The Last Soviet Generation in the Contexts of Changing Modernity

The presentation will feature a portrait of the last Soviet generation. The analysis of the generation will cover the search of its specific identity and identification of limits. The presentation will be based on the comparative research of three generations - the last Soviet generation, the old and the young. In the research, biographical methodology, secondary quantitative data analysis and group discussion material are applied. The identification of these generations is examined from two perspectives. Firstly, from the perspective of generation's identification - generation's own identity, perceptions of collective "us" and images given to the generation by other generations. The generation's Soviet and post-Soviet memory of transformations and their significance to generation's identity will be presented as well. Secondly, the specificity of generations' identity will be "historically" analyzed by revealing the features identified from the researcher's viewpoint - institutionalized behavior components, which are located in life records and in the quantitative demographic type of data. The analysis will be focused on the structural changes of the generations' life course and on the institutions of modernity that determined these changes. It will be analysed how different components of modernity have determined generation's experience and how this experience is reflected in the generation. Generation's features of socialization in the late Soviet times and adaptation models in the contexts of changing modernity will be analysed giving attention to the family’s institution and its role in the socialization. Empirical data consists of 80 biographical interviews and three focus groups.