Development of the Russian intelligentsia. History of the development of the Russian intelligentsia Beginning, formation and history of the Russian intelligentsia

In 1997, the Scientific Council on the History of World Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences held a conference “The Role of the Russian Intelligentsia in Forming the Picture of the World.” At the same time, the idea arose of creating a scientific book devoted to the topic of the Russian intelligentsia. The collection "Russian Intelligentsia. History and Fate" was published by the publishing house "Science" of the Russian Academy of Sciences at the end of August 1999. Among the authors of scientific articles are A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Kozhinov, M. Ulyanov, M. Gasparov and others. The functions and role of the intelligentsia in the past and present of Russia, its relationship with the state and the people are considered. The book is divided into four sections: the first consists of articles devoted to the theoretical aspects of the problem; the second examines issues generated by the intelligentsia, but not resolved by it; the third is devoted to the analysis of its historical past; The focus of the fourth section is on the specific fates of individual representatives of the intelligentsia in the context of the general problems of the collection.

The book is intended for philologists, historians, philosophers, art historians, sociologists and anyone interested in Russian culture.

The Russian intelligentsia stands at a great ideological and volitional crossroads. At the cliff, at the abyss, her former path was cut off: she could not go further in the same direction. There is only a sharp turn to the side, onto new, saving paths; and there are slippery paths that fall to the bottom... We must understand and choose; decide and go. But you can’t choose for a long time: the deadlines are short, and time is running out. Or don't you hear Russia calling? Or do you not see how the global crisis is unfolding and maturing? Understand: Russia must be liberated and cleansed before the world crisis matures and breaks out!..

It is not thought that is dangerous, but lack of will; not self-absorption, but indecision. The Russian intelligentsia has something to think about; and without religious and spiritual self-deepening, she will not find the right outcome. Honestly and courageously, she must tell herself that the revolutionary collapse of the Russian state is, first of all, her own collapse: it was she who led and she led Russia to revolution. Some led by conscious will, agitation and propaganda, assassinations and expropriations. Others preached non-resistance, simplification, sentimentality and equality. Still others - unprincipled and deadening reactionism, the ability to intrigue and put pressure and the inability to educate, the reluctance to spiritually feed, the inability to ignite free hearts... Some spread and poured the poison of the revolution; others prepared their minds for him; still others did not know how (or did not want) to cultivate and strengthen spiritual resistance among the people...

Here everything must be courageously thought through to the end and honestly spoken out. Woe to the stubborn and cowardly! Shame on the self-righteous hypocrites! An impartial history will brand them as blind and destroyers, and the restoration of Russia will be conditioned by the extinction of their generation...

Nowadays the Russian intelligentsia is either suppressed and weakened in the country, or expelled from Russia, or destroyed by revolutionaries. The point is not in judging her, although each of us is always called to judgment over ourselves. We should not blame each other, although only those who can find their own guilt in events can see the light and be renewed. We are not looking for "blame"; but we cannot hush up the truth, because truth is needed now in Russia, like light and air...

A keen and honest diagnosis is the first basis of treatment. But this diagnosis should not be stigmatizing, but explanatory. And those who are now especially prone to stigma and malice, let them remember, firstly, that they themselves are in the dock; secondly, that mental and spiritual currents develop slowly and are stable, like psychosis, so that only exceptionally strong natures can disobey them and swim against the current; and thirdly, that now we have been given a new historical experience that our fathers did not have. People should be rejected not for their past failures or delusions, but for their current malicious reluctance to see the light...

I'm not talking about "fathers" and "sons" at all. And before the revolution there were wise and strong fathers; We still have them - this is our storehouse of state experience, a guarantee and guarantee that we are following the right path. And even before the revolution, young people screamed that they “understood everything better than their fathers”; and now - she got drunk... Only the blind and possessed do not grow wiser over the years; only a genius is given, immediately, from his young nails, seven spans of space in his forehead. And it has always been so, and it will always be so, that youthful self-confidence is fraught with disaster.

So, I'm not talking about "fathers" and "sons" at all...

Yes, one of the reasons for the revolution is the mood of the mind and the direction of the will of the Russian intelligentsia. The whole trouble is that the Russian intelligentsia misunderstood its destiny and its task in the life of Russia and therefore did not find its organic place and did not do its organic work in the country. We are not talking about the service, military and civilian cadres, which have always been rich in strong and loyal people, but about party (left and right) “politicians” and the philistine masses infected by them. This intelligentsia did the opposite of its calling and not only did not build a healthy spirit of Russian statehood, but put its efforts and its pathos into its decomposition. Hence her organic powerlessness in the hour of trial and trouble, her confusion, her defeat and collapse.

In the hour of trial and trouble, in the hour of exhaustion, despondency and temptation, the mass of the ordinary Russian people followed not the Russian intelligentsia, but the international half-intelligentsia; she went not to save Russia, but to destroy it; went not to the national-state goal, but to private enrichment; betrayed the Russian and Orthodox idea and indulged in an absurd and blasphemous chimera. This is a historical fact that cannot be erased from the history of Russia, but which our generation is obliged to comprehend to the end; comprehend and draw strong-willed conclusions from it for the future...

This indisputable historical fact is a verdict in itself. Not at all because the common people are supposedly “always right in everything” or that the job of the intelligentsia is only to listen to their desires and please them; all these are false and flattering, corrupt words, perverting the matter at the very root; but because the task of the intelligentsia is precisely to lead their people behind the national idea and towards the state goal; and the educated stratum incapable of this will always be historically condemned and overthrown. But at the same time, the intelligentsia does not dare to abdicate the blame and place it on the common people. For if the people are “obscure”, then this is not their “fault”, this is a creative, but not yet resolved task of the national intelligentsia; and if bad passions live and boil among the people, then the national educated layer is called upon to ennoble and direct them. A teacher who complains about his pupil must start with himself; and it is not for a Russian intellectual, even in irritation and confusion, to vilify the kind, patient and gifted soul of the Russian common man...

If the mass of ordinary Russian people followed not their national educated stratum, but foreign, international adventurers, then the Russian intelligentsia must look for the reason for this, first of all, in itself. This means that she was not up to the task and did not cope with her task. Let the left and right parties now mutually accuse each other; let them argue about who killed the patient - the economic manager, who forced him to overexert himself at work with a bad diet, or the half-educated paramedic who poisoned him with poisons and infected him with bacteria. We, who are looking for truth and correct solutions for the future, need to establish that both sides followed false paths, both led to destruction, and that henceforth it is necessary to do the opposite in both respects.

The Russian intelligentsia failed in its task and brought matters to a revolution because it was groundless and devoid of state sense and will.

This groundlessness was both social and spiritual: the intelligentsia did not have healthy and deep roots in the Russian people, but it did not have them because it had nothing to say to the Russian common people that could ignite their heart, captivate their will, illuminate and conquer his mind. The Russian intelligentsia for the most part was religiously dead, nationally-patriotically cold and stateless. Her “enlightened” mind, devastated by Voltairianism and materialistically poisoned for several generations, was drawn to abstract doctrinaire and turned away from religion; he forgot how to see God, he did not know how to find the Divine in the world, and that is why he stopped seeing the Divine in his homeland, in Russia. Russia has become for the Russian intelligentsia a heap of accidents, peoples and wars; it ceased to be for her a historical national prayer, or a living house of God. Hence this fading of national well-being, this patriotic coldness, this distortion and impoverishment of state feeling and all the associated consequences - internationalism, socialism, revolutionism and defeatism. The Russian intelligentsia stopped believing in Russia; she stopped seeing Russia in God's ray, Russia, which was suffering martyrdom for its spiritual identity; she stopped hearing the sacred verbs of Russia, her sacred singing throughout the centuries. Russia has ceased to be a religious problem for her, a religious-volitional task. Who could she educate and where could she lead? Having lost faith and God, she lost the sacred meaning of her homeland, and at the same time the homeland itself in its true and great meaning; because of this, her state understanding became empty, flat and unprincipled. It has lost the religious meaning of state building and thus radically distorted its sense of justice. Her soul became spiritually groundless.

But it was precisely from here that her groundless position within her own people arose.

From God and from nature, the Russian people are gifted with a deep religious feeling and a powerful political instinct. The riches of his spiritual depths can only be compared with the riches of his external nature. But these spiritual riches of his remain latent, undisclosed, as if virgin soil had not been lifted and sown. For centuries, Rus' was created and built by instinct, in all its unconsciousness, lack of formality and, most importantly, easy-to-understand. Passion, not secured by the strength of character, is always capable of stirring up, becoming clouded, being seduced and rushing down the wrong path. And the only thing that can save it, according to the profound words of Patriarch Hermogenes, is “immovable standing” in the truth of the people’s leaders.

The Russian people, due to the charge of passions and talents given to them and due to the lack of strength of their character, have always needed strong and faithful leaders, religiously motivated, vigilant and authoritative. He himself always vaguely sensed this peculiarity of his own, and therefore he always looked for strong leaders for himself, believed in them, adored them and was proud of them. He always had a need to find support, a limit, a form and peace in the strong and good will of the ruler called to power. He always valued strong and firm power; he never condemned her for being strict and demanding; he always knew how to forgive her everything if the healthy depth of political instinct told him that behind these thunderstorms there was a strong patriotic will, that behind these harsh compulsions there was hidden a great national-state idea, that these unbearable taxes and fees were caused by a nationwide misfortune or need. There are no limits to the self-sacrifice and endurance of a Russian person if he feels that he is being led by a strong and inspired patriotic will; and vice versa - he has never and will never follow lack of will and idle talk, even to the point of contempt, to the temptation to shy away from the power of a strong-willed adventurer.

The Russian pre-revolutionary intelligentsia did not have in its soul what could awaken and lead this healthy state instinct of the common people. Deprived of spiritual soil in itself, it could not acquire socio-political soil among the masses; divorced from God, having forgotten how to build and maintain a monarchical sense of justice, applied to class interests and thereby losing the national-state meaning, it did not have a great national idea capable of igniting hearts, charging the will and conquering minds; she did not know how to stand correctly, walk cheerfully and lead firmly; it has lost access to the sanctuary of the people's conscience and people's patriotism; and, fussing about on the “political” surface, it was only capable of undermining the people’s faith in the salvation of the monarchy, law and order and private property. Before the revolution, we did not have an intelligentsia capable of volitionally educating the people; we had only “teaching teachers” who supplied students with “information”; and along with this, demagogues on the left, who successfully mobilized the mob around themselves for a coup, and demagogues on the right, who were unable to do even this.

What the intelligentsia said to the common people aroused in them not conscience, but dishonesty; not patriotic unity, but a spirit of discord; not legal consciousness, but the spirit of arbitrariness; not a sense of duty, but a feeling of greed. And could it have been otherwise, when the intelligentsia had no religious perception of the homeland, no national idea, no state sense and will. The key to the deep and healthy instinct of the Russian common people, the key to their living spirit, was lost; and access to his base, greedy and ferocious desires was open and easy.

It so happened that the instinct of national self-preservation dried up in the Russian intelligentsia and therefore it turned out to be unable to awaken the instinct of national self-preservation in the Russian masses and lead them along. The Russian educated stratum swallowed European culture without checking its inventions and “discoveries” - neither by the depth of religious, Christian conscience, nor by the depth of the national instinct of self-preservation. The mental chimeras and unnatural utopias of the West captivated his groundless soul, not restrained by the saving inner emphasis of a healthy instinct, this great teacher in matters of life realism and political expediency, and the blind trust in reason and the stock of fanaticism released in the irreligious soul turned these utopias and chimeras into some kind of that unnatural and godless “gospel” for the masses. And all this fornication and nonsense needed only will for the volitional obsession of the Bolshevik revolution to arise.

In such a state, the Russian intelligentsia could not conduct Russian affairs, could not build Russia.

Having lost a living relationship with God, she distorted her understanding of Christianity, reducing everything to animal sentimentality, to socialism and the denial of the national principle. By this she lost an organ for the Russian cause, for the Russian cause is at once a religious, national and state matter; and whoever misses at least one of these sides misses everything at once.

At the same time, following reason, materialism and Western theories, she distorted her understanding of human nature and people's life. It is as if she has become blind and deaf to what the voice of instinct, the voice of organic expediency, the voice of spirit, the voice of personality, the voice of nationality speaks. Everything fell apart for her into mechanical components and mechanical laws. The secret of living, organic unity and creativity left her, became inaccessible to her: the people disintegrated for her into self-interested “atoms” and “classes”, into “oppressors” and “oppressed”; and the meaning of the great, national, organic and spiritual totality, which built itself over the centuries and called Russia, became a dead sound for it...

It so happened that the Russian intelligentsia, by instinct and understanding, separated itself from the Russian common people and consciously opposed itself to them. She ceased to feel that he was her people, and herself that she was her intelligentsia. She ceased to feel that she was a single national “we” with him; she has forgotten how to see in herself the national-volitional body of the united Russian people, called upon to educate and obliged to lead; she measured and assessed herself with the flat standard of socialist morality and, having measured, condemned; she believed in physical labor and lost faith in the sanctity of spiritual creativity, and, feeling her imaginary “guilt” before the common people, she went to “broadcast” to them the corpse-like “wisdom” of godlessness and socialism. She brought to him the principles of spiritual decay and decay, the religion of discord and revenge, the chimera of equality and socialism. And all this nonsense and fornication was waiting only for a strong will so that the Bolshevik revolution would take over the country...

The essence of the Russian revolution is that the Russian intelligentsia handed over its people to spiritual corruption, and the people handed over their intelligentsia to desecration and torn to pieces. And the end of the revolution will come when the Russian intelligentsia and the Russian people revive in themselves the true depth of the religious-national instinct and reunite, when the intelligentsia proves that not only has it not changed its will with the national idea, but that it knows how to die for it and for national power, and the people will be convinced that they need the intelligentsia precisely as the bearer of the national idea, as the builder of a healthy and great national state.

We see and believe that this hour is approaching. We believe and know that the spiritual wanderings of the Russian intelligentsia are over, that volitional accomplishments and spiritual achievements lie ahead of them, for a great people is great primarily in its leaders and creators. Russian people will find each other in selfless love for national Russia; through this love they will recognize each other and restore their trust and unity...

In cultural countries that have long been involved in the development of world progress, the intelligentsia, i.e. the educated and thinking part of society, creating and disseminating universal spiritual values, is, so to speak, an indisputable figure, clearly defined, aware of its significance, its vocation. There the intelligentsia does its job, working in all fields of public life, thought and creativity and not asking (except accidentally and in passing) tricky questions like: “what is the intelligentsia and what is the meaning of its existence?” “Disputes about the intelligentsia” do not arise there, or, if sometimes they arise, they do not receive even a hundredth of the importance that they have in our country. There is no need to write books on the topic: “history of the intelligentsia »... Instead, in those happy countries they write books on the history of sciences, philosophy, technology, art, social movements, political parties...

The situation is different in backward and belated countries. Here the intelligentsia is something new and unusual, not an “indisputable”, undefined quantity: it is being created and strives for self-determination; It is difficult for her to understand her paths, to get out of the state of fermentation and to settle on a solid basis of varied and fruitful cultural work, for which there would be a demand in the country, without which the country not only could not do, but would also be aware of it.

And therefore, in backward and belated countries, the intelligentsia continually interrupts its work with perplexed questions like: “what is the intelligentsia and what is the meaning of its existence,” “who is to blame for the fact that it does not find its real business,” “what to do?”

It is precisely in such countries that the “history of the intelligentsia” is written, that is, the history of these perplexing and tricky questions. And such a “story”, of necessity, turns into psychology.

Here we are - en pleine psychologie... We have to clarify the psychology of the intelligentsia's "grief" that stems from the intelligentsia's "mind" - from the very fact of the appearance of this mind in a belated and backward country. We have to reveal the psychological foundations of Onegin’s boredom, explain why Pechorin wasted his rich strength, why Rudin wandered and languished, etc.

The psychology of quest, languor of thought, mental anguish of ideologists, “renegades”, “superfluous people”, their successors in post-reform times - “repentant nobles”, “commoners”, etc. comes to the fore of study.

This psychology is a real “human document”, in itself highly valuable, interesting for a foreign observer, and for us Russians, it has deep vital significance - educational and educational.

Here a number of questions are outlined, of which I will dwell on only one - not, of course, in order to solve it in these pages of the “Introduction”, but only in order to, having outlined it, immediately introduce the reader inmediasres- to the circle of those basic ideas which I based this feasible work on the “history of the Russian intelligentsia.”

This is a question about the sharp, striking contrast between the wealth of mental and generally spiritual life of our intelligentsia from the 20s of the last century to the present day and the comparative insignificance of what has been achieved.

good results in the sense of the direct influence of the intelligentsia on the course of things in our country and on the rise of general culture in the country.

This is the antithesis of the richness of our ideologies, which often reached the point of sophistication, the luxury of our literary and, in particular, artistic treasures, on the one hand, and our all-Russian backwardness, on the other, our cultural (to use Gogol’s catchphrase) “poverty and poverty.”

As a direct consequence of this glaring contradiction, special sentiments characteristic of our intelligentsia arose and continue to emerge - sentiments that I will call “Chaadaevsky”, because their herald was Chaadaev, who gave them the first and, moreover, the most harsh and extreme expression in his famous “philosophical letters” .

Let us remember the curious episode associated with them and the impression they made.

Nikitenko wrote the following in his “Diary” on October 25, 1836: “A terrible turmoil in censorship and literature. In the 15th issue of “Telescope” (vol. XXXIV) an article was published under the title: “Philosophical Letters.” The article is written beautifully: its author is (P. Ya.) Chaadaev. But in it our entire Russian life is presented in the darkest form. Politics, morality, even religion are presented as wild, ugly exceptions to the general laws of humanity. It is incomprehensible how the censor Boldyrev missed it. Of course, there was an uproar among the audience. The magazine is prohibited. Boldyrev, who was both a professor and rector of a Moscow university, has been removed from all positions. Now he, together with (N.I.) Nadezhdin, the publisher of Telescope, is being brought here for an answer.”

Chaadaev, as is known, was declared crazy and subjected to house arrest 1 .

The impression made by Chaadaev’s article on thinking people of that time can be judged by Herzen’s memoirs in “The Past and the Duma”: “...Chaadaev’s letter shocked all thinking Russia... It was a shot that rang out on a dark night... In the summer of 1836 years ago, I was sitting calmly at my desk in Vyatka when the postman brought me the latest book of “Telescope...”

“A Philosophical Letter to a Lady, Translation from French” did not at first attract his attention; he moved on to other articles. But when he began to read the “letter,” it immediately deeply interested him: “from the second, from the third page, the sad-serious tone stopped me: every word smelled of long suffering, already cooled, but still embittered. Only people who have thought for a long time, thought a lot and experienced a lot with life, and not with theory, write this way... I read further - the letter grows, it becomes a gloomy indictment against Russia, a protest of a person who, for everything he has endured, wants to express part of what has accumulated in his heart. I stopped twice to rest and let my thoughts and feelings subside, and then I read and read again. And this was printed in Russian by an unknown author... I was afraid that I had gone crazy. Then I reread the “letter” to Vitberg, then to S., a young teacher at the Vyatka gymnasium, then again to myself. It is very likely that the same thing happened in different provincial and district cities, in capitals and Lord's houses. I learned the author’s name a few months later” (“Works of A. I. Herzen,” vol. II, pp. 402 - 403).

Herzen formulates the main idea of ​​the “letter” as follows: “Russia’s past is empty, the present is unbearable, and there is no future for it at all, this is “a gap in understanding, a terrible lesson given to peoples - what alienation and slavery can lead to 2. It was repentance and accusation...” (403).

1 About Chaadaev we have the excellent pages of P. N. Milyukov in his book “The Main Currents of Russian Historical Thought” (3rd ed. 1913, pp. 323 - 342) and the wonderful work of M. Ya. Gershenzon - “P . Ya. Chaadaev” (1908), where Chaadaev’s works were also republished.

2 Original expressions of Chaadaev.

Chaadaev’s philosophical and historical construction captivates with the harmony and consistency of the development of the main idea, which cannot be denied either in relative originality 1 or in depth, but it unpleasantly strikes with its extreme exaggeration of the characteristics of everything Russian, the clearly unfair and sharp one-sidedness of the mystical-Christian, Catholic view. Re-reading the famous “letters”, we involuntarily think about the author: here is an original and deep thinker who suffered from some kind of color-blindness of thought and does not reveal - in his judgments - any sense of proportion, no tact, no critical caution.

I will cite some passages - among the most paradoxical - in order to then subject them to some kind of “operation”: discarding the extremes, softening the harshness, it is not difficult to discover hidden in the depths of Chaadaev’s ideas the grain of some sad truth, which easily explains the “Chaadaev sentiments” of our intelligentsia, but Chaadaev’s conclusions and paradoxes are by no means justified.

Chaadaev’s denial is aimed primarily at Russia’s historical past. We, in his opinion, did not have a heroic period, “a fascinating phase of “youth”, “turbulent activity”, “the vigorous play of the spiritual forces of the people.” Our historical youth is the Kiev period and the time of the Tatar yoke, which Chaadaev speaks of; “first - wild barbarism, then gross ignorance, then ferocious and humiliating foreign domination, the spirit of which was later inherited by our national power - such is the sad story of our youth...” (Gershenzon, 209). This era did not leave “neither captivating memories, nor graceful images in the memory of the people, nor powerful teachings in its tradition. Look around all the centuries we have lived through, all the space we occupy, - you will not find a single attractive memory, not a single venerable monument that would powerfully speak to you about the past, that would recreate it vividly and picturesquely...” (ibid.).

The sharp exaggeration is striking - and already Pushkin, in a letter to Chaadaev, reasonably objected to him, pointing out that his colors were too thick. Our historical past, of course, does not shine with bright colors and, in comparison with the Western European Middle Ages, seems dull, gray, nondescript - but the picture drawn by Chaadaev only testifies to the fact that its author did not have the makings of a historian, was not called to a calm and objective historical contemplation, but was a typical impressionist in history and in the philosophy of history. It is impossible to build any correct historical view on impressionism, especially if the starting point is a preconceived narrow idea, like the one that inspired Chaadaev.

But, however, if we discard the extremes (“not a single attractive memory,” “not a single venerable monument,” etc.) and inappropriate demands (for example, some “graceful images”), if we filter Chaadaev’s retrospective philippics, then in the sediment you will get the completely possible and natural mood of a thinking person who, having tasted European culture, endures from the contemplation of our past sorrowful thoughts about its relative scarcity, about oppressive and dulling living conditions, about some kind of national weakness. Subsequently, the historian Shchapov (it seems, independently of Chaadaev’s ideas) in a number of studies made an attempt to document this sad fact of our historical poverty. The attempt was not entirely successful, but it showed the psychological possibility of such a mood and view, no longer at all conditioned by a biased mystical doctrine or any predilections for the Catholic West.

Let's read again, moving from the past to the present:

1 P. N. Milyukov points to Bonald’s essay “Legislation primitive, considereparla Raison”, as well as the ideas of J. de Maistre as the source of Chaadaev’s historical and philosophical views.

“Look around you. Don't we all feel like we can't sit still? We all look like travelers. No one has a defined sphere of existence (?), no one has developed good habits for anything (?), no rules for anything (?); there is not even a home (??)... In our homes we seem to be stationed, in the family we look like strangers, in the cities we seem to be nomads, and even more so than those nomads who graze their herds in our steppes, for they are stronger tied to our deserts than we are to our cities...” (p. 208).

All this is obviously exaggerated almost to the point of absurdity, and the colors are condensed to the point of clumsiness. But nevertheless, there is a grain of deep truth hidden here.

Lack of cultural bearing, upbringing, alienation from the environment, melancholy of existence, “mental wandering”, lack of what can be called “cultural settledness” - all these traits are too well known, and in this book we will talk about them in detail. But here’s what you should pay attention to and what, I hope, will become clear at the end of this “psychological story” of our intelligentsia. The traits that Chaadaev, as usual, pointed out, greatly exaggerating his colors, began to decline - as the numerical growth of our intelligentsia and the progressive development of its ideology. Chatsky simply ran - “to search the world where there is a corner for an offended feeling,” Onegin and Pechorin were bored, “wasted their lives” and wandered, Rudin “wandered with his soul,” toiled and died in Paris on the barricades. But Lavretsky already “sat down on the ground” and, after all, “plowed it” and found “shelter.” Then came the “nihilists”, “raznochintsy”, “repentant nobles”, and they all more or less knew what they were doing, what they wanted, where they were going - and were more or less free from “Chaadaev sentiments” and from spiritual yearnings of people of the 40s.

The gap between the thinking, progressive part of society and the surrounding wider social environment filled and disappeared. In the 70s and subsequent years, the intelligentsia came close to the masses...

Nevertheless, “Chaadayev sentiments” are far from being eliminated; the possibility of their emergence, in a more or less mitigated form, has not been eliminated. We can only say that we are moving towards eliminating them in the future and that after the great turn of our history in the 60s they have lost their former sharpness.

“Chaadaev sentiments” were, in pre-reform times, a psychologically inevitable product of the alienation of the advanced part of society from the wider social environment and from the people.

The reforms of the 60s, the success of democratization, the spread of education, the numerical growth of the intelligentsia made it impossible for these bleak moods to return to their former severity - in the form of that “national pessimism” or “national despair” to which people of the 30s and 40s, who sympathetically listened to Chaadaev’s philippics, but did not share his views and conclusions.

Even the balanced Russian patriot Pushkin, who so cleverly and aptly objected to Chaadaev, was not alien to “Chaadaev’s sentiments.” “After so many objections,” the great poet wrote to the Moscow thinker, “I must tell you that there are many things of deep truth in your message. It must be admitted that our social life is very sad. This lack of public opinion, this indifference to all duty, to justice and truth, this cynical contempt for thought and human dignity, truly leads to despair. You did well to “say it out loud...”

Pushkin, like many, approved of Chaadaev’s philippics in that part of it that was aimed at modern Russia, at the Russian reality of that time, but did not recognize Chaadaev’s sweeping attacks on the historical past of Russia and his negative, deeply pessimistic attitude towards its future as valid.

Both Westerners and advanced Slavophiles had the same negative attitude towards modern Russian reality. But neither one nor the other lost faith in the future of Russia and were very far from the national self-denial and self-abasement of which Chaadaev was the exponent.

And much of what they changed their minds, felt, what they created, what the noblest minds of the era expressed - Belinsky, Granovsky, Herzen, K. Aksakov, Iv. and P. Kireevskys, Khomyakov, then Samarin and others - was, as it were, an “answer” to the question raised by Chaadaev. As if to refute Chaadaev’s pessimism, a generation of remarkable figures appeared, whose mental and moral life marked the beginning of our further development. To Chaadaev, the whole of Russian history seemed like some kind of misunderstanding, a senseless vegetation in alienation from the civilized world moving forward - Slavophiles and Westerners sought to understand the meaning of our historical past, believing in advance that it existed and that Russian history, like Western European history, can and should have your own “philosophy”. Diverging in their understanding of the meaning of our historical life, they agreed in a mournful denial of the present and in the desire to look into the future, in hope for the future, which Chaadaev seemed insignificant and hopeless 1.

The history of the Russian intelligentsia throughout the 19th century has been moving in the direction, as stated above, of the decline of “Chaadayevism” in its various forms, and it can be foreseen that in the near future we will achieve its complete elimination.

Finding out the socio-psychological foundations of “Chaadayev sentiments”, their consistent softening, their temporary (in different eras) aggravation, and finally, their inevitable abolition in the future will be the task of the proposed work.

The fate of the Russian intelligentsia abroad

Introduction

1.2 Cultural centers of the Russian foreign community

2. Life and activities of representatives of the Russian intelligentsia abroad

2.1 Military intelligentsia

2.2 Literary and artistic figures

2.3 Technical intelligentsia

2.4 Cultural mission of the Russian Abroad

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The concept of intelligentsia comes from the word intelligens, which means “understanding”, “thinking”, “reasonable”. In modern developed countries, the concept of “intelligentsia” is used quite rarely. In the West, the term “intellectuals” is more popular, which denotes people professionally engaged in intellectual (mental) activity, who, as a rule, do not claim to be the bearers of “highest ideals.”

In Russia, the intelligentsia was not treated so one-sidedly. According to academician N.N. Moiseev, “an intellectual is always a seeker, not confined to his narrow profession or purely group interests. An intelligent person tends to think about the fate of his people in comparison with universal human values. He is able to go beyond the narrow horizons of philistine or professional limitations.”¹

Having become students of the medical academy, we will have to join the ranks of Russian intellectuals. Thus, we have a responsibility for the future of Russia.

We are lucky or unlucky, but we live in difficult times. The political system of the state is changing, political views and economic conditions are changing, and a “revaluation of values” is taking place.

How to succeed in this difficult world, how to find your place, and not crumble into dust in the merciless millstones of reality?

You can find answers to these questions by tracing the fates of people who lived during difficult, “turning-point” periods of our history.

The purpose of my work is to comprehend the place of a creative personality on the steep turns of history.

Since creative activity necessarily presupposes a critical attitude towards prevailing opinions, intellectuals have always acted as bearers of “critical potential.”

It was the intellectuals who created new ideological doctrines (republicanism, nationalism, socialism) and propagated them, thereby ensuring the constant renewal of the system of social values.

For the same reason, the intelligentsia was the first to come under attack during revolutions.

This is how a significant part of the Russian intelligentsia ended up abroad at the beginning of the twentieth century.

1. Formation of centers of Russian emigration

1.1 Reasons for leaving abroad and the main directions of emigrant flows

The Russians who found themselves outside the former Russian Empire after 1919 were refugees in the full sense of the word. The main reason for their flight was military defeat and the associated threat of captivity and reprisals, as well as hunger, deprivation, and the danger looming over life and freedom as a result of the prevailing political circumstances.

Unconditional rejection of the Soviet regime, and in most cases, the revolution itself, and the hope of returning home after the fall of the hated system were inherent in all refugees. This influenced their behavior and creative activity, awakening, despite all political differences, a sense of unity, belonging to a “society in exile”, awaiting the opportunity to return. However, the Soviet regime showed no signs of collapse, and hopes of a return began to fade. Soon, however, they became emigrants in the full sense of the word. A Russian emigrant is a person who refused to recognize the Bolshevik regime that had established itself in his homeland. For most of them, the refusal became irrevocable after the RSFSR decree of 1921, confirmed and supplemented in 1924, depriving them of citizenship and turning them into stateless persons or stateless persons (this French word was included as an official term in the documents of the League of Nations).

The peculiarities of emigration also determined the uniqueness of various groups of emigrants in their new places of residence. With the exception of a few who left Russia during 1917, and a few (mostly residents of St. Petersburg) who left immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, emigration from Russia was a direct consequence of the course and results of the civil war. Military personnel who were defeated by the Red Army and went abroad or were evacuated by sea made up the main contingent of the first wave of refugees. They were followed by their loved ones and other civilians who managed to join them. In a number of cases, crossing the border or evacuation by sea was a temporary and necessary moment to regroup forces before a new battle with the Soviet regime and receive help from the allies.

It is possible to trace three main routes of Russian emigration abroad. The most important area was the Black Sea coast (Novorossiysk, Crimea, Odessa, Georgia). Therefore, Constantinople (Istanbul) became the first significant settlement point for emigrants. Many refugees were in dire physical and moral condition and were temporarily housed in former military camps and hospitals. Since the Turkish authorities and the Allied commissions, which provided the main material assistance, did not intend to forever shoulder the burden of maintaining the refugees, they were interested in their further relocation to where they could find work and firmly settle. It should be noted that a large number of refugees from Russia have accumulated in Istanbul and on nearby islands. The refugees themselves created voluntary societies to help women, children and the sick. They founded hospitals, nurseries and orphanages, collected donations from wealthy compatriots and the Russian foreign administration (diplomatic missions, Red Cross branches), as well as from foreign philanthropists or simply from sympathizers.

Most of the Russians, who by the will of fate ended up in Istanbul, found shelter in the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KHS), the future Yugoslavia. Existing vacancies were filled by technical specialists from the former White Army, civilian refugees with experience in scientific and administrative work. The proximity of languages ​​and common religion contributed to the rapid assimilation of Russians. Here we only note that Yugoslavia, especially Belgrade, became a significant cultural center of the Russian Abroad, although not as diverse and creatively active as Paris, Berlin or Prague.

The second route of Russian refugees ran northwest of the Black Sea. It was formed as a result of the general chaos that reigned in this region during a period of turbulent political events. In the revived Poland and East Germany, many Russian prisoners of war were concentrated (from the First World War and the Soviet-Polish War and the accompanying conflicts of various Ukrainian regimes with Germany). Most of them returned to their homeland, but many chose to remain in territory not controlled by the Soviets and became emigrant refugees. The core of the Russian Abroad in this region, therefore, consisted of prisoners of war camps. At first there were only men of military age, but later they were joined by women and children - those who managed to reunite with their husbands, fathers, and sons. Taking advantage of the confusion at the border, many refugees crossed the border into Poland, and from there headed further to Germany. The Soviet authorities gave permission to leave for those who owned property or lived in the territory that was transferred to the newly formed nation-states. Subsequently, after briefly living in the mentioned states as representatives of the Russian ethnic minority, these people also became part of the Russian Abroad. The most ambitious and active intellectuals and specialists, young people who sought to complete their education, did not stay long among this national minority, moving either to the capitals of these states or to the countries of Central and Western Europe.

The last important route for refugees from Soviet Russia was in the Far East - to the Manchurian city of Harbin. Harbin, from its very foundation in 1898, was a Russian city, the administrative and economic center of the Russian Chinese Eastern Railway, from where some of the emigrants then moved to the USA and Australia.

Thus, after the October Revolution, during the Civil War, over one and a half million people left Russia. Mainly people of intellectual work.

In 1922, on the instructions of V. Lenin, preparations began for the deportation of representatives of the old Russian intelligentsia abroad.

The real reason for the expulsion of the intelligentsia was the lack of confidence among the leaders of the Soviet state in their ability to retain power after the end of the Civil War. Having replaced the policy of war communism with a new economic course and allowing market relations and private property in the economic sphere, the Bolshevik leadership understood that the revival of petty-bourgeois relations would inevitably cause a surge in political demands for freedom of speech, and this posed a direct threat to power until a change in the social system. Therefore, the party leadership, first of all V.I. Lenin, decided to accompany the forced temporary retreat in the economy with a policy of “tightening the screws” and mercilessly suppressing any opposition speeches. The operation to expel intellectuals became an integral part of measures to prevent and eradicate social movements and dissent in the country.

The idea for this action began to mature among the Bolshevik leaders in the winter of 1922, when they were faced with mass strikes by university teaching staff and a revival of the social movement among the intelligentsia. In the article “On the significance of militant materialism,” completed on March 12, 1922, V.I. Lenin openly formulated the idea of ​​expelling representatives of the country's intellectual elite.

In the summer of 1922, up to 200 people were arrested in Russian cities. - economists, mathematicians, philosophers, historians, etc. Among those arrested were stars of the first magnitude not only in domestic but also in world science - philosophers N. Berdyaev, S. Frank, N. Lossky, etc.; rectors of Moscow and St. Petersburg universities: zoologist M. Novikov, philosopher L. Karsavin, mathematician V.V. Stratonov, sociologist P. Sorokin, historians A. Kiesewetter, A. Bogolepov and others. The decision to expel was made without trial.

In total, about 10 million Russians found themselves outside the boundaries of the USSR formed in 1922. In addition to refugees and emigrants, these were Russians who lived in the territories of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bessarabia that seceded from Russia, employees of the CER and their families.

In emigration, difficulties immediately arose with the structure of life. Most Russians found themselves in dire straits. Diamonds sewn into the lining of a coat were most often just “emigrant folklore”, which later successfully moved onto the pages of Soviet “revelatory” fiction. Of course, there were diamonds, and auntie’s necklaces, and pendants, but they did not determine the general tone of the everyday life of the emigration. The most accurate words to describe the first years of life in emigration would, perhaps, be poverty, squalor, and lack of rights.

... “Criticism of Love”, published in Diaghilev’s magazine “World of Art” (1901. No. 1), Gippius posed a question with which, in fact, she expressed the main, anti-Nietzschean task in the religious and philosophical quest of the Russian intelligentsia of the Silver Age: “We want "Is it God's death? No. We want God. We love God. We need God. But we also love life. That means we need to live. How can we live?" ...

For example, Bunin saw that in the lost war with Japan, the peasants suffered the most. And the first Russian revolution even more senselessly passed the scythe of death across the Russian peasantry. A definite result of difficult thoughts about the fate of Russia was the writer’s story “The Village”. It was written in 1910 and was, as it were, a counterweight to “Antonov Apples.” The author disputes in "The Village" what...

Work in your specialty. Russian professorship at the beginning of the century was highly rated in the West. The bleeding of Russia's intellectual elite defied any reasonable explanation. Intelligentsia in the Soviet period. The first events carried out by the Soviet government in the field of culture provided it with the support of the lower social classes and helped attract part of the intelligentsia, inspired by the idea...

Due to the diverse influence on this process of Chaadaev and Khomyakov, Herzen and Bakunin, Slavophiles and Westerners, populists and Marxists. He explores how the character and type of the Russian intelligentsia changes during the transition from a predominantly noble composition (40s of the 19th century) to a raznochinsky one (60s), talks about the emergence of an “intelligent proletariat” in Russia (remember Beranger), etc. ..

From the very beginning, the intelligentsia in Russia turned out to be a community of critically thinking people who were not satisfied with the existing social and state structure. The noble revolutionaries who came to Senate Square on December 14, 1825 were by nature intellectuals: they hated serfdom, the humiliation of man - a phenomenon common in Russia and intolerable for the enlightened European mind. They were fascinated by the ideas of equality and fraternity, the ideals of the French Revolution; many of them belonged to the Freemasons. The Decembrists reveal a long line of Russian revolutionaries-martyrs, expelled, exiled, executed... Among them are the emigrant Herzen and the exiled Chernyshevsky, the convict Dostoevsky and the executed Alexander Ulyanov... An endlessly long line of anarchists and nihilists, conspirators and terrorists, populists and Marxists, social democrats and social revolutionaries. All these people were inspired by a certain passion - irreconcilability towards Russian slavery. Many of them went down in history as deniers, destroyers and murderers. But it should be remembered that the Decembrists, the Narodnaya Volya, the Socialist-Revolutionaries-maximalists, and many others were inspired for the most part by universal ideas, primarily by the ideas of brotherhood and social equality; they believed in the possibility of a great utopia, and for this they were ready for any self-sacrifice. The hatred that ate away at these people was fueled by a sense of resentment and injustice, but at the same time by love and compassion. Their rebellious hearts burned with religious fire.

The Russian intelligentsia was called “godless” - this definition cannot be accepted unconditionally. Rejecting official Orthodoxy, which became one of the officially proclaimed foundations of Russian statehood, many actually went as far as fighting against God and open atheism, professing it irreconcilably in the Russian way. Atheism became the religion of the intelligentsia. The revolutionary environment, for all its diversity, was not at all a hotbed of immorality. It was the Russian revolutionaries of the 19th century who were examples of spiritual firmness, fraternal devotion to each other, and self-restraint in their personal lives. They went into the revolution at the call of their hearts and conscience. Describing the Russian intelligentsia, Berdyaev in the book “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism” sees in it a monastic order, whose members were distinguished by uncompromising and intolerant ethics, specific contemplation and even a characteristic physical appearance.

The intelligentsia became a noticeable social phenomenon around the 1860s, when “new people” - commoners - emerged from the church and petty-bourgeois environment. I. Turgenev captured them in the main character of his novel “Fathers and Sons”. They are followed by the populist revolutionaries; I want to say something special about them. Going to the people, the intellectuals left the city for the village, and this, as we know, ended quite dramatically: without listening to the speeches and appeals addressed to them, the men tied up the agitators and handed them over to the local authorities.

Populism is a typically Russian phenomenon. The gap between the educated stratum and the “people”, mired in poverty and ignorance, between mental and backbreaking peasant labor forced many educated Russian people to feel burdened by their position. Being rich was considered almost a disgrace. How can you wallow in luxury when the people are poor?! How can you enjoy art when people are illiterate?!

In the second half of the 19th century, the so-called “repentant nobles” appeared, who deeply felt their guilt before the people. And, wanting to redeem her, they abandon their family estates, distribute their property to the needy and go to the people. Such pathos of love for the people often turned into a denial of the intelligentsia itself as an unnecessary layer, and culture as an unnecessary and dubious luxury. Leo Tolstoy, like no one else, embodies the tossing and extremes of Russian intellectual consciousness. He tried more than once to leave, leaving the noble life he hated in Yasnaya Polyana, but managed to carry out his cherished plan only a few days before his death.

The socio-religious complex of a nobleman, feeling the ambiguity of his position in a huge country, split into educated and illiterate, did not disappear in Russia until the beginning of the twentieth century. A striking example is Alexander Blok, who was burdened by his nobility and condemned the intelligentsia. A contemporary of the first Russian revolution, Blok was tormented by the theme of “the people and the intelligentsia,” which became extremely acute in that era. After 1905, an endless debate continued on the pages of the press, universities and religious and philosophical circles: who is to blame for the defeat of the revolution? Some debunk the intelligentsia, which failed to lead the rebellious people; others blame a people incapable of intelligent, organized action. This situation was clearly reflected in the collection “Vekhi”, all of whose participants are intellectuals who unanimously dissociated themselves from the intelligentsia, namely, from that part of it that for decades extolled the Russian people. For the first time, the authors of the collection “Milestones” declared that the intelligentsia would destroy Russia.

The intelligentsia felt itself to be the core of Russian society as long as its two poles existed: the government and the people. There was the tyranny of power and the lack of education of the people, and between them there was a narrow layer of educated people who hated power and sympathized with the people. The Russian intelligentsia is a kind of challenge to the Russian autocracy and serfdom; a product of the ugly way of Russian life, a desperate attempt to overcome it.

“The Russian intelligentsia is the best in the world,” declared Maxim Gorky. Of course, our intelligentsia is by no means the best in relation to other similar groups in the West; she is different. The classic Russian intellectual cannot be compared with the Western intellectual. Close and sometimes overlapping, these concepts are by no means synonymous. An intellectual in the Russian sense of the word is not necessarily an intellectually refined person, that is, a scientist, writer, artist, although it is precisely such professions that most often nourish the intelligentsia layer.

Yes, the Russian intelligentsia is unique in its own way. This doesn't mean she's perfect. It cannot be considered as a community of people united by progressive views and morally impeccable. The intelligentsia was not united at all times either in its social or cultural composition. And it was never possible to achieve ideological understanding. On the contrary: in this environment, various tendencies and deviations continually collided, at odds with each other. The intelligentsia included liberals, conservatives, and even haters of the intelligentsia itself. They waged an unceasing struggle among themselves, furiously and angrily denouncing each other. Intolerance is one of the distinctive properties of the Russian intelligentsia. Due to their alienation from the state, which P.B. Struve called “detachment,” the intelligentsia throughout the 19th century retreated into sectarianism and scattered among secret societies.

Intellectuals were often and rightly reproached for “groundlessness”: excessive separation from real life, reasoning. The inability to do creative work is a disease of the Russian intelligentsia, which sought to use all its strength to destroy a certain wall. Russian intellectuals in their country turned out to be unnecessary people, unfit for work. But we must not forget: the idleness and passivity of the Russian “superfluous man” is only one of the forms of his gaining independence. Russian writers sympathized with such people. In Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov,” the main character, reclining on the sofa, is charming in his own way and more “intelligent” than the enterprising Stolz.

As for the constant reproach of “Westernism,” it is, of course, fair. Since the 19th century, the Russian intelligentsia has been sensitive to new political, philosophical and scientific trends from the West. However, many genuine Russian intellectuals belonged to the Slavophile and anti-liberal camp. It is also important that Slavophiles and Westerners, idealists and materialists, all of them in equal measure are the product of Russian life, consisting of contradictory, sometimes incompatible principles. “The trouble with the Russian intelligentsia is not that it is not enough, but rather that it is too Russian,” Merezhkovsky emphasized.

The intelligentsia, in their good aspirations, created conditions in Russia that were favorable for the spread of communist ideas.

The attempt to introduce a new breed of intelligentsia, springing from entirely new roots, is one of the most interesting and instructive chapters in the history of the Great Experiment. The basis of the future new intelligentsia should be (and became) socially close worker-peasant youth, not burdened by the legacy of the past and who went into slave factories and universities in the 1920s, which, on command, willingly opened their doors to everyone who approached this role according to social characteristics. The party strictly monitored the selection of youth. People who wanted to engage in art or science needed to obtain a higher education, which already in the 1920s became almost impossible for children of the nobility, people from merchant families, children of former industrialists, clergy, military, high-ranking students, etc. Admission to universities was regulated (until the mid-1980s) by dozens of secret instructions.

But something happened that no one foresaw. Universal primary and secondary education, one of the greatest achievements of socialism, has borne fruit. Having gained access to knowledge, children from uneducated families eventually acquire the ability to look at things independently. Time will pass, and in the USSR, on the basis of the “new Soviet intelligentsia,” an anti-Soviet intelligentsia will form and begin to destroy what was formed in Russia on the blood and suffering of previous generations. But this will happen after the Great Terror and the Great Patriotic War - in the era of large-scale campaigns by I.V. Stalin directed against the scientific and creative intelligentsia.