Between the party and believers: the first steps of empirical sociology in Kazan

Abstract

In the article, the author refers to the period of the early 1960s, when Russian social researchers were involved in the difficult and long process of the revival of applied sociological research, interrupted during the years of Stalinism. In the era of the «thaw» and «post-thaw» sociology, like other social sciences, was under strict ideological control. Since control over the conduct of applied research was carried out by party committees of various levels, there could be no question of free development of scientific discussion, competition of scientific ideas and schools. The works of Western sociologists were inaccessible and had to be criticized from the standpoint of the theory of historical materialism and scientific communism. Despite the listed restrictions, censorship and ideological control, in the 1960s. the slow process of mastering the methods of applied empirical research by domestic researchers begins. Kazan sociologists and philosophers did not remain aloof from this process. This article examines an example of an empirical sociological study conducted in 1967 and devoted to the religiosity of the inhabitants of Kazan.