The beginning of youth era or the dearth of youth culture? Youth in the public space of modernity

Abstract

The article explores the contexts of concepts of “youth”, “youth culture and subculture” in a situation, when the youth status changes and the attention to the youth question increases, caused by a number of political performances and opposition of youth in the beginning of XXI century both in Russia and in the West. The Russian State and Government with the support of Russian large business initiates the political youth projects called to order and mobilize youth “resource”. The ideology of the majority of movement exploits a theme of “Revival of Russia” which techniques of promotion extremely are inconsistent and made advances to growing spontaneous patriotism of the Russian youth. Imposing of political identity, on my opinion, is not suitable to own interests of youth. Therefore the main focus of this paper is concentrated not on political, but on cultural dimension of modern youth public practices against a background of transformation of the concept of youth and its conversion into a brand of mass consumer culture.