Construction of a Generation by Russian Youth in the Context of Radical Social Transformations

Abstract

Millennials are being replaced by a 20-year-old group, which is entering an active phase of maturation and generational formation. The study of this process based on Mannheim’s tradition is especially important in Russia, which is undergoing radical social transformation. The focus of this article is the process of constructing generational discourse by Russian youth of 18–25 years old in a temporal perspective. The analysis of 72 qualitative interviews with educated middle-class youth collected in 2020–2023 in Saint Petersburg shows the dynamic change of generational narrative associated with the comprehension of current events and the development of shared patterns of interpretation. Young people are redefining themselves away from feeling to be a free generation open to choices and the future, through dramatic reflexive assessments of what is happening and generational perspectives, towards experiencing to be a generation of loss, focused on their private life in the present.

Introduction

The concept of generation not only remains relevant but also becomes more and more important since ‘old’ collective identities such as class or social origin are blurring and generation becomes one from new classification markers (Corsten, 1999, pp. 249–250). Some researchers develop Mannheim’s tradition by refining the approach he proposed (e.g., Pilcher, 1994; Timonen & Conlon, 2015), some criticize this approach by pointing out its limitations (e.g., Boyle, 2023; Roberts & France, 2020), while some expand it by taking into account the new processes of globalization and digitalization (e.g., Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2009; Philipps, 2018). However, most recognize that times are changing, and thus the ways people live through these times are also changing.

Research on generations is especially important in the Russian context, where global trends intersect with the national context. The sociopolitical transformations of the last 30 years have significantly changed the social order, ways of living and opportunities for identification. Studies of youth show that the Russian generation of the 1990s differed significantly from their Western peers of generation X (Omelchenko, 2013). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, young people not only received new opportunities, such as the market, opening of borders and freedom of information, but also faced socio-economic and ideological crises (Semenova, 2009). Similar processes were observed in Eastern European countries, where the post-communist generation of the 1990s faced ambivalence of hopes and disappointments (Marada, 2024; Vogt, 2005). Located on the edge of two regimes, the first post-Soviet Russian generation was unable to fully integrate into the new order and was often defined as ‘lost’ (Pilkington, 1996).

Studies from the mid-2000s, on the contrary, indicate similar trends between Russian and Western youth. Transformations of structural conditions of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, such as the education system, the labour market, the institution of marriage and globalization, which led to the destandardization of the life course and the formation of a ‘precarious’ generation of ‘millennials’, also affected Russia. Empirical research of Russian youth, as well as youth from Western countries, shows how young people who were growing up in the early 2000s changed behaviour patterns (Omelchenko, 2021), built flexible strategies of action in the labour market (Goncharova et al., 2016), redefined citizenship (Nartova, 2019) and generally conceptualized themselves as a global generation (Vandegrift, 2016).

However, a generation born in the 2000s and growing up in the 2020s, for whom precarization, digitalization and globalization are part of the routine, is entering the historical stage. Despite all the turbulence of the global world, this Russian youth grew up in a relatively stable, albeit stagnant, political and economic situation under the presidency of V. V. Putin. But the phase of their adulthood—active personal formation, professional and academic education, entry into the labour market, formation of life plans, that is, the formative period—fell on a critical change in the situation. In 2020, the world experienced the COVID-19 pandemic that significantly restructured daily life in Russia as well. And in 2022, the military conflict with Ukraine began, which led to the breakdown of many international ties, a sanctions crisis, military mobilization, tightening of political control and serious transformations of the social and economic order. While older generations, including millennials, are resocializing by reclaiming existing crisis experiences and reconstructing their plans for new conditions, young people in their twenties are socializing directly into these circumstances, somehow creating collective interpretations and ways of acting.

Thus, the constitution of Russian generations over the last 30 years both intersects with and differs significantly from Western and Eastern European contexts. Unifying global economic and information processes, the development of electoral authoritarian regime (Gel’man, 2022) and the military conflict in Ukraine make the situation of the formation of the young generation extremely specific and empirically unique. Therefore, this article is aimed at answering the question: How does the younger generation of Russians construct their generational narrative in today’s conditions?

Researchers have repeatedly noted that events such as war, crises and social disasters shape the foundations of generational identities (Mannheim, 1952; Thomson, 2016). However, generations are not created overnight, so it is important to consider the generational narrative in a temporal perspective. Retrospective studies do not always allow us to capture the dynamics of the formation of generational discourse. The peculiarity of this article is that it examines the process of constructing a generation based on empirical data from qualitative interviews with urban, educated Russian youth aged 18–25 years old, collected in 2020–2023.

Thus, this study, on the one hand, continues the tradition of researching generations in frame of youth studies, while expanding it, on the other hand, by including an analysis of temporal changes in the process of formation of a generational narrative and making it possible to capture the generational reaction to sociopolitical transformations in the national context.

Understanding the Concept of Generation: A Theoretical Framework

According to Mannheim (1952), generations are formed through the commonality of a cohort’s shared historical experience and as a consequence of the perspectives of thought and action developed, ‘A generation as an actuality is constituted when similarly “located” contemporaries participate in a common destiny and in the ideas and concepts which are in some way bound up with its unified folding’ (Mannheim, 1952, p. 306).

Mannheim emphasizes that individuals are partly limited by their place in the social and historical process, which

predisposing them for a certain characteristic mode of thought and experience, and a characteristic type of historically relevant action. Any given location, then, excludes a large number of possible modes of thought, experience, feeling, and action, and restricts the range of self-expression open to the individual to certain circumscribed possibilities. (Mannheim, 1952, p. 291)

But they possess the generational possibility of producing the new. In other words, it is not the events as such that shape a generation, but the attitudes and interpretations shaped by them:

Form and context depend, in any case, on the group to which we belong. To become really assimilated into a group involves more than the mere acceptance of its characteristic values—it involves the ability to see things from its particular ‘aspect’, to endow concepts with its particular shade of meaning, and to experience psychological and intellectual impulses in the configuration characteristic of the group. It means, further, to absorb those interpretive formative principles that enable the individual to deal with new impressions and events in a fashion broadly predetermined by the group. (Mannheim, 1952, p. 306).

This thesis is developed by Corsten (1999), who points out that generations as collectives identify themselves and determine their place in the historical process through self-thematization—the establishment of semantic order, also known as the order of meanings, by ‘identifying their patterns of interpretation and validation of collective experience in discourses’ (Corsten, 1999, p. 261). He points out that generational semantics is produced within a ‘cultural circle’, by which he means temporary and casual encounters of people of the same age in different social contexts. At the same time, he emphasizes that the ‘cultural circle’ is not produced through a formal group, but through the similarity of using criteria for interpretation and formulating certain topics in the same way (Corsten, 1999, p. 262).

It is important that the formation of a generation takes place in the context of living common historical events by individuals in the same period of the life course. The key stage here is the transition from adolescence to adulthood as a biographical period ‘of taking self-responsibility, trying to work out formative principles of experience and active articulation’ (Corsten, 1999, p. 263).

Therefore, when analysing generations, it is important to consider the intertwining of exogenous factors, such as social conditions or historical events, with the internal dynamics of the genesis of shared schemes of interpreting generational experience (Corsten, 1999, p. 265). Generational representations play a fundamentally important role in social life. They allow individuals to recognize and acknowledge their experiences, possibilities and perspectives, so Corsten points out that generational discourses work as ‘collectively self-organized clues for the reconciliation between personal and social identity’ (Corsten, 1999, p. 264).

Timonen and Conlon (2015), building on Mansheim’s tradition, investigate the generational discursive production in the social practices of ‘ordinary’ people. They focus on two processes—‘talking’ and ‘doing’, meaning what exactly people say about generation and in what contexts and for what purpose the category of generation is articulated in narratives. Thus, they conclude that ‘generation is a conceptual device used to “perform” several tasks, and in particular to apportion blame, to express pity, concern and solidarity, to highlight unfairness and inequity, and to depict differential degrees of agency’ (Timonen & Conlon, 2015, pp. 8–9).

The analysis of ‘doing’ can be extended through a constructivist performative approach (Butler, 2004; West & Zimmerman, 1987), in which generational production should be seen not only as narrative articulation but also as direct practice. Månsson and colleagues, studying growing up and alcohol use, point out that

regardless of how we categorize ourselves, in interacting with society there is an expectation to behave in age appropriate ways which we cannot avoid. Perceptions of what is considered appropriate behavior, appearances, and ideas for people in a certain age group are shaped by cultural norms. (Månsson et al., 2022, p. 86)

This makes it possible to say that people do not just talk about generation, but also act as part of a generation, behave in their individual lives as representatives of a generation, based on shared generational norms and values.

At the same time, the question of temporality remains important. Where is this precise point at which a generation emerges? Modern researchers point out the limitations of the ‘classical’ theory of generations, emphasizing ‘that no specific age period in human development is inherently more formative than others’ (Boyle, 2023, p. 105). Generations are socialized and resocialized by changing structural conditions, historical challenges and transformations. Timonen and Conlon suggest that generations should be viewed as ‘live’ social constructs, maintained and refreshed by people in and over time’ (Timonen & Conlon, 2015, p. 2). That is, if social change has a greater impact on the young, as ‘since younger cohorts have grown up without strong frames of reference to earlier social norms’ (Boyle, 2023, p. 91), they nevertheless do not form common generational self-thematizations, norms and identifications overnight. It is important to take into account the processuality in the production of generational narratives.

Thus, we can say that the formation of shared collective perceptions of oneself, one’s place in the social and historical contexts, possible and accessible patterns of behaviour and organization of life by a young cohort in specific historical conditions is produced by the generation. Young people articulate the generational narrative and create a generation by acting as its representatives. At the same time, the production of shared identities and ways of acting are temporal, evolving and changing over time. Therefore, the concept of generation is fundamentally important because it ‘might even be seen as a sign of movement from individualized world views to emergent understanding of shared experiences and systematically patterned outcomes’ (Timonen & Conlon, 2015, p. 9).

The Empirical Base of the Study

The empirical base of the article consists of 72 semi-structured keynote interviews with young people aged 18–25 years living in Saint Petersburg, a large metropolis of Russia. However, they were collected in different time periods.

Ten interviews with equal numbers of young men and women aged 19–22 were conducted by a team of researchers from the Center for Youth Studies in the fall of 2020 as part of the project ‘Transition to Adulthood Among Russian Youth in the 21st Century: Generational Analysis’. The project was devoted to the study of the transition to adulthood of young people from different regions of Russia. For this article, only interviews collected in St. Petersburg were selected for analysis.

Seventeen interviews with young people (8 with males and 9 with females) aged 19–25 years were collected in September 2022 as part of the project ‘Life Choice: Rationality in Conditions of Turbulence’. The research was devoted to studying the life choices of young people in times of crisis. At the same time, in order to capture possible changes within the social group, both informants who were interviewed in the 2020 project and new ones were invited to the study. Thus, 7 people were interviewed again and 10 people took part in the study for the first time.

Forty-five interviews with young people (21 interviews with young men and 24 with young women) aged 18–25 years were collected by the research team as part of the project ‘Generational Identity, Life Choices and Sustainability of Russian Youth’ between April and June 2023. The project focused on the formation of young people’s resilience in today’s conditions. Informants in the 2023 study did not overlap with informants from previous studies.

The recruitment of informants in 2020–2023 was conducted through the researchers’ social networks and the snowball method. Interviews were conducted both offline and online and ranged in length from 50 minutes to 3 hours. Interviews were recorded, then transcribed and pseudonymised. Names of places, organizations, etc., as well as the names of research participants, were replaced with pseudonyms to avoid possible external identification of informants.

Despite the fact that these three projects focused on different aspects of the lives of young people, all interviews were constructed around the biographical path of the informants and included the topic of generations for discussion. Research participants were asked questions about the characteristics of their own generation, about its boundaries, about its differences from previous and following ones, about the future for the generation, etc. Thus, comparable empirical data were collected within the projects.

When describing the social characteristics of the informants, it is important to emphasize that the young women and men who took part in the study were urban, educated youth, predominantly from middle-class families. Most of the informants had higher education or were in the process of studying at a university, were employed in the labour market and worked in positions not related to blue-collar professions. At the same time, there were only six informants lived in their own apartments at the time of the interview; the rest lived either in their parents’ families or in rented accommodation, either alone or with friends and partners. None of the informants had children at the time of the interview, and only four were married.

The material was analysed in several stages. Initially, the interviews of 2020 were analysed. These interviews were taken as a point of reference and comparison. And then the interviews of 2022 and 2023 were analysed. In this way, changes in the articulation of the generational narrative over time were tracked. Narrative thematic analysis was used to work with the interview transcripts to identify common elements among the narratives: reconstructing common themes, events and dominant types of interpretation of them (Riessman, 2005). The analysis coded, systematized and thematically unified both the ways of talking about generation and the ways in which young people acted to organize their lives as members of a generation.

Like any qualitative research, this study has its limitations. The first is the amount of the data collected in 2020. Based on such a small number of interviews, it is difficult to reconstruct generational ideas in their entirety. However, the similarity of the informants’ generational narratives suggests that the dominant meanings were captured. Secondly, this study is not longitudinal, although it contains some element of it. In each stage, new informants took part in the research but the relative social homogeneity of the study participants allows us to identify and compare the generational discourse shared in this milieu. Thirdly, the informants are urban, educated, middle-class youth living in a large metropolis. Russia is a culturally and economically very heterogeneous country, where different generational discourses can be formed in other strata and context. Therefore, of course, it is impossible to generalize the results over all young Russians. In Mannheim’s terminology, the article analyses the discourse of a specific ‘generation unit’—the meanings of a certain group within a cohort, similar in social status.

From the Generation of ‘Choice and Freedom’ to the Generation of ‘Loss and the Slipping into Private Life’: Empirical Data Analysis

2020: Choice, Freedom, Movement

The cohort of Russians born in the 2000s grew up in conditions of relative stability and economic well-being. The world for them was a space of opportunities, freedom and choice. Informatization made young people included in the global agenda, even if they had no experience of territorial mobilities. They constituted a confident and global generation.

The analysis of qualitative interviews with urban, educated youth of St. Petersburg, collected in 2020, discovered similarity in 20 years olds’ interpretation of individual and generational experience. They considered the life prospects of their own generation as an open project connected primarily to the freedom of action, flexibility and possibility to make their own choice. Nineteen-year-old student Kirill, working as a part-time choreographer, talks about it this way: ‘Our generation has freedom of action, more … than the previous ones. That is, we can choose’ (Int. 1, m., 19 y.o., 2020). ¹

Potential instability and precarity were not seen as a limitation; on the contrary, readiness for the new shaped the generation. Inna, a 20-year-old medical university student, reasoned that:

We are quickly, quickly picking up different trends. Well … we are less conservative, because the previous generation, it seems to me that they are used to their living and live like that. Well, and we have something new every day and somehow we adapt to the world around us faster, that’s probably the case. (Int. 10, f., 20 y.o., 2020)

The value of change outweighed the hypothetical risks. Student and freelancer Rimma said: ‘We are very impulsive, our generation is quite really very impulsive people who do whatever comes into their head, they know that maybe they will regret it, but they are willing to take that risk’ (Int. 7, f., 20 y.o., 2020).

For them, the organization of their life course was shaped by the openness of the future, relatively free movement, and not by a specific plan to achieve a goal. Kirill emphasized:

For me it is not about achieving something in particular, but just going towards a goal. I would like to think of a certain super-idea, which is impossible to reach absolutely. And to this super-idea I would like to go all my life, to develop, not to stop. (Int. 1, m., 19 y.o., 2020)

As Rimma notes, in this context, the individual future was defined mainly as an opportunity for self-actualization: ‘I don’t have long-term plans, my goals are related to self-realization’ (Int. 7, f., 20 y.o., 2020).

Characterizing their own generation as bright, creative, independent and tolerant, young people noted the special conditions for its formation—the existed socio-economic well-being. Inna explained:

Well, first of all, we live in different times, now it’s more or less like a normal situation in the world and in the country in general, that is, if the previous generation experienced the 90s, the collapse of the Soviet Union, then a new government, new everything, inflation, then now we are somehow calmer in this regard. (Int. 10, f., 20 y.o., 2020)

At the same time, young boys and girls emphasized the different experiences of generations also through the value gap: youth were labelled as the representatives of new, advanced ideas, contributing to the development of society, and the older generation as ‘outdated’. Lisa, a manager at a logistics company and student, emphasized the particularity of her generation:

We are stuck standing still in this country, because of the fact that we refuse to reconsider our socio-ethical skills, the norms of what is considered the socio-ethical norm. How do we refuse? As for us and my surroundings, we’re fine, we don’t refuse. But a lot of others refuse. And I sometimes try to get angry at the older generation for doing all this. (Int. 8, f., 21 y.o., 2020)

However, 20 year olds were not oriented towards radical change. They rather expected a ‘natural’ change of generations, in which the decline in the influence of the elders would provide the opportunity for gradual changes for the younger ones. Inna expressed it this way:

Oh, well, Russia in general is a wonderful country, well, I don’t know … it seems to me, now maybe they don’t really understand us, because … I don’t know the majority of Russia is the older generation, well, when they leave, it seems to me, I don’t know, maybe it will become better life. (Int. 10, f., 20 y.o., 2020)

Thus, in 2020, 20educated 20-year-old St. Petersburg residents presented themselves as the modern young generation, ready for change and open to new things. The uncertainty of the world did not frighten them, but was considered as a platform for self-realization, providing opportunities for choice, flexibility and change. The future was seen as an ‘open project’. The life course was determined not by planned series of assigned tasks but by the possibility of movement. Admiring their own generation, interpreting it as a representative of new ‘advanced’ values, gave young people reason to talk about the differences between them and their elders, suggesting that sooner or later they will set the tone and build a ‘bright’, ‘free’ and ‘tolerant’ future.

2022: Deprived of a Future, Adaptation and Normalization

The military conflict with Ukraine that began in February 2022 has significantly redefined the sociopolitical context, changing not only the foreign policy and national agendas but also the cultural and economic conditions. An analysis of interviews with a cohort of 20 year olds in September 2022 showed significant changes in the narratives of young people. A new situation was experienced differently and entailed differences in the organization of everyday life and first of all in the interpretations to the future. Three dominant types of narrative could be distinguished: ‘generation without a future’, ‘generation of adaptation’ and ‘generation of normalization’, within which young people connected their individual experiences with their representation of the generation.

Thus, within the framework of the first type of narration, young people articulated their experience of living in current conditions as a catastrophic destruction of their view of the world, the loss of value guidelines and meaningful prospects. Leonid, a 22-year-old student and instructor at a fast-food restaurant chain said:

A catastrophe, a cultural breakdown. It seems to me that the generation has lost confidence in cultural values and in ethical values that were promoted and simply existed. Yes, let’s say this idea: ‘if only there was no war’. And now how the feat of Soviet soldiers suddenly turns into such a kind of revanchist war, it is not clear where did it come from. (Int. 10, m., 22 y.o., 2022)

The world for young people, although unpredictable before, has become radically uncertain. Twenty-four-year-old master’s student and English teacher Anna interpreted what was happening this way: ‘And I feel a very strong state of turbulence, when I really don’t understand what will happen in the future, and I don’t understand what plans I should make’ (Int. 12, f., 24 y.o., 2022).

In 2022, these young people saw the only opportunity to construct a biography in locking themselves only in the current moment, updating the present and abandoning the future. Engineer Egor noted: ‘Well I stopped blowing my head off. I think: “Wow, I’ve imagined something there, it’s all nonsense. That’s how everything changed.” And I started improvising as I went along. And it is easier for me to live like that’ (Int. 7, m., 24 y.o., 2022).

And they began to define their own generation as ‘a generation without a future’, which due to circumstances lost prospects, opportunities and plans that could be implemented. In Lisa’s interview, it goes like this:

I mean, we were so focused on, on, on conquering the goddamn freaking world, however that sounds in the context of the current situation, and then it just all fell apart. Well I mean a lot of things changed, from our ability to study and earn to our ability to live freely and peacefully. (Int. 1, f., 22 y.o., 2022)

Thus, this type of narration and comprehension of a generation is associated with a dramatic, paralyzing experience of current events as the destruction of the image of the world. The only coping strategy in the interview was the refusal of any prospective vision and locking to the present moment. The individual experience of young people is associated with the construction of generational discourse as a privation of the future.

For the second type of narration or for the second group of informants, the lived experience was associated less with total collapse and loss and more with a significant transformation of everyday life. Twenty-one-year-old Svetlana spoke about the collapse of her comfortable life: ‘And now it’s kind of, well, in the current situation it’s kind of hard for me, because my usual comfortable life, which I was used to, in which I grew up, and which was just taken away from me, has been completely destroyed’ (Int. 4, f., 21 y.o., 2022).

Life began to be interpreted by young people in terms of limited certainty, in which only short-term planning was possible. Lida, a 23-year-old bachelor’s degree graduate, emphasized the inaccessibility of long-term planning:

Let’s just say that before the start of the war, the immediate future for me included 2–3 years, real points in time. Since the beginning of the war, the near future is a week for me. Even … I can’t even plan anything for myself for a month, because it changes so quickly that a week or two is the edge for which I can make some plans. (Int. 4, f., 23 y.o., 2022)

At the same time, they considered their own generation as capable of withstanding and adapting to new conditions. Svetlana reasoned:

And well, like everyone else, what we have to do is not to lose heart and try to adapt to the situation that we have right now, and then we’ll figure something out. Tomorrow it will be different there, but we will be different tomorrow too. (Int. 4., f., 21 y.o., 2022)

Twenty-three-year-old master’s student Lev even emphasizes the positive generational effects of overcoming difficulties:

There is a good phrase that difficult times give rise to strong people, and I probably agree with it that these times that we are now experiencing are like the new nineties, they still give rise to strong people among young people, because they are not homegrown, so, so otherwise they will be hardened. (Int. 6, m., 23 y.o., 2022)

This type of narrative about the self and the generation was built around the idea of adaptation: it is possible to adapt to the changed everyday life through short-term planning, which does not give a long-time perspective but allows organizing the immediate life. This means that the generation as a whole will be able to resist and develop adaptation mechanisms in the conditions of the new historical reality by moving on and adapting.

In the third type of narration, young boys and girls represent themselves as not significantly affected by external circumstances. They spoke about the absence of any significant changes in their lives after the start of the armed conflict. Thus, student Irina did not note any changes for herself and her surroundings: ‘I don’t think there was any impact at all, at least I didn’t feel it, and I didn’t notice it among my acquaintances, groupmates and so on’ (Int. 13, f., 21 y.o., 2022).

For these young people, the uncertainty was a routine background, on top of which biography is constructed as a continuation of movement along an existing trajectory without specific plans. Sasha, a 22-year-old student, described her life this way:

In fact, even two years ago I didn’t make any great plans neither, because I don’t like to make long-term plans, because you never know what I’ll come up with, but it won’t turn out right and I’ll only be upset about it. Now, it’s as if nothing much has changed in this regard. (Int. 17, f., 22 y.o., 2022)

In such an interpretative context, the generation was conceptualized as having the potential to ‘normalize’ the temporarily broken present, when, as time passes, the general positive intention embedded in the generation will fix everything. Thus Irina optimistically noted:

I hope we will somehow upgrade a little bit. I just wish we could somehow, probably, we are developing somehow. Probably there will be some changes in all spheres a little bit in a good direction, I don’t know, the medicine, the education, but in general, I think, everything will be fine. (Int. 13, f., 21 y.o., 2022)

For this type of narration, uncertainty was seen as an ever-present condition of modernity, under which it is worth just continuing to live. Considering that the events taking place in the country did not have a special impact on their lives, these young people were quite optimistic about the generational future, expecting normalization of the situation through positive development.

Thus, in 2022, for young, educated St. Petersburg residents, ideas about their own generation were closely related to individual experiences and reflections regarding the events taking place in Russia. Depending on the interpretation of the situation, various discursive models of the generation were formed.

2023: The Loss and the Slipping into Private Life

After one year of military conflict, with intensification of Russia’s isolation, tightening of inner politics pressure and decline of economic situation in the country, interviews with young people in their twenties in St. Petersburg (in 2023) again showed the changes in the generational narrative. Again, it became homogenized and relatively common for the informants who took part in the study, but it was structured differently. The analysis allowed us to identify two key axes around which the comprehension of the life and peculiarities of one’s own generation is built: the loss and the slipping into private life.

One of the two dominant axes—the narrative of loss—is not yet folded into a narrative of cultural trauma (Alexander, 2003) but is a specific inventory of losses that a generation has suffered and that affect it. Thus, young people speak of a significant reduction in the opportunities and prospects available for making life choices, education, career advancement, mobility and social engagement. Student Sofia speaks of the limitations in this way: ‘The possibilities have changed as if for the future, there are so much more closed doors for our generation’ (Int. 45, f., 20 y.o., 2023).

Young people, speaking about their generation, reflect on the coming disillusionment in the world, the breakdown of ideals, the loss of values. The following words are heard in an interview with a Victoria, who works as economist:

I think that they [the generation] will be disappointed. Something in their ideals will become broken, and it won’t carry on through time. A little bit of disappointment in the world. We thought we were civilized people after all, and it’s turning out to be the same old thing. Probably something like that. (Int. 34, f., 23 y.o., 2023)

One of the key losses in the interpretation of young people is migration, which, in their view, has not only led to a decrease in the number of generations on Russian territory but also to the disruption of life, the severing of ties and relationships. Twenty-three-year-old student Maxim talks about the breaking of friendships because of migration: ‘I mean, my two best friends, they’re outside of Russia, it’s a big blow, yeah’ (Int. 5, m., 23 y.o., 2023).

The articulation of the physical loss of part of a generation as a result of the armed conflict with Ukraine becomes an important conceptualization of loss. Timur, a student, although he was not in the military conflict zone, emphasizes: ‘Some part of our generation lost its life, arms, legs, yes, these are the realities of war’ (Int. 9, m., 20 y.o., 2023).

The experience of migration, participation in warfare and different assessments of the political situation are conceptualized as fragmentation and loss of generational integrity. According to the informants, different experiences and different views form heterogeneous, often conflicting groups within the generation. Thus, Igor, a freelancer, said:

Well, the generation is divided. That is, there are people who still support all this. And I think that between the people who support it and don’t support it, any friendships or anything else have disappeared, because, well, they have completely different views. (Int. 4, m., 21 y.o., 2023)

Thus, making sense of what is happening in the country, young people in their twenties growing up in contemporary Russia articulate themselves as a generation of loss: on the one hand, loss of opportunities, of the future, of integration for all, and on the other hand, loss of integrity within the generation. Although Mannheim (1952) generally pointed to the formation of different units within a generation, for him it is more of an analytical distinction, while for contemporary youth, it is a dramatically experienced, reflected and articulated fragmentation.

The second dominant axe in the understanding and construction of generation is slipping into private life. Along with the loss of generational cohesion, young men and women voice a loss of trust towards the state, developing the idea of ‘betrayal’ on its part. Having grown up in conditions of relative stability, even with shrinking sociopolitical opportunities, they see in the ongoing processes a violation of the social contract, ensuring sustainable development in exchange for compliance with civic duties. Entrepreneur Dmitry recounts: ‘After all this, I realized that things don’t work that way. That is, the state at any moment can intervene even in your small revenue, yes, reduce it that way or just cut it off completely, or just shut down your idea’ (Int. 2, m., 24 y.o., 2023).

Young people articulate, on the one hand, a sense of guilt and responsibility for what is happening in Russia and, on the other hand, an inability to influence it. Zina, a manager whose interview is filled with guilt and powerlessness, says:

I feel a collective responsibility, some kind of shame, maybe something that doesn’t fit into my usual state of mind, because our whole generation/…/ feel a collective responsibility. There is such an acute question, because we realize that we did not choose this, we cannot influence it, and we cannot stop it in any way. (Int. 30, f., 23 y.o., 2023)

At the same time, young men and women point to distancing themselves from the news agenda; they follow the news increasingly seldom and are less involved in the current social situation. Possible unpleasant emotions, conversations and even conflicts on the topic of sociopolitical events are suppressed by avoiding the topic and keeping silent. Young Petersburg citizens note this as a conscious, reflexive step that allows them to normalize everyday life. Here is how freelancer Yulia describes her experience: ‘At first I read a lot of news, and it was just crazy disturbing, of course. And now I try to abstract myself from it all more, to somehow create a more positive information field for myself and not to worry’ (Int. 22, f., 23 y.o., 2023).

Despite the experience of worry, disappointment and loss, young people indicate adaptation to the current situation in Russia. Young women and men are switching to routine, focusing on studies, work, everyday life. Ruslan, a student and tutor, even calls it ‘sublimation’: ‘That’s what it’s like now, well, that’s what’s probably called by the word “sublimation.” That is, I am quite into, especially this year I am completely immersed in studying, in work, yes’ (Int. 5, m., 23 y.o., 2023)

The cohort of young people in their twenties defines their generation as ‘healthy egoists’ for whom the priorities of their own lives come before their obligations to the state, society, and others. Zina sees this as the difference between her generation and others:

A different generation, not a generation of sacrificers - as I would put it that way. Compared to my parents’ generation, it seems to me, first of all, it’s more consciousness, less sacrifice, i.e. a kind of healthy egoism and a desire to develop. We are such active hedonists, those who taste life, but not in a bad way, but really in terms of self-development and some achievements, awareness, all this. (Int. 30, f., 23 y.o., 2023)

Twenty-year-olds emphasize that they want to live life the way they want, comfortably and in pleasure. Victoria puts her focus on this: ‘It seems to me that if life is for something, it’s for fun, to live it enjoyably. And so do people of my generation. Also mostly want to live enjoyably’ (Int. 34, f., 23 y.o., 2023).

Focusing on oneself redefines the temporality of the generation from a long-term perspective to ‘here and now’; there is a rejection of goals in the future and a concentration on the present. Julia talks about the importance of living one’s life in the present: ‘I try to be an optimistic person. Plus, I try to immerse myself more not in… not in the general situation in the country, but to focus more on my life. What does it matter what will happen tomorrow, if I have today’ (Int. 22, f., 23 y.o., 2023)?

Focused on their own private lives, young people no longer expect breakthroughs from their generation. This is how Timur argues: ‘It will be just another generation that also did something, also lived somehow, and it will be just another people, looks like, in my opinion. I won’t say we’re anything super special or anything. We’re just people, just living’ (Int. 9, m., 20 y.o., 2023).

Rather, young people in their twenties see their legacy as the ability to honour their own interests, to live a balanced life. Victoria emphasizes this in her interview: ‘For some reason I can think of self-expression, but rather not in terms of art, culture, although there is a little bit of that too, but about healthy living. More about balance. I think the era of balance, of finding that balance’ (Int. 34, f., 23 y.o., 2023).

Thus, we can say that young people adapt and distance themselves from the sociopolitical situation in Russia. The young generation speaks about the impossibility to influence the situation and switches to routine. In the cohort of 20 years old, privatization is observed—concentration on their own lives and focus on the present. It is difficult to make predictive conclusions, but generational identity determines the social agency of a generation in a broad sociopolitical context (Aroldi, 2011, p. 58). It means that slipping into private life of the generation may bring to reduction of its role as the collective actor in the public development.

Conclusion

This article contributes to the search for an answer to the question of how the younger generation of Russians constructs their generational narrative in the context of radical social transformations. Focused on experience of urban, educated Russian youth of 18–25 years old, research showed that the generational formation process that began in this cohort has been significantly transformed by sociopolitical events in Russia. The analysis of qualitative interviews collected in 2020–2023 revealed dynamic changes in the generational narrative within which young people are trying to conceptualize themselves and their place in the socio-historical perspective.

The rather homogeneous narrative of 2020 about a brave, bright, tolerant generation, open to the future, for whom the possibility of choice, flexibility and change in the construction of their life courses is important, was replaced by heterogeneous types of interpretation of their own lives and generation in 2022. Three key modes of narration were identified that linked lived experience to the notion of generation. Thus, young people dramatizing the context of the beginning of the armed conflict with Ukraine, who spoke about the collapse of all life plans and prospects, defined generation as deprived of a future. The concept of a potentially adaptable generation was constructed by young boys and girls who, in the context of everyday life changes, made short-term plans, creating limited certainty in the management of their own lives. The same young people who noted external events did not affect their lives, unfolding along an already established trajectory devoid of any concrete plans, articulated the generation’s positive capacity to ‘normalize’ the future. In 2023, acute reflexive evaluations are replaced by a new shared narrative constructed around loss and the privatization of life. Young people indicate a loss of opportunity, freedom, trust in the state, but more importantly, young people speak of a loss of generational cohesion where migration, political position and experiences of participation in the military conflict result in divergent and disparate experiences, lifestyles and perceptions of the world. At the same time, young people adapt and distance themselves from the sociopolitical situation in Russia, experiencing the impossibility of influencing the situation. In the cohort of 20 years olds, there is a slipping into private life—a concentration on one’s own life and focus on the present. The rejection of long-term plans, the desire to live in pleasure here and now, which is clearly manifested in the narratives, indicates the formation of a new generation focused on themselves and their lives. This, in turn, can significantly redefine the generation’s sociopolitical agency, possibilities for solidarization and collective action.

The analysis of empirical data, on the one hand, demonstrated how a general self-thematization (Corsten, 1999) of a generation is constructed in the context of social order changes (Mannheim, 1952): from a relatively homogeneous narrative, through a break in interpretations, to a new relatively homogeneous narrative, redefining the generation in new conditions. On the other hand, developing the approach of Timonen and Conlon (Timonen & Conlon, 2015) and paying attention to everyday speaking and doing, it becomes evident how a generation, originally open to the future and mobility, in response to the external environment is transforming into a generation slipping into private life and trapped in ‘here and now’. The crisis of the collapse of the Soviet Union formed a generation of the 1990s, although frustrated, but oriented towards social change (Pilkington et al., 2002; Semenova, 2009). The situation of military conflict with Ukraine demonstrates the opposite vector—the construction of a generation of the 2020s that adapts but isolates itself from the public agenda, retreating into private life in search of pleasure and well-being.

Undoubtedly, the process of generational formation is not complete, and further study of its construction is needed. Moreover, this study is very limited, as it does not address other groups of young people in this cohort: regional, emigrated, those involved in armed conflict, etc. Therefore, it is not possible to draw final or generalizable conclusions. However, urban, educated middle-class youth, being a cultural hegemon, can begin to set the dominant interpretation of a generation, defining a common framework of generational norms, values, identities and ways of living.