The review is devoted to the issues raised in the new book by the collective of Yekaterinburg authors. The reviewer focuses on how they evaluate different approaches to studying the peculiarities of social stratifications. Their conclusion about the disadvantages of using the class and the estate (soslovie) as an explanatory concept for the social sciences of Russiais of great academic interest. The critical analysis of this paradigm leads the authors of the monograph to revise the “macro-sociological” patterns adopted in historical science, as well as to propose and promote original methodological schemes focused on specific research problems in studying the social stratification of Russia. The methods of social construction undertaken in the 17th – 20th centuries were inspired by needs and discourses of Russian elites. Different conceptual strategies were used by elite groups to form a social structure. Contrary to the opinion of many historians, these structural models do not present «objective» social reality, but nevertheless deserve the most thorough investigation. Moving from generalizations to specific historical cases, the authors of the new monograph describe some social patterns: such archaic group like the kholops, social groups of the "vechnootdannye" and the European specialists in the Ural factories, the corporation of the Imperial School of Law graduates, the party "nomenklatura" in the Soviet period, the "atomic" community of scientists and specialists working on the atomic project, etc.
UNDERSTANDING, CONSTRUCTING AND DESCRIBING SOCIAL PATTERNS IN RUSSIA OF THE 17TH – 20TH CENTURIES: NEW APPROACHES IN THE COLLECTIVE MONOGRAPHY BY URAL SCHOLARS
