Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a
Conceptually, the intelligentsia status class arose in the late 18th century, during the Partitions of Poland (1772–1795). Etymologically, the 19th-century Polish intellectual Bronisław Trentowski coined the term inteligencja (intellectuals) to identify and describe the university-educated and professionally active social stratum of the patriotic bourgeoisie; men and women whose intellectualism would provide moral and political leadership to Poland in opposing the cultural hegemony of the Russian Empire.[4]
Before the Russian Revolution, the term intelligentsiya (Russian: интеллигенция) identified and described the status class of university-educated people whose cultural capital (schooling, education, and intellectual enlightenment) allowed them to assume the moral initiative and the practical leadership required in Russian national, regional, and local politics.[5]
In practice, the status and social function of the intelligentsia varied by society. In Eastern Europe, the intellectuals were at the periphery of their societies and thus were deprived of political influence and access to the effective levers of political power and of economic development. In Western Europe, the intellectuals were in the mainstream of their societies and thus exercised cultural and political influence that granted access to the power of government office, such as the Bildungsbürgertum, the cultured bourgeoisie of Germany, as well as the professionals of Great Britain.[3]
Background
In a society, the intelligentsia is a status class of intellectuals whose social functions, politics, and national interests are (ostensibly) distinct from the functions of government, commerce, and the military.[6] In Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (1921), the political economist Max Weber applied the term intelligentsia in chronological and geographical frames of reference, such as "this Christian preoccupation with the formulation of dogmas was, in Antiquity, particularly influenced by the distinctive character of ‘intelligentsia’, which was the product of Greek education", thus the intelligentsia originated as a social class of educated people created for the greater benefit of society.[7]
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Polish word and the sociologic concept of the inteligencja became a European usage to describe the social class of men and women who are the intellectuals of the countries of central and of eastern Europe; in Poland, the critical thinkers educated at university, in Russia, the nihilists who opposed traditional values in the name of reason and progress. In the late 20th century, the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said that the intelligentsia has two types of workers: (i) intellectual workers who create knowledge (practical and theoretic) and (ii) intellectual workers who create cultural capital. Sociologically, the Polish inteligencja translates to the intellectuels in France and the Gebildete in Germany.[6]
European history
The intelligentsia existed as a
In On Love of the fatherland (1844), the Polish philosopher Karol Libelt used the term inteligencja, which was the status class, composed of scholars, teachers, lawyers, and engineers, et al. as the educated people of society who provide the moral leadership required to resolve the problems of society, hence the social function of the intelligentsia is to "guide for the reason of their higher enlightenment."[8][failed verification][9]
In the 1860s, the journalist Pyotr Boborykin popularised the term intelligentsiya (интеллигенция) to identify and describe the Russian social stratum of people educated at university who engage in the intellectual occupations (law, medicine, engineering, the arts) who produce the culture and the dominant ideology by which society functions.[10][11][12] According to the theory of Dr. Vitaly Tepikin, the sociological traits usual to the intelligentsia of a society are:
- advanced-for-their-time moral ideals, moral sensitivity to the neighbour, tact and gentleness in expression;
- productive mental work, and in continual self-education;
- patriotism based on faith in the people, and inexhaustible, self-less love for the small and the big motherlands;
- inherent creativity in every stratum of the intelligentsia, and a tendency to asceticism;
- an independent personality who speaks freely;
- a critical attitude towards the government, and public condemnation of injustice;
- loyalty to principle by conscience, grace under pressure, and tendency to self-denial;
- an ambiguous perception of reality, which leads to political fickleness that sometimes becomes conservatism;
- a sense of resentment, because politics and policies went unrealised; and withdrawal from the public sphere to the in-group;
- quarrels about art, ideas, and ideology, which divide the subgroups who compose the intelligentsia.[13]
In The Rise of the Intelligentsia, 1750–1831 (2008) Maciej Janowski said that the Polish intelligentsia were the
Poland
19th century
In 1844 Poland, the term inteligencja, identifying the
Nonetheless, the writers
Second World War
After the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, the Nazis launched the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia, by way of the military operations of the Special Prosecution Book-Poland, the German AB-Aktion in Poland, the Intelligenzaktion, and the Intelligenzaktion Pommern. In eastern Poland, the Soviet Union proceeded with the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia with operations such as the Katyn massacre (April-May 1940), during which university professors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, teachers, military, policeman, writers and journalists were murdered.[16]
Russia
Imperial era
The Russian intelligentsiya also was a mixture of messianism and intellectual élitism, which the philosopher Isaiah Berlin described as follows: "The phenomenon, itself, with its historical and literally revolutionary consequences, is, I suppose, the largest, single Russian contribution to social change in the world. The concept of intelligentsia must not be confused with the notion of intellectuals. Its members thought of themselves as united, by something more than mere interest in ideas; they conceived themselves as being a dedicated order, almost a secular priesthood, devoted to the spreading of a specific attitude to life."[17]
The
In 1860, there were 20,000 professionals in Russia and 85,000 by 1900.
Originally composed of educated nobles, the intelligentsia became dominated by raznochintsy (classless people) after 1861. In 1833, 78.9 per cent of secondary-school students were children of nobles and bureaucrats, by 1885 they were 49.1 per cent of such students. The proportion of commoners increased from 19.0 to 43.8 per cent, and the remaining percentage were the children of priests.
Although Tsar Peter the Great introduced the Idea of Progress to Russia, by the 19th century, the Tsars did not recognize "progress" as a legitimate aim of the state, to the degree that Nicholas II said "How repulsive I find that word" and wished it removed from the Russian language.[22]
Bolshevik perspective
This section needs additional citations for verification. (February 2015) |
In Russia, the
In the creation of post-monarchic Russia, Lenin was firmly critical of the class character of the intelligentsia, commending the growth of "the intellectual forces of the workers and the peasants" will depose the "bourgeoisie and their accomplices, intelligents, lackeys of capital who think that they are brain of the nation. In fact it is not brain, but dung". (На деле это не мозг, а говно)[23]
The
Soviet Union
This section needs additional citations for verification. (December 2013) |
In the late Soviet Union the term "intelligentsia" acquired a formal definition of mental and cultural workers. There were subcategories of "scientific-technical intelligentsia" (научно-техническая интеллигенция) and "creative intelligentsia" (творческая интеллигенция).
Between 1917 and 1941, there was a massive increase in the number of engineering graduates: from 15,000 to over 250,000.[24]
Post-Soviet period
In the post-Soviet period, the members of the former Soviet intelligentsia have displayed diverging attitudes towards the communist government. While the older generation of intelligentsia has attempted to frame themselves as victims, the younger generation, who were in their 30s when the Soviet Union collapsed, has not allocated so much space for the repressive experience in their self-narratives.[25] Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the popularity and influence of the intelligentsia has significantly declined. Therefore, it is typical for the post-Soviet intelligentsia to feel nostalgic for the last years of the Soviet Union (perestroika), which they often regard as the golden age of the intelligentsia.[26]
Vladimir Putin has expressed his view on the social duty of intelligentsia in modern Russia.
We should all be aware of the fact that when revolutionary—not evolutionary—changes come, things can get even worse. The intelligentsia should be aware of this. And it is the intelligentsia specifically that should keep this in mind and prevent society from radical steps and revolutions of all kinds. We've had enough of it. We've seen so many revolutions and wars. We need decades of calm and harmonious development.[27]
Mass intelligentsia
In the 20th century, from the status class term Intelligentsia, sociologists derived the term mass intelligentsia to describe the populations of educated adults, with discretionary income, who pursue intellectual interests by way of book clubs and cultural associations, etc.[28] That sociological term was made popular usage by the writer Melvyn Bragg, who said that mass intelligentsia conceptually explains the popularity of book clubs and literary festivals that otherwise would have been of limited intellectual interests to most people from the middle class and from the working class.[29][30]
In the book Campus Power Struggle (1970), the sociologist Richard Flacks addressed the concept of mass intelligentsia:
What [Karl] Marx could not anticipate . . . was that the anti-bourgeois intellectuals of his day were the first representatives of what has become, in our time, a mass intelligentsia, a group possessing many of the cultural and political characteristics of a [social] class in Marx's sense. By intelligentsia I mean those [people] engaged vocationally in the production, distribution, interpretation, criticism, and inculcation of cultural values.[31]
See also
- Academia
- Anti-intellectualism
- College graduate
- Philippine ilustrado
- Creative class
- Obrazovanshchina
- Organic intellectual
References
- ^ Ory, Pascal; Sirinelli, Jean-François (2002). Les intellectuels en France: de l'affaire Dreyfus à nos jours [The Intellectuals in France: From the Dreyfus Affair to Our Days]. Paris: Armand Colin. p. 10.
- ^ Williams, Raymond (1983). Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Revised ed.). p. 170.
- ^ ISSN 0001-6829. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
Jerzy Jedlicki (ed.), Dzieje inteligencji polskiej do roku 1918 [The History of the Polish Intelligentsia until 1918]; and: Maciej Janowski, Narodziny inteligencji, 1750–1831 [The Rise of the Intelligentsia, 1750–1831].
- ISBN 978-0-7658-0471-6.
- ^ The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. 1993. p. 1387.
- ^ a b Bullock, Allan; Trombley, Stephen, eds. (1999). The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. p. 433.
- ISBN 0-520-03500-3.
- ^ a b Szpakowska, Malgorzata. "Dzieje inteligencji polskiej do roku 1918 [History of Intelligentsia Before 1918 in Poland]". Zeszyty Literackie (Literary Letters): 1 / 6. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
Dzieje inteligencji polskiej do roku 1918 ed. by Jerzy Jedlicki. Vol. I: Maciej Janowski, Narodziny inteligencji 1750–1831; Vol. II: Jerzy Jedlicki, Błędne koło 1832–1864; Vol. III: Magdalena Micińska, Inteligencja na rozdrożach 1864–1918. Warsaw, Polish Academy of Sciences Institute of History – Neriton, 2008, s. 260, 322, 232.
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(help) - ^ Dr hab., Prof. UW Andrzej Szwarc (2009). "Kryteria i granice podziałów w badaniach nad inteligencją polską" [Criteria and Divisions in Research of Polish Intelligentsia]. Instytut Historyczny UW (University of Warsaw Institute of History). Archived from the original on 17 December 2013. Retrieved 16 December 2013.
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(help) - ^ С. В. Мотин. О понятии «интеллигенция» в творчестве И. С. Аксакова и П. Д. Боборыкина. Известия Пензенского государственного педагогического университета им. В.Г. Белинского, 27, 2012 (in Russian)
- ^ Пётр Боборыкин. Русская интеллигенция. Русская мысль, 1904, № 12 (in Russian)
- ^ Пётр Боборыкин. Подгнившие "Вехи". Сб. статей В защиту интеллигенции. Москва, 1909, с. 119–138; первоначально опубл. в газете "Русское слово", No 111, 17 (30) мая, 1909 (in Russian)
- ^ Tepikin, Vitaly (2006). Culture and Intelligentsia. Ivanovo: Ivanovo University Press. pp. 41–42.
- ISBN 9783631623756. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
- ^ Boy-Żeleński, T. (1932) Nasi okupanci|Our Occupants.
- CIA. Archived from the originalon 24 March 2010. Retrieved 3 August 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-14-139317-9.
- ^ Вечеринка
- ^ Булгаков, Сергей, "Героизм и подвижничество", Вехи (сборник статей о русской интеллигенции), 1909
- ^ Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Old Regime. p. 262.
- ^ Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Old Regime. p. 264.
- ^ Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray. p. 15.
- ^ Lenin, V. I. (1915). "Letter from Lenin to Gorky". Library of Congress.
- ^ Smith, Steve (1983). "Bolshevism, Taylorism and the Technical Intelligentsia in the Soviet Union, 1917–1941". Radical Science Journal (13): 3–27.
- ^ See Kaprans, M. (2010). "Retrospective Anchoring of the Soviet Repressive System: the Autobiographies of the Latvian Intelligentsia". In Starck, K. (ed.). Between Fear and Freedom: Cultural Representations of the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 193–206.
- ISBN 978-1-84888-027-6.
- ^ "Putin's most interesting quotes on Obama, gay rights and Syria". 4 September 2013. Archived from the original on 2 March 2019. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
- ^ "We think, therefore we are - FT.com". Financial Times. 29 June 2012.
- ISBN 978-1-84545-738-9.
- ^ "Melvyn Bragg on the rise of the mass intelligentsia". Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 9 July 2012.
- ISBN 978-0-87855-059-3.
Further reading
- Roach, John (1957). "Liberalism and the Victorian Intelligentsia". Cambridge Historical Journal. 13 (1): 58–81. JSTOR 3020631.
- Boborykin, P.D. Russian Intelligentsia In: Russian Thought, 1904, # 12 (In Russian; Боборыкин П.Д. Русская интеллигенция// Русская мысль. 1904. No.12;)
- Zhukovsky V. A. From the Diaries of Years 1827–1840, In: Our Heritage, Moscow, #32, 1994. (In Russian; Жуковский В.А. Из дневников 1827–1840 гг. // Наше наследие. М., 1994. No.32.)
- The record dated by 2 February 1836 says: "Через три часа после этого общего бедствия ... осветился великолепный Энгельгардтов дом, и к нему потянулись кареты, все наполненные лучшим петербургским дворянством, тем, которые у нас представляют всю русскую европейскую интеллигенцию" ("After three hours after this common disaster ... the magnificent Engelhardt's house was lit up and coaches started coming, filled with the best Peterburg dvoryanstvo, the ones who represent here the best Russian European intelligentsia.") The casual, i.e., no-philosophical and non-literary context, suggests that the word was in common circulation.
- The record dated by 2 February 1836 says: "Через три часа после этого общего бедствия ... осветился великолепный Энгельгардтов дом, и к нему потянулись кареты, все наполненные лучшим петербургским дворянством, тем, которые у нас представляют всю русскую европейскую интеллигенцию" ("After three hours after this common disaster ... the magnificent Engelhardt's house was lit up and coaches started coming, filled with the best Peterburg