The interviewees have been asked to name ten outstanding people to have ever lived.
38% of respondents consider Josef Stalin to be the most outstanding figure in the world history, a recent survey by Moscow-based Levada center says.
The second place was divided by Russian president Vladimir Putin and poet Alexander Pushkin (34 %). Vladimir Lenin ranked #3 (32%). Peter the Great (29%), Napoleon Bonaparte (9%), Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton (7% each) remained unplaced.
Studying similar surveys of the past years one can see that Stalin started to lead the polls around 2012 (42%). Earlier the most popular characters were Lenin and Pushkin.
Moreover, Russians have become to attached significant importance to their leader’s role in the world history (21% of respondents put him first in 2003, 32% – in 2008). In 2012, Putin’s popularity plummeted to 22%, but now it has reached 34%. Levada’s sociologists put down the rise to the wars waged by Russia. In 2008, support for Putin grew up after Russia’s aggression against Georgia, in 2014 – after the annexation of Crimea.
