Changing Societies & Personalities, 2017
Vol. 1, No. 3

http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2017.1.3.015

EDITORIAL

EDITOR’S NOTE

The current issue does not have any particular theme; rather, in the submitted 
papers previous themes are developed and the new ones are introduced. Thus, in 
his paper entitled Fin de Siècle in the Trajectories of Russian Modernity: Novelty 
and Repetition, Maxim Khomyakov continues the discussion on modernity in 
relation to twentieth century Russia. He demonstrates how in Russian constellation 
of modernity autonomy came to be understood as a secondary to rational mastery 
and how collective autonomy started to dominate over individual one. For this 
purpose, he discusses details of N. Federov’s “Philosophy of the Common Task”, 
as well as peculiarities of the development of Russian society of the beginning 
of the last century. In general, the author follows C. Castoriadis’ definition of 
modernity through double imaginary of autonomy and rational mastery as well 
as P. Wagner’s characterisation of modernity as experience and interpretation. 
Khomyakov stresses that the centenary of Russian October Revolution has raised 
question on the role of the peculiar cultural phenomenon of the end of XIX –  
beginning of XX century, the fin de siècle, and put the following questions: Why 
fin de siècle is recurrent, if not because of internal apocalypse of the history or 
because of the psychologically acute perception of the crises in the light of the end 
of the century? What does it mean for the history? How the cultural phenomena 
are connected with social and political catastrophes so characteristic for any fin 
de siècle? In his paper, Khomyakov makes an attempt to outline general view of 
a possible approach to this theme.
 In the joint paper under the title Conformity in Modern Science: An Engine of 
Societal Transformation? Natalia Popova, Yan Moiseenko, and Thomas Beavitt 
indicates the changing role of science in the contemporary world. The research 
purpose of the authors is to investigate the phenomenon of conformity, which has 
always played a central role in social life, is acquiring new significance through its 
impact on science. Though science is penetrating all spheres of life, scientists are 
increasingly being forced to conform to regulation and bureaucratisation. Sociologists, 
biologists and psychologists have explored conformity (e.g. conformist behaviour) 
but, to the authors knowledge, there is no generally accepted understanding of 
its nature. This paper examines conformity through a comprehensive literature 
analysis and evaluates its role in shaping modern science. The authors provide 
some illustrations of how this happens in the everyday lives of researchers, such as 
the distribution of the IMRAD format of research articles. The authors hypothesize 
that conformity in science has consequences at three levels: (1) within a scientific 
community, when scientists follow prescribed patterns of conduct; (2) within a 
particular society when people from all walks of life conform to the standards set by 
the scientised world-view; and (3) at the global level when non-western societies 
conform to Western standards of life by adopting  the Western scientific worldview.



219Changing Societies & Personalities, 2017       Vol. 1, No. 3

 Leonid Fishman in the paper The End of Utopias? reflects upon the place of 
creating utopia in the contemporary social thinking and discusses the legitimacy of the 
question: Are we really living in the era of “the end of utopias”? The author argues that 
contemporary utopian consciousness should be considered taking into account that 
utopias are inextricably linked with capitalism; they serves its transformation (defining 
its “spirit” by its criticism) in transition from one stage to another; they are an expression 
of the worldviews and aspirations of social groups (classes) rising at different stages of 
capitalism. Therefore, in order to find the place in the social structure in which modern 
utopias are born, it is necessary to locate the “rising class”. In the paper, the rising 
class is defined as one that has, at least potentially, the greatest productivity. When it 
comes to a contemporary rising class, the source of technical and cultural innovations 
allegedly playing a decisive role in the economy is usually considered in terms of 
“creative class” or “cognitariat”. Varieties of modern utopian consciousness are 
considered, proceeding from the outlined view of the socio-structural transformation of 
contemporary societies.
 The current issue has new section – RESEARCH NOTES – that contain two 
papers: the first one – University Students: Connections between Representations of 
Stress and Coping Strategies by Irina Kuvaeva, Nadezhda Achan, Ksenia Lozovskaya –  
discusses the representations of stress (concept of stress) and a variety of coping 
strategies that people in collectivistic cultures use in attempting to deal with problematic 
situations. The second one – Comparative Study of Russian and Slovenian Managers 
Using Subjective Criteria to Control Their Professional Performance by Eva Boštjančič, 
Fayruza S. Ismagilova, Galina Mirolyubova, Nina Janza – presents the results of a 
Russian-Slovenian cross-cultural study, which describes key structural factors in 
the subjective criteria of performance monitoring used by Russian and Slovenian 
managers. The comparative analysis reveals both similarities and differences between 
Russian and Slovenian approach.    
 The discussions on the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the 
subsequent issues of our journal, and new themes will be introduces. We welcome 
suggestions for thematic issues, debate sections, book reviews and other formats from 
readers and prospective authors and invite you to send us your reflections and ideas! 
 For more information, please visit the journal web-site: https://changing-sp.com/ 

Elena Stepanova
stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com