ABSTRACT
Since the late 1980s, we witnessed vigorous attempts to bury the Soviet intelligentsia along with Soviet literature. Some efforts along these lines were truly inspired. And yet, forecasts about the imminent demise of Russian intelligentsia have proved premature. Plenty of people still identify themselves with this vaunted group. Structurally, the situation uncannily resembles the one that prevailed in the Soviet era. The notion that the intelligenty will transform themselves into pragmatic intellectuals –– a common assumption in the 1990s – didn’t pan out. It is all the more remarkably that some die-hard members of the intelligentsia have refused to leave their country and still dwell in Russia, feeling its pain along with their own. At this point, the word ‘intelligent’ began to show a certain affinity with the moniker ‘Intelligence Services.’ Perhaps that was due to the influx of Anglo-American neologisms into Russian language, although another interpretation suggests itself.
