The image of the United States of America in the context of the transformation of Russian identity

The article analyzes the results of a study conducted by the Department of Political Science and Mass Communications of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation by the author's methodology developed by the Chair of Sociology and Psychology of Politics at the Faculty of Political Science of the M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. As a part of the study, the features of perception of the USA by various age cohorts of Russian citizens were studied. At the same time, the specificity of the influence of the United States image developed in the minds of Russians on the transformation of Russian national-state identity was considered. The results of the study lead to the following conclusions. Firstly, the images of foreign countries, especially the United States, which crystallize the notions of a significant other, are the backbone structures of the political world view of the Russians. Secondly, the authors put forward the hypothesis that generally confirmed images of foreign countries, including the United States, are formed in the minds of Russians under the decisive influence of social and political discourse. At the same time, the influence of long-term socio-cultural and generational factors on the system of ideas about foreign countries is less noticeable.