Religious identity empirical studies in a socio-cultural space of the Republic of Karelia

The article deals with the empirical study results of religious identity in region's socio-cultural space. The aim of the study is to understand how sub ethnos in terms of modern challenges would be able to maintain its recognizable ethnocultural profile - so called "gestalt". By the example of a multinational sub-ethnic group at the Republic of Karelia (both northern and border region) an attempt was made to evaluate public relations stability structure. Thus evaluated ethnic and civilized identity would include a combination of complex attributes that reflect both self-identification method and other ethnocultural groups perceptions (and attitudes). A hypothesis was also suggested that social geosystem possesses social relations structure perceived both in temporal and spatial dimensions. In particular, attitudes towards other ethnocultural groups and religions were scrutinized. Thus there were distinguished - the core - together with the variable part that evolves under the influence of challenges and internal causes. Invariants (empirically identified features that remain relatively unchanged in temporal and spatial dimensions) as well as region's socio-cultural space inversions were revealed.