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1995, Slavica Lundensia
AI
The paper explores the evolving role of the Russian intelligentsia in the wake of post-Soviet cultural changes, focusing on their unique position as discourse producers that grapple with their identity in a changing ideological landscape. It highlights the moral and social responsibilities of the intelligentsia and analyzes the rhetorical elements specific to this community, particularly through the metaphor of the 'babuska' as a representation of cultural memory and moral authority. The implications of these dynamics for understanding contemporary Russian society and culture are examined.
Acta Poloniae Historica, 2011
The fruitful nineteenth century almost simultaneously created the concepts of ‘history’, in its contemporary understanding, and of ‘intelligentsia’. Setting national history as the frame of reference, the intelligentsia put itself in the centre of its attention. With variations, its central position had remained unchanged for more than a century. Defi nitely, social history as well as sociology, of Marxist and non-Marxist models alike, treated intelligentsia as a universal concept. However, it hardly provided a basis for real comparisons or empirically applied transnational approach in research. And abandoning the framework of national history, the intelligentsia started to fade away like a rare fl ower, immediately losing its colour and scent, becoming pale and dry. There was nothing left but some abstract schemes, such as Karl Mannheim’s freischwebende Intelligenz.1 The empirical basis for comparisons has become more visible with the general shift of historical science fi rstly to...
Elites of Post-Transformation: From Post-Communist Elites to Populist Elites, 2024
The main aim of this article is to examine the contemporary Polish intelligentsia. Since the second half of the 19 th century, the intelligentsia has been one of the most important groups in Polish society and culture. By organizing civil society, the intelligentsia tried to maintain a sense of national unity and even "replace" the lost and partitioned state. However, its importance has been diminishing in parallel with the process of transformation after 1989. The author traces the main causes that led to the current situation. Unlike some scholars, he claims that the intelligentsia neither has "retired from the stage" nor does it play a hegemonic role in Polish society. By adopting the combined perspective of historical sociology and analysing qualitative empirical data on the intelligentsia's elite (i.e., in-depth interviews, articles, statements, discussions, books, etc.), the author argues that the intelligentsia has not been transformed into a middle class but neither does it exist in its former state. Since the current stratification in Poland is not based on rank order, the importance and status of the intelligentsia are diminishing. However, representatives of Polish elites have retained some characteristics of the former status group. Thus, the author suggests that "post-intelligentsia" would be a more accurate description of the group's current condition.
Warsaw Forum of Economic Sociology, 2014
The paper addresses the issue of the role, which intelligentsia, a specific social group to be encountered in Eastern Europe only, is to play within the field of social dialogue. The author argues that intelligentsia still has a capacity to make impact on the processes of social dialogue due to possessing adequate level of culture capital, which other influential social groups, including the entrepreneurs, lack. Intelligentsia should be, thus, regarded a principal actor in Polish society.
1995
It is simple and self-evident to refer to the "intelligentsia" when discussing the political and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe. But to define the identity of this group of people, not to mention their function, is another matter. Whether we scan the indexes of scholarly books devoted to intellectual history or contemporary sociology in our search for a definition, or whether we question a series of "native culture bearers", those who identify themselves with the intelligentsia, we shall no doubt conclude that the intelligentsia as such is real enoughbut that most attempts at definition are at best intuitive. Nevertheless, those who study and discuss the cultural history of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe do accept the existence of the intelligentsia, defined as a group of
Eurasie : espace mythique ou réalité en construction?, 2009
Theory and Society, 1992
The most prominent actor in the 1989 transformation of Eastern Europe has been the intelligentsia, a class whose basis for power is its control over a special form of teleological knowledge, and a culturally constituted group whose claim to authority is its historic role as leaders of East European nations. 2 In the wake of revolution they have in most places replaced the communist party and won political authority. In this article I explain the process through which the intelligentsia has apparently come to power, the character of its authority made in struggle, and what alternative futures post-communism might have for the prospects of the intelligentsia.
Slavica Lundensia, 2005
2007
Having emerged, exhausted but triumphant, from the bloody and divisive Russian Civil War, V. I. Lenin and his colleagues turned to eliminating perceived ideological foes from within. In On the Ideological Front, Stuart Finkel tells the story of the1922 expulsion from Soviet Russia of almost one hundred prominent intellectuals, including professors and journalists, philosophers and engineers, writers and agronomists. Finkel’s meticulously researched and persuasively argued study sets this compelling human drama within the context of the Bolsheviks’ determined efforts to impose ideological conformity, redefine the role of the intelligentsia, and establish a distinctly Soviet public sphere. The book demonstrates that the NEP period was not a time of intellectual pluralism and ideological retreat on the part of the Bolsheviks. On the contrary, from its formative years, the Soviet regime zealously policed the ideological front and laid the institutional and discursive foundations for the Stalinist state.
in _Russia's Home Front in War and Revolution, 1914-22, Book 3: National Disintegration and Reintegration_, edited by Adele Lindenmeyr, Christopher Read, and Peter Waldron, 2018
By the time Russia plunged headlong into its continuum of crisis of 1914–22, the words intelligentsiia and intelligent had accrued a surfeit of conceptualizations and associations. “The intelligentsia, in whatever way this term is interpreted,” wrote the prominent jurist and publicist Konstantin Arsen'ev in 1909, “takes in a number of groups that are substantially different among them- selves in terms of their habits, their spiritual makeup, and their way of life.... The indefiniteness of the terminology brings in its wake an inconsistency of terms and contradictions in conclusions.” With a series of often acrimonious debates erupting over its constitution and proper role in Russian society stretching back to the 1870s, “What is the intelligentsia?” had rapidly taken its place as one of Russia’s eternal “accursed questions.” Even for the most […] [ full chapter available at https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2104600 ]
2003
renewal after the fall of the Soviet system in 1991. The intelligentsia came into focus in the cultural debate. This article provides a review of the stances and themes of this debate, and provides historical parallels. It ends with a close reading of Vladimir Makanin’s novella Escape Hatch, written 1991. In this novella, the intelligentsia takes a central place in the depiction of the problem of transformation.
2008
This paper investigates the multifaceted universe of Russian intelligentsia and addresses the following, troubling, questions: What caused pro-democratic political dissent to weaken among the intelligentsia in the aftermath of perestrojka? Why has the young generation of Russian public intellectuals undergone a radical metamorphosis of their value system and plunged into political passivity and conformism? Freedom has historically been a prima facie value for the Russian liberal intelligentsia. By the mid-1990s, however, much of the intelligentsia came to be associated not with advocacy of individual liberty and human rights but with the failure of liberal democracy in Russia. This paper focuses on how the generation of the 1960s liberal intelligentsia, or shestidesjatniki, who played an active role during perestrojka, gave way to a generation of the ''sons,'' who, characterized as Westernstyle intellectuals, became spin doctors and political technologists, replacing the original ideals and high moral stance of their predecessors with nihilistic nonchalance. It is argued that the demise of dissent in post-Soviet Russia derives from the younger generation of intellectuals' view of the attainment of political power by the generation of shestidesjatniki during perestrojka and the first El'tsin term as the latter's moral fall and abandonment of the intelligentsia's traditional role as an outside critic of the state. Keywords Intelligentsia Á Intellectuals Á Dissent Á Dissidents Á Democracy Á Russia Á Perestrojka ''There is always something suspect about an intellectual on the winning side.''-Vaclav Havel, Czech writer and former Czech President
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 2006
Creativity Studies
In the context of the socio-economic approach to determining the place and role of the intelligentsia and its interaction with authorities, often only one point is reviewed, in which the intelligentsia is defined as the most progressive layer of society and at the same time oppressed by the authorities for progressive views. Thus, a search is needed between the desire of society for progress and the search for optimal conditions for coexistence between power and the intelligentsia. The novelty of the work is determined by the fact that the historical basis of the interaction between government and the intelligentsia should be considered not only in a historical perspective but also on the basis of an economic or anthropological approach. The authors of the article determine the role economic nature of the intelligentsia in the positive development of a socio-economic nature in society. The practical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of forming social develop...
Studies in East European Thought, 2008
This paper investigates the multifaceted universe of Russian intelligentsia and addresses the following, troubling, questions: What caused pro-democratic political dissent to weaken among the intelligentsia in the aftermath of perestrojka? Why has the young generation of Russian public intellectuals undergone a radical metamorphosis of their value system and plunged into political passivity and conformism? Freedom has historically been a prima facie value for the Russian liberal intelligentsia. By the mid-1990s, however, much of the intelligentsia came to be associated not with advocacy of individual liberty and human rights but with the failure of liberal democracy in Russia. This paper focuses on how the generation of the 1960s liberal intelligentsia, or shestidesjatniki, who played an active role during perestrojka, gave way to a generation of the ''sons,'' who, characterized as Westernstyle intellectuals, became spin doctors and political technologists, replacing the original ideals and high moral stance of their predecessors with nihilistic nonchalance. It is argued that the demise of dissent in post-Soviet Russia derives from the younger generation of intellectuals' view of the attainment of political power by the generation of shestidesjatniki during perestrojka and the first El'tsin term as the latter's moral fall and abandonment of the intelligentsia's traditional role as an outside critic of the state.
Russian Journal of Communication, 2018
Russian Journal of Communication
Studies in East European Thought, 2009
Aristotle defined as second nature those habits and customs which together make an identity, as distinct from the permanent attributes that go to make up human nature. Since the end of the cold war, globalization has taken off as a second human nature, even according to some theorists, the market mentality being intrinsic to the composition of the human being and capitalism being an essential feature of life on earth.
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