From «absolute» time to «getting control over time»: theoretical aspects of social time in publications of the 1920-1930s

Abstract

The article addresses those publications by Russian scientists on sociological aspects of social time, which are little known. In our opinion, all of them are pioneering in the area of sociology of time. The focus is on such concepts as «the past, the present, and the future time, their content and correlation»; «time as the process of change»; «using time and control over time»; «time of an individual and time of a social system»; «biological time» as a step towards social time. It is indicated, that the first sociological study on time budgets was conducted in Petrograd in 1921-1922 by P.Sorokin. We tried to remain within the field of sociology, understanding sociology as a science about functioning and changes in social systems; these social systems are presented by the subsystems of the subjects, their activity, and relations between them, «immersed» into the cultural-institutional environment. When working at this article, the authors focused on those statements of the researchers which are of conceptual significance for both the science and the solution of real time-budget problems.