Интервью с Александром Дмитриевичем Ковалевым (4 марта 1998 г.)

Социологическое обозрение. 2012. Т. 11. № 1. С. 152–159.

Pugacheva M.

The interview with a famous Russian sociologist Alexander Kovalev was recorded in 1998 as a part of the project “The Seminar Movement in Sociology: the Second Science or The Glass Bead Game”. It is published to commemorate Alexander Kovalev who has recently died. In this interview Kovalev primarily discusses the famous seminar organized by Yuri Levada. Kovalev himself was a participant of this seminar. In particular he focuses on an academic career in sociology when it was reborn in USSR after long period of oblivion. He also considers variety of pioneering theoretical studies and reception of western sociological ideas through translations and overviews. Kovalev was interviewed about the participants of the seminars and their motivation, about the topics discussed at the seminar meetings and about the seminar organizers and leaders of Soviet Sociology in 1960-70s. Additionally, Kovalev provides a broader understanding of seminar movement in social sciences, its popularity among soviet intelligentsia and its functions, which spread far beyond only academic ones. Following this interview we can argue that the major function of Levada’s seminars was educational. First of all, they provided members of sociological community with education in theoretical foundations of the discipline. This sort of education was impossible within the only acceptable general sociological theory, namely historical materialism. Secondly, these seminars educated intelligentsia and provided knowledge of western social theories

Keywords: история советской социологии, Yu.Levada, Левада Ю.А., семинары по социологии, история российской социологии, history of soviet sociology, history of russian sociology, sociological seminars