Russian Sociology Research Articles

The History of the Moscow Institute of Social Psychology (Based on Materials from Institute Meeting Reports. 1917–1924)

The purpose of this article is to draw the attention of specialists in the field of social sciences to a unique collection of documents at Moscow’s Institute of social psychology (1917–1924) created by V.M. Khvostov — a legislative science expert, philosopher, sociologist, who set himself the task of separating sociology and making it a specialized scientific discipline. The only work to date devoted to the Institute was an article written by its employee L.A. Byzov in 1923 (published in 2011), where he speaks about the history of the Institute, its development, achievements and failures from the point of view of a person who knows the situation from the inside. This makes it invaluable in terms of studying the history of the Institute of social psychology, in this work in particular, which provides more detailed information about the activities of V.M. Khvostov, the Institute’s employees and specialists involved in its work. These people were actually performing a scientific feat, creating a new direction in the field of social sciences, working in the extremely difficult conditions of the post-revolutionary era. The content and completeness of those of the Institute’s protocols which found their way into our hands, them currently being stored in the archives of the European University in St. Petersburg, are worthy of a full-fledged scientific publication that could write another page in the history of Russian sociology.

Cоциально-экономическая адаптация рабочих горнозаводского Урала в конце XIX – начале XX в.

The instability of the social and economic development of post-Soviet Russia and the serious social costs of the reform course of its leadership have put forward among the priorities of Russian sociology the study of adaptation of various social groups to these reforms. Taking into account the duration of the formation of adaptation practices and their consolidation in the mass consciousness at the level of behavioral codes, this problem requires consideration on the historical material of Soviet and pre-Soviet Russia. This circumstance, as well as the lack of study of these subjects on the example of workers of the mining Urals at the turn of XIXth – XXth centuries due to the choice of research topics. All strategies of adaptation of the Ural workers considered in the article were divided into active and passive models of adaptation. The first includes various attempts to improve the production activities of their enterprises, including the introduction of working control over them, Handicrafts and secondary employment in agricultural work. The main manifestations of the passive version of social and economic adaptation were the appeal of the Ural workers to the past, the desire to preserve the various elements of the binding relationship and paternalistic attitudes of mass consciousness. In real life, the most widespread were mixed forms of adaptation behavior of workers in the Urals. Among the main adaptive factors, the influence of the features of the mining system, the psychology of local workers and the socio-cultural mechanism of «archaization of consciousness» are singled out. The latter two, in turn, made it difficult to modernize the mining industry of the region. Due to the lack of the necessary database to assess the level of efficiency of the adaptation process of the Ural workers to solve this problem, we use the criterion of its confrontational, equilibrium or harmonious nature. Taking into account the insufficiency of unambiguously active forms of adaptation and the mass character of Patriarchal and paternalistic practices, the conflict nature of land relations, the high level of the strike movement, including factory terror, we can talk about the predominance of the first option and therefore consider the socio-economic adaptation of the workers of the mining Urals to be of little success.

Теория прогресса П.Л. Лаврова

The paper discusses the elaboration of the views on the problem of progress of P.L. Lavrov, one of the founders of Russian sociology of the 19th – early 20th centuries. Generalization of a wide factual material and identification of the main trends of its development become increasingly relevant in the modern researches on the history of Russian sociology. The classification of the theories of progress is discussed by Russian sociologist as an attempt to generalize opinion, perception of the place of ideas and theory of progress in sociological science of that time, the subject and tasks of sociology of the essence, the criteria, the ideal and the mechanism (sources, factors, driving forces, conditions, subjects, and nature of development) of the progressive historical development, the place of the thinker’s views in the further development of the problem is assessed. It is concluded that the theory under consideration belongs to nominalist positivist evaluative theories of progress

My Scientific Supervisor - GM: to the 95th Anniversary of G.M. Andreeva

The article is devoted to the 95th birthday of Galina M. Andreeva, an outstanding scientist, a wonderful, bright personality. Memories about the scientific supervisor brings back to the 90s of the last century, when students were lucky enough to listen to lectures of G.M. Andreeva on social psychology, history of western social psychology (shared with N.N. Bogomolova and L.A. Petrovskaya) and psychology of social cognition. Readers can easily imagine the founder of the Social Psychology Department at the Faculty of Psychology of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. A person with an outstanding life, that could hardly have been imagined otherwise: a voluntary participation in the WW2, studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, the rebirth of sociology in Russia, the foundation of the Department of Social Psychology, and many generations of social psychologists.

Игорь Кон: «То, чем занимался я, этим никто другой не занимался»

В публикуемом интервью с выдающимся российским социологом и философом Игорем Семеновичем Коном речь идет об истории возрождения советской социологии в начале 1960-х годов, о создании и истории Института социологии. Нарратив начинается с истории возникновения взаимоотношений с российско-американским социологом и культурологом Питиримом Сорокиным, и шире — с рассказа о рецепции западных идей в отечественной социологии. В связи с этим отдельное место занимает рассказ о советской цензуре и попытках Кона влиять на изменение правил ее осуществления в области науки. Отдельный сюжет — семинарское движение в социологии, семинары Юрия Левады, встречи социологов в Кяярику. Упоминаются имена многих выдающихся советских социологов, стоявших у истоков возрождения социологии в России.

Russian Sociology of Cinema in the Context of Society Development

In the history of the Russian sociology of cinema (1910–2019), the development of which has been intermittent and fraught with drama, five waves of development are distinguished and discussed, interspersed with two tragic halts. The first wave is dated as a short prerevolutionary period. Russian researchers, under a strong impact from the social critique cinema in Germany and the very birth of the sociology of cinema there, strived to collect factual material regarding the impact of film spectacle on the souls of the young. Their nascent searchings were stopped by the 1917 revolutionary events and the ensuing civil war. The second wave (the mid-1920s to 1933) is the period of emergence and formation of the Soviet sociology of cinema. Researchers attempted to render some assistance to filmmakers in the latter’s tasks of schooling and enculturating the masses. Such activity on their part did not last long. In the administrative-command system of the 1930s, there was no place for the sociologist. Cinema found itself under Stalin’s personal control. The second long halt set in. The third wave (1963–1985) came as a period of rebirth and professionalization for the sociology of cinema under the conditions of Khrushchev’s «thaw» and the «developed socialism». The main stimulus for the progress was the problem of theater attendance and of cinema profitability. The fourth wave (1985–1991) was – according to its conception, anyway – the continuation of the third wave within the framework of «perestroika», with its course toward democratization and «glasnost». The societal position of the sociology of cinema improved significantly. The fifth wave (from 1991 to the present) is the period of restructuring the sociology of cinema, of its development and declining activity in the 2010s, premised on the subjectivization of the actual film policy and the contingent issue of financing the work of sociologists.

ТИПЫ «БУНТУЮЩЕГО ЧЕЛОВЕКА» В ТЕОРИИ БОРЬБЫ ЗА ИНДИВИДУАЛЬНОСТЬ Н. К. МИХАЙЛОВСКОГО

The article considers the conception of the historical types of a “rebellious human” in the ideological heritage of the Russian sociologist, publicist, Narodnik movement ideologist N. K. Mikhaylovsky (1842-1904). His concern for this issue, which affects the philosophical and anthropological content of his worldview, fits well into the ethically and anthropologically justified theory of struggle for individuality, in which the Russian Narodnik laid foundations for the conception of a sovereign personality. The historical types of a “rebellious human” represented in Mikhaylovsky’s works - “outlaws” and “devotees” - are considered as universal. Applying to the artistic and philosophical heritage of the German writer and essayist Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), the author draws parallels between the historical types of a “rebellious human” in Mikhaylovsky’s theory and the forms of rebellion in the epoch of modernity and post-history.

Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of the Research of Social Stereotypes Effect on the Marital Conflicts’ Occurrence

Theoretical and methodological approach to study-ing the influence of social stereotypes on the occur-rence of conflicts between marrieds are discussed in this article. The concept and types of social ste-reotypes are given. The forms of manifestation of marital conflicts and the causes of their occurrence, which are most likely to be affected by stereotypical attitudes, are disclosed. Basic approaches to the study of marital conflicts and their extreme form of manifestation – marital violence, are considered. The issue of marital conflicts is relevant for Russian so-ciology due to the growth of divorces and cases of crimes committed in the family. The social attitudes about appropriate behavior in marriage can influ-ence to the occurrence of conflicts in the family and the ways for resolving them. The research of the influence of social stereotypes on marital relations can help to develop measures aimed at improvement the institution of family and marriage in modern Russia.

WORKING CLASS IN THE CURRENT SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES: RUSSIAN CONTEXT

For many years, the working class has been an object of interest for Russian sociology. In Soviet sociology, a lot of research has been devoted to workers and industrial sociology. The point of attention of sociologists moved towards the study of labor relations and the protest movement in enterprises in the 1990s. Then the workers stopped being in the center of attention of sociology, but now interest in the working class is returning. This article is a form of analytical reflection on the research agenda for the study of workers by Russian sociologists. The analysis is based on publications on the research of Russian workers in the leading Russian sociological journals. Workers are considered as a social and professional group that is in a status crisis as an archaic social class that lost in the course of market reforms and represents an obstacle to modernization. Russian authors point to the return of the significant role of industrial workers against the background of a focus on the technological breakthrough of the Russian economy. An analysis of publications also shows that in recent years, researchers have found it difficult to access enterprises to study workers in their work environment, which affects the understanding of the situation of industrial workers in Russia. Workers have become a popular and convenient object of study as a statistical artifact present in sociological data bases, but sometimes this data speaks little of the real situation of the industrial working class. The article emphasizes the growing interest of Russian sociologists to workers and new approaches to their study, including the biographical method and the included observation.

AMBIVALENCE OF SOCIAL STIGMATIZATION OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST

Purpose of the study: The purpose of the article is to study the characteristics of the stigmatization process of modern youth in the Russian Far East. Special attention is paid to living conditions in the Russian Far East, noting that the majority of the population in the Far Eastern region and, above all, young people, are in a situation of social inequality and marginality in relation to the rest of Russians. Many young people associate their life strategies with leaving the territory of the Far East of Russia.
 Methodology: At the first stage of the study, the method of participant observation was used, which provided primary information about the impact of stigma on the self-identification of young people. At the empirical level of research, such sociological methods as document analysis, sociological surveys in the form of questioning and interviewing were applied. A sociological survey was conducted as a pilot study of the problems of stigmatization among high school and university students of the cities of Khabarovsk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
 Main findings of this article: Stigma is manifested in its own way in different times and in different communities, it is historically and socioculturally specific. Territorial stigma possesses signs of ambivalence, on the one hand, it has a negative effect on the socialization and self-identification process of young people in the Russian Far East, but on the other hand, it can act as an incentive for young people to make an active and conscious choice of their life strategy.
 Applications of this study: The findings can be used in the implementation of youth policy in the Far Eastern Federal District by state and local authorities in order to prevent the outflow of young people from the region. The main results of the study can be useful for use in the educational process in such disciplines as sociology, political science, regional studies, as well as for the further study of the problems of social stigmatization.
 Novelty/Originality of this study: The novelty and significance of the study lie in the fact that in Russian sociology practically no attention is paid to the problems of territorial stigmatization. The theoretical conclusions were obtained on the basis of the original sociological research conducted by the authors of the article in the cities of the Far Eastern region of Russia. The results provided new knowledge of both territorial stigmatization and social stigmatization in general. The novelty of the conducted study lies in the actualization of the problem of social stigmatization of Russian youth living in the Far Eastern region remote from the center of Russia.

IDEOLOGICAL AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION PROCESS OF SOCIOLOGY IN PREREVOLUTIONARY RUSSIA

Firstly, the question of institutionalization of sociology in Russia is of interest for historical and sociological analysis from the point of view of changing the world outlook paradigm in educated Russian society of the late XIX — early XX centuries. Secondly, it is a question of purely practical formulation of positivistic, materialistic and opposing ideas and teachings in our society. Sociologism and its institutionalization is the content and form of emergence and consolidation of the accomplished turn of public consciousness. The processes of penetration, dissemination and acquisition of official status by sociology in the institutional forms walked hard and slow. Today it is necessary to consider them retrospectively only in a historical perspective — in the light of the revolutions of 1917 and the events that immediately followed. This article demonstrates that today the emergence of sociological theory and its institutionalization in imperial Russia is not only the subject of interest of historians and social scientists, but also an essential point of understanding the dynamics of new ideas and theories, which must be taken into account in our present and in predicting the future.

Igor Kon: «You Can’t Hide Anything From History». From Email Correspondence With I.S. Kon. Part II. 2007-2008

This article provides the second part of my six-year correspondence with I. S. Kon. It began in April 2005 and broke off on March 5, 2011, shortly before Kon's death. The first publication contained 39 letters for 2005-2006, in the period under review, 2007-2008, we exchanged 107 letters. First of all, Kon's letters provide an opportunity to get actory of Russian sociology. In addition, they show his attitude to the facts and the nature of his assessments of his colleagues' activities as well as his ethics of historical search. I emphasize that this is not about the general theoretical arguments of Kon, but about examples of his discussion of specific, very difficult scientific and ethical situations.

«Well, were going to church...»: religious socialization in family following the interviews with believers and their children

Religiosity reproduction in religious families is a new and understudied area in modern Russian sociology. Due to the growth of the number of Russian believers in second and third generation, it has become possible to study the religiosity phenomenon not merely as a result of personal religious conversion, but as a consequence of cross-generational translation within families as well. The article presents the results of the empirical study of religiosity reproduction on religious families. Following the materials of the interviews (n=25) of religious persons (Orthodox and Protestant), the article describes various factors that to one degree or another, impact the religiosity transmission from parents to their children. One may state that in process of religious socialization family plays a more significant role than peers, Sunday school attendance, etc. It has been found that the level of enchurchment of adults is also connected to how they inherited their parents' models and styles of intrafamilial relations during their childhood.

Увлекательное путешествие по социологии религии. Рец. на кн.: Островская Е.А. Социология религии: введение. СПб.: Петербургское Востоковедение. 2018. 320 с.

Рецензия знакомит читателя с новой книгой известного российского социолога Е.А. Островской «Социология религии: введение», вышедшей в свет в 2018 г. в издательстве «Петербургское востоковедение» . Книга подробно и увлекательно описывает основные классические и современные концепции религии, принятые в социологии, каким образом социологические методы позволяют исследовать проявления религии в повседневной жизни, как устроены религиозные организации и как религия трансформируется в медиапространстве. Книга предназначена для самого широкого читателя, а уровень изложения и полнота освещаемого материала удовлетворят самого искушенного читателя.

Влияние социальных сетей на нравственные ценности молодежи

The study examined the impact of deeply ingrained social networks on the moral values of young people. This process was exemplified by a social group of young people aged 15-29 living in Smolensk region. The research investigated the theoretical approaches to defining the terms ‘young people’, ‘social network’, and ‘moral values’. The theoretical basis of the analysis included the typology of values by the Russian sociologist N.I. Lapin and the social network theory by the Spanish researcher M. Castells. The study resulted in the novel types of young users of social networks. Besides, the author determined the distinctive features of the types of users under consideration and a set of their moral values. Their lifestyle and type of thinking were described as well.

Correction of the object of social experiments D. A. Stolypin

The publication deals with the problem of correction of an object that occurred during the social experiment carried out by one of the first Russian sociologists, a follower of Auguste Comte, Dmitry Arkadievich Stolypin (1818 – 1893). In accordance with the level of development of sociological science of the last quarter of the XIX century the definition of the concept of «social experiment» was formulated. The reasons for the social experiment, conducted by D.A. Stolypin during 1874 – 1893 in Mordvinovka Village of Berdyansk District of Taurida Governorate (present Mordvinovka Village in Melitopol District of Zaporozhye Region) were identified. Among them, as the main ones, are indicated the crisis of landlord economy and peasant land shortage, in the conditions of the development of agrarian capitalism in the south of Ukraine. It is proved that the goal of the social experiment completely coincided with the direction of the search for social support in the village by the imperial top. The analysis of historical sources allowed the authors to establish that its essence was to create rental farms on landowner lands increasing the profitability of the latter and to popularize among the local peasantry the leading forms of intensive local economic management. Research revealed that in accordance with the sociological concept of D.A. Stolypin local peasants were the object of the experiment, who were asked to break economic ties with the rural community and get the farm in the medium-term lease. The formulation of criteria for comparative analysis made it possible to distinguish three stages in the course of the experiment – 1874-1877 years, 1878-1888 years, 1889-1893 years. The main argument in favor of such approach was not the fact of introducing changes in lease agreements with farmers as much as the involvement of peasants from different social strata in the experiment. Authors found that at the first stage farmers were the representatives of the kulak and prosperous strata of the peasantry, at the second – among the wealthy tenants there were peasants of medium welfare, and at the third – the wealthy and middle peasants were equally divided. The intermediate results of the social experiments by D.A. Stolypin, which were researched in terms of improvements of material facilities, increasing the area of cultivated land and monetary incomes, including farmers in the channels of upward vertical social mobility and changing their social status. At the same time, the article emphasizes that scientific heritage of O. Comte, A. Smith, G. Spencer, as well as the foreign experience of agrarian transformations and knowledge of local economic traditions which were used by sociologist-amateur betrayed the ideas of the formed farm settlement. Social experiment D.A. Stolypin is described in the publication as the longest in the history of national sociology.

Igor Kon: «You Can’t Hide Anything From History» From Email Correspondence With I.S. Kon. Part I. 2005-2006

This article is an introduction to the description and analysis of the electronic correspondence of the author with I.S. Kon, held in 2005-2011. Kon belongs to a narrow group of sociologists who stood at the origins of Soviet sociology. For many years, Kon has successfully worked in different areas of sociology, at the same time he is a recognized expert in the history of Russian and Western sociology. All this: 1) makes Kon a unique expert in the field of studying the entire period of development of Russian sociology, and 2) determines the historical, sociological and methodological value of his letters. Let us pay attention to the fact that the study of the correspondence of sociologists is a poorly studied topic, but there is a tendency to increase attention to it. The total number of letters is about 200. The texts of 39 letters for 2005-2006 are given. The history of correspondence and its content is briefly considered.

Теоретико-методологические подходы к изучению стереотипов в отечественной и зарубежной социологической науке

Теоретико-методологические подходы к изучению стереотипов в отечественной и зарубежной социологической науке

First Forum of Russian Sociologists – a New Stage in USSR Sociology Institutionalizing

В статье рассмотрена роль первого симпозиума советских социологов (1966), подтвердившего возрождение социологии в стране как самостоятельной науки, наряду с такими значимыми событиями, как создание Советской социологической ассоциации (1958) и Института конкретных социологических исследований (1968). Показано, что советская социология, утвердившаяся к середине 1960-х гг. как научное направление, выступала возрождением прерванных традиций, а не новым рождением. Подчеркивается, что освоение отечественного социологического наследия еще не завершено, нужны ретроспективные исследования.

From Brasilia to a Network City: The Reflections of a Russian Sociologist

I started my professional activity as the urban planner and researcher in the mid1950s after the visit of Oskar Niemeyer to Moscow. The idea of the article is to trace my own perception and views on various models of an ‘ideal city’ modelling in the context of changing role of large cities in a world social life and the evolution of theories of such cities. Drawing on the study of Russian and foreign literature on urban sociology and planning, on my own theoretical studies and developments and on the participation in three international research projects I came to the following conclusions. First, in the XX and XXI centuries an interest of sociologists and urban planners to the ‘ideal city’ modelling has not been interrupted. Second, there were two main forms of such modelling: the public discussions and pilot projects making. Third, the most impressive international discussion on the future of cities had been conducted in the Soviet Union in the period of 1929-32s. Fourth, before and after the WWII some of the ideas of that discussion had been realized in the process of restoration of Soviet cities. Fifth, with the beginning of so-called Khrushchev era (1950-mid1960s) an urban planning had experienced two major transformations: a regional planning had been quickly developed and an architectural activity had been divided in two realms: the architecture as such and the ‘simple construction.’ Sixth, in parallel the search of an ‘ideal organization’ of everyday life in the form of an ideal neighborhood was continued. Seven, in the end of 1960s we warned our government and professional community that an era of the Fourth Scientific and Technological revolution (hereafter the STR-4) is coming but that appeal had no response. Eighth, only now our scientific and urban community began to realize that we are entering in the transition period toward the construction of our cities on a network basis.