In Memoriam: Yury Levada
Yury Aleksandrovich Levada, world famous sociologist, head of the Levada Centre and partner and friend for many years of the Russian human rights movement has died at the age of 77. He suffered a heart attack while at work and died before help came.
Yury Levada was born in 1930 in Vinnytsa (Ukraine). In 1952 he graduated from the Philosophy Department of Moscow State University (MGU). During the 1960s he gave lectures on sociology in the (MGU) Journalism Department. In 1969 he was dismissed from his job “for ideological mistakes in his lectures”.
From that time on the methodological seminar Levada had created at the beginning of the 1960s, uniting people who shared his views from different academic fields, was for a long time forced into a semi-legal position.
From 1988 to 1992 Yury Levada was head of the department of theoretical research, founded on the wave of perestroika, of the All-Russian Public Opinion Centre (VCIOM) under the leadership of Tatyana Zaslavskaya. In 1992 Yury Levada became head of the Centre which was later to become the VCIOM Analytical Centre, and from 2004 - the Yury Levada Analytical Centre (the Levada Centre).
From 1991 the Centre carried out a number of studies in Russia. Experts note that the results of these surveys were always objective and independent and reflected the real state of affairs in the country.
Yury Levada was the author of several books, more than 200 articles on sociological issues, public opinion, sociological theory and methodology, the sociology of religion and social anthropology.
Vechnaya pamyat - Eternal Memory!