Ethics of patriotism in the mirror of sociology

Background: The relevance is determined by both the realities of the socio-political situation and its personal component. Interest in the problem of patriotism is largely due to an appeal to traditional spiritual and moral values, so the authors focus on understanding patriotism as an ethical phenomenon, explicating its axiological structure. Such an explication will be reliable only if it is developed on specific factual material, therefore the work presents the results of a sociological analysis of modern trends in patriotic value expectations of Russian society. Aim: a sociological explication of the spiritual and moral continuum of patriotic values of modern Russian society. Materials and methods: The work presents the results of a sociological analysis of modern trends in patriotic value expectations of Russian society. A content analysis of modern publications on the research problem was carried out using open databases https://cyberleninka.ru/, https://www.elibrary.ru/ and others; as well as the norms of the current national legislation (https://www.garant.ru/). Results and discussion: According to the survey data, the first places in the structure of patriotic values of Russian society are occupied by ideas about family, caring for loved ones, which were noted by 16% of respondents in 2023 and 2024, i.e. approximately every sixth respondent. In second place in terms of importance for Russians in the structure of patriotism as a spiritual and moral phenomenon is attachment to the “small homeland” (“the place where I was born, where I live”), which was noted by 15 % of respondents in 2023 and 14 % in 2024. In third place is mutual understanding and mutual assistance, which were noted by 10 % of respondents in 2023 and 8 % in 2024. Conclusion: The structure of value dispositions obtained as a result of the study reflects the main vectors of state policy and marks the reference points of its development. The conducted sociological analysis showed the priority in the personal consciousness of such values, affiliated with patriotism, as caring for the family, love for the small Motherland, mutual understanding and mutual assistance. Patriotic education can be maximally effective only if it is focused on these specific values.