We publish an interview of Alexander Nikulin, Head of the Center for Agrarian Studies, with Teodor Shanin, President of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, who was awarded the Order of the British Empire. The interview focuses on the key issues of personal self-determination in the history of the 20th century. The interview was to focus on the work of the historian Mikhail Gefter 'Apology of the weak man' which the online journal Gefter wanted to publish. However, the conversation went far beyond the discussion of this work. Shanin shared his memories of how he began to study the Russian peasantry and ideas of Nikolai Bukharin and Alexander Chayanov, of his meetings with Moshe Levin, the head of the Rote Kapelle (Red Chapel) with alias Domb and many others. Shanin expressed his attitude to Stalin and Stalinism, the XX Congress of the CPSU and denunciation of the personality cult. His arguments about strength and weakness, cowardice and self-control reveal his ethical position as a historian and an active participant of the 20th century events both in the world and Russia.

Football has become much more than a simple game over the past hundred years. Football has become a factor in global policy, affecting not only the minds and souls of hundreds of millions of fans, but also the political, economic, and social aspects of modern life. This interview with M. Prozumshchikov, the leading researcher of Russian sports and one of the editors of the collection of documents revealed from the Russian State Archive of Recent History, was invited to talk about the creation of the Soviet system of party control over big sport (and, above all, over football), about the views of the leaders of the USSR on the possibility of using football for ideological purposes, and about the role of the Soviet state in the support and development of the mass football movement. The issues of the archival system of documents on sports in the USSR were also touched upon. At the very beginning, the history of the rise of a line of publications dedicated to sport mega-events involving Soviet athletes such as the 1980 Summer Olympics, the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, and big football matches was discussed. Furthermore, the researcher talked about the difficulties associated with finding relevant documents about Soviet sport in the existing archival landscape of modern Russia. The main part of the conversation was devoted to the structural problems of national sport, beginning with the early USSR and ending with the disintegration of the state sport system under M. Gorbachev. The most important problems of the sports movement in the Soviet Union, such as the internationalization of Soviet sport, in general, and the sport relations with the countries of the Socialist Block, in particular, as well as the balance of power between the Central Committee and the Sports Committee and other significant actors of this field, the trivial nationalism in the bleachers at the Soviet stadiums, and other topics were also discussed. The interview ends with a discussion of the prospects for historical sports research.

The Russian Sociological Review publishes an interview with Alexander Gofman about the late sociologist Alexander Kovalev. Gofman and Kovalev had been friends since the 1960s and worked together in the same research department at the Institute for Concrete Social Research, later renamed the Institute for Sociological Researches of Academy of Science of the USSR. They also actively took part in the renowned seminar of Yuri Levada. In his reminiscences, Gofman sheds additional light on the history of the rebirth of Russian sociology in 1960s and its intellectual routes. Conflicts of the 1970s illustrate the problems of the relationship between the sociological community and power and the impact of power on the research agenda, interests and perspectives. In Gofman’s view, Kovalev was an intellectual who decided to take a non-participative position. In this respect he is significantly different from his colleagues from the 1960s (“sixtiers”) who argued for active participation in social life. In the interview, Gofman also discusses the role of many other famous sociologists (e.g. Igor Kon, Yuri Levada, Yuri Davydov and others). This interview is a part of the research project on the history of Russian sociology in the 1960s.

The interview with the well-known Russian sociologist Alexander Kovalev was recorded in 1998 as a part of the project "The Seminar Movement in Sociology: the Second Science, or The Glass Bead Game". It is published to commemorate Kovalev. In this interview, Kovalev primarily discusses the famous seminar organized by Yuri Levada of which Kovalev was a participant. Kovalev focuses on his academic career in sociology when the discipline was reborn in the USSR after long period of oblivion. He also considers a variety of pioneering theoretical studies and reception of western sociological ideas through translations and overviews. Kovalev was interviewed about the participants of the seminars and their motivation, the topics discussed at the seminar meetings and the seminar organizers and leaders of Soviet Sociology in the 1960-70s. Additionally, Kovalev provides a broader understanding of the seminar movement in the social sciences, its popularity among soviet intelligentsia and its functions which spread far beyond academic ones. Following this interview it is possible to argue that the major function of Levada's seminars was educational. First of all, the seminars provided members of the sociological community with an education in theoretical foundations of the discipline. This type of education was impossible within the acceptable general sociological theory, specifically historical materialism. Secondly, these seminars educated the intelligentsia and provided knowledge of western social theories.

The publication of the anniversary issue of the "Sociological Review" almost coincides with the first year anniversary of the death of our friend and journal's editorial board member, remarkable scholar Andrei Vladimirovich Poletaev. Due to the particularities of the publishing cycle, we were a little bit late, but as far back as year ago we decided this time to continue our tradition - to pay the tribute to the memory of our colleagues not only and not so much by obituaries but by extensive articles about their life and work. We are deeply grateful to Irina Maksimovna Savelieva who formed with Andrei Vladimirovich a unique creative alliance of scholars and science organisers. Her narrative permits us to reestimate and in many ways evaluate anew Poletaev's contribution to the changes that social sciences in our country have undergone during last decades. Poletaev's important achievments comprise the main line of the story. To talk about him means to talk about his work. But for us who knew and loved him, this is also one more occasion to remember Andrei, his voice and his reliability as a friend.

Выход юбилейного номера «Социологического обозрения» по времени почти совпадает с годовщиной ухода из жизни нашего друга и члена редакционной коллегии, замечательного ученого Андрея Владимировича Полетаева. Из-за специфики издательского цикла мы подзадержались, не откликнулись вместе со всеми, но уже год назад решили, что сложившаяся у нас традиция - отдавать дань памяти коллегам не только и не столько некрологами, сколько большими материалами об их жизни и творчестве, - будет продолжена и в этот раз. Мы признательны Ирине Максимовне Савельевой, составлявшей с Андреем Владимировичем уникальный творческий союз ученых-исследователей и организаторов науки. Ее рассказ позволяет еще раз и во многом по-новому оценить роль Полетаева в тех изменениях, которые претерпело за последние десятилетия социальное познание в нашей стране. Важные дела Полетаева - основной сюжет этого повествования. Говорить о нем - значит говорить о его деле. Но для нас, знавших и любивших его, это еще один повод вспомнить самого Андрея, его голос, его энергетику, его дружескую надежность, которой, казалось, не может быть преград и пределов.

The two interviews with a well-known Russian sociologist Boris A. Grushin tell about his creative path to science, about development of public opinion research in the USSR, establishment and functioning of the Institute of public opinion of the newspaper «Komsomolskaya pravda», about the Taganrog project, about the role of party journalism, particularly, of the magazine «The problems of the world and socialism», about reception of western ideas, liberalization of social sciences in the Soviet Union and about two-way influence of press and mass consciousness.

The interview with Y.N. Davydov presents a detailed narrative about the path to science, books and people, which influenced the world view, about the twists and turns of relationships with authorities and colleagues, an atmosphere in social sciences in the 1950-s -1960-s. The interview tells about the views hidden behind «the criticism of bourgeois philosophy and sociology» and at a greater length about the reception of western ideas by Soviet sociology, about discussions and conflicts in academic environment of that period.

The interview with a well-known sociologist Yuri A. Levada is devoted to the history of sociology development in Russia in the end of the 1950-s - the beginning of the 1960-s, atmosphere in social sciences of this period, and the conflict between liberal sociologists and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Levada’s case), which signified the end of «thaw» in sociological environment. The author of the interview was an organizer and a leader of a famous sociological seminar, held up to the middle of the 1980-s. He provides a detailed analysis of a «seminar» form of academic communication in the conditions of party control of social sciences.

The publication of documents from state and private archives illustrates and supplements the interview with Y.A. Levada.

The publication of documents from state and private archives illustrates and supplements the interview with Y.A. Levada.