Attitude to Historical Events and Ideas about the Place and Role of Russia in the Modern World: based on online survey material

Vnukova Liubov PhD in Politics Senior Scientific Associate, Federal Research Centre the Southern Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences 344006, Russia, Rostovskaya oblast', g. Rostov-Na-Donu, ul. Chekhova, 41 vnukoval@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

The context of the special military operation (SVO) has left its mark on social and humanitarian research, as shown by the corresponding search query in eLibrary. Russian sociological services regularly publish studies on the attitude of Russians towards their own, current socio-political events in Russia and in the world. In conditions of rapidly changing circumstances and growing collective concern (talk of mobilization, socio-economic consequences of sanctions pressure, emigration trend, etc.), monitoring of social processes becomes more relevant, and forecasting depends on a variety of difficult-to-predict indicators and inevitably has a shorter perspective.

At the end of 2022, the Public Opinion Foundation (POM) published statistics on the open question "What happened in the past year did Russians remember best?" ^[1], according to which 59% called the military special operation in Ukraine the event of the year, 4% – mobilization, and 26% found it difficult to answer or did not give an answer, and this is relative a high percentage. The SocioDigger magazine, published by VTSIOM, has devoted several issues since the beginning of its publication to how society and its institutions have changed, what are the arguments of the dispute between supporters and opponents: N. Savin, A. Firsov, A. Tatarko, E. Shestopal, I. Burikova, K. Dzhgamadze, O. Baisha, etc. wrote informative articles on this topic ^[2]. The periodical "Bulletin of Public Opinion", published by the Levada Center (recognized as a foreign agent), also addresses issues related to the conduct of ITS own and socio-political trends ^[3]. A.F. Filippov, head of the Center for Fundamental Sociology, Professor at the Faculty of Humanities of the Higher School of Economics, editor-in-chief of the journal "Sociological Review" in interview (autumn 2023) described the current situation that all humanities are currently experiencing and the difficulties faced by scientific developments. ^[4]

The results of the online survey presented in this paper are a logical continuation of the study published in the chapter of the monograph "The image of Russia, Ukraine and Donbass in the surveys of students from Rostov-on-Don, Donetsk and Lugansk: analysis of the results of the pilot study in 2022" ^[5]. A questionnaire dedicated to the study of public opinion on current political processes in the context of events in Donbas was located on the Questionnaire service. The online survey was conducted from the third decade of May to the beginning of July, 282 people answered all the questions (52.8% men, 47.2% women). The data mainly cover the Rostov region (119 responses), another region (75), the DPR (52), Krasnodar Territory (26), the LPR (9), Crimea (1). At the same time, more than half of the responses (57.8%) were given by young people under the age of 24. The remaining groups were distributed as follows: from 25 to 34 years old – 9.2%; from 35 to 44 years old and from 45 to 55 years old – 12.8% each, in total a quarter of the respondents; over 55 years old – 7.5%.  The data are not representative, however, the analysis of public attitudes in the context of identifying beliefs and values, reconstructing collectively shared meanings about Russia's place and role in the modern world based on the correlation of the data obtained with All-Russian representative opinion polls and the results of other studies is of scientific value.

If we present generalized data on some issues to characterize the views of the target audience, then 67% of respondents are constantly interested in politics (22% from time to time); 55.3% often discuss political issues with friends (sometimes 37.6%). Thus, the audience of the survey is highly politicized, which is natural, since the study was conducted using the snowball method – initially the questionnaire was distributed among acquaintances and on social networks, and after passing, along with gratitude, there was a request to distribute a link to the survey. This method was chosen because of objective circumstances that make it difficult for respondents to reach the territory of military operations - initially, the study was aimed at comparing the results across different regions. Obviously, only those interested in the topic will spend time filling out the questionnaire. Under these conditions, it is impossible to estimate how many people did not take the online survey for various reasons. However, the Questionnaire service displays information that out of 515 clicks on the link, there are 282 completed responses. That is, these are those who opened the link, read the questions and did not fill in, or the questionnaire was not filled out completely. In general, the change in the conditions for conducting sociological research was discussed at the Grushin conference in May 2023 and the meeting of the National Assembly of VTSIOM "The interview situation – what has changed in the year of the CBO?" in June 2023. Experts noted: "... the layering of the very topic of the CBO: the subject of discussion affects all spheres of social interaction of Russians, while public consciousness as a whole <...> remains stable: supporters, opponents and citizens who adhere to neutral positions regarding the conduct of a special military operation maintain a sequence of opinions, while the question of the degree of sincerity that respondents allow themselves in communicating with researchers remains debatable" ^[6]. An alternative point of view is presented by E. Kozerenko: "... the hypothesis that the increased level of unattainability is explained by the respondents' fears of giving frank, socially disapproved answers is not confirmed. This effect is mainly caused by the respondent's feeling that his opinion cannot influence anything and, as a result, mass exclusion, distancing of the population from social issues, withdrawal into private life" ^[7]. The identification and analysis of real trends in society, and what people really think, is the focus of attention not only of scientific institutions, researchers, but also of government agencies responsible for domestic policy, therefore it is highly relevant.

In the absence of representativeness, one of the research tasks is to create a social portrait of the respondents to the questionnaire. As mentioned above, the majority are young people, respectively, 52.8% chose the answer "student/student". The second most popular answer is "I work in a government/budgetary institution" (19.5%). The third is "an employee in the commercial sphere/in production" (16.3%). Answer options: entrepreneur, soldier, pensioner, unemployed, "I do not work on my own / housewife" scored a small number of answers, which does not allow us to draw separate conclusions on these groups in the future. The distribution by level of education is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Education.

The answers to the question: "To what extent are you satisfied with the life you lead now?", shown in Figure 1, show that half of the respondents (51.4% – the sum of those who answered "quite ..." and "mostly satisfied") are, in principle, satisfied with their lives. Only 12.8% are not satisfied with the life they lead. The question is interrelated in meaning: "Which segment of the population do you consider yourself to belong to?" I found out that more than half of them are financially well-off. 56.4% identified themselves as "well-off people: enough money for food, housing, clothing, education, recreation, durable goods." (The full distribution is shown in Table 2.) The percentage distribution of the answers received to these two questions does not logically contradict each other. As a result, most of those who showed interest in the study are young people under 35 years old, financially well–off, students or working in government institutions. One third of the respondents are other social groups, small in number, which have their own peculiarities in their views. Understanding and noting this point, we leave small groups behind the focus of attention due to the inability to investigate their relationship based on the results obtained.

Diagram 1. Distribution of answers to the question "To what extent are you satisfied with the life you lead now?"

Table 2. Which segment of the population do you consider yourself to belong to? (Single selection)

To understand the ideological orientations of the audience covered by the survey, an analysis of the distribution of responses reflecting attitudes to key historical events is indicative. Thus, the collapse of the USSR is negatively assessed by more than sixty percent of respondents (37.6% sharply negative, 22.7% rather negative). It was difficult to answer – 14.5%. If we turn to similar data from VTSIOM on December 30, 2022, 51% believe that there was more good than bad in the Soviet Union. 38% believe that the good and the bad were equal. According to the same study, the USSR is associated with stability (16%), carefree childhood (15%), good time (15%), friendship of peoples (13%) ^[8].

Another epoch–making event, the change of power in Ukraine during the Maidan 2014, was negatively assessed by more than two thirds of respondents (57.8% sharply negative, 12.1% rather negative). 21.3% found it difficult to answer. The annexation of Crimea to the Russian Federation was fully positively assessed by 59.2%, rather positively by 20.6%, that is, in total, more than three quarters of all respondents. They found it difficult to answer – 9.2% – the minimum figure of the seven proposed events. All–Russian opinion polls are relevant to the results obtained, for example, representative sociological data from VTSIOM: "The attitude of Russians towards the entry of Crimea into Russia is predominantly positive (85%), more than half of the respondents stated this with full confidence - 63% (+17 percentage points to the data of 2021). 9 expressed a negative attitude% (in 2021 – 13%)" ^[9]. Similar indicators are published by the Levada Center (recognized as a foreign agent) ^[10]. Further, two thirds of the respondents positively assessed the formation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in 2014 (44.7% entirely positively, 21.6% rather positively). It was difficult to answer – 19.5%. Approximately the same assessment was given to the entry of new subjects into the Russian Federation in 2022 (entirely positive – 52.8%, rather positive – 16.3%). 11.3% found it difficult to answer. Thus, based on the attitude to these five events, it can be concluded that about two thirds of the audience covered by the survey are patriotic citizens loyal to the course of the current government.

The distribution of responses to the remaining two events affecting the daily lives of ordinary citizens to a greater extent – the conduct of a special military operation (SVO) and related mobilization (partial mobilization) shows that approval ratings are shifting downwards, negative attitudes are increasing and the indicator "I find it difficult to answer" is growing. The conduct of a special military operation is generally perceived positively: 36.2% – entirely positive, 24.8% – rather positive, there is a shift towards the mitigating wording "rather positive" compared to the attitude towards the events discussed earlier. 16.7% found it difficult to answer. Mobilization (partial mobilization) became the most controversial event among the respondents. (Table 3.)

Table 3. Attitude to mobilization, %

T. Bespalova comes to a similar conclusion based on her research in 2023: "The scrapping of familiar communication models after the start of SVO and mobilization led to a worldview split among young people about the events taking place (some left the country). Political unambiguity in relation to those who left the country at the level of public policy does not correlate with the real sentiments among young people. A youth survey conducted in 2023, "What kind of patriotism does modern Russian youth need?", in particular on the issue of mobilization, patriotism, and attitudes towards those who left, revealed ambiguity of positions" ^[11]. In this context, the thesis proposed by E. V. Zarubina on the basis of interviews and focus groups is also relevant: "There is no direct correlation among young people who are negatively related to the conduct of a special military operation in Ukraine by our country and the presence of a liberal pro-Western worldview among them" ^[12]. This conclusion can also be attributed to the results of the presented study, some of the "dissenters" can be called patriots of Russia, thus, the semantic fabric of beliefs (cognitive attitudes) is complex, diverse and contradictory.

The existence of alternative points of view in society is indicated by positive answers to the question "Were there conflicts in your family and/or your friends/acquaintances about the situation in Ukraine (in Donbass)?" – yes – 55%, provided that only 7.1% found it difficult. The issue of contradictions attracts the attention of researchers, for example, O. Baisha analyzes the state discourse in Russia and Ukraine and how alternative meanings are displaced and dominant meanings are fixed ^[13]. A. Firsov analyzes in detail the arguments of those who disagree, but remain, their strategies of adaptation to the dominant discourse ^[14], as well as many others explore the origins, dynamics, various aspects, etc. of the conflicts that have manifested themselves.  

Returning to our research, a number of questions reveal cognitive attitudes about Russia and the Russian world. Collective ideas about the place and role of the Russian Federation in the modern world are presented in Table 4. The proposed six positions can actually be grouped into three groups. The first one includes two judgments: Russian Russians have always been and should remain a multinational imperial civilization with the leading role of Orthodoxy and Russian culture in it" (25.2%) – the most popular answer – and "Russia has always been an empire with the leading role of the Russian nation in it, including Great Russians, Little Russians and Belarusians" (12.8%). Both formulations contain the most important ideology of "Russia-Empire". (For more information about ideologems, see the monograph "Games on the ideological periphery. Right-wing radical attitudes of the student youth of the Rostov region" ^[15], in which, on the basis of a discursive-cognitive approach, this concept refers to "the sphere of ideological orientations (attitudes), i.e. cognitive structures realized in the discursive sphere" ^{[15, p. 25]}). However, in the first formulation, the emphasis is on the past and present, the role of religion and Russian culture, and the uniqueness of Russian civilization. The second focuses only on the past and the "Slavic trinity", however, the belief that "Russia is an empire" is gaining a little more than a third among the surveyed audience. Further, the key meaning of the second block is the idea of "Russia is a power" (a great power, a world power), which is represented by the second most popular answer "Russia was, is and will be a great Eurasian power with its own geopolitical interests" (20.9%) and a similar conviction "After the collapse of the USSR, Russia lost the role of a world power, but currently it is returning to itself" (14.2%). Both judgments emphasize the aspiration to the future – Russia is a "world/great power" in the future. About a third of the respondents also supported this opinion. It should be emphasized that in these formulations there are no references to national, religious, cultural and civilizational discourses. At first glance, in almost synonymous sentences, however, there are "shades" of meaning that subconsciously influence the final choice. And finally, the third semantic block of the considered judgments assumes a more modest role for Russia in the future: either within the framework of European civilization – "The best future for Russia is integration (economic, cultural, political) into European civilization" (11%); or a separate regional center – "After the collapse of the USSR, Russia turned into a country"the Third world" and can only claim to be a regional leader" (8.5%). It should be noted that the ideological connectives "Russia-Empire", "Russia-power" in the formulation are replaced by "leadership" – a word semantically and conceptually belonging to the Western tradition. Thus, those who chose this answer implicitly assess Russia from a globalist perspective.

Table 4. Which of the following judgments would you agree with? (Single selection)

At first glance, there is some semantic contradiction between the percentage distribution of the considered judgments and 41.8% who chose the answer "It is essential for me that the government be elected freely and democratically by the will of the people and those in power respect the law and human rights" to the question: "Personally, it is important to you who is in state power?"(Diagram 2.). We remember that we are talking only about those who filled out the questionnaire, not about a representative representation of existing views in modern Russia. Nevertheless, a number of interesting observations can be made: more than 40% of those who expressed interest and filled out the questionnaire have democratic beliefs and values, the concepts of "human rights" and "rule of law" are actualized in their minds. More than two thirds, as it was found out above, are patriotic citizens who generally support the course of the current government. Thus, these beliefs and meanings in the consciousness (or subconscious – a question for the researcher) of citizens coexist, at least for some of the respondents – the current confrontation with the "collective West" in official discourse and the immanent acceptance of democratic institutions and traditions, relevant values and protection of human rights. Russia is seen as part of this very "West" in various spheres – ranging from mass culture, lifestyle and consumption levels to economic and political interconnectedness. Let's formulate this ideology as "Russia is part of the West", in the understanding it is connected with the "West" and is part of the globalized world. For each respondent, this relationship may be different (dominance, dependence, equality), as well as the presence of selectivity: we accept some things, and some do not.

Diagram 2. Distribution of answers to the question "Is it important to you personally who is in government?"

The second most popular (Figure 2.) answer "Yes, the state thrives when it is ruled by charismatic personalities" is gaining 26.6% of supporters among the audience covered by the survey, and this is more than according to All-Russian sociological surveys. A.L. Andreev, I.A. Andreev, E.D. Slobodenyuk in the article "Russians' ideas about the future of Russia" They cite the following results: "In 2000, almost 29% of Russians agreed with the thesis "Russia can flourish only when it is headed by a strong personality, the owner", in 2017 – 22%. In the spring of 2022, after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, the same 22% supported him." The authors conclude that "If there was an authoritarian demand in Russian society, it has been weakening in recent decades" ^[16]. The remaining answer options show the respondents' orientation towards foreign or domestic policy, as well as highlight the priority of the collective or individual. These topics will be discussed in more detail in the next article, now we only indicate this area of analysis.

To the question "What do you think the "Russian World" is? more than half replied that it was "an ideological movement with the right values: the pursuit of peace, justice, linguistic and cultural unity, etc." (Figure 3.) And the following clarifying question about the most appropriate definition of this concept turned out to be more informative in the context of the theses discussed above: "The Russian World" is a project for the revival of the Russian Empire, including different ethnic groups that have experienced the historical influence of Russian culture and civilization" – 38.7% – and this is the most common answer (Table 5). It completely coincides in the number of percentages in Table 4. with those who chose two answers containing the combination "Russia-Empire". Thus, it is possible to verify the previously fixed ideology among a significant part of the respondents. 

Diagram 3. Distribution of answers to the question "What do you think the "Russian world" is?"

Table 5. Which of the following definitions of the "Russian World" do you consider the most successful? (Single selection)

Russian Russian World" Semantic frontier of the concept "Russian World": antiquity and modernity" in the article 2023 S.P. Potseluev, M.S. Konstantinov, R.A. Pupykin propose a periodization of the concept evolution: "The first is the initial, this is the moment of crystallization of the lexicoconcept "Russian World" from a set of ideas and terms reflected in the works of G. Pavlovsky, Ch. Chernyshev, P. Shchedrovitsky and other researchers from 1993 to 1997. The second period (1998-2005) is characterized by the deployment of the geo-economic version of the "Russian World", the first experience of its implementation in government and administrative structures" ^[17]. The third period, highlighted by the authors since 2006, is marked by the "entry of the "Russian world" into power" in the geocultural version of this concept. The fourth period is associated with the political crisis in Ukraine (since about 2012), when the geopolitical meaning of the "Russian World" was emphasized in the ideological sphere ^[17]. Representative sociological data from VTSIOM date back to 2014. Most likely, the relevance of the survey was related to the annexation of Crimea. Russian Russian Russian Russian World According to the results, 71% (!) of respondents had never heard of the "Russian World" until the moment of the survey: "Those who are familiar with the phrase "Russian World" believe that we are talking primarily about Russians (3%), people who were brought up in the traditions of Russian culture (3%). Russian Russian is associated with it by some respondents (1%), for others it is a synonym for the words "Russia" and "Homeland" (1%), etc. Some could not say exactly what, in their opinion, is included in the concept of "Russian world" (2%), although they had previously encountered this term" ^[18].  That is, in total, about 160 people (10% of the sample of 1600) are familiar with this concept. And, further, the meaning of this concept is revealed: "According to two thirds of respondents who consider the "Russian World" to really exist, it can unite people of different faiths (67%) and nationalities (65%). It also includes the territories of residence of Russian people (including outside our country) – 66%. Russian russians who do not speak the Russian language can be part of the "Russian World" – 56% are sure. The most controversial question is whether people of a different culture can be considered to be "Russian world": if 48% answer in the affirmative, then 45% are "against"" ^[18]. Thus, the geo-economic, geopolitical and geocultural aspects of the "Russian World" highlighted by the researchers are confirmed. The unfolding of discourses around Crimea and Donbass, political events over the past 9 years, have certainly influenced the ideological dynamics of society and the holding of a second representative survey has been updated, which will clarify the field of meanings around the "Russian World" at the moment.

In our opinion, the ideas of Messianism, a special civilizational and Orthodox identity, "Russianness" (in the ethnic sense) As unifying factors, they are not of primary importance for the majority of respondents, unlike, for example, the imperial idea and/or a strong state to be proud of (Russia is a great power). What is the unifying potential of various forms of identity; the nature, depth and interrelation of these and other beliefs will be discussed in the next article based on open questions about Russia, Ukraine, the image of the future of Donbass, judgments about the main ideas and values that can unite people in the current conditions. This issue is deeply interrelated with the modern debate about what kind of state ideology Russia needs and whether it needs it.

The special military operation has affected all spheres of Russian society, significantly changing the fabric of socio-political discourse, triggered changes in ideological views and posed questions to everyone: "what is my civic position?" "What are the values that are worth defending?" "how much do I participate in the collective life of the country or do I live only my private life?" and other pressing issues. The events of 2022 are an impetus to reflect and ideologically define their position for every Russian. In future research, it will be interesting to find out why people are willing to endure difficulties, the ratio of individual and collective in the mass consciousness, and how much people see themselves or not as part of the "Western" world, whether they are ready to follow a "special" path of state development.

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