On April 1, 2013, it became known about the tragic death in the mountains of Yulia Sinelina, one of the leading Russian sociologists of religion and a member of the Editorial Board of our magazine. In recent years, she was Head of the Department of Sociology of Religion at the Institute of Socio-Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where she conducted research on the religious situation in modern Russia. There was a well-known seminar on the sociology of religion, which she taught for many years at the Sociology Department of Moscow State University. It was almost the only discussion platform in Russia where Russian sociologists of religion could regularly gather.

An article by Mikhail Smirnov, a St. Petersburg sociologist of religion, is devoted to understanding the scientific work of Yulia Sinelina.

Mikhail Smirnov

The Scholar's Personality in Russian Sociology of Religion. In Memory of Yulia Sinelina

Mikhail Smirnov - Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Saint-Petersburg State University, St. - Petersburg. mirsnov55@yandex.ru

The article is devoted to the main components of scientific activity of Russian sociologist Yulia Yurievna Sinelina (1972 - 2013). She was a well-known researcher of secularization in Russia, particularly the problems of interaction between modern society and religion. Her special attention was devoted to the application of theoretical and methodological investigations in sociology of religion to the religious situation in Russia.

Keywords: Yu. Yu. Sinelina, sociology of religion, secularization, religious situation.

There are various religions in RUSSIA, both widely spread and with a small number of followers, and this is quite well known. There is a sociology in Russia. And it is also more or less known, at least to a significant part of the population. In Russia, there are various sciences that study religions and collectively referred to as religious studies. This is already known much less and somehow vaguely, not very well.-

rarely do religious scholars have to explain in public that they are not ministers of a religious cult, and if there is anything they should serve, it is science. In Russia, finally, there is a sociology of religion, which is known only to a narrow circle of people who are specifically interested in problems under the heading "religion and society". And the scientists who make up the" guild environment " of sociologists of religion are so few in Russia that even a hundred are hardly recruited in the whole country.

Meanwhile, the work to which sociologists of religion have devoted themselves is of great ideological and practical significance. The constant presence of religion in the history and modernity of any society, the most complex relations in connection with religion between individuals and aggregate subjects of society, the many shades in the social dimension of religious life - all this requires an adequate and clearly expressed understanding of what is happening. It is the sociology of religion that can be a scientific tool for such an understanding.

But science is always the activity of specific individuals with their own personal characteristics, claims, interests and preferences, following the path of discoveries and mistakes, everyday work and holidays, everyday routine and sacred moments of research inspiration.

The sociology of religion in Russia was lucky: in recent years it has been represented in many ways by a remarkable person - Yulia Sinelina, Doctor of Sociology, Head of the Department of Sociology of Religion at the Institute for Socio-Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Her tragic death is a great human loss for her relatives and a serious loss for the small scientific community of Russian sociologists of religion. But, no matter how it may sound, the death of a scientist is the beginning of an objective understanding of his scientific merits, his contribution and significance in the research field. Lifetime polemics, criticism, and disputes give way to a balanced assessment and reflection of those ideas and achievements that must necessarily be taken into account in further scientific development.

At the end of January 2013, the Research Committee "Sociology of Religion" of the Russian Society of Sociologists held a scientific and practical seminar "Research of modern Religion: methods and methodology". It was an extremely informative discussion, with interesting presentations, discussions, etc.-

investigative initiatives. Various approaches and conclusions about modern religiosity, its trends, and ways of its scientific study were presented. Among the speakers was Yu. Sinelina. Her speech was mainly concerned with the characteristics of the so-called "vacillating" between the acceptance and non-acceptance of religion in Russia. And while discussing this phenomenon, Yulia Yurievna came up with a fundamental problem of the theoretical validity of the typological work of sociologists of religion. According to her, it is precisely the conceptual blurring of the criteria for determining the types of attitudes to religion that makes it impossible to create a correct picture of the qualitative state of the population's religiosity, which is correlated with the indicators of quantitative research.

For obvious reasons, the research preference was given to the analysis of Russian Orthodoxy - determining the composition of its followers, the reliability of their self-identification with the denomination. Yu. Sinelina quite rightly pointed out critically that in the research of many of our sociologists of religion, the image of a sort of "ideal Orthodox" arises: they begin to look for some "true believers", all of them scrupulously practicing, refusing to religious affiliation for those who do not meet the strict criteria of confessional identity ¹.

I had a chance to discuss with Yulia Yurievna some topics of the sociology of religion in varying degrees of detail. On a number of specific subjects, our views did not always coincide, but we also found a lot in common in understanding key issues. Let me say that the assessment of the situation of Russian sociology of religion was similar - in that its state is determined by the measure of its relevance, and this measure, frankly speaking, is small. But the reason for this situation is least relevant to the sociologists of religion themselves. These are people who by their perseverance, following their scientific duty, keep afloat the "ark" of the sociology of religion in our country, try to find the right channel in the seething "waters" of religious and near-religious phenomena of Russian life. And malaya vostrebo-

^1. Yu. Sinelina herself followed, as is known, the method of V. Chesnokova to determine the churching index ("B-index"). Cf.: Chesnokova V. In a tight way: The process of churching the population of Russia at the end of the XX century. Moscow: Academic Project, 2005 and Sinelina Yu. Dynamics of the process of Orthodox churching //Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, 2006. N11.

This is due to the fact that religions in Russia are perceived least of all in their actual state, as evidenced by studies of sociologists of religion. Many people rely on religious institutions almost as a panacea for spiritual and social "diseases", while others see them as obscurantistic intentions to plunge society into a gloomy "new Middle Ages", and some "read" in them meanings that are generally far from adequate, generated by ambitious ignorance. In all these cases, the knowledge and conclusions of the sociology of religion are often overlooked by "experts on the religious question" or "serious people" in power, because they almost always dissonate with their incompetent reasoning.

As a researcher who worked with a representative body of empirical material, Yu. Sinelina perfectly saw the discrepancy between the propagated picture of "religious revival" and the real state of religiosity of the population in Russia; most importantly, she was aware of the ambiguity of the meanings of the really increased demand for religion in our society. In her publications and speeches, she is extremely impressed by the realistic assessments of the religious situation based on strict scientific procedures. At the same time, she also had her own religious beliefs, which probably somehow affected her personal experience of compromising stories in the activities of religious organizations, superstitious behavior of Russians, and rejection of the forced resuscitation of the "religious factor" by the secular-minded part of the population (including many fellow scientists).

From the conversation with Yulia Yurievna, there was a strong impression that academic cognitive motives in her research were inseparable from her civic position. She reacted with great interest to the fact that the object of study - religion - is steadily growing array of topical, often very acute circumstances. These circumstances turn the topic of religion into a polemical plane, when the actual religious content of life falls out of discussions, and religion becomes only an occasion for clarifying political and ideological relations.² She, like many religious researchers, was particularly concerned about the significant discrepancy between the actual content of the religious needs of the believing part of the country's population and the growing number of religious needs in the country.

^2. See: Sinelina Y. Attack on the Russian Orthodox Church?//Sociological research. 2001. N11.

Yu. Sinelina has always emphasized that in religion, spiritual states are a priority for believers. At the same time, Yulia Yurievna also noted the strengthening of the role of confessional affiliation as a factor of ethnic and socio-cultural identity.³ It can be said that the constancy of the "dialectical" conflict between people's desire for religious sacredness and the profanity of the social life of confessional associations has become decisive in the development of Legal norms. Sinelina developed the author's concept of cycles of secularization in the history of Russia. Yulia Yurievna made a significant contribution to the theory and methodology of the Russian sociology of religion with this concept, which caused both recognition and discussion, unfortunately, far from being completed.

Yu. Sinelina had a difficult fate-by her activity she testified that the sociology of religion in Russia should and can be an authoritative source of adequate knowledge in public perception about the religious situation in the country and about the attitude to religion in all strata of Russian society. Defending her own scientific views, she was attentive, patient and interested in all the approaches that arise in the small number of Russian enthusiasts of the sociological study of religion. Participants in her seminars on the sociology of religion at Moscow State University are well aware of this, and colleagues who discussed it with Yu. Sinelina A. Problems of the sociology of religion at conferences and in personal communication.

The main thing for Russian sociologists of religion at the current stage is to become a prominent scientific community themselves, which would be impossible to ignore or ignore. And this is achieved only by developing high-quality scientific products that reflect really relevant problems of public perception of religion. The sociology of religion in Russia needs to come up with a generalizing theoretical description of the current problems of religion in Russia.-

^3. According to her: "In modern Russian society, there is a situation where the civil component of identity does not develop properly, which is due to the weakness of civil society and the lack of adequate secular alternatives. The problem with defining clear civil grounds for the consolidation of society... It leads to an increasing influence of religious and ethnic identity" (Sinelina Yu. Religion in the modern world//Эксперт. 2013. N 1. http://expert.ru/expert/2013/01/religiya-v-sovremennom-mire).

processes and a conceptual prognostication of the development of the religious situation. This involves revising the national and foreign concepts used in our research; determining the parameters of the scientific paradigm, within which it is possible to correctly compare the results of research and translate what has been achieved into the educational sphere and public space without any contradictions. I believe that the example of Yulia Sinelina is a good reference point for the sociology of religion in Russia.

Bibliography

Cycles of secularization in the history of Russia. Sociological analysis: the end of the XVII-beginning of the XXI century. Saarbriicken (Deutschland): LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, 2011.

Sinelina Yu. Kontseptsii sekularizatsii v sotsiologicheskoi teorii [Concepts of secularization in Sociological Theory]. Moscow: ISPI RAS; Moscow, 2000, 2009.

Sinelina Yu. Changing the religiosity of the Russian population: Orthodox and Muslims: superstitious behavior of Russians, Moscow: Nauka Publ., 2006.

Secularization in the Social History of Russia, Moscow: Academia Publ., 2004.

Sinelina Yu. Criteria for determining the population's religiosity//Sociological research. 2001. N7.

References

Sinelina, Yu. (2001) "O kriterijah opredelenija religioznosti naselenija" [Notes Concerning Criteria for Denning Religiosity of Population], in Sociologicheskie issledovanija. No. 7.

Sinelina, Yu. (2004) Sekuljarizacija v social'noj istorii Rossii [Secularization in Social History of Russia]. M.: Academia.

Sinelina, Yu. (2006) Izmenenie religioznosti naselenija Rossii: pravoslavnye i musul'mane: sueuernoe pouedenie rossijan [Changes in Religiosity of Russian Population: Orthodox and Muslims: Superstitious Behavior of Russian People]. M.: Nauka.

Sinelina, Yu. (2009) Koncepcii sekuljarizacii v sociologicheskoj teorii [The Notion of Secularization in Sociological Theory]. M.: ISPI RAN; PROBEL-2000.

Sinelina, Yu. (2011) Cikly sekuljarizacii v istorii Rossii. Sociologicheskij analiz: konec XVII - nachalo XXI veka [Cycles of Secularization in Russian History. Sociological Analysis: End of the XVII - Beginning of the XXI centuries]. Saarbriicken (Deutschland): LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing.

Permanent link to this publication: