JRL had an interesting thing on this a little while ago, which I reproduce below.
JRL RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT Issue No. 32 November 2005 Editor: Stephen D. Shenfield shenfield at neaccess.net
SOCIETY
7. SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS OF THE PAST
SOURCE. Yu. A. Levada, "Istoricheskiye ramki 'budushchego' v obshchestvennom mnenii" [Historical Bounds of the 'Future' in Public Opinion], pp. 147--59 (esp. pp. 152-6)in Vorozheikina 2004 (see source for item 4).
This study by the well-known sociologist Yuri Levada is based on the results of a questionnaire survey conducted under the research program "Soviet Person" (Sovetsky chelovek) in 1994, 1999, and July-August 2003. Respondents were asked how they would evaluate each of 8 periods, from the last tsar to Putin: did it bring more good than harm or vice versa?
Levada justifies not going any further back on the grounds that the real (as opposed to mythological) historical memory of the masses is shallow. "Earlier periods are simply insignificant for public opinion." In fact, even for the times of Nicholas II and of the revolution the "don't knows" comprise about half and over a quarter of the sample, respectively. (1)
The Table below shows the difference between the percentage saying that the period in question brought more good than harm and the percentage saying the opposite. So high scores indicate a favorable evaluation and low scores a negative one.
RATINGS OF 8 HISTORICAL PERIODS, 1994--2003
Period 1994 1999 2003
Time of Nicholas II ---- + 6 +4
Time of the revolution -11 - 8 -11
Time of Stalin -39 -22 -18
Time of Khrushchev +19 +16 + 3
Time of Brezhnev +20 +41 +32
Time of Gorbachev -31 -52 -46
Time of Yeltsin ---- -67 -53
Time of Putin ---- ---- +42
We see that public perceptions of different periods are fairly stable. Periods of stabilization following upheavals (Brezhnev, Putin) are recalled with greatest favor. Periods with positive and negative evaluations alternate. Levada connects this with the fact that in each period the immediately preceding period is denigrated while the period before that is idealized.
In 2003 there was a sharp contrast between the oldest generation (aged 55+), in which a negative view of late tsarism and a positive view of the revolutionary and Stalin periods still predominates, and younger generations that tend to make opposite evaluations. Thus, the score of the Stalin period is +15 for people aged 55+ (who came of age before Stalin's death) and -28 for the 40--54 age group (most of whom matured under Khrushchev). However, over the decade 1994--2003 negative assessments of the Stalin period become less frequent and negative assessments of the Khrushchev period correspondingly more frequent.
NOTE
(1) The sample size was 3,000 for 1994 and 2,000 for 1999 and 2003.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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