is the dominant ideology cruelly impose their interactive frameworks, cognitive schemes, ideological attitudes and codes of behavior on the individual, demanding unquestioning obedience. In every society, there are conventional codes of conduct, which are very important for the social community because they regulate individual behavior, prescribe rules and punish transgressions. The elements of the general, common, conventional and stereotypical allow an individual to identify and become a member of a group, therefore, identification processes are based on redundancy - linguistic, social and cultural. Therefore, the redundancy of the Montenegrin/Serbian interpretative community will be activated in the identity narrative. At the same time, semiotic units and the symbolic potential of Christianity are put at the service of identity narrative, whose role is very significant in texts that show the threat of a certain cultural order (Serbian or Montenegrin) and the collective struggle for survival and preservation of identity. In that process, the Orthodox faith and its sanctuaries function as the basis of identification and recognition, as a powerful identity base that is put at the service of the Montenegrin/Serbian national being. Aggressive interaction strategies are common to both narratives, which is in line with the nationalist ideology that produces and supports identity models, and the establishment and celebration of national sanctuaries is necessarily accompanied by a hunt for "traitors" and insufficiently ardent patriots.
We will pay special attention to the texts broadcast by the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church in the Montenegrin semiosphere, because these institutions, under the auspices of powerful religious codes, are key bearers and generators of identity narratives based on nationalist ideologies. Their magazines Sveviđe and Lučindan, as well as texts intended to promote Orthodoxy, Serbian and Montenegrin, establish an identity polemic and significantly influence the formation of identity models in the Montenegrin semiosphere. Since religious texts preserve and transmit information of great importance for the collective, in identity polemics the authority of church dignitaries acts on the information that is transmitted, so no information is ethically neutral, because the speaker's authority provides the statement with significant moral-normative weight. Thanks to the "sacred" context provided by the institution of the church, priests articulate a discourse with emphasized identity and representative functions, whereby they prescribe patterns worthy of imitation and devise programs for memorizing information of key importance in preserving the Montenegrin/Serbian identity, relying on biblical quotations.
The basic creative means of culture is language, and all other cultural layers derive from it, therefore any change in language is reflected in the semiotic space as a whole. If nationalist strategies are visible in language, they are also manifested in all spheres of culture, especially political, and the politics of nationalism is the last defense of totalitarian regimes. In traumatic periods of war, the collapse of the sociocultural order and the collapse of the state system, there is an increased activity of the identity narrative, whereby old collective sanctuaries are redefined or new collective sanctuaries are constructed, cults are established and sacred texts are proclaimed, so we can talk about identity engineering, which appears as a faithful companion. collective traumas.
Identity models are constructed both in artistic and non-artistic texts based on the combination of identity units: language, i.e. its naming, narratives of origin or primordial myths, collective memory, symbolic signs, additionally semiotized temporal and spatial units, collective traumas, religious codes, sacral signs, etc. In the Montenegrin semiotic space, two identity narratives collide and fight for supremacy, which share many common cultural themes, which makes their demarcation difficult. Therefore, the overlapping of language and religious code, i.e. Orthodoxy, functions as a key means of contesting the Montenegrin identity model in Serbian nationalist narratives. Semiotic power is reflected in the capacity of the sociocultural community to produce signs, texts and codes, and thus form and complicate its semiotic space. On the basis of the same language used by both Montenegrins and Serbs, as well as on the basis of the same religion, an identity tree is derived, which, due to the indisputable semiotic supremacy of the Serbian cultural space, is named exclusively as Serbian. Accordingly, collective memory is organized differently in the Montenegrin semiotic space, depending on the identity model in whose service it is put, whereby the tension and antagonisms between identity conceptions are manifested in the polemical historiographical discourse.
The characteristics of the nationalist discourse, which is always in an aggressive polemical relationship with other identity models, are: playing with strong collective traumas, and thus with the recipient's emotions, illustrative quotations in relation to sacred texts, auto-communication, cultural autism and misuse of sacred symbols. We can recognize all these features in the texts broadcast by the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church in their newsletters Svevidje and Lučindan, the key bearers of the nationalist discourse. Institutions founded with the primary goal of broadcasting the identity narrative are included in the identity controversy: Matica Montenegrin and Matica Srpska (branch in Montenegro).
(Continued in the next issue of "Arta" on January 30)
Bonus video:
