“The originality of this volume rests on several strengths… it gives the question of the intelligentsia a truly fascinating dimension. This volume — and this is its merit — perpetuates the very myth it set out to examine.”

— Wladimir Berelowitch, Cahiers d'histoire russe, est-européenne, caucasienne et centrasiatique, (Translated from French)

“The image of the ideal intellectual and his perfect vision of the world nourished intellectual discourse in Russia for centuries, using thick literary journals as the main platform for discussion. It would be desirable to regard the publication of this collection as the initial stage of a project with the potential for growth and possible transformation into a fundamental publication—an anthology of intellectual thought that emerged from Russia and has influenced the civilizational paths of all humanity.”

— Yulia Balandina, The New Review

“This splendid collection of essays will help us revise our too often stereotyped idea of the intelligent, whether demonized or revered, weaponized or worn as a badge of honor. The persuasiveness of this volume lies in its refusal to generalize. It feeds into no ideology. Both Any and Forrester describe twentieth‑century cases where Power (vlast’) and the creative intelligentsia not only share resources but actively court and reshape one another. Chekhov’s nonideological code of politeness and personal decency prompted Mikhail Lotman to call him ‘the most typical intelligent of all Russian writers.’”

— Caryl Emerson. The Russian Review

“This ambitious, wide-ranging volume traces the evolution of the Russian intelligentsia as a cultural concept and historical entity from its inception in the eighteenth century to the present day. A remarkable diversity of approaches and perspectives enriches the collection, with some invaluably incisive analyses complemented by informative descriptions of incidents, developments, and sources that represent terra incognita to many readers. Alongside famous thinkers, political leaders, and publications such as the accurately titled Landmarks (Vekhi) appear lesser-known figures and writings, many of which engage in dialogue or dispute with their predecessors or, in a few eloquent cases, predict current circumstances in Russia. To the question, ‘Can anything new be said about the intelligentsia?’ this volume responds with an unequivocal ‘Yes!’”

— Helena Goscilo, Professor, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University

“Illuminating and thought-provoking, The Russian Intelligentsia offers a fascinating journey through the intellectual heartland of Russia. This rigorous yet accessible volume explores how the intelligentsia, perpetually pressed between the hammer of the state and the anvil of the people, has shaped Russia's cultural and political landscape from the 18th century to today. As Russia faces new tormenting and catastrophic challenges, this balanced exploration provides invaluable insights into the nation's past and present, offering a critical lens for understanding its highly problematic future.”

— Mikhail Epstein, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor Emeritus of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature, Emory University. 

Sibelan Forrester is the Susan W. Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages and Russian at Swarthmore College. Her publications emphasize translation theory and practice, folklore, and Silver Age Russian poetry; she is editor or co-editor of Engendering Slavic Literatures (Indiana UP, 1996), Over the Wall/After the Fall: Post-Communist Cultures in an East-West Gaze (Indiana UP, 2004), Russian Silver Age Poetry: Texts and Contexts (Academic Studies Press, 2015), A Companion to Marina Tsvetaeva: Approaches to a Major Russian Poet (Brill, 2016), and Times of Mobility: Transnational Literature and Gender in Translation (Central European University Press, 2019). She has published translations of fiction, poetry, and scholarly prose from Croatian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian. 

Olga Partan is Associate Professor of Russian Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. She has authored a Russian-language memoir You were right, Filumena! (Moscow: PROZAiK, 2012) and the scholarly book Vagabonding Masks: The Italian Commedia dell’Arte in the Russian Artistic Imagination (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2017); her Commedia dell’ Arte book was also translated into Russian (St Petersburg: Academic Studies Press/Библиороссика, 2021).

Acknowledgements

1. Introduction: The Intelligentsia in Russia: Shifting Terms, History, and Scholarly Approaches

Olga Partan and Sibelan Forrester

Part One: Pre-Nineteenth Century

2. An Essay on the Origins of the Intelligentsia: Catherine the Great and Her Relations with Novikov and Radishchev

Marcus Levitt

Part Two: The Nineteenth Century

3. The Intelligentsia in the Russian Press of the 1860s and 1870s

Konstantine Klioutchkine

4. Dostoevsky and the Intelligentsia 

Alexander Burry

5. Accommodating the Intelligentsia: Tolstoyan Nonresistance as a Response to the Russian Intelligentsia

Michael Denner

6. The Russian Intelligentsia and Western Intellectuals: Through the Prism of Chekhov

Svetlana Evdokimova

Part Three: The Twentieth Century

7. Merchants vs. the Intelligentsia: The Case of the Moscow Art Theatre

Maria Ignatieva

8. A Bridgeable Schism? The Russian Silver Age Intelligentsia Holds Its Ground, Spruces up, and Proselytizes

Irene Masing-Delic

9. Landmarks (Vekhi)—the Russian Intelligentsia at a Crossroads

Olga Sobolev

10. The End of the Classical Intelligentsia?

Gary Hamburg

11. The Russian Knights Templar: A Secret Mystical Order and Its Legacy

Olga Partan

12. Remaking the Literary Intelligentsia (1930s-1940s) 

Carol Any

13. The Soviet Intelligentsia and Thaw-Era Science Fiction

Sibelan Forrester

14. The Intelligentsia and the “Thick Journal”

Marina Adamovich

15. A Romantic Ironist or a New Intellectual? Tatyana Tolstaya and Her Critique of the Russian Intelligentsia

Alexandra Smith

Part Four: The Twenty-First Century

16. Ulitskaya and Pelevin on the Shestidesiatniki

Sofya Khagi

17. The Intelligentsia and the Intellectuals: A History of Two Terms in Russian Philosophical Discourse

Alyssa DeBlasio

18. Legacy and Denial: Russian Intelligentsia on Screen and Online in the First Two Decades of the Twenty-First Century

Tatiana Smorodinska