Social Status and Reputation of Writers in Modern Russia: Thematic Analysis

Abstract

This article examines the forms of social evaluation of writers' work in modern Russia. As a methodological basis, the theory of the “literary field” developed by Pierre Bourdieu and his followers is used, on the basis of which a conceptual and empirical reconstruction of the concepts of social status and reputation was carried out. Based on an empirical thematic analysis of public interviews with leading Russian experts in the field of literary process, a set of topics regarding the social status of the writer and his literary reputation in the Russian literary field has been identified. A discrepancy in the opinions of various groups of experts was found, which may indicate the presence of antagonism in the modern literary field. This circumstance, coupled with the dependent state of the literary field on the political one, confirms the hypothesis of the marginalization of these concepts and, accordingly, related social practices in modern Russia.

Keywords

• social status
• literary reputation
• field of literature
• thematic analysis