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This paper presents results from a comparative and qualitative discourse-historical analysis of governmental crisis communication in Austria, Germany, France, Hungary and Sweden, during the global COVID-19 pandemic lockdown from March 2020 to May 2020 (a 'discourse strand'). By analysing a sample of important speeches and press conferences by government leaders (all performing as the 'face of crisis management'), it is possible to deconstruct a range of discursive strategies announcing/legitimising restrictive measures in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic where everybody is in danger of falling ill, regardless of their status, position, education and so forth. I focus on four frames that have been employed to mitigate the 'dread of death' (Bauman, 2006) and counter the 'denial of death' (Becker, 1973/2020): a 'religious frame', a 'dialogic frame', a frame emphasising 'trust', and a frame of 'leading a war'. These interpretation frameworks are all embedded in 'renationalising' tendencies, specifically visible in the EU member states where even the Schengen Area was suddenly abolished (in order to 'keep the virus out') and borders were closed. Thus, everybody continues to be confronted with national biopolitics and body politics (Wodak, 2021).

Since the 1980s, the transformation of the former Eastern bloc, Germany's reunification, the enlargement and deeper integration of the European Union, together with persistent debates on immigration, migration and flight, focused attention on issues of historical and cultural (local, regional and national) identities. In the Member States of the European Union, the propagation of a new European identity was accompanied by the emergence or re-emergence of fragmented and unstable national and ethnic identities. Seemingly established collective, national identities became contested political terrain and the focus of political struggles.

This paper presents results from a comparative and qualitative discourse-historical analysis of governmental crisis communication in Austria, Germany, France, Hungary and Sweden, during the global COVID-19 pandemic lockdown from March 2020 to May 2020 (a 'discourse strand'). By analysing a sample of important speeches and press conferences by government leaders (all performing as the 'face of crisis management'), it is possible to deconstruct a range of discursive strategies announcing/legitimising restrictive measures in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic where everybody is in danger of falling ill, regardless of their status, position, education and so forth. I focus on four frames that have been employed to mitigate the 'dread of death' (Bauman, 2006) and counter the 'denial of death' (Becker, 1973/2020): a 'religious frame', a 'dialogic frame', a frame emphasising 'trust', and a frame of 'leading a war'. These interpretation frameworks are all embedded in 'renationalising' tendencies, specifically visible in the EU member states where even the Schengen Area was suddenly abolished (in order to 'keep the virus out') and borders were closed. Thus, everybody continues to be confronted with national biopolitics and body politics (Wodak, 2021).