Ethnosociology in Tatarstan. Dedicated to L.M. Drobizheva

The article is devoted to the formation and development of ethnosociology in Tatarstan, which is closely associated with the name of one of its founders, Leokadia Mikhailovna Drobizheva. Ethnosociology, as a field that arose at the junction of ethnology and sociology, focuses on studying the development features of the peoples of Russia. Originated in the mid-1960s as a response to the changing political and socio-economic situation in the USSR, it has always expressed the demands of the times. The article reveals the areas and main issues of research in which ethnosociologists from the Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences were involved. The author reveals the professional and personal qualities of L.M. Drobizheva as the initiator and organizer of a number of ethnosocial projects in the country, which were aimed at studying the most relevant problems of our time. Those studies examined issues of state identity and ethnic identity, nationalism, problems of equality/inequality of social and ethnic groups, ethnic and social distances, interethnic relations. The results were presented in numerous publications, lectures, consultations, and helped in working out political decisions. L.M. Drobizheva made a significant contribution to the improvement of the federal foundations of the Russian state, which was rightlfully appreciated by the leadership of the Russian Federation and the academic community. 60 years of development resulted in the formation of a large School of ethnosociology, which includes fellow ethnosociologists from Moscow, St. Petersburg, the national republics of the Russian Federation and the former Soviet Union. It also unites large Russian university cities with ethnosociology centers, where research is conducted, lectures on ethnosociology are given to students of various disciplines, such as history, sociology, cultural and political studies, etc.