№ 6 - 2000
Klimova S.G., Yakusheva T.V.
Politicians’ Images in Russians’ Accounts

The article is an account of the study of Russian citizens’ perception of well-known political figures. It is the data of all-Russian polls carried out by the Public Opinion Foundation, proceedings of focus-groups that had discussed politicians’ qualities, and interviews with experts, that were assumed as the basis of the article. In its first part, the authors analyze the respective places which, within the images of different politicians, come to each of the four categories of qualities, singled out by the authors (those pertaining to work; moral; personal; political) and «diffusive appraisals». Then, the authors compose sociological portraits of six persons among leading Russian politicians (Putin, Ziuganov, Luzhkov, Kirienko, Yavlinsky and Zhirinovsky), and determine those components of their respective images that most decisively determine, in each of the six cases, the population’s attitude. Summing up the results of their study, they, in particular, come to the conclusion that the high popularity of the nowadays President is accounted for by the fact that contemporary Russian society makes of a national leader exactly the demands he personifies.