ABSTRACT
Our understanding of the intelligentsia’s “love affair” with the people remains disconcertingly deficient, even though so much Russian and Western ink has been spilled over it. There prevails in the West a hackneyed image of the intelligentsia as a group of enlightened individuals living off the ideas prefabricated abroad, and estranged from the tsarist autocracy above, and the mass of humanity below. It has been suggested, accordingly, that:
The whole notion of “going to the people” was central and specific to Russia-because the intelligentsia, having been artificially created, was particularly aware of its artificial position and this provided it with an extra incentive to worship, idolize and feel the pangs of conscience towards the people.1
