Transformation of the Meaning "POVERTY" from the End of the XX Century to the Present Day

Koltsova Nadezhda Viktorovna ORCID: 0000-0003-0854-3029 PhD in Philology Postgraduate student of the Department of Philology, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia 117198, Russia, Moscow region, Mokva, Miklukho-maklaya str., 6 navikoltsova@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction

The influence of non—possessiveness, one of the two (along with Iosifism) traditional concepts that form the Russian archetype, on the formation of the conceptual field "poverty" is difficult to overestimate.

For the first time, non–possessiveness as a philosophical doctrine was formulated by Nil Sorsky, a Russian religious figure of the XV-XVI centuries, whose teaching was opposed to the concept of Josephism. As A.I. Alekseev noted, non-possessors "criticized not only the fact of possession, but also the potential desire to accumulate wealth" ^{[1, p. 223]}.

The tradition of non-possessiveness has deep religious and philosophical roots in Russian culture, which is due, first of all, to the idea of collecting treasures not on earth, but in heaven, as set out in the sermon on the Mount by Jesus Christ.

S.V. Lvov points out that "There is no stable connection between life success and the symbol "wealth", as well as failure and "poverty", which is inherent in the public consciousness of Western countries, in Russian public opinion yet. Nevertheless, the significance of these symbols, especially "wealth", in determining the nature of the social structure is obvious" ^[4].

Russian Russian social consciousness has changed in relation to the conceptual field of "poverty", which is assessed by some Russian philosophers as "the destruction of the Russian archetype".

So, G.A. Yugai in his works expresses the following opinion: "In Russia of the 90s and the first decade of the XXI century, the country was literally hit… acquisitive, in the literal sense of the word, troubles: corruption and privatization. These two main factors of acquisitiveness literally crushed non—possessiveness - the Russian archetype of the soul (spirit)" ^[11].

And other psycholinguistic studies are already appearing, confirming some changes in our archetype. Russian russians of different ages and Ponomareva E.Yu. in her dissertation work analyzes the data of associative experiments among the British and Russians of different ages and comes to the conclusion that a more mature group of Russian participants does not associate poverty with something negative, while young people have negative reactions of 10% ^{[5, p. 27]}.

In connection with the ideas and facts presented above, we propose to trace in detail the transformation of the conceptual field of POVERTY on the material of the associative dictionary of the late XX century and modern associative databases.

Comparative analysis of reactions to the stimulus WEALTH

The following databases were used as the research material:

1) "Russian associative dictionary" edited by Yu. N. Karaulov. The experiments, the results of which are presented in it, were conducted in the period from 1987 to 1997.

2) "Russian Regional Dictionary-Thesaurus EVRAS" ed. Cherkasova G. A. The database was created in 2014 and republished in 2018. Russian Russian authors consciously included 700 words-stimuli from the Russian associative thesaurus (RAS 1994 – 1998) in the list in order to be able to study the changes that occurred in the everyday consciousness of the younger generation of Russians at the beginning of the XXI century" ^{[2, p. 264]}. This is a large-scale project in which students from various regions of our country took part.

3) "Russian Regional Associative database", which is still being developed and constantly updated. The main experiment was conducted from 2008 to 2013 in large cities of the Asian part of Russia. The subjects were students aged 17 to 25.

Previously, we have already conducted a study of the conceptual field of WEALTH based on the presented databases.

 Data of associative dictionaries and their interpretation

Table No. 1

Incentive POVERTY

The conceptual field of POVERTY as a whole has not undergone a significant transformation - the percentage of reaction groups has remained almost unchanged, but it has expanded somewhat in terms of content.

Analyzing the reactions to the stimulus of poverty, one can imagine the following image of a poor person: full of vices, greedy. Through later associative databases, we notice the clarification of the signs of lazy, weak, angry: alcoholism (1), stupidity (1), anger (1), greed (1), laziness (1), stingy (1), stinginess (1), etc. Associations with negative connotation, are from 8% to 6%. The percentage of reactions denoting negative character traits in RAS is higher, but in EVRAS and SEABASS their diversity is wider. However, these signs are attributed to the rich, with the difference that their vicious traits are a consequence of their lifestyle, and the poor have a cause. Non-possessive attitude to poverty also takes place, however, the share of positive reactions (kindness (1), love (1), simplicity (1), generosity (1), closeness to God (1), etc.) in all dictionaries does not exceed 4%.

Poverty causes a lot of negative emotions: darkness, suffering, grief, etc. The Russians despaired of fighting it, and despite the undesirability (inopportunely (1), not needed (1), I don't want, not in joy (1), unhealthily (1)) despaired of fighting it and gave up: inevitable (2), unrestrained (1), inevitability (1), inability (1), fate (1), destiny (1), passivity (1), curse (1), durable (1). According to some sociologists, this passive state is the "basis of an adaptive behavior strategy" in conditions of disbelief in the possibility of improving the situation in the near future, a sense of injustice the socio–political structure, as well as the long-term non-encouragement of civil activity by the state and other factors ^[9].

Poverty has become firmly associated with the population of our country as a whole Russia (4), in Russia (3), people (2), people (2), Russia (1), people (1), population (1), Russians (1). 

Next, to get a more detailed picture of the changes that have occurred in the conceptual field, we will study the reactions of reverse dictionaries.

Table No. 2

Reaction POVERTY, POVERTY

So, we see that in everyday consciousness, poverty has become one of the causes of loneliness and lack of demand.

And poverty itself began to be realized as a result of drunkenness and laziness, as well as a consequence of political and economic changes and phenomena (corruption (1), collapse (1), revolution (1), bureaucracy (1)).

Judging by the reactions, the scale of poverty has ceased to be so great in people's minds, since the associations of the corresponding group are not represented, and poverty is no longer a consequence of the general bankruptcy of the 90s, but awareness of social stratification has increased significantly, antonymic reactions have increased from 6% to 46% and 29%. In 1992, the Gini coefficient was 0. 289, by 2014 it had increased by 2 times and was equal to 0. 416 now continues to hold at the level of this mark ^[8].

Table No. 3

POOR MAN'S reaction, POOR MAN

According to the presented data of reverse dictionaries, at the end of the XX century, everyone, representatives of all professions (military, specialists, cultural figures) and all age groups, from children to the elderly, became impoverished in the minds of people.

In contrast to the data of the direct dictionary, loneliness and lack of demand were associated with poverty both at the end of the XX century and now, but in modern society misery has become one of the companions of poverty.

The increase in antonymic reactions is once again confirmed by the feeling of an increased level of stratification in society.

Conclusion

Having analyzed the data of associative databases, we see that there is no non-possessive attitude towards poverty in general either at the end of the XX century or at the present stage. There are only small echoes that we see through a small percentage of association with a positive connotation. In general, the attitude to this phenomenon is rather strongly negative, only with the difference that at the end of the last millennium poverty was more widespread in people's minds, everyone became poor and bankrupt, and now poverty is the result of corruption, as well as weakly the liberties of the person himself, manifesting himself in alcoholism and laziness.

Despite the decrease in the sense of the scale of this phenomenon in society, awareness of social inequality and stratification is growing. At the same time, in the minds of people, we rather began to observe passivity and desperation in solving this problem.