Intellectual Culture
Editors
Dmitri Shalin
Document Type
Chapter
Publication Date
1996
Publication Title
Russian Culture at the Crossroads: Paradoxes of Postcommunist Consciousness
First page number:
41
Last page number:
97
Abstract
No group cheered louder for Soviet reform, had a bigger stake in perestroika, or suffered more in its aftermath than the Russian intelligentsia. Today, nearly a decade after Mikhail Gorbachev unveiled his plan to reform Soviet society, the mood among Russian intellectuals is decidedly gloomy. "The intelligentsia has carried perestroika on its shoulders," laments Yury Shchekochikhin, a noted commentator. "So why does it feel so forlorn, superfluous, and forgotten?" Another commentator warns that the intellectual stratum "has become so thin that in three or four years the current genocide against the intelligentsia will surely wipe it out." Andrei Bitov, one of the country's finest writers, waxes nostalgic about the Brezhnev era and "the golden years of stagnation when. . . people could do something real, like build homes, publish books, and what not.”
Keywords
Genocide; Intellectuals; Perestroĭka; Raznochintsy (Russian intellectuals)
Disciplines
Politics and Social Change | Sociology | Sociology of Culture
Language
English
Permissions
Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.
Repository Citation
Shalin, D. N.
(1996).
Intellectual Culture. In Dmitri Shalin,
Russian Culture at the Crossroads: Paradoxes of Postcommunist Consciousness
41-97.