The Higher School of Economics and the editorial team of the journal “Patria” are pleased to present to readers the first issue of our publication. The journal is conceived as a general humanities publication, but with a focus on a specific subject that increasingly occupies the minds of not only scholars but also society. Values, in all their diversity, are studied not only by philosophy but also by sociology, psychology, political science, and other disciplines such as religious studies, history, and cultural studies. While we plan to dedicate issues to various topics — religion, Russian history, and others — it is only natural to begin with the topic of values.

In recent years, the question of values (especially traditional ones) has become particularly pressing, considering the complex global situation. Beyond the mere turn toward traditional values lies a burgeoning discussion about what these values represent — not only in terms of their content and role in societal life but also, philosophically speaking, in their mode of existence.

The research section opens with Taras Varkhotov’s (Lomonosov Moscow State University) article, “The Unconventional Nature of Value.” The author asserts that existing approaches to the concept of value often understand it as derivative of subjective factors, showing that this perspective was embedded as early as Neo-Kantianism. The article offers an alternative view, proposing that values can be understood as ontologically self-sufficient, not defined by social conventions, which are often arbitrary. This perspective outlines an alternative to the Inglehart-Welzel program for value research.

The next two articles examine the relationship between traditional values and modernity. Nikolai Afanasov (Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences), in his article “On the Modernity and Timeliness of Traditional Values,” highlights the relevance of addressing traditional values within the context of a crisis in contemporary social philosophy, which is oriented toward globalization values. The author notes that the lens of social philosophy is especially pertinent for discussing traditional values, particularly because it reveals the inadequacies of Neo-Kantian approaches to values. Dmitry Davydov (Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences), in his article “Progressivism Against Modernity: What Do Russian Traditional Values Oppose?” invites readers to consider Russian traditional values as not archaic but, on the contrary, more aligned with the modern project than progressive values. The latter, as the author shows, are oriented toward principles of expressive individualism and thus break with modernity’s hallmark principles of objectivity, universality, and scientific rationality, instead treating them as systems of oppression.

The research section concludes with articles on the sociology of values and memory. In “The Renaissance of Tradition: The Reception of Traditional Values by Active Russian Youth,” Ivan Gruzdev and Sergey Startsev (HSE University) present findings from an empirical study of participants in the World Youth Festival, held in March 2024, regarding their attitudes toward traditional Russian values. These findings are placed in the broader context of reflections on values in Russian history and social theory. Fyodor Nikolai (Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod), in his article “The Problems of Value Mapping in Memory Studies and Reconstruction,” examines how values intersect with practices of historical reconstruction and how these differ from other forms of commemoration.

In the “Invitation to Discussion” section, we are delighted to present an important essay by Valery Fadeev (Russian State University for the Humanities) titled “Toward a New Sociology: Values and the Sacred.” The author raises the question of creating a new social science. He critically assesses the state of contemporary academic sociology, which either entirely ignores the value foundation of society, deeming its consideration contrary to the principles of scientific rigor, or approaches values in the vein of Ronald Inglehart, whose method the author regards as ideologically biased. Fadeev argues that sociology must account for the sacred dimension of human life to adequately address values. He emphasizes that this perspective does not contradict classical sociology, as the role of the sacred in social life was thoroughly analyzed by Émile Durkheim and Max Weber. Recognizing the sacred would reveal the significance of values in the long-term perspective of societal life, which cannot be adequately studied using the methods of sociological surveys alone. At the same time, Fadeev stresses that turning to the sacred does not require blurring the boundaries between science and religion.

The question raised in the “Invitation to Discussion” section finds immediate resonance. The first issue concludes with the “Criticism and Reviews” section, featuring Evgeny Moschelkov’s review of the 2023 collective monograph “Value-Semantic and Intellectual Foundations of Russia’s Strategic Development in the Context of Global Challenges,” edited by Valery Fadeev and Taras Varkhotov. It seems the first issue has turned out to be highly engaging, thematically cohesive, and defining some coordinates for discussions on values across the broad fields of humanities and social sciences.

We sincerely hope that reading this issue will be both enjoyable and thought-provoking and that the texts it features will serve as a starting point for academic research on traditional values in theoretical and empirical perspectives, as well as for broad public discussions on the topic of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.

Alexander Pavlov