Many historians note the fact that the autocracy had much more popular roots than the Russian intelligentsia. It can be said that this is true. This phenomenon was a drama and tragedy of Russian history. The Russian intelligentsia immediately arose as an anti-autocratic, anti-monarchist force, which means that in the conditions of that time it was considered an anti-state force. Almost all the creators of spiritual values (musical, artistic or literary) did not work then for the sake of royalties and material well-being, but in order to compensate and show humanity that a talented people, a great country are behind, and they are able to meet the challenges of world and Russian stories.
The emergence of the intelligentsia
The abolition of serfdom and the implementation of large, great reforms of the sixties and seventies of the XIX century led to major shifts in the development of society. The country broke away from the ice edge of the surf of a stagnant, autocratic, feudal state and went into a rapid transformation of rapid development. Change has captured all spheres of Russian life: economy, politics, culture, as well as the social environment.
Already in the middle of the XIX century, contemporaries began to notice that in Russian society, which for many centuries had remained structured according to the estates, a category of people began to appear who did not fit into the previous parameters. Formally speaking, in Russia it was believed that there are four types of population:
- City estate.
- Philistines.
- Clergy.
- Nobility.
The first two paid taxes, the second two types were considered privileged.
According to the laws, the individual had to fit into one of the social categories, and in a different way Russian society was not structured until the middle of the XIX century. But, as noted above, in connection with the development of the system of education and the complication of the state, public and cultural life of the country, people began to appear who were neither noblemen nor representatives of the clergy. But at the same time, they were not peasants and city workers. And so the formation of the Russian intelligentsia took place. In short, what was this category? These were people who had education and received any income in life not from the state, but, for example, from the exploitation of their intellectual labor.
The appearance of the term
In those days, they began to call such citizens not the Russian intelligentsia, but commoners, that is, people from different ranks. This happened because no one could find a specific name for them in legal literature and in legal treatises or simply in everyday speech of people. By raznoshintsy began to understand a new generation or a new status of people who, it seems, are not citizens, but they do not have low descent from peasants.
An interesting fact: at this time, most representatives of the creative professions believed that the father of the Russian intelligentsia was S. N. Bulgakov.
But only in the sixties of the XIX century did a term appear that began to be applied more and more widely. Many historians believe that the writer and publicist Babarykin, who worked in the mid-19th century, put him into mass circulation. In Russian vocabulary, the word intelligentsia has acquired, so to speak, citizenship and has become increasingly widely used in speech.
For example, you can see samples of literature of the first half of the XIX century, the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol. They have no concept of the Russian intelligentsia. It is impossible to find even a single literary work of the first half of the 19th century, where the author would use this term, which means that there was no such category of people and there was no given social phenomenon.
The essence of the Russian intelligentsia
This phenomenon appeared in the post-reform period, after the abolition of serfdom and the transition of the autocracy to the accelerated policy of modernizing the country, that is, a policy of accelerated development of the economy, transport network, new governance structures, and reforms of military, financial, and educational institutions. It is precisely this autocracy that accelerated the formation of a layer of people of enlightened labor, representatives of intellectual professions.
Why such a job? The answer is quite simple. Because the country has moved on to accelerate and develop new economic structures in industry, transport, and agriculture. And all this meant that the needs of people increased mentally. And even the government itself understood that leaving the people in a state of darkness and ignorance is a very dangerous thing, which could turn into a new round of Russia's stagnant lag. So, it was necessary to accelerate the process of forming people of intellectual professions. According to the government, the essence of the Russian intelligentsia is precisely to bring the country to the same level with the West and Europe.
Social Feature
As part of the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century, former nobles begin to play a very prominent role, who, under the influence of the latest European ideas, came to the conclusion that their fathers and more distant ancestors lived wrongly, that they exploited and profited from peasant labor, and this indelible sin it is on them as descendants. They believed that it was their social stratum now called upon to correct this situation. The intelligentsia wanted to turn the entire pyramid of social relations at once.
This problem was noted by the great Russian writer Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, who wrote the famous novel “Fathers and Sons”. It tells how children reproach their fathers for the wrong way of life, for unjust social relations and social ties. It is these literary characters who are just young intellectuals. They fundamentally refuse their privileges and want to dissolve, as it were, in new ideas, in a new way of life. This work reveals the main problem of the century - the confrontation of two generations in the Russian intelligentsia.
It should also be noted that many seminarians began to play an increasingly prominent and even aggressively aggressive role in the formation of this estate.
The most prominent representatives of the Russian intelligentsia are, for example, Nikolai Dobrolyubov and Nikolai Chernyshevsky. It was they who were the basis of students, and, therefore, formed the intellectual layer.
In the 19th century, representatives of a part of the peasantry, so to speak, of the plebeian composition of Russian society, appeared with might and main, so an increasingly thicker social layer gradually formed, and at the same time it acquired a peculiar unique appearance.
Consumption and Siberia
But not all enlightened Russian youth are considered intellectuals in Russian history. Only one whose convictions were colored by new ideas of liberation, struggle and a new morality of the highest quality could call themselves intellectuals.
Anyone who is able to devote his life to serving not monetary and not some own material interests, but only serving the ideals of the struggle for good, was considered an intellectual in the 19th century. That's about how Nekrasov wrote about Grisha Dobrosklonov, such a typical Russian intellectual of the sixties: "Fate prepared for him a glorious path, the name of a loud protector, consumption and Siberia."
For a long time this saying was popular. Consumption is a disease of the Russian intellectual, because a man in a terrible struggle for his ideals burned out prematurely. This was the typical, so to say, fate of so many representatives of this estate.
The phenomenon of the Russian intelligentsia
Representatives of the estate are uncompromising fighters for social ideas and ideas, for the renewal of mankind. Intellectuals wanted to bring happiness immediately and immediately to their people who had just been freed from serfdom.
In this sense, of course, representatives of the estate have always opposed the power of the autocracy, the state system. The traditional institutions, religious and state political institutions were considered by the intelligentsia as unfair and improperly arranged, inhumane, which contradict the interests of the broad masses of the people and generally differ from the ideal of social liberation. From this came the state that the intelligentsia immediately found themselves in opposition.
Ministry of Power
If the heterosexual remained to the opposition, did not bend or bend, if he remained independent in his spiritual structure, then he retained his right to the name of an intellectual.
And if he, even after receiving a diploma of education, was a highly intellectual person, but was an opportunist, that is, he made a career, served the state, he was never enlisted in the intelligentsia.
For example, Valuev Petr Aleksandrovich, Minister of Internal Affairs, a deeply intellectual person, graduated from two universities, wrote, read a lot, was even a harmonist, but never in his life he was ranked among the intelligentsia. To serve the authorities means to be outside this estate, it is even to be an enemy and an opponent of the intelligentsia.
Estate difference
There is another very important aspect that must be mentioned when it comes to the role of the Russian intelligentsia in society. It is not only about how the appearance of this community evolved, but also about a tragic circumstance.
Due to the fact that the intelligentsia was terribly far from culture, they studied at the university bench the latest achievements of European science in biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, social sciences, history, philosophy, political culture, vocabulary and so on. Character, behavior, lifestyle - all this was perceived as European cultural values, and the Russian student externally, that is, by clothing, habits, could not be distinguished from the European, who studied somewhere in Heidelberg, Berlin or France. Representatives of the intelligentsia often studied exchange and therefore felt confident in a solidarity among students.
But in their own people, in the simple peasantry, they felt like foreigners. Yes, in fact, so the tax-paying classes themselves accepted them . People dressed in European dress, speaking a particular language, were alien to the common people.
Speech, vocabulary, intellect, culture, and their way of life were so far from peasants that the Russian intelligentsia seemed to be in a dramatic cultural gap.
Famous people
As already mentioned above, it is believed that the father of the Russian intelligentsia is Sergey Nikolaevich Bulgakov, but despite this, there are more outstanding personalities in this estate.
Everyone believed that he could push the course of Russian history on his own. And since such thoughts appeared, it means that they saw some kind of conduct, the necessary business that makes God come into the world and lead the country. Intellectuals believed that it was on their shoulders that the load lay, and it was impossible to avoid it.
All this gave rise to enormous spiritual tension, an atmosphere of high pathos, self-denial and awareness of spiritual achievement, creative burning. To some extent, this applies to literally everything, and the spiritual life of Russia in particular.
Any historian knows that the second half of the 19th century is the time of the Yakut culture, the period when the Wanderers worked and the “Mighty Handful” of Russian composers arose. And also during this period a brilliant group of Russian writers appeared, beginning from Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Lev Tolstov and so on. You can continue to list a huge list of talents of Russian literature, which then created the masterpieces of world classics.
This was a phenomenon of the spiritual feat of the Russian intelligentsia, because almost all the creators of musical, artistic and literary works did not then for the sake of fees and material well-being. And in order to compensate and show humanity that a great country and the mighty Russian people are behind, as Turgenev wrote. But the Russian intelligentsia of the 20th century went in a different direction.
Revolution
Intellectuals believed that only the great nation can create the language with which they create. The problem of the creators was that neither the Wanderers, nor the musicians of the Mighty Handful, nor the writers understood the people. The cultural level of the peasants remained in the XV century. It was precisely this isolation from the people that prompted the Russian intellectuals to revolutionary feats.
And in the seventies of the XIX century an incredible phenomenon occurred, thousands of young intellectuals went to the people. Where else, in what society, at what time can one imagine a situation like this? To several thousand students, leaving their classrooms and families, went to the people in the name of an unknown firebird.
It seemed to the intellectuals that their one move to the people, their feat, would bring the dark masses the light of liberation, the transformation of universal harmony and happiness. Of course, it is now clear that these were all romantic dreams that soon crumbled.
But spiritual energy was still transformed into an offensive struggle against the autocracy, the victims of which are political enemies. The era of revolutions begins. The Russian intelligentsia is undergoing changes.
Summarizing the above
The intelligentsia is a state of continuous spiritual achievement, self-denial, struggle, heroism, incredible bestowal. All this is very important to understand, especially in modern conditions, when sometimes they speak about the history of the Russian revolution, especially about spiritual life, with indistinct mockery under the influence of some purely journalistic approaches. And yet, many people have a desire to pay tribute and even lay their heads before the memory of those people who created. Here is another story about the dedication of the people of that time.
Sitting in the cell, awaiting the death sentence, Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich, the son of a priest, a typical Russian intellectual who gave his life in order, as he believed, to completely free the Russian people from economic oppression. He was convicted of making chemical throwing bombs that killed Alexander II. And, awaiting the death sentence, Nikolai asks for a piece of paper in order to convey to the descendants the idea of his rocket engine, and draws its layout.