54-68 p.

Download the article

doi.org: https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2026-11-1.54-68
EDN: https://elibrary.ru/MNXACH

Abstract. The article examines fundamental and pressing issues in ethnosociology: firstly, the issues brought to light by the dramatic transformations that occurred in society in the post-Soviet period; secondly, the ones posed by one of the founders of Soviet ethnosociology, L.M. Drobizheva. The author provides the scholar’s personal profile compiled from an analysis of her creative legacy and personal impressions gained from the interraction with her, participation in joint discussions, and corresponding with her. In addition to Leokadia Drobizheva’s personal qualities pointed out by her students and colleagues (friendliness, a spirit of peacemaking and collectivism, and mutual support), the author highlights the following qualities: her distinctive professional style, high academic and purely human standards, nobility combined with firmness in defending her positions on fundamental issues, her social significance, and the sound prognosticity of her thoughts and actions. The article shows that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the introduction of a new socioeconomic system were accompanied by a rejection of domestic traditions of ethnology and the assertion of a methodological and conceptual framework of social and humanistic studies, including ethnosociology, borrowed from the West. Anthropologism and constructivism with a focus on studying ethnicity and identity became dominant here. In those circumstances, L.M. Drobizheva identified the need to understand the specific subject matter of ethnosociology as an important condition for its preservation and development. Through the analysis of her views and by outlining the existing challenges for ethnosociology, the author cautions against the danger of turning ethnosociology into a tool for solving specific political problems and against absolutizing issues of ethnicity and identity within its field of study. He insists that it is the ethnic phenomenon as a whole and the ethnos as its bearer that are ethnology’s object of study, not ethnicity, which is their particular manifestation. It is proposed to define ethnosocial processes in their subjectivity, complexity and systematicity as the subject of ethnosociology.

Keywords: ethnic phenomenon; ethnos; ethnicity; identity; national policy; ethnosociology; ethnosocial processes; L.M. Drobizheva’s ethnosociological school; Novosibirsk ethnosociological school

For citation: Popkov Yu.V. (2026) Ethnosociology in modern contexts: on the personality of L.M. Drobizheva and relevance of her ideas. Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 11. No. 1: 54–68. https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2026-11-1.54-68 (In Russ.)

REFERENCES

Brubaker R. (2012) Ethnicity without Groups. Transl. from English by I. Borisova. Moscow: Higher School of Economics Publ. (In Russ.)
Drobizheva L.M. (2005) Ethnosociology today. Problems of methodology of interdisciplinary research. In: Guboglo M.N. (ed.) Interdisciplinary Research in the Context of Socio-Cultural Anthropology: Coll. in honor of Yurik Vartanovich Arutyunyan. Moscow: Nauka Publ.: 14–25. (In Russ.)
Drobizheva L.M. (2020) Depoliticization of ethnicity: between the temptation of new theories and social practice. In: Rossiya reformiruyushсhayasya [Reforming Russia]. 2020. No. 18: 202–224. (In Russ.)
Drobizheva L.M. (2013) Ethnicity in the Socio-Political Space of the Russian Federation: 20 Years of Experience. Moscow: Novyy Khronograf Publ. (In Russ.)
Karlov V.V. (2021) Yu.V. Bromley and the “Bromley period” of Russian ethnology. Vestnik Anthropologii [Herald of Anthropology]. No. 1 (53): 9–23. https://doi.org/10.33876/2311-0546/2021-53-1/9-23. (In Russ.)
Popkov Yu.V. (2024a) Anthropological revolution and challenges for ethnosociology (an invitation to discussion). Sociologicheskiye issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 9: 43–55. https://doi.org/10.31857/ S0132162524090047. (In Russ.)
Popkov Yu. V. (2024b) The future not only in the present, but also in the past: Revisiting the subject of ethnosociology. Sociologicheskiye issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. No. 12: 126–137. https://doi.org/10.31857/S0132162524120117 (In Russ.)
Popkov Yu.V. (2025) On current issues of Ethnosociology: Understanding the Ideological Heritage of L.M. Drobizheva. Sotsiologicheskiy zhurnal [Sociological Journal]. Vol. 31. No. 3: 87–99. (In Russ.)
Ryzhova S.V., Arutyunova E.M. (2021) Leokadia Mikhaylovna Drobizheva. Life in science. Sotsiologicheskiy zhurnal [Sociological Journal]. Vol. 27. No. 2: 173–182. (In Russ.)
Ryzhova S.V. (2023) Ethnosociological school of L.M. Drobizheva: formation of approaches to the study of Russian identity. Sociologicheskiy zhurnal [Sociological Journal]. Vol. 29. No. 1: 36–54. https://doi.org/10.19181/socjour.2023.29.1.2 (In Russ.)
Sagitova L.V. (2022) Stars that never go out. Dedicated to Leokadia Drobizheva. In: Gabdrakhmanova G.F., Makarova G.I., Sagitova L.V. (eds.) Positive Experience of Regulating Ethnosocial and Ethnocultural Processes in the Regions of the Russian Federation. Proceedings of the 5th All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference Dedicated to the Memory of L.M. Drobizheva. Kazan: Marjani Institute of History of RT Academy of Sciences Publ.: 180–186. (In Russ.)
Sagitova L.V. (2025) Ethnosociology in Russia and the conjuncture of political trends. Izvestiya Natsional’noy Akademii nauk Kyrgyzskoy Respubliki [Bulletin of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic]. Vol. 2. No. S1: 78–85. (In Russ.)
Semenov Yu. I. (2006) There’s hardly any point in rushing with a funeral prayer for an ethnic group (On the main ideas of V.A. Tishkov’s book “Requiem for an Ethnos. Studies in Socio-Cultural Anthropology”. Moscow, 2004). Filosofiya i obshchestvo [Philosophy and Society]. Issue 2 (43): 94–106. (In Russ.)
Tishkov V.A. (2016) From ethnos to ethnicity and after. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie [Ethnographic Review]. No. 5: 5–22. (In Russ.)
Tishkov V.A. (2023) On the reconciliation of constructivism and primordialism (Tribute to ethnologist Andrey Vladimirovich Golovnev). Etnografiya [Ethnography]. No.1 (19): 6–25. (In Russ.)
Tishkov V.A. (2025) Ontological turn and ethnological sovereignty. In: Chernykh A.V., Kamenskikh M.S. (eds.) 16th Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia. Proceedings of the Plenary Session. Perm, July 2–6, 2025. Perm: Mamatov Publishing House: 40–52. (In Russ.)
Viner B.E. (2023) The most important elements of the Soviet theory of ethnicity: prospects for use in modern theories of ethnicity. Izvestiya Irkutskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya: Geoarkheologiya. Etnologiya. Antropologiya [Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series: Geoarchaeology. Ethnology. Anthropology]. Vol. 45: 77–92. (In Russ.)
Viner B.E. (2025) A critical look at Rogers Brubaker’s cognitive constructivism. Sotsial’nyye i gumanitarnyye znaniya [Social and Humanitarian Knowledge]. Vol. 11. No. 3: 246–257. (In Russ.)
Viner B.E. (1998) Ethnicity: in search for a paradigm of studying. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie [Ethnographic Review]. No. 4: 3–26. (In Russ.)
Zarinov I.Yu. (2023a) Ethnos and ethnicity: A retrospective look at the issue. Moscow: IEA RAS Publ. (In Russ.)
Zarinov I.Yu. (2023b) Anthropological invasion. Respublica Literaria. Vol. 4. No. 4: 155–167. (In Russ.)
 

About the author: Yuri V. Popkov, Doctor Sc. (Philosophy), Chief Researcher, Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (8 Nikolaev St., Novosibirsk 630090, Russian Federation); https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1036-9253; e-mail: yuripopkov54@mail.ru

Received 14.11.2025 Revised 29.12.2025   Accepted for publication 12.01.2026

Published Online 02.03.2026