The cultural universals of Russian society in the context of the intergenerational conflict

Konstantinov Mikhail Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0003-2781-789X PhD in Politics Associate Professor; Department of Theoretical and Applied Political Science; Institute of Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences; Southern Federal University 105/42 Bolshaya Sadovaya str., Rostov-On-Don, Rostov region, 344006, Russia konstantinov@sfedu.ru Other publications by this author

Pupikin Roman Aleksandrovich PhD in Politics Head of the Department; Institute of Philosophy and Socio-Political Sciences; Southern Federal University 105/42 Bolshaya Sadovaya str., Rostov-On-Don, Rostov region, 344006, Russia proman2006@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The problem of generations and conflicts between them has long attracted the attention of scientists, philosophers and writers. Actually, the very concept of generation, whose research history dates back more than a century (starting with the fourth volume of Auguste Comte's "Course of Positive Philosophy" (1839) [see: 20], where the problem of generational change and the historical significance of this change was raised), was originally associated with the reflection of conflicts generated by generational differences. So, already 4 years after the publication of the mentioned work by O. Comte, John Stuart Mill in his "System of Logic" identifies special "periods of activity of individual generations – periods during which a new change of people managed to grow up, grow up and take over society" ^{[11, p. 679]}. It already contains the idea that the "mastery of society", when a generation enters the historical scene, is often associated with conflict relations between generations of "fathers and children." And for the Spanish philosopher and sociologist J. Ortega y Gasset, generation, defined as "a community of co-existing peers" ^{[13, p. 260]}, becomes not just a category of fixation of intergenerational conflict, but a key unit of global historical changes: "... This world is changing with each new generation, because the previous one left in the past it has left some kind of mark on him, it has changed him to a greater or lesser extent compared to how it found him" ^{[13, p. 267]}. Generational community is united, according to Ortega, by two signs: the unity of age and a network of life contacts. It is equally important that a generation "occupies its place in historical time ..., and secondly, it has its place in space" ^{[13, p. 261]}. Ortega also highlighted the rhythm of generation activity in a fifteen-year cycle.

Similar ideas were developed by the American anthropologist Margaret Mead, linking the continuity between generations with the cultural dynamics of society.: "The past of adults turns out to be the future of each new generation; what they have lived is a blueprint for the future for their children. The future of children is shaped in such a way that everything experienced by their predecessors in adulthood also becomes what children will experience when they grow up" ^{[10, p. 322]}. One of the most famous typologies of cultures proposed by M. Mead was based on this idea: postfigurative (where children learn from their predecessors, focus on their experience and internalize this experience; such are most traditional societies), configurative (where generations internalize each other's experience, which in itself cannot but generate conflicts, one of the the best artistic descriptions of which were left by I.S. Turgenev) and prefigurative (where not so much children learn from adults, but sharply accelerated social time leads to a rapid accumulation of experience by younger generations and an equally rapid obsolescence of the experience of elders, which results in the need for adult education by their children). And if in the first type of culture the social distribution of roles leads to the consolidation of the authority of elders, which stabilizes society, then in the prefigurative culture (the concept of which was formed largely under the influence of the youth counterculture and student unrest in the United States and Europe) intergenerational conflict becomes permanent.

Russia is no exception in this regard ^{[7, 8]}. As some experts have noted, the phenomenon of "prefigurative culture" in our country did not arise yesterday, giving rise to various intergenerational tensions and conflicts [see, for example: , 1]. So, already in the 50s of the XX century. The socio-cultural factor that defined the era and largely shaped the trends of the subsequent "sixties" was the sharp acceleration of social time under the influence of scientific and technological progress, which included the USSR, as well as the transition from the culture of Stalinism to the period of the "thaw". All this combined to create a situation of generational orientation towards the future rather than the past and, consequently, the formation of a prefigurative culture in Soviet society ^[18]. This was reflected not only in everyday life, but also in the fiction and art of that time. But the most important consequence of this period was the emergence of a special type of personality, deeply integrated into modern society [see, for example: , 19]. For example, O.V. Kharkhordin recalls his surprise at the results of communication with young Russian entrepreneurs in the early 90s, when it became clear that despite the popular ideas about Soviet society as a society of "collectivists", young people acted as carriers of quite modern conditionally "individualistic" values, showing values in their judgments and actions. and the attitudes of modern society. Thus, the conflict of "fathers and children" that repeatedly arose in the history of Russia, brilliantly described in the middle of the 19th century by I.S. Turgenev as a diagnosis of the emerging cofigurative (in M. Mead's terms) culture, had already acquired all the characteristics of a prefigurative culture by the middle of the 20th century and determined the further development of our country.

Materials and methods

In this conceptual context, it would be very interesting to look at the state of intergenerational relations in modern Russian society. This problem has become one of the aspects of two interrelated sociological studies of intergenerational relations in modern Russia, conducted by a research team from the Southern Federal University in 2023 and 2024. Both studies included nationwide questionnaires based on a representative sample of 1,600 respondents (statistical error ±2.45%), preceded by a series of focus groups and data collection on social networks. The sample of questionnaires was designed to be probabilistic and stratified. The stratification of the sample was assumed according to two criteria: age and regional (by place of residence). According to these criteria, four age cohorts of 400 respondents each were surveyed, distributed proportionally into eight Russian regions (200 respondents each).

The following age cohorts were identified for the study, corresponding to four key generations of modern Russia: - 18-24 years old ("generation Z"); - 25-39 years old ("generation Y"); - 40-59 years old ("generation X"); - 60 years and older ("baby boomer generation"") [for more information about generations, see: , 9, 14-16, 22, etc.]. The geography of the survey consisted of the following regions: - Vladivostok and Primorsky Krai; - Yekaterinburg and Sverdlovsk Region; - Kazan and the Republic of Tatarstan; - Lugansk and Luhansk region (LNR) (in 2024, the North Caucasus was explored instead of the LNR); - Moscow and the Moscow region; - Novosibirsk and Novosibirsk region; - Rostov-on-Don and the Rostov region; - Ryazan and the Ryazan region. All age cohorts were proportionally distributed across each of the studied regions (50 respondents from each age cohort in each region). The collected data was processed in the SPSS program.

Results

First of all, we should address the problem identified by Margaret Mead: the specificity of intergenerational conflict, manifested in the direction of the translation of social experience. The questionnaires of both surveys contained the question "Do you think the older generation can learn something from the younger one today, and the younger one from the older one?". The distribution of responses by year is shown in table 1.

Table 1. Age cohort with social preferences (percentage by column)

As can be seen from the data shown in Table 1, Russians are quite unanimous in their ideas about the direction of the exchange of experience between generations, although there are still age-specific features: the younger generation tends to recognize the need for reciprocity in the process of broadcasting social experience, emphasizing the transience of changes in modern society and not wanting to associate the growth of social problems with the loss of respect to the elders. The dependence on age is direct here: the older the respondent is, the more they tend to agree with the need for young people to learn from older philosophical issues, while agreeing that the older generation can learn technical innovations from the younger. It is also interesting that the thesis of traditional societies about the need for young people to obey their elders (counter position 6) is not shared by either younger Russians or older ones, but the statement that the older generation should learn from the younger (position 1) it is shared by older people rather than younger ones. Judging by these data, we should not be talking about the intergenerational conflict described by M. Mead, but rather about a compromise between generations, about recognizing their importance to each other. To understand what this is related to, you can look at the specifics of generational self-representations through the principle of "metacontrast".

One of the key methodological principles underlying both studies was the principle of "metacontrast" in J. Turner's theory of self-categorization [see: 17], which has received significant elaboration in the works of domestic and foreign researchers [see, for example: 2-6, 12, 21, etc.]. In accordance with this principle, representatives of social groups determine the qualities of themselves and their group ("ingroup", in J. Turner's terms) based on comparison with significant other individuals and "outgroups". Accordingly, the identification of individuals' ideas about themselves and the most important social groups for them is based on the principle of "metacontrast" – the identification of an individual's ideas about himself, his "ingroup" and "outgroups" in order to determine the characteristics that an individual gives himself and his group. Based on this conceptual framework, a questionnaire was prepared, which included a series of questions "How would you characterize your generation," the younger generation, the older generation, etc. This allowed us to capture the specifics of self-representations through metacontrast with significant others. And the repetition of these questions in the 2024 questionnaire allowed us to see some value dynamics, as well as those cultural and ideological constants that have not changed during this time.

The overall result for the sample as a whole is shown in table 2 below, and the generational specifics in dynamics are summarized in the diagrams below.

Table 2. Self-categorization of generations in the sample as a whole (in percent)

In Table 1, we see that the majority of respondents choose socially approved values typical of Christian culture, which have hardly changed over the past year: efficiency, responsibility, sense of duty, activity, optimism, patience, self-reliance, etc. That is, it reflects rather general cultural constants that are universal for many human communities. In order to identify generational specifics, a correlation analysis was carried out between the variables of self-categorization of generations and age. The result of this analysis for each generation is shown in Fig. 1-4.

Drawing 1. The structure of generation Z self-categorization (in comparison by years)

In Figure 1, we see a reproduction of the basic structure of ideas about one's own generation among young people 18-24, although some changes in this structure still occurred under the influence of external factors: in 2024, the youngest of the studied generations unexpectedly "matured", since responsibility replaced the "need for self-development" in the core.. The periphery also remained virtually unchanged, within the statistical margin of error.

Drawing 2. The structure of generation Y self-categorization (in comparison by years)

The situation is similar with the 25-39 generation, which is also considered quite young. In a previous study, it was found that the main generational "rift" lies between generations 25-39 and older 40-59, since generations 18-24 and 25-39, as well as generations 40-59 and 60+ are mentally much closer to each other than to younger generations. Here we also see a manifestation of these properties: the only change in the core of this generation is also associated with an increase in responsibility and patience (which has replaced "openness to new experiences"), and on the periphery, individualism has been replaced by a sense of duty, the importance of which in 2023 was much lower than in 2024.

Drawing 3. The structure of generation X self-categorization (in comparison by years)

The self-categorization structure of generation 40-59 is also quite stable: the only change that has occurred in the core relates to an increase in the value of thrift from 27.0% to 30.3%, which has made a corresponding shift, swapping these values in the core and periphery. In the peripheral stratum, technical literacy has also replaced collectivism, but in this case we are talking about barely noticeable shifts that do not exceed a statistical margin of error.

Drawing 4. The structure of self-categorization of the "baby boomer" generation (in comparison by years)

The situation with the oldest generation of 60+ is completely reproduced: the only change in the core is that the two values of collectivism and optimism have been reversed – a slight decrease in the importance of collectivism has moved it to the peripheral belt, and a slight increase in the importance of optimism has moved it to the core.

As can be seen from the analysis, the assumption made by the results of the 2023 study is that the self–categorization of generations does not reproduce the real qualities of these generations, but some value structure that is stable enough for Russian (rather, Christian, although in other regions these values are very significant) culture to reproduce itself in the generational change. ^[8]. At the same time, past research has also found that older generations are endowed with superior characteristics, and this is most likely a constant rather than a universal, since older generations have different meanings in different cultures (for example, ageism is widespread in modern American culture, which actually discriminates against older generations, while in more in traditional cultures, seniority is valued more than youth). Accordingly, a comparative analysis of the generations' relationship to each other based on the principle of "metacontrast" confirmed this conclusion. Here we should also focus on several more aspects that make it possible to identify the universals of Russian culture in the context of intergenerational relations.

According to the purpose of the study, the respondents were asked to indicate the three most significant historical events that (from their point of view) had the greatest impact on the formation of the worldview of their generation. The free form of the answer resulted in a wide range of data obtained, but in a number of ways it turned out to be possible to group these data around some key historical concepts: "The (Great) October Revolution of 1917", "The Collapse of the USSR", "The Great Patriotic War", "The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine", etc. In total, 30 main historical concepts were identified, in one way or another mentioned by the respondents. However, the most mentioned were the Great Patriotic War; the collapse of the USSR; Russia's Special military operation in Ukraine; the conquest of outer space (including "Yuri Gagarin's flight into space", "the first man into space", etc.); Perestroika 1985-1991; the COVID-19 pandemic and related quarantine; technological shifts related to the emergence and development of the Internet, cellular mobile communications, etc.; the wars in Chechnya in the late 1990s and early 2000s; the coming to power of Vladimir Putin; the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014. It should be noted that the grouping of respondents' responses was carried out without taking into account emotional coloring, regardless of whether the respondent positively or negatively assessed a specific historical event that influenced the formation of his worldview. In general, we can say that the structure of the historical memory of Russian generations has not changed over the past year. The data for the sample as a whole is shown in table 3.

Table 3. Historical events that shaped the worldview of a generation (in the whole sample, in comparison)

As can be understood from the data in Table 3, the greatest impact on the consciousness of Russians was produced by the Great Patriotic War, the collapse of the USSR, Perestroika (1985-1991), the crisis of the 90s, including the default of 1998, Vladimir Putin's coming to power, Russia's Special military Operation in Ukraine, etc.

As before, two of the three key events are noted as the most significant by all generations, which makes it possible to speak more about their general cultural, rather than just generational importance: the Great Patriotic War and the collapse of the USSR. Although we can see the age dynamics in relation to these two concepts: these concepts are most significant for the older generations, and today is of great importance for young people, namely the Special Military Operation of Russia on the territory of Ukraine. These three concepts form the core of the historical memory of both young generations, but there are some differences in the adjacent belt. Thus, very young people (18-24) separately identify technical innovations that had a decisive impact on the formation of the worldview of their generation (which is consistent with the research of other sociologists in Russia [see, for example: Radaev 2019] and the United States [see, for example: Twenge 2019]), as well as joining Crimea joined Russia in 2014. The older generation of young people (today's 25-39-year-olds) began the process of their socialization in the 90s of the XX century, therefore, the "Instability of the 90s" (6.8%) notes as one of the significant factors that influenced the formation of their worldview. Another factor that distinguishes this generation from the younger one was Vladimir Putin's rise to power (7.3%).

If the worldview of 18-24-year-olds is more homogeneous in terms of historical memory and is grouped around 6-7 concepts, then the worldview of 25-39-year-olds is more variable and, in addition to the above 6 concepts, includes several more: "Perestroika 1985-1991" (6.3%), "Annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014" (5.8%), "Events on territories of the DPR/LPR in 2014-2022" (5.8%), "The emergence and development of the Internet and cellular mobile communications" (5.6%) and even "The default of 2008" (5.0%). The statistical significance of these positions is not much less than those we attributed to the related belt "Instability of the 90s" and "Vladimir Putin's rise to power." Therefore, we can say that ideological shifts in younger generations occur quite smoothly, without sharp breaks: "The annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014" is important for both the 18-24 generation (6.3%) and the older generation of 25-39 (5.8%); the differences between statistical values do not exceed the measurement error, but The changes in the rank structure of the significance of the historical concepts indicated by the respondents are indicative: it is here that gradual shifts occur.

The same can be said about older generations: the social and historical experience that this generation has captured throughout its life is significant, but since the generation is always immersed in a cultural context, the main differences between generations relate to particulars, as well as those key historical events that this generation has experienced and reflected on. Thus, the generation of 40-59-year-olds is not called "perestroika" for nothing: in addition to the two historical concepts common to all generations, "The Great Patriotic War" and "The Collapse of the USSR", the core of the historical memory of this generation includes "Perestroika 1985-1991" with a fairly large gap from other generations (as much as 27.3%, while for the next generation of Y, the significance of this concept is only 6.3%, and for the previous generation of "stagnation" – only 19.0%).

Thus, the analysis of empirical data collected during the questionnaire surveys allowed us to identify both some general cultural constants that unite all representatives of Russian society (values of efficiency, responsibility, self-reliance, etc., anti-values of irresponsibility, impulsivity, etc.; historical events: the Great Patriotic War, the traumatic experience of the collapse of the USSR), and specifying generations have formed a kind of group unity in time (the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, perestroika in 1985-1991, Russia's Liberation in Ukraine, the conquest of outer space and the Great October Revolution of 1917).