Theintelligentsia is astatus class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society;^[1] as such, the intelligentsia consists ofscholars,academics, teachers, journalists, and literary writers.^[2][3]

Conceptually, the intelligentsia status class arose in the late 18th century, during thePartitions of Poland (1772–1795). Etymologically, the 19th-centuryPolish intellectualBronisław Trentowski coined the terminteligencja (intellectuals) to identify and describe the university-educated and professionally active social stratum of the patrioticbourgeoisie; men and women whoseintellectualism would provide moral and political leadership to Poland in opposing thecultural hegemony of theRussian Empire.^[4]

Before theRussian Revolution, the termintelligentsiya (Russian:интеллигенция) identified and described the status class of university-educated people whosecultural capital (schooling, education, andintellectual 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. InEastern 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. InWestern Europe, the intellectuals were in the mainstream of their societies and thus exercised cultural and political influence that granted access to thepower of government office, such as theBildungsbürgertum, the cultured bourgeoisie of Germany, as well as the professionals of Great Britain.^[3]

In a society, theintelligentsia is a status class ofintellectuals whose social functions, politics, and national interests are (ostensibly) distinct from the functions of government, commerce, and the military.^[6] InEconomy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (1921), the political economistMax Weber applied the termintelligentsia in chronological and geographical frames of reference, such as "this Christian preoccupation with the formulation of dogmas was, inAntiquity, particularly influenced by the distinctive character of ‘intelligentsia’, which was the product of Greek education", thus theintelligentsia 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 theinteligencja became a European usage to describe the social class of men and women who are theintellectuals of the countries of central and of eastern Europe; in Poland, the critical thinkers educated at university, in Russia, thenihilists who opposedtraditional values in the name ofreason andprogress. In the late 20th century, the sociologistPierre Bourdieu said that the intelligentsia has two types of workers: (i) intellectual workers who create knowledge (practical and theoretic) and (ii) intellectual workers who createcultural capital. Sociologically, the Polishinteligencja translates to theintellectuels in France and theGebildete in Germany.^[6]

The intelligentsia existed as asocial stratum in European societies before the terminteligencja was coined in 19th-century Poland, to identify the intellectual people whose professions placed them outside the traditional workplaces and labours of the town-and-country social classes (royalty, aristocracy, bourgeoisie) of a monarchy; thus theinteligencja are a social class native to the city.^[8] In their functions as a status class, the intellectuals realised the cultural development of cities, the dissemination of printed knowledge (literature, textbooks, newspapers), and the economic development of housing for rent (thetenement house) for the teacher, the journalist, and the civil servant.

InOn Love of the fatherland (1844), the Polish philosopherKarol Libelt used the terminteligencja, 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][permanent dead link][9]}

In the 1860s, the journalistPyotr Boborykin popularised the termintelligentsiya (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 thedominant 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:

1. advanced-for-their-time moral ideals, moral sensitivity to the neighbour, tact and gentleness in expression;
2. productive mental work, and in continual self-education;
3. patriotism based on faith in the people, and inexhaustible, self-less love for the small and the bigmotherlands;
4. inherent creativity in every stratum of the intelligentsia, and a tendency toasceticism;
5. an independent personality who speaks freely;
6. a critical attitude towards the government, and public condemnation of injustice;
7. loyalty to principle by conscience, grace under pressure, and tendency to self-denial;
8. an ambiguous perception of reality, which leads to political fickleness that sometimes becomesconservatism;
9. a sense of resentment, because politics and policies went unrealised; and withdrawal from the public sphere to the in-group;
10. quarrels about art, ideas, and ideology, which divide the subgroups who compose the intelligentsia.^[13]

InThe Rise of the Intelligentsia, 1750–1831 (2008) Maciej Janowski said that the Polish intelligentsia were thethink tank of the State, intellectual servants whose progressive social and economic policies decreased the social backwardness (illiteracy) of the Polish people, and also decreased Russian political repression inpartitioned Poland.^[14]

In 1844 Poland, the terminteligencja, identifying theintellectuals of a society, first was used by the philosopher Karol Libelt, which he described as astatus class of people characterised byintellect and Polishnationalism; qualities of mind, character, and spirit that made them natural leaders of the modern Polish nation. That the intelligentsia were aware of their social status and of their duties to society: Educating the youth with the nationalist objective to restore the Republic of Poland; preserving the Polish language; and love of theFatherland.^[3]

Nonetheless, the writersStanisław Brzozowski andTadeusz Boy-Żeleński criticised Libelt's ideological andmessianic representation of a Polish republic, because it originated from the social traditionalism and thereactionary conservatism that pervaded Polish culture and impeded socio-economic progress.^[15] Consequent to the Imperial Prussian, Austrian, Swedish and RussianPartitions of Poland, the imposition of Tsaristcultural hegemony caused many of the political and cultural élites to participate in theGreat Emigration (1831–70).^{[citation needed]}

After theinvasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, the Nazis launched theextermination of the Polish intelligentsia, by way of the military operations of theSpecial Prosecution Book-Poland, theGerman AB-Aktion in Poland, theIntelligenzaktion, and theIntelligenzaktion Pommern. In eastern Poland, the Soviet Union proceeded with the extermination of the Polish intelligentsia with operations such as theKatyn massacre (April–May 1940), during which university professors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, teachers, military, policeman, writers and journalists were murdered.^[16]

The Russianintelligentsiya also was a mixture ofmessianism and intellectual élitism, which the philosopherIsaiah 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]

TheIdea of Progress, which originated in Western Europe during theAge of Enlightenment in the 18th century, became the principal concern of the intelligentsia by the mid-19th century; thus, progress social movements, such as theNarodniks, mostly consisted of intellectuals. The Russian philosopherSergei Bulgakov said that the Russian intelligentsia was the creation ofPeter, that they were the "window to Europe through which the Western air comes to us, vivifying and toxic at the same time." Moreover, Bulgakov also said that the literary critic ofWesternization,Vissarion Belinsky was the spiritual father of the Russian intelligentsia.^[19]

In 1860, there were 20,000 professionals in Russia and 85,000 by 1900.Originally composed of educated nobles, the intelligentsia became dominated byraznochintsy (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.^[20] In fear of an educated proletariat, TsarNicholas I limited the number of university students to 3,000 per year, yet there were 25,000 students, by 1894. Similarly the number of periodicals increased from 15 in 1855 to 140 periodical publications in 1885.^[21] The "third element" were professionals hired byzemstva. By 1900, there were 47,000 of them, most were liberal radicals.^{[according to whom?]}

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]

In Russia, theBolsheviks did not consider the status class of theintelligentsiya to be a truesocial class, as defined inMarxist philosophy. In that time, the Bolsheviks used the Russian wordprosloyka (stratum) to identify and define the intelligentsia as a separating layer without an inherent class character.

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 shit". (На деле это не мозг, а говно)^[23]

TheRussian Revolution of 1917 divided the intelligentsia and the social classes of Tsarist Russia. Some Russians emigrated, the political reactionaries joined the right-wingWhite movement for counter-revolution, some became Bolsheviks, and some remained in Russia and participated in the political system of theSoviet Union. In reorganizing Russian society, the Bolsheviks deemed non-Bolshevik intelligentsiaclass enemies and expelled them from society, by way of deportation onPhilosophers' steamers, forced labor in thegulag, andsummary execution. The members of the Tsarist-era intelligentsia who remained in Bolshevik Russia (the USSR) were proletarianized. Although the Bolsheviks recognized the managerial importance of the intelligentsia to the future of Soviet Russia, the bourgeois origin of this stratum gave reason for distrust of their ideological commitment to Marxist philosophy and Bolshevik societal control.

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]

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 feelnostalgic 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]

In the 20th century, from the status class termIntelligentsia, sociologists derived the termmass 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 writerMelvyn 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 bookCampus Power Struggle (1970), the sociologistRichard 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]

The concept offree-floating intelligentsia, coined byAlfred Weber and elaborated byKarl Mannheim, closely relates to the intelligentsia. It refers to an intellectual class that operates independently of social class constraints, allowing for a critical and unbiased perspective. This intellectual autonomy is a defining characteristic of the intelligentsia.

• Roach, John (1957). "Liberalism and the Victorian Intelligentsia".Cambridge Historical Journal.13 (1):58–81.doi:10.1017/S1474691300000056.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 Peterburgdvoryanstvo, the ones who represent here the best Russian Europeanintelligentsia.") The casual, i.e., no-philosophical and non-literary context, suggests that the word was in common circulation.