ABSTRACT
Russia’s rapid industrialisation and modernisation process at the turn of the century led to a sociological and functional differentiation and diversification of the intelligentsia. The term no longer referred exclusively to the moral order of the intelligenty, but also to the rapidly growing specialised and free professions. But notwithstanding the participation of the intellectual professions in Russia’s way to modernity and technology, they often kept to the ‘ethic of principled conviction’ (Gesinnungsethik) – to speak with Max Weber – of the ‘traditional’ intelligentsia, to its moral standards, its humanitarian, social and sometimes also revolutionary engagement.
