Sociology at the Belarusian State University: a time-honored tradition, history and public mission

Abstract

The article considers the age-old path of development of sociology at the Belarusian State University (BSU). It is argued that the institutionalization of sociology on the territory of Belarus began with the opening of the Belarusian State University and the creation of the Department of Sociology and Primitive Culture (S. Z. Katzenbogen), where students were given lectures on genetic sociology, issues of labor, law, cultural history, and sociology of family and marriage. After the identification of historical materialism with sociology, the teaching of sociological disciplines was excluded from the curricula of BSU. Sociology revived in the 1960s with the creation of the Problematic Research Laboratory of Sociological Studies at the BSU (PRLSS–BSU) (first head – Prof. I. N. Lushchitsky). In its depths, as well as in the sector of applied sociology at the Department of Philosophy of the Humanities Faculties (Prof. G. P. Davidyuk), personnel were trained and the necessary conditions were created for the opening of the Department of Sociology and the Department of Sociology in 1989 (the first head of the department was Prof. A. N. Elsukov). Professor G. P. Davidyuk is rightfully considered the founder of modern Belarusian sociology. At present, at BSU, centuries-old traditions in the field of sociological science and education are being developed at the Center for Sociological and Political Researches (headed by Prof. D. G. Rotman) and at the Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences (headed by Prof. A. N. Danilov).