#14 - JRL 7281
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
No. 156
August 7, 2003
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
BIOGRAPHIC REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA
By Yelena YAKOVLEVA

Is the stage of changes over in Russia or does it still go
on? Yelena MESHCHERKINA, M.Sc. (Philosophy), employee of the
Sociology Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
commented on the problem for Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
When conducting research, we were interested in what had
happened to people who had held senior posts in Soviet society,
what life strategies, occupations and family relation
structures our respondents had chosen in the new environment.

Q.: What have you found?
A.: A biographic revolution took place. A quiet one.
Typical biographical developments were interrupted. Time made
people review their opinions of a good job, good family, good
career and education. Yet most importantly, they gave
themselves an inner permission for experiments with their
lives, their fate. A kind of an inner valve opened.

Q.: Who chose a biographic revolution?
A.: People aged 40-45. However, I do not believe that at
the age of 40-45 you can find something in yourself that was
never there before. And if people found their other selves, it
means some suppressed ambitions had lived in them, as had
sleeping expectations of something in professional and family
life.
Earlier reality had provided you with ready models, you had to
tune in, adjust and become typical. Suddenly this time was gone.
It became possible to change everything.

Q.: Did everyone rush for the change?
A.: At first the situation was quite interesting: people
did not understand who they were. A person could have his work
record card in a state institution, while heading a commercial
organisation and working as a consultant somewhere else. The
same was in the family: a wife, two children, two lovers. It
was a time of multiple identities. The biographic revolution
ended somewhere in 1995. People had made their choice: one job,
one family.

Q.: What is the outcome of the experiment?
A.: Now the situation is different. Things separated
earlier, such as education, salary and status, are getting
closer. In the early 90s you could make a great commercial
career without any special education. Everything lay on
different tables. Now the pieces of the mosaic are fitting
together. People are coming to understand what and when to
invest in their biography: when to get education and when to
have a baby. People have found a certain answer to the
question: Who am I?

Q.: What factors are responsible for upward mobility
today?
Is it education, parents' connections, a chance?
A.: "Symbolical capital" is usually the best in this case,
where it is connections, useful acquaintances, or belonging to
a certain society group.