Динамика религиозности городского населения Дагестана

The religious factor in the history of mankind has always played an important role. Its influence had both positive and destructive consequences in various epochs. At the present stage the influence of this factor is just as ambiguous, but it is obvious that it is associated with a new round of transformation of religiosity at the intersection of the secular and the sacred in the space of everyday life. The character of Dagestan society which in some way, like many other regions of the post-Soviet space, is experiencing a religious renaissance largely depends on the vector of religious transformation, the indicator of which is the degree, nature and dynamics of the religiosity of the population in relation to the peculiarities of cult behavior. In this work the focus of sociological attention is on the religiosity of the urban population of Dagestan, the indicator of which is measured in the dynamic aspect by the concept of “true believer”; its semantic content is crucial in the analysis of religious identity and religious behavior of a person. The empirical verification of the ideas laid down at the level of the research concept was carried out on the basis of the authors' sociological surveys of the urban population of Dagestan: in 2020 (N=563) and in 2014 (N=704). The results of these studies became the basis for the conclusion about the observed erosion of the opposition “secular — religious” between the two worlds with a deep penetration into the fabric of social relations and the institutional organization of the Dagestan society of norms and principles of a religious nature. The authors conclude that the scenario of the growth of religiosity among the urban population of Dagestan is not associated with active ritual behavior, but indicates changes at the level of religious worldview. Tracking them at the level of sociological measurements is a promising area of subsequent research in view of the significant dependence of the socio-cultural dynamics of Dagestan society on the religious factor.