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Don Cossacks: Experience of Applied Use of the Structuration Theory
Purposes: Modern process of Don Cossacks revival faces a number of problems. One of which is connected with realization in modern conditions of the main social practice of the Cossacks – military service. In this regard a detection of social prerequisites and conditions of emergence of this problem at an initial stage of revival’s process was a main goal of research.
Methods: As methodical base of research the strukturation theory of A. Giddens was chosen. Object of research – the Don Cossacks as social system. According to the theory, changes of social structure of system are defi ned by her social practices. Therefore in work the change of the social practices system of the Don Cossacks in the historical period of the 16th–20th centuries is studied.
Results: The made social-historical analysis showed nonlinear change of the main backbone social practice of the Cossacks – military specialization. In the considered historical period it was the leading factor in the course of system integration of the Cossacks and the Russian state. If at the time of autocracy it provided to the Cossacks high prestige in social hierarchy of society, during the Soviet period led to “dissolution” of the Cossacks in socialist society. At the beginning of revival process (the beginning of the 1990s years) the Cossacks positioned itself at the level of the maximum social take-off – as the highest estate of the Russian Empire with noble privileges of times of the middle of the 19th century. This social status was inadequate into revival’s period. It was the reason of many problems of the modern Cossacks.
Discussion: In work a categories of “ethnicity”, “estatecity”, internal social stratifi cation and social resources of the Cossacks are also discussed from the point of view of the strukturation theory. Their changes are also considered in historical time.
Methods: As methodical base of research the strukturation theory of A. Giddens was chosen. Object of research – the Don Cossacks as social system. According to the theory, changes of social structure of system are defi ned by her social practices. Therefore in work the change of the social practices system of the Don Cossacks in the historical period of the 16th–20th centuries is studied.
Results: The made social-historical analysis showed nonlinear change of the main backbone social practice of the Cossacks – military specialization. In the considered historical period it was the leading factor in the course of system integration of the Cossacks and the Russian state. If at the time of autocracy it provided to the Cossacks high prestige in social hierarchy of society, during the Soviet period led to “dissolution” of the Cossacks in socialist society. At the beginning of revival process (the beginning of the 1990s years) the Cossacks positioned itself at the level of the maximum social take-off – as the highest estate of the Russian Empire with noble privileges of times of the middle of the 19th century. This social status was inadequate into revival’s period. It was the reason of many problems of the modern Cossacks.
Discussion: In work a categories of “ethnicity”, “estatecity”, internal social stratifi cation and social resources of the Cossacks are also discussed from the point of view of the strukturation theory. Their changes are also considered in historical time.
Don Cossacks, system of the social practices, Cossack social structure, resources of the social system, structuration theory, social-historical analysis