Despite sharp divisions since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the field of sociology in Russia now includes over 300 university departments, approximately 30 academic journals and several professional associations.
[2] The first Department of Sociology in Russia was opened in 1907, at the Psychoneurological Institute, and was headed by Maksim Kovalevsky and E.V.
[2] After about a decade of relatively free research,[2] sociology was gradually "politicized, Bolshevisized and eventually, Stalinized".
[5] Sociology was declared to be "bourgeois pseudo-science" in direct opposition to Marxism, and its practice – and the very name – were banned.
[3] During the period when sociology was banned, its de facto replacement was "Historical Materialism" which was a component of Marxist theory.
[2] Since then, lacking institutional support, it has begun to lose its dominant status, leading to increasingly visible splits and conflicts within Russian sociology.
[2][9] According to Romanovsky and Toshchenko, sociologists in Russia have since broadened their study, in terms of both topics and geography.