In playfully serious tone, Russians are apt to tell their foreign interlocutors that the questions referenced at the head of this chapter are seminal, inescapable and eternal in their country. In so many words, these questions seem to constitute their root terms of political discussion, the discursive horizon of politics itself. The jesting attitude with which these questions are often put should not disguise the gravity that they contain, just as their exaggerated finality need not suggest that exaggerations are not one route to the truth. Taking those questions, then, as a point of departure, what light has this study thrown on them? Why might they form the pivot of political discourse in Russia?

At the outset of this book, I put forward an ideal type of political discourse grounded on the syntax of natural language. The argument there, and thereafter, has been that making sense is predicated on following rules, whether grammatical ones for language use or discursive ones for political communication. In the latter instance, however, the question of rules cannot be addressed in a purely formal or abstract way for the simple reason that at issue is not communication in general but communication about something: namely, politics. Therefore, I have put forward a conception of political discourse that models it in a substantive way. To talk about politics means to engage with discourses of competence, morality, community and approval.