Heroes, antiheroes of modern Russian youth

The article examines the issue of the formation of group identity among young people. Heroes of the time act as symbolic value-behavioral complexes, they are part of the conceptual apparatus for analyzing changes in attitudes towards historical personalities, historical memory as the basis of solidarity. The current state is characterized by trends of changes in value attitudes among Russian students, which inevitably affects social solidarity. The theoretical apparatus is based on an appeal to the classics of sociology (E. Durkheim), the concept of anomie is considered in relation to the current period. A hypothesis of the causes of the state of disunity is formulated based on the destruction of the feedback mechanism in traditional methods of forming social solidarity. In his cultural forms of behavior, a person relies on eternal truths, formulated in the form of moral imperatives, captured in traditional forms (songs, fairy tales) and institutional practices of conveying meanings and patterns of behavior (upbringing, education). Heroes and anti-heroes act as triggers for the fragmentation of youth and Russian society. The article presents the results of a 2022 pilot survey of university youth, characterizing attitudes towards personalities of Russian history (authorities). The results obtained are compared with secondary data from 2023 surveys.