The Beginnings of Soviet Sociological Research in Lviv: Collective Monograph «social Transformations in the Soviet Village. On the Example of Villages in the Western Regions of the Ukrainian Ssr» (1976)

The article reconstructs the main stages of the process of preparation and publication of the monograph and highlights the specifics of the research process aimed at its appearance. Attention is focused on the presence of significant internal and mainly external factors that determined the inevitable difficulties in achieving the idea that the monograph was supposed to represent. It is shown that the staff of the newly established in 1967 Department of Specific Historical Research of the Institute of Social Sciences was tasked with conducting a sociological study on «Socialist Transformations in the Western Ukrainian Village» in 1967–1971, which was to be completed by preparing a collective monograph. The author notes that the preparation of the plan and program of a complex and large-scale project was entrusted to persons among whom there was not a single professional sociologist. Due to the lack of specialized knowledge and experience in conducting sociological research among the departmentʼs employees, their practical work, especially at the beginning, did not meet certain methodological standards. It is noted that at that time this situation was by no means an exception in Ukraine. The study outlines the purpose of the research and the main means of achieving it. The questionnaire method of collecting information was preferred in the work, which made it possible to obtain the most possible, rich in details, mostly unique information about the social reality of the Western Ukrainian village. The main achievements of the sociologistsʼ research work are shown, and their personal composition and specific participation in the implementation of the research project are identified. Based on the involvement of new sources, primarily materials of sociological research and expeditionary surveys, they managed to create a broad and diverse information base about the real situation in the socio-economic life and spiritual world of the Western Ukrainian peasant, which the authors, despite all the dependence on ideological «tasks», tried to use in their texts to get closer to the historical truth. The author has shown that in the context of the historical reality of the time, when ideological pressure and censorship made it impossible to search for scientific truth, their creative efforts were doomed to failure. The article indicates that after the forced revision and editing of the monograph’s manuscript due to censorship, without which its publication was impossible, the book, original in concept and still unique in Ukrainian sociology, has largely lost its original authentic content. Keywords sociology, Department of Specific Sociological Research, Institute of Social Sciences, monograph, censorship, Hryhorii Kovalchak.