Semiotics of the “Antichrist electronic concentration camp” mythologeme
Introduction. In the context of the coronavirus infection epidemic and anti-epidemic measures, the “Antichrist electronic concentration camp” mythologeme, formed at the beginning of the 21st century, is receiving a new interpretation and special popularity within the framework of modern eschatological discourse. This study is devoted to semantics and semiotics of this mythologeme and the specifics of its interaction with the mythologemes and theologemes of modern “epidemic eschatology”. The study was carried out within the framework of a semiotic approach to the study of religious discourse. In this regard, the methods of semiotic analysis and content analysis were used, while the semiotic tools were supplemented with elements of categorical analysis. The sources of this research are contemporary eschatological texts of various genres. Content. The article describes the semantic core of the analyzed mythologeme and identifies its main components. The chronotope of the mythologeme is analyzed, including its entry into the loci of sacred geography. The revealed entry of this mythologeme into the urban eschatology space is interpreted. It is suggested that the formation of this mythologeme was influenced by historical memory, which semioticized the tragic experience of the twentieth century as a prototype of the upcoming eschatological disasters. Discourse analysis of eschatological texts in which this mythologeme is presented made it possible to conclude that the main modality formed by the mythologeme is the modality of fear. The interaction at the semantic and semiotic levels of the mythologemes “Antichrist electronic concentration camp“ and “vaccination-chipping” is analyzed, which not only contributes to the inclusion of modern anti-epidemic measures in the eschatological mythological context, but also forms an idea according to which modern mass vaccination is one of the tools for building an “electronic concentration camp”. Conclusions. In the conclusion, it is shown that despite the fact that the invariant core of this mythologeme was formed long before the modern epidemic of coronavirus infection, under the conditions of anti-epidemic restrictions, the mythologeme received a new interpretation, which in interaction with the “vaccination-chipping” mythologeme led to the formation of a mythological complex.