Online greetings in Russian, Polish and German are analyzed in this article. The author treats greetings as a speech act that helps the addresser remind the addressee about his warm feelings towards him/her on the basis of a particular occasion – for instance, the birthday of the addressee. The author analyzes this speech act in relation to peculiarities of communicative and mental scenarios of the culture to which the speaker belongs. The entirety of standard speech acts and the combination of intentions of the speakers form a genre. The genre of modern online greetings seems contiguous to folklore genres because most of the texts do not have authors. Moreover, these texts move from one Internet site to another. Therefore, there is a wide circle of ‘implementers’ – users. The author distinguishes some typical characteristics of online greetings in three cultures. The emphasis on the figure of the speaker and incantation character are typical to Russian greeting texts. Happiness, health and eternal youth are the key objects of Russian greeting texts. Russian greetings are related to the future. German greetings are mainly related to the birthday celebration itself. Greetings are often related to the review of a life: it is wished that this day the addressee has made sure that he/she has lived this year in the right way. Word courage (Mut) is constantly repeated in German greetings while this word is absent in Russian greetings. The figure of the speaker is marginally expressed in Polish greetings. The sweetness of life is present in Polish greetings, whereas it is not observed in German and Russian texts. May all your dreams come true is a cliché element of Polish greeting texts. The author relates detected specific features of online greetings with the ideas of philosophers and historians on the peculiarities of the expression of national character.
