The people voted for Western culture, regardless of …

According to the Sputnik-VTsIOM poll, 73% of Russians believe that it is not necessary in our country to abolish Western culture (even if it is a retaliatory, “mirror” measure).

This was announced during the presentation of the study in TASS by the director for strategic development of VTsIOM Stepan Lvov. This result looks especially surprising against the background of the fact that over the past 20 years, the attitude of Russians to Western culture has changed radically and not for the better:

“The most interesting thing is to see how Russian society has changed over the past 22 years. I’ll start by comparing what we got in 2000 with August 2022. The picture is strikingly different: if in the early 2000s 57% of Russians believed that Western culture affects us in a positive way, then in 2022 59% of survey participants answered that Western culture has a destructive effect on Russia, or that it is not suitable for us. .

During the same period, according to him, the proportion of those who believe that Western culture has a positive effect on the artistic tastes of Russians decreased from 17% to 9%, and the proportion of those who believe in the negative influence of Western culture increased from 36% to 44%.

When asked who is to blame for the destruction of “spiritual bonds”, in 2000 50% answered that we ourselves, because we forget our own culture, and in 2022 55% said that the growing Western influence is to blame for this.

Meanwhile, the number of those who are convinced that the West is increasing its cultural influence on Russia has practically not changed since 2000: 35% of respondents think so. At the same time, in 2022, 53% of Russians said they were concerned about attempts by Western countries to remove Russian culture from public space.

“Here, however, there are some points related to the age structure of our society: we see that the problem is of little concern to young people, but this situation is more concerned about the older generation (60+). Moreover, the difference is twofold. In fairness, it should be noted that there is a fairly large proportion of those who are not bothered by this at all or those who find it difficult to answer. There are quite a lot of those and others: it is one in four both in youth groups and in the older age group,” Stepan Lvov specified.

It is possible that this lack of concern is due to the fact that 56% of respondents believe that no Western sanctions (cancellation of concerts, exhibitions, etc.) can negatively affect Russian culture. At the same time, from 23% (in the age group from 18 to 24 years old) to 27% (among those who are over 60 years old) believe that Western sanctions can even benefit Russian culture. 18% of young people (from 18 to 24 years old) and 10% of those over 60 are convinced that they will harm her.

When asked how to deal with the abolition of Russian culture in the West, 30% answered that it is necessary to draw attention to this problem through the media; 20% suggested involving well-known Western cultural figures in the defense of Russian culture; 16% believe that it is necessary to create associations in its defense; 12% believe that it is necessary to file lawsuits in the courts of Western countries and defend their rights there.

Meanwhile, when asked whether it is necessary to pursue a similar policy of abolishing Western culture in Russia, only 22% of respondents answered positively (of which 10% said that “definitely necessary”, and 12% – “rather necessary), and 73% of Russians said that it is not necessary to introduce “mirror” measures and cancel Western culture in our country.

Sergei Ishkov.