Formation of the public image of the KGB in 1954–1991

The article analyzes the main trends in the presentation of the activities of the domestic security services in the public space in 1950s - 1991. The authors analyze the main content of the media discourse that accompanied the activities of the USSR KGB. This discourse of representations about its own past, traditions and innovations in its work and special corporate ethics. Using discourse analysis, the authors examine the PR-strategies of the Soviet state security agencies as an expression of the changes in the state policy towards the special services and the evolution of their own, departmental, narrative about the past and present. The authors analyze the dynamics of this process: from the first attempts at “self-purification” of the Khrushchev era of the 1950s to the adherence to the ideals of the perestroika era of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a result, a conclusion is drawn about the potential influence of the KGB's media discourse about itself and its past on the mechanisms of interaction between the state security agencies and Russian society and the formation of the public image of the security services as a whole.