Still, the Russians are smart people ?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A fairly large-scale all-Russian sociological research "The attitude of Russians to conservative values" 2016 … And the authors of such a large-scale project shared with journalists results in an open round table … Managed to get to this event in DomZhura and your correspondent.

It is difficult to determine what these are conservative values, looking ahead, the participants of the event did not fully decide on this list, but without a doubt they put in the list the family, national, religious (Orthodox and Muslim) values and, with some reservations, material and some spiritual values.

The research was conducted in the form of formal face-to-face interviews with adult respondents (> 18 years old) in 25 regions of the Russian Federation, including Moscow, St. Petersburg and Crimea. The sample of respondents was random and covered 2000 respondents. Some of the respondents for various reasons refused to be interviewed, but the statistical sample made as a result of the project eloquently testifies to the excess of conservative (50%) views of Russians over various others, including liberal (12%), monarchist (5%), socialist (20 %), as well as communist (5%) and anarchist (1%).

The research was carried out by a group of sociologists headed by Mikhail Tarusin, and he had the first opportunity to cover the analysis of the results that he presented in his speech. Mikhail Askoldovich drew attention to the fact that the research figures have changed dramatically in recent years, despite the general decline in the living standards of the interviewees, by about 2 times, away from a liberal position to a conservative one.

The speaker divided the liberals into groups, since some of them are conditionally liberals. Indeed, although they rely on freedom as their main position, they also share the values of conservatism, such as statehood, the values of the family as the main value of society, and support religious values. This group can be attributed to the so-called liberal conservatives. These are people who advocate reforms, but reforms are gradual and do not stand in tough opposition to the country's leadership.

Among the conservatives and conditionally liberal conservatives, there are many who disagree with how things are going in our country. But this criticism is not street criticism, but an attitude towards the problems accumulated in society. Sometimes, conservatives are even more oppositional than liberals. Usually these are more mature people or better off financially.

Socialists and communists are usually the poorest of all those surveyed. Accordingly, they are most dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. But they also have the beginnings of conservatism. In particular, they often perceive religion as one of the cultural values.

Monarchists are a group, the most vague one. I would call these people as undecided. It is not clear for whom and against what they are fighting.

In fact, not 50% of the people in our society can be classified as conservatives, but about two-thirds (65-67%). Since by their convictions, defining themselves into other groups, they are more conservative.

And the conclusion that can be drawn from the opinion poll is that our country is more conservative than any other country today. And conservatism, in accordance with Tursinov's hypothesis, has been and remains the inner core of the internal state of Russian society, both in the past and in the foreseeable future, in particular in the 21st century that has come.

One very important aspect, in the course of the survey, is Orthodoxy. About 80% of those surveyed consider themselves Orthodox. However, many "Orthodox" do not visit churches, are not churched, they go to church only on Easter or on Easter and Christmas, rarely on other major holidays. As before, under socialism, baptized people are called Orthodox, and in our survey 60-70% of Orthodox, but not entirely church-going people. Moreover, the "Orthodox" often got married and divorced several times, have 2-3 children.

An event within the framework of the "round table" involves a discussion, and many participants took advantage of this right. Bleher Leonid Iosifovich, a sociologist of the Public Opinion Foundation, spoke, who somewhere supported the conclusions of the authors of the project, somewhere challenged.

Vitaly Istomin, President of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia and the Far East, spoke about the situation of people living in gigantic territories adjacent to the Arctic Ocean, a territory that occupies up to 70% of the entire area of Russia. Of the peoples of the North, the most numerous are the Nenets, 44 thousand, and the smallest are Keriks - 42 people, and the total number of small nationalities is 250 thousand.

It is difficult to find more conservatives than these nationalities.

Oleg Zlobin, deputy editor-in-chief of the Otdykh v Rossii magazine, suggested that the state begin to take measures to preserve not only the rare peoples of the North, but also the titular nation - Russians with 1, 4 children per family, a figure close to the threshold of extinction.

Dentist Ekaterina Kuznetsova accused the mostly liberal (remember, 12% in the poll results) media of attacking conservative values.

The moderator of the round table, Mikhail Tarusin, suggested that many of the problems of the current state of affairs in the country are growing due to the fact that “we have not yet evaluated the 74 years of Soviet Power. And the contradiction between the conservative majority of the people and the liberal media is obvious."

Sergei Zankovsky, the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, dwelled on the movement of the majority of Russians from liberalism to conservatism, citing W. Rogers, who worked in the USSR almost from its creation to its collapse. Returning to the United States, he said: “Russia is such a country about which, whatever you say, everything will be true. Even if it's not true."

I would like to conclude the rather unexpected results of the conservatism of Russians and justify them with a quote from Winston Churchill: "Whoever was not a liberal in his youth has no heart, and who in adulthood did not become a conservative has no mind."

Still, the Russians are smart people ?!