The attractiveness of soviet life in the perceptions of the population of a multinational region (based on materials of the Republic of Bashkortostan)

The article is devoted to the study of modern views of Russians on the history of the Soviet past. The subject of the study is the ideas of residents of a multinational region — the Republic of Bashkortostan, which reflect the specific attractiveness of everyday life in the Soviet era — a time of large-scale political, legal, socio-economic and cultural transformations. As is known, the historical memory of society includes a wide range of impressions about the heyday of the socialist system. The work shows the importance of the ethnic factor in the formation of everyday judgments about the positive aspects of the Soviet way of life. The goal set by the author determined the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization), special historical (historical and comparative, the principle of historicism, systems approach) and sociological methods (mathematical and statistical analysis of empirical data), as well as an interdisciplinary approach, most often used by scientists in related fields of social and humanitarian knowledge. The main source material is the results of ethnosociological studies conducted in the republic in question (2018). Interpretation of the questionnaire data showed both similarities and differences between the answers of representatives of different ethnic groups to the question «In your opinion, was there anything particularly attractive in “Soviet life”?» A significant part of the population paid attention to a number of important components of life during the years of the USSR. This is confidence in the future, free access to a number of basic needs (education, health care and housing), and the absence of problems with employment of citizens. But among the respondents there were also those who did not find anything attractive for themselves in Soviet life.