Abstract: The object of the research is a precedent name 'Munchausen'. The authors of the article analyze particularities of that precedent name in today's Russian press. Printed media cannot so fastly respond to the events going on in the world compared to TV, radio or Internet. For this reason, in recent years the main function of press media has been the influence function. The authors pay special attention to what precedent situations related to the name 'Munchausen' have been actualised in Russian press media and what impact it was supposed to made on readers. When selecting material for research, the authors have used the random sampling  method. In the course of processing the obtained corpus of examples, the authors have also conducted a cognitive discourse analysis of precedent phenomena as well as their comparison and classification. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that for the first time in the academic literature the authors have appealed to studying a particular precedent phenomenon associated with the German culture and how this phenomenon is shown in Russian press media. As a result of the research, the authors demonstrate that the precedent name 'Munchausen' actualises such representations as 'lier' and 'dreamer' while for precedent situations a formal actualisation is more typical.