Awards as value imperatives of a state and society

The article presents the results of a study on the texts and decrees on awarding and statutes of the highest orders of the USSR and modern Russia - the Order of Lenin and the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. The purpose of the study was to identify the virtue imperatives that meet main goals of some stage in the state’s development and transmit them through civil decorations in order to construe a sociocultural layer of a value picture of the world and, accordingly, to design a type of personality with a set of socially welcomed models of behavior, that is being in demand at a certain time period. The texts of decrees and statutes are analyzed with the reference to a method of content analysis, which resulted in distinction between the leading super-topical themes that are viewed as a reflection of a required public interest. Verification and clarification of the results was continued with a text compression method and conclusion on the virtue imperatives of both historical periods under study. In the USSR industrialization, ideological construction associated with the formation of moral excellence coordinates of the individual, the development of agriculture and science were (in descending order) of leading value, which in general corresponds to the main functions of the governmental institution. The leading virtue imperative of modern Russia is the sphere of ideology, meanwhile, reassessment of the value system is based primarily on samples of the Soviet past, which causes cognitive dissonance and can lead to unpredictable results.