Perceptions of death in the context of biographical projects of youth of Saint Petersburg

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Perceptions of death in the context of biographical projects of youth of Saint Petersburg



Introduction

The attitude to death, as well as to its discussion, has changed significantly over time. These changes were related to various events taking place in the world, such as wars or government policy. As an example, the Soviet Union, in which the authorities, as we know, controlled all spheres of people's lives, including their funerals, is a case in point (Eremeeva, 2015). This was confirmed by the "Decree on cemeteries and funerals", adopted in December 1918, which said that "all cemeteries, crematoriums and mortuaries, as well as the organization of funerals for citizens come under the jurisdiction of local Council of Deputies" and introduced "equal funerals" for all residents of the USSR (Decrees of the Soviet government, 1968:163). Now people can decide for themselves how their own funerals and funerals of their relatives will be organized, what rites they will conduct, where to bury and other issues. Nevertheless, even in our time, when people openly discuss many previously taboo topics, there is a "silence" on the subject of death (Rogozin, 2013).

There are different views on how young people feel about discussing death. Thus, some researchers believe that the younger generation is more open to discussing such "prohibited" topics (Eremeeva, 2015). The reason for this may be the lack of fear of death, as it seems to be something distant. Other researchers, such as Sergei Kan (2015), believe that young people are less likely to face death and therefore less likely to think about it.

In the Russian context, studies of death have been examined from the theoretical and taboo sides of the topic in society (Rogozin, 2013; Mokhov, 2016; Eremeeva, 2016; Sokolova, 2016). However, there are currently quite few works on this topic and, more importantly, they do not pay attention to the attitude of death among contemporary Russian youth. This is an important subject for the study, as information on how young people relate to death and how they intend to integrate it into their lives can provide answers not only to questions of sociology, but also to psychology and ritual services. Sergei Mokhov (2016), for example, spoke about the existing gap in Russian studies of death. As for the taboo nature of this topic, it was mentioned, for example, by C. Exley (2004), who noted the presence of the dominance of "personal alienation from death" in society. This means that people more easily perceive and discuss the death of strangers, while they do not talk or think about their own death and the death of their loved ones. Dmitry Rogozin (2013) agrees with this point of view and says that inadmissibility of discussion of death does not allow people to prepare for their death and the death of their loved ones. These thoughts are also confirmed by the “Levada-Center” poll, concerning topics that are not discussed in families. The survey revealed that 15% of Russians do not discuss suicide and 7% do not discuss death (Levada-Center, 2017).

The research question of this work is "How the youth of St. Petersburg embeds perceptions of death in their biographical projects?". The aim of this work will be to get an idea of how the youth of St. Petersburg embeds their perceptions of death in their biographical projects. Accordingly, the following objectives have been set for this research:

1. To analyze the attitude of young people towards death in the context of a biographical project

2. To study the perception of funeral rites by young people

3. To analyze the attitudes of young people to digital immortality

4. To explore young people's vision of how to manage the accounts of deceased people on social networks

The object under study is youth of Saint-Petersburg at the age of 18-25 years. The subject of this research is the perception of youth of Saint-Petersburg about death.

This research is carried out in traditions of qualitative methodology. The empirical base of work consists of 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with young people of St. Petersburg aged from 18 to 23 years. Coding and analysis of the interview is conducted by using the categorization method in QDA Miner Lite. The interview guide includes questions about the informant himself (sociodemographic information), the age at which the informant would like to die, what death should be like (violent or non-violent), what should be done with the body after death (funeral, cremation, etc.), whether religious funeral rites are desired, what future the informant sees for his social network accounts after his death, and other questions. This method allows to study in depth the attitude of people to different aspects of life, and in this case, what is the attitude of young people to death and how they integrate this attitude into their biographical projects.



1.Theoretical review

The theoretical review will focus on death studies. The first part will explore the debate in the international context and identify the main topics being studied in this field. The second part will explore the debate on digital death, as the digital sphere has become an integral part of the modern world. In the third part, our attention will be drawn to the Russian context of death studies. In addition, the theoretical review will also consider works in the field of generation theory, which will make it possible to better study the object of study - modern youth, and it will be also paid attention to studies on the theme of biographical projects.

1.1 Key studies of death

There are different approaches to the study of death. One of them suggested John Riley (1983), who identified the main areas of sociological interest: "(a) the self and its ultimate separation from social existence, (b) bereavement, grief, and the meaning of loss by death to surviving significant others, and (c) norms and the social structure, as dying and the postponement of death are defined, managed, and organized in a changing society" (Riley, 1983:192). Among these areas of sociological interest, this study will draw attention to the "the self and its ultimate separation from social existence", which includes the following topics: self-destruction, death attitudes, death as a social process, time management, and social activators. All this is invested in the subject we are studying. In this research the work will be conducted to identify attitudes about death, loss of social connections, preparation for death and other aspects of dying embedded in the biographical projects of young people.

Regarding attitudes toward death, namely fear of death and prejudice to the discussion of this topic, according to research conducted by the National Opinion Research Center, most Americans are calm about death and the discussion of this topic. The results of the 1970s showed that people were more interested in this area than in the 1960s. In addition, most survey informants in both the 1960s and 1970s believe that it is better to plan for their own deaths (Riley, 1983).

It is also worth noting Parsons (1963), namely his dichotomy of active and fatalistic, deviant attitude towards death. The active attitude to death is a rational planning of death, taking into account possible threats to life, while the fatalistic attitude is a complete negation of death (Parsons, 1963). As part of this research, young people are expected to adopt an active attitude toward death by integrating death planning into their biographical projects. It is also worth highlighting Victor Marshall (1980), who argued that death depends on social norms accepted in society. That is, often, a separate individual can do little against the norms established in society, including those concerning death itself.

Religion is particularly related to death. For example, Walter (1994) says that notions of death have moved from "religion to reason". In addition, he introduced two types of death: normal and abnormal, meaning by normal death 'good death' (Walter, 1994). Attitudes and perceptions of death changed in society over time as follows: from thoughts of what would become of their soul after they died, people moved on to thoughts of what would become of their 'earthly reputation', and then to thoughts of their lives when their loved ones died. Often, death studies, which include religiosity, examine the fear of death. There are a number of approaches that study this addiction: "buffering", "terror-management", " curvilinearity", and "death apprehension", advanced by L. Ellis and E. Wahab (2013). These approaches were discussed in detail by the researcher Dmitry Rogozin (2013). He begins with "buffering theory", according to which religiosity is presented as a buffer that "blocks or holds back fears of death" because life does not end in death. With regard to the "terror-management theory", which "relies on the social determinants of fear reduction". Rogozin (2013) notes that "the more homogeneous and numerous the group of adherents of a certain world view, the less doubtful its correctness, the more confident the results and conclusions based on it" (Rogozin, 2013:116). Relative to the theory of buffering, in cases where religiousness prevails in society, the fear of death should be lower. The third theory considered by the author is the "curvilinearity theory". According to this theory, life after death is not guaranteed even for believers, as some people have doubts about their faith and may have no idea what awaits them after death, resulting in a growing fear of death. As the last theory Rogozin (2013) considers "death apprehension theory". It is based on the denial of the relationship between religiosity and fear of death, and the authors of this theory argue that other factors influence the fear of death (Ellis & Wahab, 2013). Rogozin himself (2013) believes that people should not block their fear of their own death and the death of their loved ones, it is much better to approach the end of life consciously and rationally. It is undoubtedly important within the framework of the conscious approach to death to receive support from relatives and to render it to them. Hintjens (2016) wrote about this, describing "ways of forming a mutual circle of support" within the framework of "correct dying". By "mutual circle of support," he means situations where a person who is dying and the people around him are giving each other support and attention. In addition, he says that this includes important issues such as the funeral of the dying person, his financial affairs, etc. There are various ways of choosing "your own death", such as euthanasia, palliative care. Walter (1994) says that these paths do not focus on death, but on the dying person himself and his mourning loved ones.

Already mentioned above fear of death in the opinion of Lifton and Olson (1974) is nothing but a fear of "being excluded from the course of external life", it is he who makes people strive for 'symbolic immortality'. They describe 5 scenarios to achieve the aforementioned 'symbolic immortality':

1. Biological, i.e. birth of children and transfer of genes to them;

2. Creative, i.e. the creation of art objects and other works and inventions that allow to leave a certain contribution to society

3. Theological, i.e. related to religious beliefs that there is eternal life after death

4. Natural, which expresses "the eternity of the world nature, its timelessness"

5. Empirical, where it is possible to find a connection "with something beyond yourself" by achieving a sense of pleasure.

Thus, the key points of the sources considered allow us to concentrate our research on such theoretical bases as attitudes to death, active and fatalistic attitudes to death, notions of death through fear of it, religiousness, striving for 'symbolic immortality' (Riley, 1983; Parsons, 1963; Ellis & Wahab, 2013; Walter, 1994; Lifton & Olson, 1974).

1.2 Digital death

Turning to digital death, we cannot notice the impact of social networks on the emergence of completely new aspects of death, such as new practices of remembering, the need for digital literacy to avoid difficulties for loved ones after death. Particular attention will be paid to safety on the Web and the possibility of continuing to live online after death.

Thus, Maggi Savin-Baden, David Burden, Helen Taylor (2017) focus on digital immortality, namely its types such as two-way immortality, which is associated with artificial intelligence, and one-way immortality, which reflects the passive activity of the deceased person in social networks. Now there are quite a lot of modern technological innovations in the sphere of 'revival' of dead people. So, with the help of digital traces of person, their memories, feelings, thoughts it is possible to create 'continuation of life after death'. As for interaction with people, now the progress has reached the "chat bots", i.e. communication is possible only in the form of text messages.

When considering digital death, it is also important to pay attention to legal aspects related to this sphere in different countries. For example, we can mention the researcher Casey Myers (2014), who in her article focuses on the laws that regulate the right of Internet users to dispose of their trace on the Internet. For comparison, she takes the relevant articles of the laws in the U.S. and the European Union, as they have completely different policies regarding this issue. Thus, in the European Union, there are more opportunities for Internet users to delete all stored information about them on the Internet thanks to the law "right to be forgotten" or "le droit б l'oubli", while in the U.S. opposite the representatives of social networks are "encouraged" for keeping information about users even against their will. Researchers investigating the deletion of user information have a controversial view of the “le droit а l'oubli” law. For example, according to Rosen (2012), for individual users, the "right to be forgotten" is useful, but with "significant implications for search engines and website maintenance, it threatens the interconnectedness of the digital age. Overall, there is a consensus that this law will inevitably change the Internet.

Also noteworthy are Lilian Edwards and Edina Harbinja (2013), who addressed "major legal issues relating to the transfer of digital assets at death". Among the legal proposals they put forward was to change the policies of companies providing services to people in relation to death in a clearer and more transparent way. Employees of these companies should be trained to deal with such situations.

Researchers Michael E. Locasto, Mike Massimi, and Peter J. DePasquale (2011) also focused on digital death security and privacy issues. They examine various aspects of digital security and privacy in social networks during the life and after death of Internet users, as well as "the convergence of modern browser technologies, cloud services, and human factors associated with managing the digital imprint of man". It is the responsibility of the family and friends of the deceased to take care of this digital footprint or digital heritage left online during all activity on the Internet. In general, it can be said that this area is not yet so well researched and therefore people who face security and confidentiality issues after the death of their loved ones do not have enough information on how to solve them. That is why the authors of the article recommend to solve these issues even during person's life, for example, to indicate which of the family members or friends will have certain access to certain files, information and other type of heritage (Locasto & Massimi & DePasquale, 2011). In addition, it is important to increase the security of the account through which many services are accessed, as attackers can access them by hacking into only one account. Privacy is also associated with the doubts of the older generation, as they have difficulty controlling it, and it is confidentiality that is one of the most important conditions for the transfer of family values, information, various objects with the help of digital devices, as Pam Briggs and Lisa Thomas (2014) write. In general, for most people, information leakage, fraud, and hacking of person's account are factors that raise doubts when using digital technology.

The impact of digital spreading on people's lives and the importance of digital security are also highlighted by Tama Liver (2015). He says that people should be digital literate, as the a lot of information published on networks can be used for a variety of purposes without their knowledge. However, data about a person begins to be published from birth, for example, as the author says, in the form of ultrasound images that contain quite a lot of information about both the child and his mother. Not surprisingly, with this development in digital technology, there is a need to study digital death. Social networks such as Facebook, for example, have the opportunity to "immortalize the memory of people who have died". Moreover, as this area is not yet sufficiently explored, there are currently underdeveloped "mechanisms for managing digital heritage," as any digital trail of the deceased can be of some value, whether it is a post on a personal blog or a photograph. In addition, Tama Liver and Highfield (2016) consider Instagram as a place where mourning takes place in a completely different way than on Facebook. On the Instagram platform, mourning is not shared in specially created communities, but on personal pages of the mourners, where they can share their emotions with family, friends and the circle of their subscribers. Facebook has gone further in this regard, and there are special opportunities in this social network to perpetuate the memory of the deceased. Thus, we can say that Facebook is more "public network", while Instagram is more "personal". What unites these social networks is that, as Ann Helmond (2010) said, there is always a motivation on the part of various Internet platforms to share more and more information about themselves.

Researchers who study digital death not only focus on the current situation, such as the legal or social media aspects mentioned above, but also look to the future in order to explore innovations in digital immortality and the whole field. Thus, Jenny Huberman in her work considers the ideas of transhumanism, which she defines as follows: "it is an intellectual and cultural movement premised upon the idea that human beings can use science and technology to significantly enhance their capabilities and thereby overcome many of the limitations of human biology" (Huberman, 2017:1). For example, in her work she is trying to achieve digital immortality. She believes that technological development will eventually change the whole human society. In order to technologically enhance human biological capabilities, the Terasem Foundation was established in 2004 with the goal of creating a digital "analogue of man" by collecting "sufficiently detailed data about the person (a `mindfile') using future consciousness software (`mindware')" (Huberman, 2017:2).

As part of the consideration of digital immortality is worth paying attention to Rothblatt (2014), which has studied in detail the possibility of creating a "human clone". And, as she notes, this clone consists of two components: "the personal digital intelligence profile" and "the personal programmed version of intelligence". The first component includes all the emotions, thoughts, feelings, way of thinking of the person, the second is a system that is able to process data from the first component. Thus, the "human clone", based on a person's way of thinking, is capable to reproduce the behavior peculiar to that person (Rothblatt, 2014).

In general, digital death studies examine the importance of legal regulation of the digital footprint of network users and digital literacy, privacy and security (Myers, 2016; Liver, 2015; Locasto & Massimi & Pasquale, 2011). This is particularly important as the network can store data of material and historical value. In addition, digital immortality is also an important research area, which can be realized, for example, by creating a future 'human clone' or chat bots. (Rotblatt, 2014).

1.3 Russian context of death studies

As for the Russian context, it is worth mentioning Sergei Mokhov (2016), who in his work examines existing research on this topic from the early evolutionists to the methodological crisis of the 1960s, while noting the existence of a gap in sociological research on death in Russian. To solve this problem, Mokhov (2016) set himself the following goal - to fill the gap in death research in Russian by creating a theoretical review of existing concepts and approaches related to the topic in the above time period. In his work he deals with the following topics: death in social science of XIX century, E. Durkheim and French sociological school, A. van Gennep and rites of transition, emotions and ritual in structural functionalism, emotions and fear of death, death in historical anthropology. Mokhov (2016) writes that specifically "no theoretical reviews of the application of social theories in the study of death and dying have been undertaken in Russia at all" until the publication of Dmitry Rogozin's article "The Sociology of Death", in which the author examines research approaches in social anthropology since the late 1970s (Mokhov, 2016:172). In addition, Sergei Mokhov (2016) notes that in recent decades, only empirical anthropological works on death have been published - these are the works of M. Alekseevsky, A. Sokolova and E. Safronov.

It is also worth paying attention to what researchers think about the meaning of "death studies" in modern science. For example, Sergei Mokhov (2016) believes that the emergence and development of such an area as death studies occurred after the 1970s. Journalists specializing in this field, according to the author, pay attention mainly to dying - "research on palliative care, the theory of grief, mourning, etc." (Mokhov, 2016:230). In Russia this field is very poorly developed, there are few articles, they are thematically scattered. In the past, for people who do not have access to television, the Internet, there was no news of deaths due to natural disasters, terrorist attacks, wars, for them there was the death of only close people. While for the modern man this information became available, he sees a huge number of absolutely strangers' deaths every day. With the development of technology, there was so-called digital immortality. Religious rites, previously used to communicate with the deceased, are gradually replaced by communication with the rest of his "page" in social networks. In addition, the Internet allows the modern man to get acquainted with the subject of death, even sometimes from completely different sides, for example, from deviant side - to look at dead bodies (Mokhov, 2016).

Sokolova (2016) considers the collection "Studies in the Balto-Slavic spiritual culture. The Funeral Rite", published in 1990, as "the first attempt to summarize the results of research in the field of funeral rites conducted by archaeologists, ethnographers, and folklorists in previous years" (Sokolova, 2016:243). Before that, in Soviet times, few works related to the topic of death were published, because of the taboo nature of the topic in society; it could only be discussed in the context of "heroic death" (Sokolova, 2016). However, according to Sokolova (2016), the situation in contemporary society has started to change significantly. Thus, the theme of death and dying began to be discussed in public space, which gave a new impetus to death researchers.

Researchers see the difficulties in discussing the subject of death in modern Russian society in different ways. Thus, Dmitry Rogozin (2013) writes that nowadays in society the theme of death is taboo, that the majority of people cannot and do not want to discuss this theme, but in mass media it is mentioned quite often in the form of information about murders, disasters and other tragic cases. In "The Sociology of Death", the author aims to "frame a possible public talk about death". According to Eremeeva (2016), there is a significant difference in attitude to the talk about death between generations. Thus, people over 50 years old talk about it rather reservedly, and most often stop talking about it. While young people, whom the author defines as 15-35 years old, are more open about this topic, they are freer to discuss their possible death and experience of loss (Eremeeva, 2016). Sokolova (2016) believes that differences in attitudes and perceptions of death depend on the same variables as in other areas of spiritual life. Thus, in her opinion, older people, women, and people with low levels of education are more conservative about death. According to Arnautova, it is impossible to talk about the taboo topic of death in society, but she notes that the topic is indeed "very rarely present in public discourse, primarily in official discourse" (Arnautova, 2016:253).

The researcher Sergei Kan also expressed his opinion about taboo if this topic by some people. He cites pensioners as an example, as "they come into contact quite easily and this topic can be discussed with them - they reflexive it, they are interested in it" (Kan, 2015:19). In addition, Sergei Kan (2015) talks about an important new focus of researchers, including funeral and memorabilia practices. For example, he talks about people who have experienced the death of their loved ones and write about their feelings on the blog. Considering the process of changing the attitude to death in general, Svetlana Eremeeva (2016) notes in her work that this process is slow, but in society it is still due to urbanization, modernization, which change, among other things, people's perceptions of various aspects of life, including death. As for life and death online, Eremeeva (2018), like other researchers, notes that in the Internet "people may not die immediately and finally" (Eremeeva, 2018:67).

Thus, it can be argued that there is a lack of knowledge in the Russian context of death research (Mokhov, 2016). At present, the subject of death is debatable, but most researchers tend to believe that it is indeed observed in contemporary Russian society (Mokhov, 2016; Rogozin, 2013; Sokolova, 2016).

1.4 Youth in the theory of generations

The research group in this study is young people between the ages of 18 and 25, i.e., those born around 1995-2002 whose growing up is currently taking place. That is, it is at this point in their lives that they are at a turning point: they are gaining both emotional and material autonomy, looking for/finding work, forming their families, and gradually becoming adults. The traits of modern youth can be revealed through the theory of generations. As for the researchers who studied this aspect, first of all, it is worth mentioning C. Mannheim(1952), who believed that the same generation includes people born in the same period of time, having a common history, experience of significant events of the time, which affects their acquisition of similar views and values. Semenova (2003) also adheres to a similar point of view, which says that "the methodological basis for the analysis of generations is the concentration on social differentiation associated with the temporary (socio-historical) features of each subsequent generation relative to the common national genotype of this historical community" (Semenova, 2003:214). In her view, the division into generations is based on important historical events, such as war.

Semenova (2003) pays attention to number of criteria for the allocation of generations, such as "social context of formation of the generation", "system characteristics of the generation", "biographical characteristics of the generation", which were found by researcher Becker. Thus, Semenova (2003), based on the criteria described above, singled out the following generations: "near war generation" (born 1920-1940s), "pre-perestroika generation" (born 1940-1960s), "transitional generation" (born 1960-1970s), "post-perestroika generation" (born after the mid-1980s).

However, we should pay particular attention to the current Russian context. For example, we can look at the "generation profile" of youth that Omelchenko (2017) describes. She notes that young people are "least exposed to propaganda," consuming information not through Russian TV, but more from such Internet resources as YouTube or Instagram. Today's youth is digital native, i.e. those who have been included in the digital environment since childhood. Based on their interests, plans and financial reasons, they can combine different types of employment, such as entrepreneurship and freelance. Moreover, Omelchenko notes that young people "have a bad idea of their future, have difficulties to formulate plans beyond three to five years" (Omelchenko, 2017:19). As for the values of young people, the author notes their focus on an ecological and healthy lifestyle, their tolerance for "differences and exclusivity of all kinds", their great anxiety and fear of "loss of privacy and security" in the digital space (Omelchenko, 2017:19).

The youth we are investigating may also belong to the generation of millenniums, which Radaev (2018) studied. By generation he understood "not just an age cohort, but first and foremost a group of people who have jointly experienced some important historical events, and therefore demonstrate a common perception and practice of behavior" (Radaev, 2018:16). As for people who were born in 1995-2002, indeed, we can say that they form a generation or a community of contemporaries, as they are united by a common historical and political situation in the country, by common cultural events. In general, in the 2000s, which were the childhood years of the generation under study, as Radaev (2018) says, "there were no serious reforms", there was a period of stabilization.

Radaev (2018) describes six generations:

1. "The Mobilization Generation". Birth took place during the pre-war years, until 1938;

2. "The Thaw Generation". Birth occurred during the war years - from 1939 to 1946, and in the year of Khrushchev Thaw (1956-1964) there was a transition to adulthood;

3. "Generation of Stagnation". Birth occurred in the postwar years - from 1947 to 1967, and in the year of Brezhnev's stagnation (1964-1984) there was a transition to adult life;

4. "The Reform Generation". Birth occurred in the year of "stagnation of mature socialism" - from 1968 to 1981, and in the year of Gorbachev perestroika there was a transition to adulthood;

5. "Millenial Generation." (or "Generation Y"). Births took place during the reform years - from 1982 to 2000, and from the 2000s there was a transition to adulthood. Radaev notes the growing up period of this generation as a "stable and prosperous period".

6. "Generation Z" (or "centrials generation"). The birth of this generation began in 2001, and maturation began in 2016.

Thus, the age group under study does indeed fit into the birth and maturation of the millennium generation, except for the youngest part of our study. However, it can be argued that people born in intergenerational boundary years have the features of two generations. That is why we will look at the millennium features in order to better understand what our object of study is.

In his study Radaev (2018) compared this generation with the previous "reform generation" to determine the features of millenniums. So, he drew attention to the following points:

1) The millennium generation has a "postponement of maturation". This concerns such aspects of adult life as the decision to have a family and, in particular, a child, the search for work. Radaev (2018) associates later employment with longer education among millenials.

2) The millennium generation is characterized by greater use of digital technology.

3) The millennium generation is better able to master new technologies. Radaev (2018) compared this aspect with the proportion of "people who accessed the Internet from mobile devices", the proportion of "people who visited social networking sites", the proportion of "people who bought online" (Radaev, 2018:21).

4) Millenials are more committed than any other generation to a healthy lifestyle.

5) Among millenials, the level of religiosity is the lowest compared to all previous generations.

6) Millenials are more satisfied with life than the rest of the generations, with a higher level of happiness than the rest of the generations.

Thus, as noted by the above-mentioned researchers, the division into generations comes not so much due to birth years, but due to events that took place during their conscious age and became significant for the era. The young people under study are predominantly from the millennials generation. This generation has its own characteristics, such as inclusion in the digital environment, a commitment to a healthy lifestyle and ecological values, a tolerance for "exclusivity of different kinds", a lower level of religiosity in comparison with older generations, delaying growing up (Omelchenko, 2017; Radaev, 2018).

1.5 Biographical projects

It should be noted that notions of the young generation's death will be analyzed using such an aspect of biographical method as biographical projects. Thus, E. Meshcherkina writes that studies of this aspect "proceed from the assumption that the life of the individual is permeated by a certain construction method" (Meshcherkina, 1994:7). Person's behavior, the way he builds his life, what actions he performs, his thoughts and ideas about life are not random and at the same time are not fully planned. Nevertheless, most people try to build a certain life plan and fulfill the rules built within the plan, all this is invested in the concept of life project, which we will study.

Returning to the biographical method, it is worth highlighting the researcher W. Fuchs-Heinritz, who wrote that this method is suitable for the study of "the behavior of people in terms of institutional regulations, as well as behavior and events over time" (Fuchs-Heinritz, 1994:11). He writes about existing research logic using the biographical method. Our research approach is as follows: it is worth focusing not on frequency, but on what different variants exist and how "they form a common mosaic, a repertoire, in more or less tension with each other, which is valuable for the subject field under study" (Fuchs-Heinritz, 1994:21).

Looking at the theory of life course, it should be paid attention to the work of Elder, Kirkpatrick Johnson, Crosnoe (2003). They highlight the following principles of this theory: "principle of life development", "principle of action", "principle of time and place", "principle of time" and "principle of connected lives". Among these, this study draws attention to the "principle of action," according to which " individual works out his or her life course through choices and lines of action" (Elder et al., 2003:1). That is, in our case, we can say that young people themselves are building a trajectory of their own life paths in relation to what options are presented at each of their stages. This may indicate a rational way of life, in which people make informed decisions on their own, but it does not cancel the external impact on a person's life. In any case, external reasons will influence which alternatives are offered to the person, but in this case the person can build their own life course from these alternatives offered by life.

All the above leads to the idea that within the framework of this research it is worth considering the variability of ideas about the life of modern St. Petersburg youth, the way they integrate these ideas into their biographical projects, what alternatives they consider and how they choose from them suitable for themselves, i.e. to consider all these cases separately, but to make a general picture of it.

Chapter Conclusions

In the course of work on the theoretical part of the paper, there has been done work to analyze the international debate on the studied topic, digital death research, and the Russian context of death research. In addition, the traits of youth through theories of generations were studied, and the theory of biographical projects was presented as a theoretical framework for this paper.

Thus, with regard to key studies of death, attention was paid to the attitudes of death, to the types of relations to death, to the fear of death, as well as its correlation with religiosity, to the desire not to be excluded from the course of external life, which encourages people to strive for symbolic immortality, for example, through biological, creative and other ways (Parsons, 1963; Riley, 1983; Lifton & Olson, 1974; Walter, 1994; Ellis & Wahab, 2013).

In examining the work on digital death, the following points were explored: the legal regulation of the digital footprint of people through the “le droit б l'oubli” law, the importance of digital literacy, measures to deal with "dead" pages on social networks, the foundations of digital immortality and the possibility of creating a "digital clone" (Locasto & Massimi & Pasquale, 2011; Rothblatt, 2014; Liver, 2015; Myers, 2016).

As for the Russian context, researchers noted a lack of knowledge, namely, theoretical articles of non-anthropological orientation, as well as disputes about the taboo topic (Rogozin, 2013; Mokhov, 2016; Sokolova, 2016).

The analysis of the theory of generations has shown that many researchers share generations regarding significant events that people experienced in their conscious age. The youth we study can be referred to the millennial generation with its characteristic features (Omelchenko, 2017; Radaev, 2018).

The theoretical framework of this paper is biographical projects. The variation in young people's ideas about death and how these ideas fit into their biographical projects will be examined.



2.Analysis of empirical data

The empirical part of this work will analyze the youth of St. Petersburg at the age of 18-25 years, their attitude to the end of life, vision of their own death, as well as the opinion of young people about this phenomenon in the modern technological society. To obtain this information, open and axial encoding and analysis of the collected interviews was performed using the QDA Miner Lite categorization method.

2.1 Analysis of the interviews

As part of this study, 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews were collected. The method of criterion selection was supposed to be used to find informants. However, this had to be changed in the context of the pandemic, as people's fear of the well-being of their lives and that of their loved ones increased, so the snowball method with three entrances to the field in a student environment was used. However, the first three informants came from different universities: HSE, St Petersburg State University and ITMO. This search for informants resulted in a sample of 15 people: 6 males and 9 females at the required age from 18 to 23 years. Most of the informants are students. 74% moved to St. Petersburg from other cities, and 26% have lived in this city since birth.

The guide was compiled for the interview, which consisted of 5 blocks:

1. "General information". It included general questions about the informant, what he or she does, what hobbies he or she has, and about relationships with family and friends.

2. "Attitude to death". In this block, most questions were aimed at obtaining information about the attitude towards the death of the informant, his or her family and friends. In addition, there were questions about fear of death, superstitions related to death, jokes about death, and attitudes towards death in works of art.

3. "Experience of death". This block focuses on the first collision of informant with the death, experience of relatives' death, the impact of these events on the informant's attitude to death, and a number of questions about funeral rites.

4. "Integrating death into the biographical project". This block was aimed at getting information about "ideal picture" of informants' death, at what age it should happen, under what conditions, what should be the funeral process be like, what he or she intends to do with his or her property, how to prepare relatives to his or her death, what memory to leave after death. Besides, there were questions connected with organ donation after death and informant's attitude to this aspect. Also, this block was aimed at finding out whether the informants themselves had thought about these points at all, whether they "plan" their death.

5. "Digital death". This block includes questions about digital literacy, the treatment of social media after death, the digital footprint of a person, the desire to create a 'digital clone', as well as attitudes towards other innovations in death and their possible impact on people's attitudes towards death.

For further analysis, coding was carried out and 7 categories were identified, including 40 codes: "General information", "Attitude to death", "Experience of death", "Funeral rites", "Own death", "Digital death", "Religion".

Having analyzed the results obtained in the interview, it will be possible to reveal what attitude to death among young people in St. Petersburg, how they are going to integrate it into their biographical project and how to manage the digital part of life after death.

2.1.1 General information

This category contains codes related to informants' stories about themselves, their hobbies and relationships with family and friends. This information allows for a better understanding of informants, and sometimes even explains whether they have a certain opinion on the aspects of the work being studied.

First of all, talking about the "About Themselves" code, as mentioned earlier, most informants study in higher education institutions. Informants have creative hobbies, many of whom love music, play musical instruments, and engage in other activities related to music, handcrafts, and book reading.

I like to listen to music, I am a musician to some extent, because I play percussion instruments, that is, drums and all in principle, on which you can beat. (Inf13, m, student)

In other words, we can say that the young people under study are mostly creative. In addition, many of the hobbies noted sports, which indicates the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle.

I am fond of music, dancing, running, sports and intellectual different games. (Inf5, m, 18, student)

As for the family, the majority of informants are not married. Most of the informants came from full families and most of them live separately from their families. Almost all informants indicated that they have a trusting relationship with their parents.

I have a trustful relationship with my family and we often communicate. (Inf7, m, 22, worker)

In terms of friends, informants talked about their sociability and the large number of friends.

I have a lot of friends, as I am a sociable person of different age categories, and there are older and younger. (Inf2, f, 22, student)

I'm a sociable person, I have a big circle of friends. (Inf7, m, 22, worker)

Most informants noted that religion had an impact on their families' world views to some extent.

My family is actually quite religious, it probably suits me the most from my father and they instilled it in me. (Inf11, f, 22, student)

I can not say that I have enough religious family, but nevertheless, as if we are all Orthodox and baptized and as if there is a Lord and a better world, such opinions were that people go to a better world. (Inf3, f, 22, student)

As for the informants themselves, there are quite few believers among them - 3 out of 15.

I'm not a religious person and I'm not sure to the end that I put anything into it at all, that there is something in it except culture, that it has some sense. (Inf10, f, 21, student)

I would not want to depend on religions, and I will not, in principle. (Inf2, f, 22, student)

Thus, we can say that the young people under study are mostly creative, sociable, leading a healthy lifestyle, have a full family and are not married. Moreover, religions are less important to the young people under study than to the older generation - their parents and grandparents.

2.1.2 Attitudes towards death and funeral rites

This paragraph will look at various aspects that will make it possible to examine the attitudes of informants to death. These aspects are, for example, associations with the word death, discussion of death, family and friends' attitudes to death, and the informant's own attitudes to death. In addition, the attitude to funeral rites will also be examined.

Attitude to death

In the course of the analysis of associations of informants with death, their attitude towards death, as well as the attitude of their family and friends, it was possible to distinguish several variants of informants' ideas about this life phenomenon: "death as end", "death as image", "death as natural course of life", "death through funeral process", "death as phenomenon causing fear", "death as taboo subject", "death as 'personal' subject", "death as transition to 'better world'", "death as joking subject", "death as 'something far away'".

The most frequently mentioned association turned out to be precisely the idea of death as the end of life. At the same time, informants looked at the end of life differently. For example, informant №7 views death from a philosophical perspective and says that death is described as follows: "no more, probably, as the physiological extinction of human, namely as the disappearance of him as a person" (Inf7, m, 22, worker). Informant №7 mentions not only death as the end of life, but also as the beginning of something new, 'other'. At the same time all informants are united by the fact that they are not believing people and do not believe in the existence of paradise and hell, probably that is why they associate death with the end of life.

The end is probably the main thing because it is the end of life. (Inf2, f, 22, student)

Further we will consider such representation of death by informants as an image of "Grim Reaper" (“Смерть с косой”). This answer was given by three informants. At the same time, informant №1 noted that such an association arises only in "quiet" moments of life, while in "bad" moments she perceives death from the negative side and speaks about it as something "gloomy". Having analyzed the attitude of the remaining two informants, it can be noted that they have a stable calm attitude to death, they do not experience anxiety and fear. Accordingly, it is possible to say that the representation of death in the form of a certain image is observed in people who have a calm attitude to death.

At the word "death" in my head comes associations there, old ladies with scythe [Grim Reaper], skull and bones, well, here are some such visual, well, not, how to say, not realistic, but such, abstract enough. (Inf14, m, 23, student)

Let's consider the informants' perception of death as "the natural course of life". The informants who characterized death in this way noted that it is a "normal phenomenon" and an "inevitable boundary" (Inf4, f, 21, student; Inf11, f, 22, student).

It is simply a course of life, some kind of absolutely normal phenomenon. (Inf4, f, 21, student)

The next category to be considered is the representation of death as a phenomenon causing fear. This category includes informants who often experience anxiety and fear of death both for their lives and those of their relatives. Thus, for example, informant №9 described her associations with death:

...anxiety, worry, sometimes great fear, sometimes not so great. (Inf9, f, 22, student)

At the same time, it should be noted that the majority of informants associating death with negative emotions are religious people, and also had experience of death of close people that could affect such perception of death.

A small number of purely informants referred to the funeral process as an association. At the same time, informant №3 noted that this association arises when thinking about the death of loved ones, i.e. the very process of organization of funerals is presented. This informant also had experience of the death of a loved one and participated in the organization of the funeral.

And if I think about the fact that someone close to me dies and as if reflexive about it, I think about the funeral, about the fact that this is the whole procedure, about the fact that... first of all, the general funeral comes to mind. (Inf3, f, 22, student)

The taboo nature of death manifested itself in conversations with many informants when they talked about their own attitude towards death and the discussion about it, as well as about the attitude of their family and friends.

Thus, regarding the informants themselves, one of the informants noted that she felt discomfort when the family mentioned the possible imminent death of older relatives. Another informant said that she could support the discussion of this topic, but the first one would not start a conversation on the topic of death, which may indicate that there is discomfort in relation to the discussion of this topic.

Regarding relatives, informants noted that some family members have a negative attitude towards death itself, to the discussion of death, and in every way protect their relatives from manifestations of death.

...Mom says constantly "don't even talk about death", such words cannot be spoken. (Inf4, f, 21, student)

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