System-forming mission of culture: Russian civilization at the turn of the era

The article is a review of the book by M.K. Gorshkov, S.N. Komissarov and O.I. Karpukhin At the Turn of the Era: Social Dynamics of Russian Culture (Moscow: FCTAS RAS, 2022. 703 p.). The book is of great theoretical and social-political significance and outlines new horizons for the development of sociological science. The authors emphasize the strategic role of culture as the core of the Russian society and its importance for successful social modernization and economic growth. The book provides new concepts and theoretical-methodological approaches to the analysis of the social-cultural reality in post-reform Russia and defines the field of sociology of culture as the entire human world in its specific spatial-temporal coordinates, taken in dynamics that reveals the intercultural interaction between the past, present and future. Culture is presented in the book as an environment for the preservation and transmission of spiritual heritage, which contributes to the ‘immunity’ from the destabilizing information impact. The authors consider the issues of the social dynamics of the Russian culture in the late 20th - early 21st century on the data of many sociological surveys, conduct a social-cultural analysis of organizational, structural and qualitative changes in the cultural activities of the population and in the artistic-creative process, present a comprehensive picture of the social dynamics of the Russian culture at the turn of the era, including the state of the spiritual-value motivation, the social-cultural nature of transformations and their social-cultural consequences.