Only about Half of Moscow University Students Committed Patriots, New Academy of Sciences Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 10 – Only just over half -- 52 percent -- of Moscow university students are committed patriots above all, according to a new survey of 1,000 of them carried out by sociologists at the Russian Academy of Sciences, while 28 percent are less fully oriented toward patriotic values and 24 percent are largely indifferent to them.

            The study which appears in the current issue of the Moscow Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology (jourssa.ru/index.php/jourssa/article/view/2650/2557) had the students express their support or opposition on a seven point scale in response to various statements about patriotism and loyalty (discussed at nakanune.ru/articles/124433/).

            While 89 percent of the sample said that they considered themselves patriots, obviously the preferred answer, “in all three groups, those who feel a sense of responsibility for their families dominated over a sense of responsibility for the future of Russia which was in each case in the last place.”

            In part, of course, the sociologists said, in the words of Nakanune, “this can be explained by the fact that each individual is oriented to a greater degree on those around him that on the country as a whole.” But it is worrisome that a quarter of Russian students say they don’t feel responsible to work for Russia, worry about its future, and aren’t interested in its history.

            Perhaps even more interesting and perhaps disturbing to the Kremlin were the answers of the students as to what they believe patriotism to be. They were asked to choose among eight different definitions. The idea that “patriotism is a relic of the past” received the least support, but the notion that “patriotism hinders cultural development” was second from the bottom.

            At the other end of the scale, the students as a whole gave their highest agreement to the proposition that “patriotism is an integral component of Russian culture;” but just below that, the students said that patriotism was “a strictly personal matter. And in the middle of the rankings, 40 percent said that “patriotism is a technique of state control.”

            Perhaps surprisingly and for some alarmingly, those in the moderately patriotic group were more likely to agree with the last proposition than are those who are the least inclined to say they are patriotic.