ABSTRACT
Russian/Soviet sociology has experienced turbulent periods in establishing and maintaining its identity. During the Soviet period, sociology was developed in disguised and subverted forms under strict ideological and administrative control. Sociology attained the marginal status of a ‘bourgeois science’ and was suppressed by political authorities. The legitimisation of sociology research in the 1960s and the formal institutionalisation of sociology education at the end of 1980s led to the rapid and massive growth of the sociological community. However, many of the Soviet-era legacies remained, including the divergent backgrounds of sociologists, the inefficient division of labour between research institutions and universities, and the maintenance of state-imposed standards for the organisation of teaching and research activity. Ideological freedom and the tearing down of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s encouraged the development of methodological pluralism and the adoption of new research standards. At the same time, liberalisation contributed to a fragmentation of the professional sociology community, which was increasingly becoming an array of small and relatively closed academic networks.
