Russian and Belarusian Students: World Views, System of Values, Self-Actualization Strategies. Part II

Abstract

The article is based on the results of the study “Young people in the post-Soviet space: pictures of the world, values, strategies of self-realization”, the empirical basis of which were sociological polls conducted in a comparable manner, conducted in October 2017 – February 2018 among the students from leading universities in Russia and the Republic of Belarus. The analysis of the data was carried out from the point of view of the problem of the internal consolidation of the “Russian world” and the prospects for a change of generations in the elites of the post-Soviet states (in this context, the student contingent of leading Russian and Belarusian universities is viewed as a kind of protoelite group). A comparison was made of the world pictures of Russian and Belarusian students, their social perceptions and value orientations, peculiarities of Russian and Belarusian identity, personal self-actualization strategies, including the choice of place of residence and the level of emigration attitudes. Both similarities and differences in the mentality of young Belarusians and Russians are revealed. In particular, the differences in the perception of the arrow of time, as well as in the emotional relation to the concept of “state”, revealed during the study are of great importance. Based on the results of the analysis, the article shows that the ideas about the life of Russian and Belarusian students are largely similar, but the relations between Russia and Belarus in the picture of the world of Russian and Belarusian youth are asymmetric. The article discusses the possible consequences of the difference between the pictures of the world and the value attitudes of student youth in Russia and Belarus for the fate of the “Russian world”.