BELARUSIANS, UKRAINIANS AND RUSSIANS - MUTUAL PERCEPTION IN INTERCULTURAL ENVIRONMENT (basing on results of empirical research)

Belarusians, Ukrainians and Russians are Slavic peoples, whose historical past is illustrative of their greater closeness as compared to other peoples and countries that were included into USSR. With the disintegration of Union, and to the present day, political situation changed repeatedly and in diversified and multi-way, gradually and rapidly as, probably, mutual perception of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarussian. To prove this thesis the sociological research was conducted from December of 2014 to January 2015, with a purpose of exposing and comparing the structure of social perceptions of citizens of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus - students of Peoples` friendship university - about the modern world, about each other and other countries that have proved themselves most brightly on the global stage lately (such as the USA, China, Germany, France, Great Britain) as about their respective population. Using the methods of semantic differential and project questions, author has managed to clarify mutual perception of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, and their attitude toward their native and neighbor Slavic and other countries, as well as to the Russian language. With resulting main conclusions: Slavic peoples are still close to each other, however mutual perception of Russians and Belarusians is better, than their attitude toward Ukrainians; their attitude toward countries and respecting nationalities may vary, and Russian language is still of relevance among Slavic peoples.