National and Regional Identities of the Russian Youth Compared (Based on the In-Depth Interviews with the Students of the Siberian Federal University)

Since the 1990s Russian society has experienced a number of transformations, which affected the reassessment of its new position by citizens. What Russians now feel affects not only the state of society, but also the success of the country's further development. Young people, including students of universities are the group, the study of which is necessary for making forecasts of the state of public opinion, so the focus of this work is the political views of the students. At the moment, studies show that the value heterogeneity of society is small, that allows us to talk about homogeneity. On the other hand, opinion polls record an increase in regional identity. Thus, the research question was formulated as follows: how is a strong regional identity built in the conditions of homogeneity of society? The aim of the study was to identify the correlation between national and regional identities among Russian students. Within the framework of the research, the following hypothesis was tested: among Russian students, regional identity prevails over the national one. To test the hypothesis Siberian Federal University (Krasnoyarsk) was selected, interviews with students of this institution made an empirical base of the research. As a result, the hypothesis was rejected, and also the conflict of identities in the minds of students was revealed.