Institute of Sociology

Taking into account the relevance of the problem of euthanasia in the context of the increase in severe cancer and genetic diseases, the article shows, based on the data of the Monitoring of the IS FCTAS RAS 2024 (N = 2000) and the World Values Survey (2006 and 2017–2022), that in their attitude towards euthanasia, Russians are divided into two almost equal groups. Each of them has its own core and periphery, the members of which occupy an oscillating or intermediate position between the cores of these groups. Such an ambiguous situation is not something unique – in the global context, Russia occupies an intermediate position between the countries of the “collective West” and the “world majority” in terms of its population’s attitude towards euthanasia, gradually converging with the latter. At the same time, the perception of euthanasia by Russians is not an isolated component of their worldview but is closely related to its other “blocks”. Even belonging to certain age or religious groups is important not in itself, but primarily through its influence on the formation of certain worldview systems. The key factor in terms of the comparative significance of worldview factors influencing the perception of euthanasia is the attitude to life as a value. This attitude is also associated with attitudes towards compliance with the requirements of the law and moral norms – like the denial of the value of life, moral and legal relativism increases tolerance towards euthanasia. Another important factor influencing the attitude of Russians towards it is the degree of a person’s integration into society, which is manifested through the nature of his identities and the level of interpersonal and institutional trust characteristic of him. The higher it is, the lower the tolerance towards euthanasia. Of the objective factors most closely associated with attitudes toward euthanasia, the most significant are the presence of serious health problems in the person himself or members of his household, as well as a violation of the work-rest balance that contributes to his “burnout,” significantly increasing tolerance to it.

In sociological research, including those used to support legal decisionmaking, situations often arise where the awareness of certain trademarks becomes a subject of debate. According to the author, this demonstrates the need to improve measurement tools. Their division into recall (unaided awareness) and recognition (aimed awareness) scales is considered to be common. The author conducted an empirical study of the properties of the latter type of tools. A series of five cognitive interviews, conducted using the probing method with respondents participating in mass surveys, was aimed at identifying the potential for interpreting the standard wording of brand awareness questions. It revealed that the dichotomous form (I know/I don’t know) may underestimate the true extent of brand awareness in general. This hypothesis was tested in a split-sample street survey, divided into control and experimental groups. The wording of the control group questions was traditional for measuring brand awareness, offering respondents a nominal response scale. In the experimental group, the wording of the questions used an ordinal scale. The primary hypothesis was that, due to the inaccuracy of respondents’ interpretation of the dichotomous scale, the level of awareness in the control group would be lower than in the experimental group. Empirical testing confirmed that using dichotomous response options systematically underestimates the level of awareness of trademarks and other objects studied in mass surveys. Although the extent of this underestimation will not be critical for many practical purposes, to avoid additional measurement error in some cases, the author concludes that it is advisable to use ordinal recognition scales instead of conventional nominal ones.

In the paper, we analyze the basic terminological apparatus of the Late Antique and Byzantine grammar and philosophical theory of language, as well as the conceptual grounds and problem spots that determined the divergence between the concept of language among grammatists and philosophers at the stage of formalizing the grammar and philosophical knowledge where, in the imperial world of the early and classic Byzantium, they acquired a stable form of school disciplines with a unified curriculum and a primordial authoritative text. The core subject of our study is thematization of differences and identities in the gramma and philosophical interpretation of the terms φωνή, ὄνομα, ῥῆμα, λόγος and λέξις. As primary research material for the philosophical school tradition, we engaged the commentaries on Aristotle’s “On Interpretation”, with the commentary of Ammonius of Alexandria in the first turn, for, as our paper demonstrates, it was the primary text of the Byzantine tradition of teaching the philosophical grammar and the guideline for newly written educative commentaries, paraphrases and scholia on “On Interpretation”. For its part, as research material for grammar school tradition, we took commentaries on Ars grammatica of Dionysius of Thracia that, being partly preserved in the educative codices of the scholia to this treatise that held in the grammar theory of language the similar place to the first six chapters of “On Interpretation” in the philosophical branch.

The paper considers discourse analysis instruments for investigation of political communications. The research is based upon example of communist movement discourse. Ideological conflicts within communist organizations appeal to the legacy of theorists of the past century. Participants in disputes identify themselves with certain trends and oppose their positions to those of their opponents. However, scientific analysis of these divisions is hampered by the lack of an adequate methodological apparatus. Postmodern versions of discourse analysis dissolve material relations into language games. Critical approaches fix grammatical structures but do not trace the connection between the text and the class positions of its producers. Historiographical narratives select quotations according to a pre-established scheme. These limitations give rise to the need for a different tool. The article develops materialist discourse analysis as a method for identifying power interests in symbolic space. The theoretical basis consists of W. Lippmann's propositions on stereotypes, G. Lasswell's categories of political communication, and M. Foucault's procedures for discourse control. The analytical scheme divides discourse into two dimensions: vertical and horizontal. The vertical dimension is broken down into deep, middle, and surface levels. The horizontal dimension includes the center and the periphery. The center is determined by the referential core of discourse. The scientific novelty of materialistic discourse analysis lies in considering discourse not as a language game, but as a socially conditioned objectified interest that reproduces relations of domination. The vertical dimension shows the transformation of interests into political formulas. The horizontal dimension shows the mechanism of competition for the meanings of words, the use of external, internal, and social control procedures. The referential core of discourse allows us to track this struggle for meaning. The effectiveness of the method has been tested on V. I. Lenin's 1923 text “Better Less, But Better.” The reference core of the discourse is the provisions of Karl Marx's Critique of the Gotha Program. The procedure made it possible to identify the points of convergence between the two discourses, their differences, and Lenin's specific innovations. The latter include an emphasis on the quality of personnel, the problem of retaining power in an agrarian country, and criticism of the growing bureaucracy. The proposed method helps to analyze political texts and reconstruct ideological discourses and political formulas.

This article analyses the near periphery of the poor group in Russia—Russians with incomes between 1 and 1.5 times the subsistence minimum. The article raises three questions: what is the size and characteristics of this group of Russians, how has it changed over the past 11 years (and whether, in this regard, the group has retained its character as an intermediate zone, significantly different from both the poor group and the rest of the population), and whether members of this group are in need of state support (given that their incomes preclude them from qualifying for a significant portion of state assistance). To answer these questions, the article compares them with other, higher-income and poorer Russians. The analysis was conducted using data from the national representative studies "Poverty and the Poor in Modern Russia" (April 2013) and "The Dynamics of Social Transformation of Modern Russia in the Socioeconomic, Political, Sociocultural, and Ethnoreligious Context" (June 2023, April 2024). The study found that those living on the periphery of poverty have become very similar to the poor in terms of sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics, as well as their subjective perception of life. However, this convergence of the groups occurred primarily due to accelerated changes within the poor group. As a result, these processes have largely led to the loss of the unique characteristics of this group as an intermediate zone, which was characteristic of it in the 2000s. Russians with incomes between 1 and 1.5 times the subsistence minimum in 2024 are comparable to the poor in terms of the nature of their daily problems, what they have achieved in life, and what they no longer hope to achieve. The only difference is that they lack a marginalised subgroup. Consequently, they are almost as likely to express a need for state support, even though they are somewhat less likely to identify as constantly needy and are slightly more likely to feel responsible for their lives. Therefore, we conclude that this group requires government attention, and expanding the range of social support measures aimed at Russians with incomes below 1.5 times the subsistence minimum meets their needs and is timely.

Within the framework of the dominant version of Tatar national history, the intellectual elites of post-Soviet Tatarstan construct and broadcast a negative image of Peter the Great as a “persecutor of Muslims” and an “enemy of the Tatar people” into the mass consciousness. This version contradicts the images of Peter the Great as a “great emperor”, which are created and broadcast within the framework of the federal Russian history. The results of our research have shown, firstly, that representatives of the political elite of Tatarstan in their public speeches, unlike intellectual elites, positively assess the activities of Peter the Great; secondly, the analysis of interview materials and questionnaire survey shows that the majority of Kazan residents highly and positively assess the role of Peter the Great in the history of Russia and Tatarstan and the respondents consider Peter the Great primarily as a historical figure of all-Russian scale, and to a lesser extent as a personality who influenced the history of Tatarstan. Thus, the data obtained show that the negative assessments of Peter I's activities given by the Tatar intellectual elite are poorly represented both in the views of the republic's political elite and in the mass historical consciousness of Kazan residents, regardless of their ethnicity or age.

One of the methodological problems that may arise while conducting qualitative research is the problem of “professional informants”: in some fields, a small group of people forms who are considered by the local community to be experts and bearers of local knowledge, which ultimately leads to the loss of a significant amount of information and the extrapolation of the opinions of a narrow circle of informants to the entire community under study. In this article, the authors show that, given limited time resources, one of the tools for overcoming this problem was the use of quantitative methods. This made it possible not only to obtain new data that did not fit into the version of “professional informants”, but also, with the help of a survey, to reach those informants who, due to their perceived lack of expertise, refused to be interviewed. The materials from these interviews also helped to reveal other ideas and practices that did not correspond to the picture painted by the “professional informants”. This problem is illustrated by the example of field research on the ethno-confessional situation in a mestizo rural community (Khasurta, Buryatia). The results of the questionnaire survey and interviews that the authors were able to conduct showed that the ethno-confessional picture of the rural community is more diverse and colorful, in contrast to the verified and consistent version constructed by “professional informants”. Due to the diverse data obtained through a mixed-methods strategy, the authors develop an explanatory model that reflects the complex process of interaction between the categorical policies of local elites and the everyday perceptions of ordinary people.

This article explores the most recent wave of emigration from Russia to key countries in the Asia-Pacific region, namely the United States, Canada, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. It focuses on the consequences of the Ukrainian crisis and Western-imposed sanctions, assessing their impact on migration trends and the socio-economic status of Russian emigrants. Based on statistical data and sociological surveys, the study demonstrates a general increase in emigration from Russia to the selected destinations, with the exception of Japan, where numbers have declined. The article also highlights how the Special Military Operation and media narratives initially led to a deterioration in public attitudes toward Russian-speaking communities, though by mid-2023, this negative sentiment had largely subsided. The analysis underscores that economic and social factors remain the primary drivers of emigration, despite external restrictions. Moreover, the article details the challenges faced by highly skilled Russian professionals abroad, particularly concerning labor market integration, often hindered by institutional and cultural barriers. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of ongoing emigration dynamics and offer relevant insights for decision-makers shaping migration policy and strategies for supporting Russian citizens abroad. The study enhances knowledge on how geopolitical shifts influence regional migration in the Asia-Pacific.