The Soviet Interview Project (SIP) has interviewed thousands of recent emigrants from the Soviet Union as a means of learning about politics, work, and daily life in the contemporary USSR. The project was designed by a team of Soviet specialists as a study of everyday life in the USSR with the expectation that the results will contribute not only to Sovietology but also to general theories in the basic disciplines represented by the research team – notably political science, economics, and sociology. The initial phase of the project has involved administering highly structured questionnaires covering a wide range of topics bearing on life, work, and politics in contemporary Soviet society to a probability sample of eligible Soviet emigrants currently residing in the United States. As the principal aim has been to learn about life in the Soviet Union, the absorption process has been of interest for validation purposes only. The essays collected in this volume represent a first strike from the data set.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief history of the Soviet Interview Project, a description of the methods and procedures that have guided the SIP General Survey I, and an overview of first findings.

History

On August 3, 1979, a meeting was held at the Kennan Institute to promote a project to interview recent Soviet emigrants to the United States.