Students about the Great Patriotic War (based on a survey results of students at universities in Moscow and Astrakhan)

About the authors:

Vera V. Diakova, Cand. Sci. (Soc.), Associate Professor, Department of Humanitarian Sciences and Psychology, Astrakhan State Technical University; vvdyakova@yandex.ru; ORCID: 0000-0002-3715-1393

Ekaterina V. Kargapolova, Dr. Sci. (Soc.), Associate Professor, Deputy Director for Science, Higher School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (Moscow); Professor, Department of Economic Sociology and Psychology of Entrepreneurship, Belarus State Economic University (Minsk); k474671@list.ru; ORCID: 0000-0002-2892-3953

Uliya A. Davydova, Cand. Sci. (Hist.), Associate Professor, Department of Political Science and Sociology, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (Moscow); ylkadav@mail.ru; ORCID: 0000-0001-5660-328X

Abstract:

2020 is marked by the celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the Great Victory. This event is significant both for individual citizens, whose families include (or included) veterans of the war and home front, and for the state as a whole, since patriotism is an important factor in ensuring the stable development of the country, the continuity of generations, and the consolidation of the population. That is why the relevance of this topic is beyond doubt.

The Russian Society of Sociologists initiated the next wave of the monitoring project “Modern Russian Students on the Great Patriotic War” (the method of collecting information — online questionnaires on Google Forms, N = 10 065; the results were processed using the Vortex software package), the results of which will not only allow studying the opinions of young people on this topic, but can also be used to analyze the value orientations of young people over the past 15 years and make forecasts. This article describes some of the results of this project, obtained in Moscow and Astrakhan.

Students’ opinions are analyzed according to a number of indicators: memory of the war, sources of knowledge about the war, family relations with the war participants, personal and family involvement in understanding the events of the 1941-1945 war, participation in festive events and their assessment. The characteristic is given to the value attitudes and orientations of students, which emphasize the importance of the memory of the Victory over fascism as a form of upbringing of patriotism and family tradition.

The authors have compared the students’ opinions in universities of the two cities through the prism of “capital — region (province)”, which resulted in the conclusion about greater personal and family involvement in festive events for the Victory Day of the students of Astrakhan.

References:

1. Abramkina S. G., Enshina N. A. 2015. “The influence of the family on the historical memory of student youth about the Great Patriotic War (sociological aspect)”. In: Young People’s Historical Memory of the Great Patriotic War: Social-humanitarian and Psychological-pedagogical Aspects of Research and Formation, pp.81-87. [In Russian]

2. Avraamova E. M., Shabunova A. A., Loginov D. M. 2005. “Capital and provincial students: social resources waiting”. Sociologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 9, pp. 98-103. [In Russian]

3. Bochkareva E. D., Bochkarev D. V. 2018. “The most important form of educating the historical memory of student youth is becoming the ‘Immortal Regiment’”. Mirovozzrenie v XXI v., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 8-11. [In Russian]

4. Grishin V. I., Gareev M. A., Gusher A. I., Emets V. S., Koshkin A. P., Bocharnikov I. V., Kazakov A. V. 2015. The Greatness of the Feat of the Soviet People in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Moscow: Russian Economic University named after G. V. Plekhanov. 68 pp. [In Russian]

5. Vishnevsky Yu. R., Dulina N. V., Ikingrin E. N., Mansurov V. A., Pronina E. I. 2020. “Does the saved world, the eternal world, the living world remember? (based on the results of sociological research)”. Primo aspectu, no. 2, pp. 7-16. [In Russian]

6. Vishnevsky Yu. R., Narkhov D. Yu. 2015. “Dynamics of patriotic attitudes of student youth: based on monitoring materials ‘Russian students about the Great Patriotic War’ (2005-2010-2015)”. In: Vishnevsky Yu. R. (ed.). The War Was the Day before Yesterday… Russian Students of the Great Patriotic War: Monitoring Materials “Modern Russian Students of the Great Patriotic War”, pp. 185-201. Ekaterinburg: Izd-vo Ural. un-ta. [In Russian]

7. Vishnevsky Yu. R. (ed.). 2015. The War Was the Day before Yesterday… Russian Students of the Great Patriotic War: Monitoring Materials “Modern Russian Students of the Great Patriotic War”. 312 pp. [In Russian]

8. Gudkov L. D. 2005. “Memory of the war and the mass identity of Russians”. Neprikosnovenny zapas, no. 2. Accessed 31 July 2020. https://magazines.gorky.media/nz/2005/2/pamyat-o-vojne-i-massovaya-identichnost-rossiyan.html [In Russian]

9. Dubin B. V. 2008. “Memory, war, memory of war. The construction of the past in the social practice of recent decades”. Otechestvennye zapiski, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 6-21. [In Russian]

10. Emel`yanova T. P., Misharina A. V. 2014. “Commemoration of Victory in the Great Patriotic War in the perception of various social groups”. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 4, pp. 220-229. [In Russian]

11. Kargapolova E. V., Mironova Yu. G., Xamzyaeva O. S. 2015. “The Great Patriotic War in the social memory of the youth of Astrakhan and Volgograd (based on the results of a sociological study dedicated to the 70^th anniversary of the Great Victory)”. Izvestiya VolGTU. Seriya: problemy sotsialno-gumanitarnogo znaniya, vol. 20, no. 2 (115), pp. 98-101. [In Russian]

12. Koshkin A. P., Melkov S. A. 2011. “Heroes and patriots in contemporary cinema”. Vlast, no. 1, pp. 74-76. [In Russian]

13. Opletina N. V., Tripolsky V. B. 2016. “The Great Patriotic War in the context of the formation of the historical memory of the younger generation”. Manuskript, no. 1 (63), pp. 122-125. [In Russian]

14. Potapov V. P., Perendzhiev A. N., Prokopenko E. E. 2015. “Value orientations of RUE students through the eyes of teachers and students”. GosReg: State Regulation of Public Relations, no. 3 (13), pp. 17-25. [In Russian]

15. Saralieva Z. X. M., Balabanov S. S. 2005. “Patriotic War in memory of three generations”. Sociologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 11, pp. 29-36. [In Russian]

16. Sozontov A. E. 2004. “Basic life strategies of modern Russian students”. Cand. Sci. (Psych.) diss. abstract. Moscow. 28 pp. [In Russian]

17. Stegnij V. N. 2015. “The historical consciousness of the student”. Vlast, no. 3, pp. 99-107. [In Russian]

18. Shamionov R. M. 2009. “Correlation of values and characteristics of self-determination of students of metropolitan and provincial universities”. Izvestiya Saratovskogo universiteta. Novaya seriya. Seriya Filosofiya. Psixologiya. Pedagogika, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 83-88. [In Russian]

19. Malinova O. 2017. “Political uses of the Great Patriotic War in post-soviet Russia from Yeltsin to Putin”. In: War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, pp. 43-70. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

20. Markwick R. 2012. “The great patriotic war in Soviet and post-Soviet collective memory”. In: The Oxford Handbook of Postwar European History, pp. 692-713.