Russian sociologists are held hostage to historical shocks and political conjuncture

As in many advanced countries of Europe, the development of sociology as a science in Russia began in the middle of the XIX century. This discipline is an industry that studies the laws of the functioning of society and its structure. At the same time, its development in our country was largely determined by historical upheavals and political conjuncture at a particular moment in time.

The pre-revolutionary period

The first Russian sociologists were to a large extent inspired by the works of Western scholars. First of all, Auguste Comte, Georg Simmel and Emile Durkheim. However, in the domestic conditions, this science has acquired a very special character. On the local soil, its main problem was the national idea.

It was at that time that Russian sociologists created many concepts that were crucial for the country (and are still very popular even today): Slavophilism, Westernism, and so on. The emergence of two camps supporting these ideas, then, determined sociological thought in the country in the middle of the 19th century. The Slavophils were convinced that the historical conditions of Russia formed here a completely unique social organism, which resulted in the need for further independent development and the rejection of the ideas of the European way, and even more so from integration. Russian sociologists of Western sentiments viewed Russia as a component of the pan-European civilization and advocated the division of the corresponding values, as well as the speedy integration into the European family.

Toward the end of the 19th century, and also at the beginning of the 20th century, subjectivism became the leading trend in Russian scientific thought. In the Russian realities, this teaching presupposed the ability of an individual to significantly influence the historical course of events at will, regardless of the objective laws of social and historical development. The most famous Russian sociologists of the pre-revolutionary period: N. Danilevsky, N. Chernyshevsky, L. Mechnikov, P. Lavrov and several others.

Sociological Science in the Soviet State

In the first post-revolutionary decade there was still a lot of freedom for the development of sociological ideas. The party was engaged in internal contradictions and a struggle of views on what course the state should develop. The science of society in this period was fully recognized and even supported, what Russian sociologists used.

So, in Petrograd and Yaroslavl universities even departments were created. In 1919 a sociological institute was founded in the country, corresponding literature was published. However, the further, the more the free-thinking was replaced, replaced by the Marxist approach to the study of society.

In the 1930s, sociology was altogether in the disgrace of the government, becoming for him pseudoscience. A new, timid attempt at revival is being undertaken by Russian sociologists of the 20th century in the second half, when in the 1960s its interrupted development continues in the system of related sciences - philosophy and economics. A certain recognition of the science of social development is received only in the 1970s and 1980s, and with freedom and perestroika. However, the financial collapse of the state led sociology, like many other sciences, for many years to a standstill.