Yuri Levada Alexandrovich ( Russian : Юрий Александрович Левада, [ Joe ri Alek san drovitsj Le va da] ) ( Vinnitsa , April 24 1930 - Moscow , November 16 2006 ) was a famous Russiansociologist and political scientist .
Levada introduced sociology at the Moscow State University . When Nikita Khrushchev came to power, and there was a brief period of relative political freedom, Levada was allowed to perform. limited number of interviews to the public In a lecture Levada had proclaimed that "tanks could not change ideologies," which was a reference to the invasion of Czechoslovakia after the Prague Spring in 1968by the Soviet Union. However, his first conflict with the established authority came after he had performed, in which he claimed that few truly infamous lengthy editorials from the research Pravda read.Pravda thereupon immediately the work of the sociologist hard on the jaw. In 1972 the institute was then closed during a purification of about 200 sociologists from research institutes and universities under the rule of Brezhnev .
Under Gorbachev Levada was restored and founded Levada in 1987 VTsIOM ( All-Union Center for the Study of Public Opinion ), which was renamed in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union All-Russian Center for the Study of Public opinion . Following negative reports about the Second Chechen War, however, in September 2003 the entire management of this institute replaced. Levada put then in 2004 the independent VTsIOM-A, that was renamed in March 2004 Levada Centre for Sociological Research .