Issues of the family, parenthood, and stimulation of the birth rate have occupied an important place in public discussions and official speeches by politicians in recent years. It is argued that the national security and welfare of the country depend on successful policy in this area. The article presents the results of a discourse analysis of the texts of speeches of the President of Russia, touching on the problems of the family, family values, and the demographic transformations of society associated with them. The Messages of the President to the Federal Assembly of Russia from 2005 to 2021 provided the material for analysis. Four main messages stand out in the discourse being studied: firstly, the problem of the family is invariably associated with the reproduction of the population and the solution to the problem of population decline, and secondly, the texts of the messages are characterized by an instrumentalist view of the family (families with and without a tool to support the goals of the system), thirdly, the studied documents define the norms regarding the desired number of children, fourthly, since about 2012, a more active appeal to the topic of traditional family values begins. It is noted that in the classification of the sociologist Yuval-Davis, the current presidential discourse on family issues belongs to the category of «people as a force», in which the future of the Russian nation depends on its quantitative growth, and methods of stimulating reproductive behavior are directed at women. It is proposed to consider the discussion about traditional family values as part of a broader trend of promoting traditional values, reflecting the conservative turn in Russian politics. At the same time, there was no unity regarding this phenomenon, with criticism referring to the vagueness and uncertainty of these values, as well as to their objective existence.
family; family values; Russia; Message from the President to the Federal Assembly; demography; traditional values; pronatalism.