Intelligentsia in Modern Russia: Social Status Change

Humanitarian intelligentsia is a specific social group. Throughout its history it is not only developed non-material culture of society, but also played the leading role as civil asset of the nation, its “conscience”. During two past decades transformation in social life put the group in necessity of social adaptation, and so far the social position of the group and its role in the new social relations became unclear.

The paper is aimed to determine the current status of humanitarian intelligentsia in socio-economic, socio-political and professional fields and seek ways to improve its civil and professional positions. The analysis is based on the theoretical and methodological approaches that take into consideration the stratification of Russian society, differences in territorial conditions and professional fields. The study was divided in two phases. Initially, a wave of semi-structured interviews (n = 100) were conducted. After that, quantitative data were collected from questionnaires (n = 1150).

Results identify the strategies of socio-professional behavior, the current socio-political position of the group and its social adaptation level. The factors of status change present different levels: macro - level (socio -economic, political , socio-cultural change in the country), meso - level (the development of the region and current professional sphere), micro - level ( individual knowledge, attitude and behavioral strategies).