The Myth of the Russian Intelligentsia: Old Intellectuals in the New Russia

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The Myth of the Russian Intelligentsia

Russia is one of the few countries in the world where intellectuals existed as a social group and shared a unique social identity. This book focuses on one of the most important and influential groups of Russian intellectuals – the 1960s generation of shestidesyatniki – often considered the last embodiment of the classical tradition of the intelligentsia. They devoted their lives to defending ‘socialism with a human face’, authored Perestroika, and were subsequently demonized when the reforms failed. It investigates how these intellectuals were affected by the transition to the new post-Soviet Russia, and how they responded to the criticism. Unlike other studies on this subject, which view the Russian intelligentsia as simply an objectively existing group, this book portrays the intelligentsia as a cultural story or myth, revealing that the intelligentsia’s existence is a function of the intellectuals’ abilities to construct moral arguments. Drawing from extensive original empirical research, including life story interviews with the Russian intellectuals, it shows how the shestidesyatniki creatively mobilized the myth as they attempted to repair their damaged public image. Inna Kochetkova is Lecturer in Qualitative Research Methods at the University of Bradford, UK.

BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies Series editor: Richard Sakwa

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Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent Editorial Committee: Julian Cooper, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham. Terry Cox, Department of Central and East European Studies, University of Glasgow. Rosalind Marsh, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath. David Moon, Department of History, University of Durham. Hilary Pilkington, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick. Stephen White, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow. Founding Editorial Committee Member: George Blazyca, Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University of Paisley. This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, high-quality, researchlevel work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social science subjects.

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42. Russian Policy towards China and Japan The El’tsin and Putin periods Natasha Kuhrt

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55. Television and Culture in Putin’s Russia: Remote Control Stephen Hutchings and Natalia Rulyova 56. The Making of Modern Lithuania Tomas Balkelis 57. Soviet State and Society Under Nikita Khrushchev Melanie Ilic and Jeremy Smith 58. Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944–50 Michael Fleming 59. Democratic Elections in Poland, 1991–2007 Frances Millard 60. Critical Theory in Russia and the West Alastair Renfrew and Galin Tihanov 61. Promoting Democracy and Human Rights in Russia European organization and Russia’s socialization Sinikukka Saari 62. The Myth of the Russian Intelligentsia Old intellectuals in the new Russia Inna Kochetkova 63. Russia’s Federal Relations Putin’s reforms and management of the regions Elena A. Chebankova

The Myth of the Russian Intelligentsia Downloaded by [INFLIBNET Centre] at 05:28 29 August 2012

Old intellectuals in the new Russia

Inna Kochetkova

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First published 2010 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2010 Inna Kochetkova All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Kochetkova, Inna. The myth of Russian intelligentsia: old intellectuals in the new Russia/Inna Kochetkova. p. cm. – (BASEES/Routledge series on Russian and East European studies; 62) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Soviet Union – Intellectual life – 1917–1970. 2. Soviet Union – Intellectual life – 1970–1991. 3. Intellectuals – Soviet Union – History. 4. Social reformers – Soviet Union – History. 5. Intellectuals – Soviet Union – Public opinion. 6. Social reformers – Soviet Union – Public opinion. 7. Public opinion – Soviet Union. 8. Public opinion – Russia (Federation). 9. Social change – Soviet Union – History. 10. Russia (Federation) – Intellectual life – 1991–. I. Title. DK276.K56 2010 305.5′52094709045–dc22 2009026205

ISBN 0-203-86213-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 10: 0–415–44113–7 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0–203–86213–9 (ebk) ISBN 13: 978–0–415–44113–1 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978–0–203–86213–1 (ebk)

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To my mother

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Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction Disentangling the intelligentsia and the shestidesyatniki 1 Explanation of the concepts 6 The structure of the monograph 9 1

What is Russian intelligentsia? Introduction 11 Intelligentsia and intellectuals 12 The origins of the Russian intelligentsia 15 The formation of the intelligentsia identity 17 The beginning of the Soviet era and the dissolution of the intelligentsia concept 21 The Thaw, dissent and hopes for the intelligentsia’s return 24 The symbolic value of the intelligentsia identity 26 Intelligentsia as a myth 29 Conclusion 32

2

Dead or alive: the discourse on intelligentsia in Russia at the turn of the millennium The resurrection: intelligentsia is alive as a group and as a concept 36 The discursive massacre or the mass suicide of post-Soviet intelligentsia? 42 Resistance and control: intelligentsia and power 45

3

The story of a fallen or failed intelligentsia: outsiders on the shestidesyatniki Why the shestidesyatniki? 49 Why newspapers? 50

xiii xv 1

11

35

49

x

Contents

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Nezavisimaya Gazeta: the Sons versus the Fathers 51 The oppositional press: the shestidesyatniki’s wicked treachery or down with the intelligentsia werewolves 63 Conclusion 70 4

Intelligentsia as fallible: the shestidesyatniki’s self-image The setting for the collective representation 73 Reclaiming the positions: the old intelligentsia fights back 75 Negotiating the inclusion and exclusion criteria 82 Justifying idealism and accounting for ideological ‘mistakes’ 86 Distancing from the Party and the regime 93 Conclusion 95

5

Becoming and being the intelligentsia ‘If intelligentsia idealized the people, the people secretly hated it’ 101 Intelligentsia reborn 108 Becoming intelligentsia through culture 111 Continuity in spite of change 113 ‘Neither dinosaurs nor weathercocks’ 116

6

Accounts of fear and of relations with power and conformism Accounts of fear 118 Accounts of relations with power and conformism 122 Probing into the obvious: signs of conflict within the intelligentsia identity 130

73

100

118

7

A story of a happy man Temporality, sequence and place: life history through the life story 141 Professional self-realization 144 Thematic analysis: narrative patterns 150 Conclusion 160

139

8

Conclusion and discussion The shestidesyatniki’s version of the intelligentsia identity 165 Developing apologetic scenarios 168 Constructing conversion stories 168 Constructing vocabularies of motive and challenging the myth 170 The myth and the identity: interpreting intelligentsia as a discursive resource 174

164

Contents xi Appendix: biographical sketches of the interviewees

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Notes Bibliography Index

180 183 190 201

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Preface

In this monograph I consider the phenomenon of the Russian intelligentsia as a cultural story or cultural myth. This particular approach to understanding intelligentsia, although unconventional, is neither new nor original; however, nobody yet, as far as I am aware, has attempted to explore the implications of this myth for the living people. Specifically, what are the relations between the myth of the intelligentsia and those who are labelled the intelligentsia? This is the gap the monograph aims to fill. I refrain from assigning labels. I refuse to decide who is and who is not the intelligentsia. A complete membership in the category is impossible as the myth creates the God-like ideal type to which no living individual can adhere. Although I cannot ignore the fact that the debates about who is and is not intelligentsia, whether intelligentsia is extinct or alive and well became very prominent on the wake of major socio-political transformations in Russia at the turn of the millennium. What I am interested to understand is who was interested in initiating such debates, who were stripped of the intelligentsia title and why, who were struggling to defend their belonging to the category? Finally, which role did the myth of the intelligentsia play in these discourse wars? In the late 1990s one group of Russian intellectuals was in the very centre of such debates. These were the shestidesyatniki, the so-called generation of the 1960s or the children of Khrushchev’s Thaw, many of whom became Gorbachev’s companions in arms. They are often referred to as simultaneously the reincarnation of the classical intelligentsia tradition and its last embodiment. After Perestroika failed, the younger generation of reformers, the shestidesyatniki’s pupils, attempted with eventual success to shift the shestidesyatniki from their positions of authority. The shestidesyatniki became demonized as the generation of failed intelligentsia; the integrity and value of their identity was severely challenged. As this study demonstrates, the myth of the intelligentsia played a crucial role in both the attack and defence practices. The crucial contribution of this monograph to understanding the phenomenon of intelligentsia is in showing that although it is powerful, the myth is not set in stone. It is subjected to interpretative practices. Real people

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(shestidesyatniki in this study) are not only able to use it creatively to regain control over their identities, they are able to challenge its integrity and meaning. By applying the mythological narrative to their own real lives, shestidesyatniki expose the deeply normative power and unrealistic expectations that the myth creates. However, not only does the myth have power to transform people’s lives or at least the way they are told, but the influence is twofold. People also have power to transform the myth. Those readers who anticipate that this study will present a comprehensive portrait of the contemporary Russian intelligentsia will be disappointed. It is important to reiterate from the outset, that I do not argue that the shestidesyatniki are representative of the intelligentsia as a whole. My concern is not with the intelligentsia as a ‘real group’ of living individuals, but with intelligentsia as an idea, a phenomenon that influences the way people see themselves and talk about each other. I interpret intelligentsia as a cultural story and show how different versions of it co-exist, and how different groups struggle to promote their own version of the story as the true one.

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to many people for helping me throughout this research. First of all, the people who shared their life narratives with me and made this study possible. However, their stories would have remained just stories, if not for two people who helped me make sense of them. The majority of the arguments I develop in this book emerged through dialogues with Vladimir Andrle and Daniel Nelson. I cannot understate their intense intellectual engagement with my ideas, emotional support, trust and belief in me, as well as the patience not to interrupt my lengthy monologues. They both helped me to say what I wanted to say without hiding behind convoluted words. Thanks to my friends, Maka, Maria, Yury, Arne, Marilyn, Vladimir R. and Ragna, I had the opportunity to forget my anxieties, difficulties in grasping ideas and developing arguments, and make the most of the free time. I am even more thankful to my friends back home, Anna, Olga and Sergey, for proving that friendship is not only the shestidesyatniki’s treasure. I’m grateful to Ralph Fevre for his advice and encouragement to publish this book. Nick Emmel was very helpful in painstakingly proofreading the manuscript. The publishers and the author would like to thank the following for permission to reprint material in this book: Sociological Research Online for kind permission to reprint in Chapter 2 material from Kotchetkova, I. (2004) ‘Dead or alive: the discursive massacre or the mass-suicide of post-Soviet intelligentsia?’. Sociological Research Online, 9(4). www.socresonline.org.uk.

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Introduction

Disentangling the intelligentsia and the shestidesyatniki The initial idea for this research originates in the late 1980s–early1990s when I had my chance to experience living through the social transformations. Fortunately, I was young and did not have many memories, past experiences or preconceptions about life. I was being moulded by what was going on around me, this was my life and it was ‘normal’ for me. I remember being optimistic about the changes and excited about the wonderful opportunities they promised for my future. This teenage eagerness was complicated by the difficulties my parents were experiencing at the same time. It was obviously a period of serious inner conflict for them. They often shared with bitterness and resentment that what they believed in was now pronounced meaningless and wrong; what they thought immoral was now becoming acceptable, if not the only possible practice. They used to say that they did not know who they were and what country they lived in any more. Personal experience has obviously shaped my interest in how people cope with identity crisis caused by social transition, how they find their places in the new reality, link new identities with past ones, establish coherence with the preceding life, and in general reendow their lives with unique meaning and sense. My parents were not the only ones involved in active reflexive work, reconsideration of previous identities or a search for new ones (see Miller et al., 2003). As Reinshpreht (1994) notes, each individual in a situation of social transition faces the personal task of reconciling objectively experienced historical discontinuity with subjectively perceived identity, which represents ‘a sense of sameness and continuity as an individual’ (Erickson, 1968: 61). Biographical work (labelled so by Fischer-Rosenthal, 1995) became a mass phenomenon in the post-Soviet Russia. I wanted to know how people who have lived through several social transformations manage to preserve their integrity. I have chosen the intelligentsia group as a focus for my study. Another personal story can help explain why I was particularly interested to focus on the intelligentsia in this context. I grew up in Pushchino – a small academic town near Moscow – one of several towns built during the 1960s as part of on an initiative to boost Soviet

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scientific progress. My parents moved to the town in 1968 to work as support engineers to the research institutes. Although they worked alongside the scientists, whom they referred to as the intelligentsia, they never felt like they belonged to this group. They always spoke with admiration about those people they considered intelligentsia – about their intellect, selfless devotion to their work, their exceptionally good manners and the respect with which they treated ‘ordinary people’ such as my parents. However, there was always a feeling of an unbridgeable gap present in these conversations, as if those intelligentsia people were somehow inherently different and better than the others. My mother, in spite of having received higher education and working in a professional job, never quite lost attachment to her peasant origins and the feeling of being different from the intelligentsia. Recently, after she retired, she found a job as a cleaner in the Health Centre. At first she was concerned how the doctors would treat her: ‘I’m so worried,’ she told me before she took the job – ‘how will they make me feel?’ ‘I don’t understand,’ I replied – ‘who are they and why should you be worried?’ ‘Well,’ she continued – ‘they’re doctors, the intelligentsia, and I’ll be just a cleaner.’ Soon after she started the job, her concerns were replaced by admiration for the doctors’ intelligence and impeccable manners; however, the feeling of being different from them remained. Perhaps I have inherited some of my mother’s enthralment with the intelligentsia; by all means I believe it has been partly the reason for why out of the multitude of sociological themes, I chose sociology of the intelligentsia. I wanted to understand what was so special about these people defined as intelligentsia? What was the meaning of this word and how did these people themselves relate to it? Sociological training led my search for an answer to these questions in the direction of living individuals, towards people I could meet and talk to. It seemed appropriate at the very beginning to look for the representatives of the intelligentsia group, talk to them and analyse their self-representations. But how to define someone’s belonging to the intelligentsia? Which criteria to apply? I started by consulting the literature, trying to break down the meaning of being intelligentsia into a number of criteria, which I could further use to compose a sample of respondents. However, the literature did not provide a clear-cut answer and I was forced to abandon the idea of ‘finding intelligentsia’. It seemed like I was trying to capture an enigma. Instead I decided to focus on a more empirically identifiable group (or so it seemed at the beginning) – the shestidesyatniki, a particular generation of the intelligentsia who were often named as the last embodiment of the Russian intelligentsia tradition. Great, I thought, these people are still alive and thus

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3

available for interviews, they are in their late 1960s or early 1970s – which promised rich material on ‘living through social transformations’; after all, the image of this group was contested in the public discourse, therefore they had to engage in identity management and respond to the challenge. However, having chosen the shestidesyatniki as my focus, I found myself in the same vicious circle of definition as before. While defining the selection criteria for the interviewees I was bogged down in trying to understand and capture the conceptual definition of the category shestidesyatniki. There were many different and competing interpretations of who the shestidesyatniki were, often those named as the shestidesyatniki were disagreeing with the definitions, offered by the outsiders, and suggested their own interpretations of their collective identity. My initial approach to the phenomena of the shestidesyatniki and the intelligentsia was to rely on external descriptions of the categories (or etic definitions as they are called in anthropology – see Pike, 1967; Have, 2004: 118). The dictionaries I consulted suggested that the intelligentsia was the ‘thinking, educated, and intellectually developed part of citizens’ (Dal’, 1996/1881: 46). Contemporary definitions suggest that such people form ‘a social stratum, professionally occupied with mental, mostly complex creative labour, development and dissemination of culture’ (Novy entsiiklopedichesky slovar’, 2001: 435). To be even more specific, those are ‘workers of science and culture, lawyers, teachers, engineers, doctors, journalists’ (Sovremennyj slovar’ inostrannyh slov, 2000: 240). The etic interpretation of the shestidesyatniki category means considering it as ‘a generation of the liberal intelligentsia, which was formed during the Khrushchev’s Thaw [1954–64]’ (adapted from Kirillov (no date); Kerov, 2003). However, as I read more about the intelligentsia, the clear-cut definition suggested by the dictionaries started to disintegrate. Many authors who write on the subject of the intelligentsia put forward their own definitions, specifying particular attributes of the concept and agreeing only that the education and professional specialization on their own do not constitute the essence of being an intelligent. The alternative criteria they suggested were less definite: critical thinking (Lavrov, 1888: 22), shared beliefs in progress and reason, aspirations to fight for a human rights and a decent social order, ideals of individual liberty (Berlin in Jahanbegloo, 1992), homogeneous spiritual culture (Gella, 1976). Eminent Russian philosopher Losev (1988) considered intelligentsia as those who observe the interests of the well-being of all humans, who do not mentally reflect on his or her own intelligentnost’, but to whom it comes naturally. This last opinion meant that asking interviewees if they considered themselves intelligentsia was not a good idea, as their reflections on the question would immediately deny their belonging to the category. The category shestidesyatniki is widely used in Russian public discourse to refer to the liberal intelligentsia that came of age after Stalin’s death in 1953 and became politically and socially active in the 1960s. However, a

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similar problem of moving from the definitions of the concept to the empirical identification of individuals was repeated when I tried to find the shestidesyatniki. It seemed to be an accepted point of view that this concept designates Soviet intelligentsia (or at least a part of it), but because it was impossible to draw the boundaries around intelligentsia, the shestidesyatniki also escaped precise definitions. The association of the shestidesyatniki with the intelligentsia made a clear definition almost impossible. Classification of the shestidesyatniki as intelligentsia not only implies that they were Soviet culture and science workers; it also establishes their association with traditional intelligentsia values and beliefs (Pustovaya, 2008), the rebirth of intelligentsia identity (Walker, 2000), Westernizing, reformist attitudes and critical thinking equal to those of the classical intelligentsia (English, 2000), and collective feeling of guilt and responsibility for everything that was going wrong in society (Berlin in Jahanbegloo, 1992; Gessen, 1997). It was becoming clear to me that these definitions of intelligentsia are essentially self-definitions, their diversity reflecting the multitude of individual perspectives on the meaning of ‘being intelligentsia’. Moreover, as historians writing on the origins of the Russian intelligentsia suggest, self-identification was crucial to the formation of the group (which confirmed that I was on the right track with my interest in the self-representations of the intelligentsia). The definition of the intelligentsia is a fusion of internal and external interpretations. But so is the category of the shestidesyatniki, as it does not include everybody of a certain age, occupation or profession, but only those members of the generation who created, participated in and shared a particular version of the intelligentsia tradition – shestidesyatnichestvo. The distinction between the internal (emic) and external (etic) components of the categories shestidesyatniki and intelligentsia was helpful for elaborating the empirical focus for my research. I was using etic categories to select the respondents and approached people who were educated, pursued intelligentsia professions and belonged to the generation of the 1960s (they were in their late 1960s or early 1970s). However, my analytical focus was on the internal components of the categories, i.e. the meaning of the categories for the members themselves. As I found out, some shestidesyatniki accept the category, others deny their belonging to it. However, not only are the interpretations from outside and from within the system different, they may also be conflicting. To understand the reasons for this conflict, I needed to include the third – discursive dimension – in my analysis. The process of identity construction cannot be understood without attuning to the idea that we are a part of ‘the multitude of conflicting discourses’ and that our ability to act strategically upon these discourses ‘is limited by the complex processes of social construction that precede them’ (Phillips and Hardy, 2002: 2). Shestidesyatniki’s self-definitions cannot be understood without understanding what the others say about them, the key components of discourses about this group, and why those called shestidesyatniki choose to associate or distance themselves from this category. We need to be sensitive to a particular

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discursive situation, to whose interests and ambitions drive the various discourses about the shestidesyatniki and the intelligentsia. I demonstrate in this monograph that both categories, intelligentsia and shestidesyatniki, can be seen as discursive or rhetorical devices and are thus amenable to study from the perspective of discourse analysis. This idea was elaborated from the studies that interpret intelligentsia as a socially and historically constructed cultural myth (see Chapters 2 and 3). So many criteria for defining intelligentsia have been identified, each one idealistic and ‘valueladen’ (Karabushenko, 1999), that some authors question the very existence of the group or that there are any individuals capable of meeting the criteria. Instead, it is argued that the intelligentsia is a cultural myth and not a real group. It is also noted that whenever the intelligentsia is referred to as a group, it is usually implied that its members have a distinguished position in relation to others. The argument put forward is that there are always vested interests behind articulations of the myth, and analysis should therefore be directed towards exploring how participants in discourse utilize this cultural myth as a rhetorical device (Confino, 1973, 1990; Bauman, 1987; Zhivov, 1999a,b; Stepanova, 2003; Orlov, 2002; Walker, 2000; Glebkin, 2004; – see Chapter 1 for a detailed review of this perspective). As I was proceeding with the attempt to define the shestidesyatniki it became clear that this category was also used as a discursive or rhetorical device and cannot be pinned down as a concept with a definite and consensual meaning to the general public. The term itself and the real people described by it leave hardly anyone indifferent: almost everyone has a positive or negative attitude to shestidesyatniki, and few are neutral when speaking about them. Everybody in Russia knows who the shestidesyatniki are, but each describes them in their own way, applying the word to different types of people or individuals. The particular ethical and ideological mission and cultural practices, world outlook and set of values ascribed to the shestidesyatniki has come to be known as shestidesyanichestvo. Sometimes it is used pejoratively, other times as a compliment. Thus my focus shifted from the group defined by the concept to the concept itself. I had to attend first to the construction of this conceptual device. Reading through the numerous media accounts mentioning the shestidesyatniki, I noticed that not many authors write about the shestidesyatniki in a positive vein. It became apparent that both concepts (intelligentsia and shestidesyatniki) share the same destiny in public discourse: shestidesyatniki appears to function as a target for those also wishing to comment simultaneously on the Russian intelligentsia; and likewise the accusations levelled at the shestidesyatniki in the press resemble those addressed to the intelligentsia in general. Including a third discursive dimension in my study meant reformulating and elaborating upon the research question. The study was now becoming not simply about the shestidesyatniki as a social group of the intelligentsia and their self-representations, but about the influence of the intelligentsia myth

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(a cultural story that consists of identifiable repertoires of meanings, themes and narrative plots) on the shestidesyatniki’s identity construction. Another reason for this choice of paradigm, was an obvious gap between the theoretical suggestions and empirical research: the mythological nature of the concept of the intelligentsia was persuasively established in the texts; however, it was not observed which form this myth takes in the contemporary discourse, and crucially, how it shapes and is shaped by the discursive practices of living individuals (see review of the literature in Chapter 1). I also had to accept that focusing on the shestidesyatniki would allow me to access only one particular version of the intelligentsia story, i.e. the version of the story relevant for one particular group. Specifying any one group in this case would not give me a representative view of the multitude of the discourses on the intelligentsia, but it would give me a chance to explore in detail one version of the contemporary intelligentsia story, no more false or truthful than any other. It was also clear that the intelligentsia story in this case would be strongly influenced by the ideas of the shestidesyatniki and shestidesyatnichestvo and the competing social representations of these categories. I am aware that the shestidesyatniki’s story would most likely be different from the stories other educated Russians may adopt. The shestidesyatniki’s story, as my research demonstrates, is not copied blindly from a dusty manuscript or etymological dictionary. It has been changed and adjusted to match their particular biographical experiences, historical context and the discursive environment in which the stories were recounted, in particular to respond to the challenges that the others (younger generations of intellectuals, die-hard communists, nationalists) were presenting them with. As a result of my searches for available and manageable examples of biographical discourse I assembled a collection of three different types of data, each of them an example of how the intellectuals of the shestidesyatniki generation reflect on their lives. My research is based on: • • •

published media accounts about the shestidesyatniki (public accounts of the outsiders); a recording/transcript of the conference discussions – example of the shestidesyatniki addressing each other, which took place in 2000; life story interviews – shestidesyatniki addressing me (collected in August–October 2002 and September–October 2003). See Appendix.

Explanation of the concepts In this section, I explain the concepts used throughout the monograph: identity, story, narrative, collective stories, biographical discourse and interpretative repertoires. This research draws upon the multiplicity of perspectives developed in critical discourse analysis, cultural studies, narrative and life story research, studies of collective memory, oral history and discursive psychology. It is based on the interpretation of identity as a:

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temporary stabilisation of meaning, a becoming, rather than a fixed entity. The structuring or stitching together the discursive ‘outside’ with the ‘internal’ processes of subjectivity. Points of temporary attachment to the subject positions, which discursive practices construct for us. (Barker, 2000: 386) Within this approach, identity is understood as a variable discursive production. It is ‘not a fixed universal “thing” but a description in language’ (Barker, 2000: 77). In the text I use the concepts identity and story interchangeably, drawing upon the idea that identity production takes place in the stories and that the construction of identity means the construction of a story. The idea that no categories have essential universal meanings but are a social construction of language is a core of anti-essentialism prevalent in cultural studies. The argument that personal narratives, in both form and content, are people’s identities has been developed, for example, in Bruner (1991, 1996), Fisher-Rozenthal (1995), Gergen (1994b), Gergen and Gergen (1986), Hermans et al. (1993), Liebliech et al. (1998), McAdams (1993), Polkinghorn (1991), and Rosenthal (1997). According to this approach ‘we know or discover ourselves, and reveal ourselves to others, by the stories we tell’ (Liebliech et al., 1998: 7). Verbal accounts and stories presented by individuals about their lives and experienced reality are one of the clearest channels for learning about and understanding their inner world. However, we should remember that the interpretation of the stories would not necessarily tell us the truth about who they really are. Each produced story is ‘a single, frozen, still photograph of the dynamically changing identity’ (Liebliech et al., 1998: 8). It is affected by the context within which it is narrated. Hence the particular life story is ‘one instance of the polyphonic versions of the possible constructions or presentation of people’s selves and lives, which they use according to specific momentary influences’ (ibid.). The theoretical perspectives in narrative studies range from essentialist to postmodern: from treating narratives as a source of facts to considering them as texts of fiction (see Andrle, 2001). My research takes a middle course. I assume that the life stories are constructed around life events, yet ‘allow a wide periphery for the freedom of individuality and creativity in selection, addition to, emphasis on, and interpretation of these “remembered facts”’ (Liebliech et al., 1998: 8). The key assumption for my study is that ‘we come “to story” our lives through the culture we live in, and we use this very culture as a way of “writing” into ourselves who we are’ (Plummer, 2001: 43). Therefore individuals are considered as ‘reflexive users of cultural resources in the communicative act of self-definition’ (Andrle, 2001), as ‘meaning-generating organisms [who] construct their identities and selfnarratives from building blocks available in their common culture, above and beyond their individual experiences’ (Liebliech et al., 1998: 9). This approach treats the life narrative as a creative act that mobilises social knowledge and cultural resources to put a credible, coherent and morally acceptable

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Introduction

self-identity across. Thus narrative analysis enables the researcher to access ‘not only the individual identity and its systems of meaning but also the teller’s culture and social world’ (ibid.). I set out to explore which role the cultural story of and the discourses on the intelligentsia play in the shestidesyatniki’s identity project. I look at their biographical discourse, which ‘uses rhetoric, conventions and points morals for an audience who may be expected to recognize and respond to them’ (Tonkin, 1990: 30). Wengraf (2001: 115) argues that many assumptions and purposes, feelings and knowledge that have organized and organize a person’s life are difficult to access directly. However, ‘biographical narratives are powerfully expressive of the natures of particular persons, cultures and milieux (sic.), and present to the researcher embedded and tacit assumptions, meanings, reasoning and patterns of action and inaction’ (ibid). For the purposes of this study, I interpreted ‘intelligentsia’ as the mythical element in the life stories, ‘the pre-established framework within which individuals explain their personal history’ (Peneff, 1990: 36). As Peneff notes, such mythical mental constructs are common in all societies, but are especially widespread in societies undergoing rapid development and change (ibid.). Researchers interested in the mythological elements in oral history note that mythical elements are usually mobile, like the facets of a kaleidoscope, and the narrators use them creatively and skilfully in the ‘representations of the pastness’ (the term coined by Tonkin, 1990 as an alternative to ‘history’, see also other articles in Samuel and Thompson, 1990). Interpretative repertoires are a functional analytical tool in this context. The concept is used in discourse analysis to refer to the resources available to the participants of a particular culture, which can be selectively drawn upon and reworked according to the setting (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984; Marshall and Raabe, 1993; Potter and Reicher, 1987; Wetherell et al., 1987). Interpretative repertories are defined as historically developed, systematically related vocabularies of meanings, often used with stylistic and grammatical coherence, and organised around one or more central metaphors (Potter, 1996). It has been argued that people frequently base their accounts on a number of different repertoires, and support their argumentation by referring to them as they construct the sense of a particular phenomenon, or as they perform different actions. As an alternative to the concepts of interpretative and cultural repertoires I will also be using the notions of cultural and collective stories (Richardson, 1990; Miller and Glassner, 1993; Andrle, 2000). Both types of stories are used to construct or affirm a common social membership. However, cultural stories achieve this through an unquestioned relating of a stereotypical plot and characters and collective stories by modifying or challenging certain stereotypes that are common currency in the surrounding culture. Attention to the discursive patterns of motivations can give us a valuable insight into shared cultural stories. As Mills (1940) argued, the motives individuals use to support their stories are not arbitrarily chosen. He defines

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motives as typical vocabularies put to use in delimited social situations (Mills, 1940: 904). These vocabularies are generated by a popular narrative and are thus a cultural product. Individuals are ‘drawing from repertoires of explanations in popular values and beliefs, rather than as something reflecting innate characteristics’ (ibid.).

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The structure of the monograph In the first chapter I introduce the reader to the concept of Russian intelligentsia, explaining how it first come into use and how the different takes and interpretations of this phenomenon evolved over time. I explain why intelligentsia is both similar to and different from the intellectuals, how it can be seen as a real group, an identity, and a cultural myth. In the second chapter, I explore whether the intelligentsia cultural story is still relevant in contemporary Russia by referring to the recent debates in the Russian mass media regarding the life and death of the intelligentsia. I show that there are specific political interests behind the rhetoric of longevity and of doom and gloom and argue that even while proclaiming the intelligentsia dead, the authors standing behind the negative rhetoric reaffirm the existence of a particular intelligentsia myth and identity. I argue that the original rhetorical function of the concept of intelligentsia is revived today. I claim that while some intellectuals use the intelligentsia image to reinforce their positions within hierarchies of social prestige, others find the image too restricting and limiting to their aspirations to pursue an intellectual career for their own benefit. Having established the theoretical and contextual framework for my study, I move on to probe how the intelligentsia cultural story is employed in the process of identity management by the shestidesyatniki. I suggest that sociological investigation of this phenomenon should start with the study of the meanings of the concept. I also argue that Mannheim’s definition of the generational unit (Mannheim, 1952) with its emphasis on shared ‘mental data’ is an appropriate conceptual device for conducting further investigations into the meaning of the shestidesyatniki’s experience. In Chapter 3 I consider the ways in which the social category of the shestidesyatniki is constructed and represented in the print mass media. I analyse discourses and debates surrounding this contested group and demonstrate that the outsiders use collective identity of the shestidesyatniki as an ‘ideological-manipulative and normativising construction’ (see Straub, 2002: 72). I argue that the conflict between the Fathers and the Sons inherent for the Russian intelligentsia cultural tradition is re-enacted once again as the younger generation of the intelligentsia attempts to overthrow their spiritual fathers and secure their own authority in culture and politics. I demonstrate that this is achieved by representing the shestidesyatniki as a failed or fallen intelligentsia. In Chapter 4 I look at the representation of the shestidesyatniki from an insiders’ perspective. I analyse how those labelled shestidesyatniki attempt

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to reconstruct the meaning of their lives and the image of their group. I draw my observations from accounts of the participants in the conference ‘Shestidesyatniki in the year 2000’, which was held in order to give the shestidesyatniki an opportunity to perform an act of collective self-reflection. I argue that although not everyone readily agrees with being defined as a shestidesyatnik, they nevertheless project a strong sense of belonging to a group of like-minded individuals. The shestidesyatniki draw upon the cultural repertoire of the intelligentsia and illustrate how their collective biography proves that the classical tradition survives in spite of the enthusiastic verdict of its death. I argue that they refute the accusations that others impose on them, by constructing a story of the fallible intelligentsia. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are devoted to the analysis of the life story interviews I collected in Russia with members of the shestidesyatniki generation unit. In Chapters 5 and 6 I look at those stories where intelligentsia identity appeared problematic for the interviewees and analyse how they rhetorically protected their moral image against the background of the traditional intelligentsia cultural repertoire. While analysing how they were emphasizing their experience of conversion (Chapter 5), justifying their relations with power and accounting for the feeling of fear (Chapter 6) I argue that the cultural story of the intelligentsia consists not of one interpretative repertoire, but of a number of competing repertoires, which can be used for various argumentative purposes in communication. The most significant of these are the normative expectation that the intelligentsia should be opponents and critics of the establishment and the anticipation that their principal function is to be guardians of culture and the driving force of enlightenment. In Chapter 7, I introduce the story of a person who did not have any doubts regarding his belonging to both shestidesyatniki and the intelligentsia. In his narrative, the intelligentsia image was restored and contradictions resolved by prioritizing one particular repertoire – that of the cultural and moral intelligentsia.

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What is Russian intelligentsia?

Introduction The word ‘intelligentsia’ first appeared in Russia (and Poland) in the nineteenth century, but since then it has ‘acquired a world-wide significance’ (Berlin, 1978: 116). In Poland, the term was popularized by philosopher Karol Libelt, who defined inteligencja as those well-educated members of the population who undertake to lead the people as scholars, teachers, clergy, engineers, and who aspire for their enlightenment (Libelt, 1844). In Russia, the popularization of the term (as well as an eminent role in the consolidation of intelligentsia identity) is attributed to the writings of Pyotr Boborykin – a Russian novelist of the 1860s (e.g. Boborykin, 1904). It is widely accepted that the name intelligentsia was first given to the generation of the 1860s, although there are different views within the scholarly community on the question of when the intelligentsia first came into existence. Some (e.g. Malia, 1961) claim that it was the term itself that gave the group a sense of collective identity, others (e.g. Bergman, 1992: 18) believe that the intelligentsia was conscious of its own uniqueness and identity well before the label itself was first applied in the 1860s. The reader may wonder why I chose to begin the book about the myth of the intelligentsia with the reference to the word rather than to the story of the group defined by it. I did so to emphasize that despite the existence of a social category, those defined by it differ significantly from each other. There is a certain level of heterogeneity within any social group and category. Each social category is surrounded by much disagreement and disputes about the boundaries and precise criteria we use to sort people into categories (Appiah, 2005). Even the words that we use in ordinary, everyday speech, apparently readily intelligible to speaker and listener, may not have the same meaning for the individuals who use them (Cohen, 1985). The meaning is often mediated by the idiosyncratic experience of the individual. It is particularly the case of those categories whose meanings are the most elusive (e.g. justice, goodness, patriotism, duty, love and peace). The attempt to spell out their meaning with precision invariably generates argument. The existence of a single, commonly accepted word or category only glosses over its range of

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meanings. A shared symbol or word does not mean that its meanings are shared. In the case of social categories, each member of the category may have their own understanding of what the category refers to, who should be included and who excluded from the definition. Needless to say, non-members may hold a completely different opinion and the differences in meanings may change over time. The challenge is then to find what meanings are shared by the members and non-members and to explain the reasons for differences. The category intelligentsia is an interesting example. Since the 1860s, at different times the concept intelligentsia has been used in Russia to refer to educated people, intelligence, national culture, enlightenment, a group embodying national consciousness and Russian radicals (Pollard, 1964: 8–19). In the most commonly used, traditional meaning, intelligentsia defined a group of people who saw themselves as separate and alienated from the rest of society due to their higher level of education and the progressive ideology they subscribed to. The Russian intelligentsia was a social and political force, unique in nineteenth-century Europe, which was instrumental in Westernizing its country and fermenting the revolutionary movement (Raeff, 1966). For Isaiah Berlin the phenomenon of the intelligentsia is ‘the largest single Russian contribution to the social change in the world’ (Berlin, 1978: 116). During Soviet times the meaning of the term intelligentsia in official discourse has changed significantly. The Marxist approach of the authorities meant that the word intelligentsia lost much of its traditional meaning, as it was used to define a social stratum of those who received higher education or occupied jobs normally requiring such an education. In the Soviet context the term intelligentsia referred to white-collar groups created during the industrialization process. If the traditional interpretation emphasized personal identification with the group, shared values and outlook on life, then within the Marxist approach socio-structural criteria were crucial to placing people into this category. In this chapter I will review the range of approaches used to define the category of intelligentsia and explain its phenomenon. After explaining the differences and similarities between the Western type of intellectual and the Russian intelligentsia, I divide the chapter in two parts. In order to understand the complexity of the concept intelligentsia we need to look at different ways to approach and describe it. In the first part I review the perspective that the Russian intelligentsia is a distinctive social group (or groups to be precise), which was formed under the influence of certain historical events, and examine how these events shaped its character and destiny. In the second part I look at the view that intelligentsia is a concept with symbolic meaning rather than an actually existing social group or a category used to define this group.

Intelligentsia and intellectuals Despite the overarching consensus that intelligentsia is a unique Russian phenomenon and intellectual is a relatively novel concept with US origins,

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both concepts share much in common. It is misleading to define both intellectuals and intelligentsia according to the jobs they do or the way they make their living. Being an academic professor or an expert is not the same as being an intellectual or belonging to the intelligentsia. The portrait of the intellectuals, especially the type of public intellectual, painted by the Western scholars bears remarkable resemblance to that of the intelligentsia we encounter in the writing of Russian authors.1 As Furedi (2004: 31) argues, intellectuals are distinguished by the manner in which they act, the way they see themselves, and the values they uphold: ‘The sense of identity derives from participating in a project that transcends any personal or professional interests.’ According to Bauman ‘the intentional meaning of “being an intellectual” is to rise above the partial preoccupation of one’s own profession or artistic genre and engage with the global issues of truth, judgment and taste of the time’ (Bauman, 1987: 2). Kustarev (2006) argues that there is little difference between the narratives of intelligentsia and intellectuals: both are characterized by (1) normative self-definition; (2) criticism of pseudo-intelligentsia and sorting of the intelligentsia according to its ‘quality’; (3) denunciation of the intelligentsia; and finally (4) the speculations about their normative duty. One of the values most acclaimed by intellectuals is the ability to pursue a life of independence and autonomy. As Gouldner (1979) believed, the desire to possess the freedom to act in accordance with one’s beliefs strongly motivates the behaviour of intellectuals – acquired freedom gives them special pride. As a result intellectuals often exist in a state of creative tension with the rules and restrictions imposed by the prevailing institutions of everyday life. To feel and behave like an intellectual requires at least a mental distance from the conventions and pressures of everyday affairs. Intelligentsia equally value autonomy and freedom, although for different reasons. For the intellectuals freedom means an ability to create and think without the oppression of schedules and dictates of a particular institution. There is an expectation that while often employed by institutions, intellectuals maintain a degree of detachment to prevent them turning into technocrats and experts. For intelligentsia, equally, one may be employed by the institutions but cannot be controlled by them. However, the meaning of freedom for the intelligentsia is deeper than for their analogues in the West. It implies independence from the power holders and from the regime. This meaning was shaped by different historical contexts and the value of this freedom has different historical roots. The desire to maintain freedom poses different challenges for the intelligentsia and intellectuals. For the Western intellectuals, economic and bureaucratic conditions create a major threat (i.e. the pressure of Research Evaluation Framework for the UK academics or the power of Institutional Review Boards to clamp down on research in the US). For the Russian intelligentsia, the threat to freedom originated from the political pressure to control intellectual pursuits. The consequences of the struggle to maintain

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independence were far more severe – often including exile and death. For the intelligentsia whose lives and careers were spent during Soviet times, acquiring intellectual and personal freedom was a lifelong project of paramount importance. Co-operation with power and status quo compromises the authority and integrity of the intelligentsia. The worst accusation one may make against this group is conformism. An individual is often denied their belonging to the intelligentsia by being accused of conforming and cooperating with the authorities. Likewise, for an individual aspiring to clear their reputation proving these claims wrong is crucial. As I will demonstrate in the book, emphasizing the struggle for freedom and rebuffing the accusations of conformism are main themes that unite the narratives of the intelligentsia from the shestidesyatniki group. In the debates about intellectuals in the West, similar ‘tension between criticism and conformity, the dilemma of detachment and engagement’ indicate ‘the instabilities inherent in the role of public intellectual’ (Misztal, 2007: 21). Creative detachment from any particular identity or individual interest distinguishes both intellectuals and intelligentsia from other social groups. Since the beginning of modernity, ‘the authority of the intellectual has rested on the claim to be acting and speaking on behalf of society as a whole’ (Furedi, 2004: 34). Both intellectuals’ and intelligentsia identities imply social engagement. The ideas have value only as long as they have the ability to influence society. Intellectuals’ and intelligentsia identity involves ‘the assumption of social responsibility and taking a political stand’ (ibid.: 35). Debray (1981) in his study of French intellectuals states that it is the project of influencing the public that defines the intellectuals. The moral project of intellectuals is therefore to conduct a battle for the public hearts and minds. Public is not as developed a concept in Russia as it is in the West. For the intelligentsia the norm of social responsibility involves speaking on behalf of the vulnerable and disadvantaged, on behalf of the people. This responsibility to abandon personal interests arises from the feeling of guilt they have for the people. I will explain the origins of this feeling later in the chapter. Both groups value knowledge and truth. Mills argued that the politics of the intellectuals are first of all ‘the politics of truth’ (1944, 1963, 2008) and one of their master tasks is ‘to stop being intellectual dupes of political patrioteers’ (2008: 2). To sum up, despite different historical origins, the definitions of intellectuals and intelligentsia are very similar. Both are depicted as defenders of cultural standards, as a group of perpetual critics and dissenters, as a conscience of society. Although not distinguished by their professions, intellectuals and intelligentsia are expected to dedicate their lives to ‘create, distribute and apply culture’ (Lipset, 1960: 311). According to Lipset they are ‘the symbolic order of man, including art, science and religion’ (ibid.). Misztal, in her recent study of public intellectuals, argues that creativity and courage are ‘essential building blocks of their authority to speak out on broad issues of public concern’ (2007: 1). She acknowledges that the tradition

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of public intellectual as the guardian of universally grounded values and truths has been significantly influenced by the values of the mid-nineteenthcentury Russian intelligentsia – ‘belief in the value of science, readiness to confront repressive authority, defence of justice, reason and truth in the name of moral universalism’ (ibid.). Nevertheless, despite all the similarities noted above, I would argue that the concept of intelligentsia is not synonymous to that of public intellectual. Russian intelligentsia was united by ‘something more than interest or ideas; they conceived themselves as being a dedicated order, almost a secular priesthood, devoted to spreading of a specific attitude to life, something like a gospel’ (Berlin, 1978: 117). Whereas the elite classes of intellectuals or well-educated people existed in other European countries (e.g. intellectuels in France and Gebildete in Germany), the distinctive attributes of the Russian intelligentsia, its elaborate system of common values and a shared identity, reflects the centuries of social, economic and political history of Russia. Recent studies (Stapeleton, 2000; Lassman, 2000) demonstrate that intellectuals’ types in different countries vary not least because of their grounding in cultural settings with distinctive national traditions. Different cultural contexts produce different repertoires of identity. In what follows I will trace the evolution of the meanings and symbolic boundaries of the category intelligentsia, making specific references to the emergence of a specific identity associated with this group.

The origins of the Russian intelligentsia As Nettle (1969: 53) pointed out: ‘scarcely any group lends itself less readily to classification than those who formulate ideas.’ Defining who exactly belongs to Russian intelligentsia and which criteria to apply when making the classification has caused much intellectual confusion. Most scholars writing on the topic agree that intelligentsia was a real phenomenon in Russian history; however, the specific nature of this phenomenon is described differently: either as a real group, as a particular identity or as a myth or cultural story. In the first instance, intellectual search goes towards identifying historical events and the attributes of Russian politics and economy that led to the formation of the intelligentsia groups; in the second, towards looking for what exactly constitutes intelligentsia identity, how these attributes come to be shared by individuals and bring them into a group. The third interpretation leads researchers towards understanding the power of category and discourses around it to have impact on the lives of real people. As I have noted, the approach I take in this book brings together the interpretation of intelligentsia as an identity and as a myth. It emphasizes that identity is a variable production and aims to understand not only what makes up a specific identity, but crucially why certain identities become of high demand in particular times. Most authors writing on the subject of intelligentsia agree that the first generation of the Russian intelligentsia were the sons of the Russian noblemen

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of the eighteenth century and the younger brothers of the heroes of the war with Napoleon (1812) and the revolt of the Decembrists (1825). They were too young to participate in the landmark events of the century, however these events were crucial for the formation of their outlook on life. In agreement with Pavel Annenkov (1813–87), a literary critic and a contemporary of the first generation of Russian intelligentsia, Berlin (1978) points to a ‘remarkable decade’ (1838–48), a time when the values came to be shared, interests established and friendship formed within a group of young men close to university circles. However, it was not until the 1860s that the Russian intelligentsia first appeared as an actual social stratum with the shared identity and outlook on life. The period of Great Reforms in Russia under Tsar Alexander II (ruled 1855–81) with the liquidation of serfdom, liberalization of society, and awakening of public opinion; the development of capitalism in Russia and the beginning of industrialization demanding more educated people were required to consolidate the group and broaden its ranks. Intelligentsia undoubtedly originated from the ranks of the nobility, which in the eighteenth century constituted a small percentage of the Russian society. Interestingly, ‘nobility’ in Russia does not lend itself to clear definition either. As Raeff (1959) observes, throughout the eighteenth century there was much confusion and a great deal of debate on the question of who belonged to the nobility. In 1722 Peter the Great, in an attempt to eliminate the influence of hereditary nobility (boyare), tried to introduce some clarity when in the legislation on the Table of Ranks (order of precedence)2 he proclaimed the principle of service as the only basis for a claim to nobility. Although this order aimed to abolish previously dominant precedence by birth, it failed to completely eradicate the role of family status. There is some evidence that Peter himself preferred to reserve the leadership roles in the state to men born of noble families, provided that these well-born offsprings firmly believed that contributing to the nation’s glory and welfare is their prime duty and privilege. Later on, Western education became a characteristic mark of nobility. As I will later show, this confusion about the definition of the nobility and the dispute about the importance of family origins versus achievements are crucial when it comes to defining the intelligentsia. During the Soviet time noble origins were often used to distinguish ‘real’ intelligentsia from the Soviet intelligentsia, ‘us’ from ‘them’, at least by those able to claim hereditary status (see Tchujkina, 2006). This renaissance of the family status as a criterion of belonging appears strange if we remember that historically only the first generation of intelligentsia truly originated from the nobility. For the succeeding intelligentsia groups social origins and status were less important. The group to which the term intelligentsia was applied in Russia included also déclassé professionals as well as the small town provincial elite (Pipes, 1961). In the absence of formal legal definitions, the way of life and cultural outlook of a person determined his or her affiliation with a specific social class or group. For intelligentsia, a secular, liberal outlook and modelling one’s life after European

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standards were more important than the social strata to which a person belonged. Unable to distinguish clear social indicators to identify intelligentsia, scholars based their definitions on specific characteristics of Russian thought, looking for particular ideas and beliefs dominant among intelligentsia as criteria for its identification. For some authors, it was more than just ideas that united intelligentsia, but a specific attitude to life (Berlin, 1978). Malia (1961), for example, describes intelligentsia as an ‘unreal class’ – a unique example of a ‘class’ held together by the bond of ‘consciousness’, ‘critical thought’ or ‘moral passion’. He argues that the fact that other (‘real’) classes as well as the government accepted the collective name of intelligentsia into their vocabulary, assumed the existence of intelligentsia and believed in its importance, led to another stage in the development of the intelligentsia’s identity. As a result the group became so real that for decades political pressure on the autocracy from the intelligentsia was much greater than that of other more ‘real’ classes, such as the gentry or bourgeoisie: ‘No class in Russian history has had a more momentous impact on the destinies of that nation or indeed in the modern world’ (ibid.: 4). Fisher (1960: 18) claims that ‘one was considered a member of the intelligentsia only if he shared its outlook’, which he identifies as ‘anguished alienation from a society unwilling or unable to modernize’. Unlike Western intellectuals, the Russian intelligentsia is distinguished by the two cohesive principles of its collective identity: the shared feeling of an extraordinary sense of apartness from the rest of the society, and their self-perception as the embodied ‘consciousnesses’ or ‘intelligence’ of the nation. Educated Russians were fascinated with ‘the people’ as guardians of the nation’s soul, uncontaminated by Western influences and experienced collective feeling of guilt towards ‘the people’. In what follows I will look into the development of these key attributes of the intelligentsia’s identity in more detail.

The formation of the intelligentsia identity Relationships with the state The emergence and transformation of the intelligentsia from the ranks of nobility appears a consequence of the unique economic and political circumstances of Russian society. Starting with the reforms of Peter the Great (ruled 1696–1725), who introduced obligatory state service for the nobility, the character and role of the nobility and intelligentsia were largely determined by their members’ relationships with the state (Raeff, 1966: 3). These relationships were characterized by serious friction. Autocracy controlled the gentry, and Russian nobility did not form an attitude of free men (like in the West). Only during the rule of Catherine the Great (1762–96) was the pressure of the autocracy on the Russian nobility relieved for the first time since Peter’s reign. As a gesture of gratitude to Russian noblemen who helped her acquire the throne, she issued the Charter to the Nobility, which confirmed the

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liberation of the nobles from compulsory service and gave them rights that not even the autocracy could breach. As a result, Russian gentry acquired an abundance of free time and developed the attitude of free men, a sense of personal dignity and pride. Later, the younger, better educated, more humanistic members of the gentry generalized from a sense of their own dignity as individuals to the field of human dignity for all (the protests of publicists and writers Novikov and Radishchev in the late eighteenth century, for example, contained this message). The Russian class structure though remained rudimentary: the small numbers of aristocracy or gentry possessed all the privilege and wealth and were oppressing the peasantry. This condition made it possible for the Russian government to function as a military autocracy and explains why the new democratic storm came from the top rather than from the bottom of Russian society. The revolutionary movement was born during the reign of Alexander I (1801–25) within the most privileged group, the gentry, and resulted with the Decembrists’ revolt (1825) – an attempt to steer Russia towards a liberal political economy and away from absolutism. Young officers who had pursued Napoleon into Western Europe came back to Russia with revolutionary ideas, including human rights, representative government, and mass democracy. The intellectual Westernization that had been fostered in the eighteenth century by a paternalistic, autocratic Russian state now included opposition to autocracy, demands for representative government, calls for the abolition of serfdom, and, in some instances, advocacy of a revolutionary overthrow of the government. Officers were particularly incensed that Alexander I had granted Poland a constitution while Russia remained without one. Several clandestine organizations were preparing for an uprising when Alexander I died unexpectedly in 1825. Following his death, there was confusion about who would succeed him because the next in line, his brother Constantine, had renounced his right to the throne on 14 December. A group of officers commanding around 3,000 men refused to swear allegiance to the new tsar, the youngest of Alexander’s brothers – Nicholas (future Nicholas I), proclaiming instead their loyalty to the idea of a Russian constitution. Nicholas easily suppressed the revolt, and the Decembrists (name given to the heroes of the December revolt) were arrested and those not persecuted were exiled to Siberia. Historians agree that the Decembrists were not yet intelligentsia, because ideas were not the most important things in their lives and they did not leave state military service as a consequence of their beliefs. Malia (1961) claims that it was not until the reign of Nicholas I (ruled 1825–55) that the intelligentsia first came into existence – when the next generation of young gentry idealists became totally alienated from the state and were left with nothing but their ideas. The heroic story of the Decembrists was incorporated into the intelligentsia’s cultural history and, as we shall see, its attributes became crucial in its mythology and symbolism.

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By the early nineteenth century the autocracy was again in full command, and the nobility suffered from a great deal of social and political insecurity. Nicholas I was obsessed with the possibility of further betrayal by the educated elite and excluded the gentry as much as possible from participation in government, and instead relied on more submissive bureaucratic servants. Iron discipline was enforced in the army as well. As a result, whereas in 1812 the highest form of gentry’s idealism was to serve in the army, after 1825 to serve in Nicholas’ national and international gendarmerie was seen as a betrayal of all values. As a consequence the young gentry ‘migrated’ from service to the universities. From the time of Nicholas I, all the important figures of Russian culture received their crucial formation in and around the universities and were at odds with official society. Prior to this they were usually army officers, close to the aristocratic and court circles of the capital. Now under the influence of the philosophers Schelling and Hegel, they believed that they were the bearers of an Absolute idea and had no other life than ideas. By the end of Nicholas’ reign, the relatively mild frustration of the Decembrists had developed into an extensive, abstract and adamant idealism. Paradoxically the universities transformed the more serious younger gentry into morally déclassé, rootless internal emigrants with no home but its ideal vision. If in the 1840s the intelligentsia consisted mostly of the gentry, by the 1860s the centre of gravity had shifted to raznochintsy (members of different ranks). Malia (1961) claims that this change was very significant as it precipitated the group’s full awareness of its own identity and led in 1860s to the adoption of the name intelligentsia. Thus being above and beyond class became central for the formation of intelligentsia self-image. Relationships with the people Special relationships between Russian intelligentsia and ‘the people’ were the outcome of the tsarist policies on the Westernization of young nobilities. The history of Westernization begins during the reign of Peter the Great. The tsar sent selected young men to the West to acquire the languages and the various new arts and skills that sprang from the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. After their education was complete, they returned to Russia and were instated as the leaders of the new social order that Peter imposed upon the country. In this way: he created a small class of new men, half Russian, half foreign – educated abroad, even if they were Russian by birth; these, in due course, became a small managerial and bureaucratic oligarchy, set above the people, no longer sharing in their still medieval culture; cut off from them irrevocably. (Berlin, 1978: 117)

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Gramsci also describes how: An élite consisting of some of the most active, energetic, enterprising and disciplined members of the society emigrates abroad and assimilates the culture and historical experiences of the most advanced countries of the West, without . . . breaking its sentimental and historical links with its own people. Having thus performed its intellectual apprenticeship it returns to its own country and compels the people to an enforced awakening, skipping historical stages in the process. (Gramsci, 1971: 12) As these two quotes demonstrate, alienation from the people must have preceded the sentiments of fascination and love for the people. In the early nineteenth century, the majority of Russians (i.e. the peasants) still lived in feudal darkness with the large army of inefficient bureaucrats pressing down on them. Between the oppressors and oppressed there existed a small, cultivated, largely French-speaking class ‘actively conscious of the difference between justice and injustice, civilisation and barbarism’ (Berlin, 1978: 118): This situation altered with the invasion of Napoleon, which brought Russia into the middle of Europe . . . The triumph over Napoleon and the march to Paris were events in the history of Russian ideas as vitally important as the reforms of Peter. They made Russia aware of her national unity and the patriotic nationalism grew among all classes. A number of idealistic young men began to feel new bonds between themselves and their nation . . . They were feeling responsible for the chaos, the squalor, the poverty, the inefficiency, the brutality, the appalling disorder in Russia. (ibid.) They wanted to change this state of affairs. This desire to do something for the masses was not easy to put into practice, as love for the people usually went hand-in-hand with a fear of them. The gap between the ‘militant intelligentsia’ and the ‘dark people’ was so immense that little understanding or co-operation between them was possible (Norman, 1969). The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 (under Emperor Alexander II) signalled the coming end of the feudalist era in Russia. This event triggered the spread of the agrarian socialist ideals among the ranks of young Russian intelligentsia and the start of the narodniki movement. Narodniki viewed certain aspects of the past with a dose of nostalgia: resenting the former land ownership system, they objected to the uprooting of peasants from the traditional obshchina (the Russian commune). Their ideal was a society in which sovereignty would rest with small self-governing economic units resembling the traditional Russian village commune.

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Political activity of narodniki began with going to the people hoping to bring freedom. Over two thousand young men and women dressed as workers set off on the journey to the remote corners of Russia to begin liberating agitation among the peasants and artisans. Their ambitions were not realized. Instead of listening to what they had to say, their audience was suspicious and reported their liberators to the police. Many of narodniki were arrested and exiled to Siberia. This initial failure did not stop narodniki – more followers, educated children of wealthy noblemen, were stepping in the place of their arrested fellows, refusing the benefits of their social status and upbringing and risking their lives. Narodniki had significant influence on the Russian revolutionary movement, predominantly by providing an example of how not to do things. Following generations of intelligentsia adopted a more radical approach to changing the destiny of the people, inevitably, transforming the meaning of the intelligentsia itself and the destiny of the group defined as such. It is one of the paradoxes of Russian history that intelligentsia have authored the revolution, creating a force that turned against them.

The beginning of the Soviet era and the dissolution of the intelligentsia concept When, in 1917, the Soviet regime proclaimed the intelligentsia one of the three pillars of the socialist order, the meaning of the category intelligentsia gradually lost its traditional sense. In Soviet usage intelligentsia meant simply all those who ‘toil’ with their minds instead of with their hands: the technological, administrative, managerial or simply white-collar personnel of the state. In the ideology of Bolsheviks, intelligentsia is not a real class; its status is described by the Russian word prosloyka, which is normally translated as stratum. In other words, intelligentsia does not have a proper place in the structure of the society. Bolshevik leaders, despite originating from the ranks of the intelligentsia themselves, did not believe that intelligentsia had revolutionary drive. Lenin is famous for his caustic remark that ‘the educated classes, the lackeys of capital’ are not the ‘brain of the nation’, but the ‘shit of the nation’ (Lenin, 1919). The following quote from Solzhenitsyn summarizes the destiny intelligentsia met after the revolution: Like the rake that hardly hit the fool who stepped on it in the darkness, the revolution spifficated the intelligentsia that awoke it. After tsarist bureaucracy, police, nobility and clergy, the next destructive blow battered intelligentsia already during the early revolutionary years. It consisted not only from the executions and prisons, but involved cold, hunger, hard labour and scornful denigration. Intelligentsia was not ready for all this and did not expect such treatment from its own members. (Solzhenitsyn, 1974)

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The destructive blow involved the change in the meaning of the concept intelligentsia. At the end of the 1920s the distinction between the old, bourgeois and the new, proletarian intelligentsia emerged. ‘New intelligentsia’ was used to define the workers of intellectual (and broadly all non-manual) labour whose social origins were from peasants and workers. Industrialization required new engineering elite. The descendants of revolutionary classes were encouraged and supported via numerous benefits to take on higher education. The first task was to form a new educated elite in the industry, and then in the early 1930s in all other spheres: medicine, education, legal system, etc. The new intelligentsia required not only the possession of specialized knowledge, but also the appropriate cultural level – in terms of both taste and manners. The discussion about the necessary attributes of the Soviet intelligentsia was brought over to the pages of popular newspapers and provoked overwhelming discussion with the readership. To complete the portrait of the new intelligentsia it had to be contrasted with the bourgeois type (to which both Western intellectuals and the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia were ascribed). The myth about the uniqueness of Russian intelligentsia prevailed, only in this case it was proletarian intelligentsia that gained superiority over its Western analogue. The new Soviet intelligentsia was distinguished by stability of political views – it possessed ‘the only possible’ scientific world view – Marxism–Leninism; it did not distinguish between physical and intellectual labour, it was connected with the masses and was a collectivist and a public figure. Proletarian intelligent was far removed from pure theorising. He was inherently connected with the practice and never became a narrow specialist, unlike bourgeois intelligent. Finally, he hated the enemies of his class, and ultimately everything that remained from the old world (Tchujkina, 2006: 107). As Solzhenitsyn (1974) notes, in the 1920s and 1930s the composition of the intelligentsia, as well as how the intelligentsia understood and saw itself, changed significantly. The first widening of definition occurred with the split on the technical and humanitarian intelligentsia. As a consequence of the former’s distance from the revolutionary activities and their work being crucial for industry, they enjoyed relative independence from the dominant ideology. Other forms of widening of the previous intelligentsia ranks were actively promoted by the state. First, physical interruption of the tradition of the intelligentsia families contributed to the process: intelligentsia’s children had almost no chances of entering higher education institutions (the only route was via personal subordination and personal transformation in Komsomol). Second and third contributions came from the hasty creation of the working class intelligentsia and mass arrests of vrediteli.3 The final blow has mostly damaged technical intelligentsia, having destroyed its minority, it placed deadly fear in the majority.4 In the 1930s the final and complete widening of the definition of intelligentsia occurred. From 1937 the concept of rural intelligentsia entered the public lexicon – all kolkhoz5 workers were encouraged to improve their

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educational and cultural level and join the ranks of the intelligentsia. The state also announced that the millions of white collar workers should now be considered as intelligentsia, or to be more precise, intelligentsia was included and disappeared in the rank of white collar workers. Intelligentsia officially became part of the state bureaucracy. By the end of the 1930s the concept of the intelligentsia was totally amorphous. As the leading newspaper Konsomol’skaya Pravda announced: The whole world is following how the greatest phenomenon in the history of humankind – a hundred and seventy million people are becoming the intelligentsia; the number of intelligentsia in industry, amongst kolkhoz workers and white collar workers and members of their families is inexorably increasing; the distinctions between intellectual and manual labour are dissolving. (Konsomol’skaya Pravda, 1939) Eventually the word intelligentsia acquired denigrative connotations and became used as a swear word: ‘Since then intelligentsia existed in hugely inflated volume, distorted sense and nullified meaning’ (Solzhenitsyn, 1974). No wonder that these developments have compelled many Western observers to mourn the disappearance of the intelligentsia tradition in Russia. Malia (1961) argues that Soviet intelligentsia would be better seen as bureaucracy (as Trotsky saw it) or ‘new class’ (Djilas, 1966). Likewise, Pipes (1961) denies the Soviet intelligentsia’s true belonging to the intelligentsia tradition. For him they are only half-intelligentsia – professionals with tertiary education (‘semi-educated’ as he calls them) who became an industrial labour force and lost their social and economic independence. Fisher (1960) also notes that the Soviet intelligentsia turned into a salaried and closely integrated component of the state: ‘this definition is expressive of its conception of the intelligentsia which emerged in Russia in the 1890s; it’s a functional institutional conception and signifies a more professional and less ideological image of intellectuals’ (Fisher, 1960: 268). Alienation, the dominant trait of the old intelligentsia, and the ‘free’ and humanistic professions, were dethroned from their positions by the new ideology of scientific Communism. All authors agree that the tradition of the old intelligentsia declined mainly as a result of the industrialization and modernization of the country, which ‘knocked out the very social foundations from under it’ (Pipes, 1961: 52). Industrialization necessitated mass education, which reduced the contrast between the educated and uneducated; it also brought the entire population into the state nexus and turned the educated group in particular into a body of salaried, professional civil servants. Most studies of the Soviet intelligentsia, in contrast to studies of Russian intelligentsia, approach it from an institutional perspective: the organizational and professional characteristics of intelligentsia are used as criteria for selecting the group to analyse.6

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The Thaw, dissent and hopes for the intelligentsia’s return Intelligentsia seemed to have vanished in the Soviet Union under the pressure of external circumstances. But the concept itself remained in the official and academic discourse, as did hopes for the intelligentsia’s resurrection. In the late 1950s Western observers noticed that in the Soviet Union individuals started to emerge from the ranks of the ‘proletarians of mental labour’, who displayed self-consciousness similar to that of intelligentsia in previous centuries and seemed to embody the role of social critics. Western authors were quick to conclude that ‘in spite of the demise of intelligentsia as a group, the more radical intelligentsia is still with us as a force’ (Malia, 1961: 15). Monas announced that: ‘Now there are once again in Russia something like an intelligentsia – not merely as Stalin defined them, “a social segment” of professionals and “white collars” recruited from among the workers and peasants, but a “spiritual brotherhood” bearing a special burden of conscience and equipped with a special responsibility’ (Monas, 1968: 3). Andrle (1994: 240) notes that ‘whereas in Stalin’s times the “intelligentsia” was more a statistical category of official sociology than a distinctive social body providing a critical public to the men of state, de-Stalinization gave a rebirth to the social body’ and ‘the process of de-Stalinization became infused with the values of the intelligentsia’s social identity’. For a long time the human rights defenders in the USSR were seen as the prime example of the intelligentsia resurrection. Despite obvious similarities between the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia and the members of the protest movement in the USSR and despite the belief of the latter that they were of the same mould and originated in the same historical tradition, the differences cannot be overlooked. While pre-revolutionary intelligentsia were successful in initiating social change on a dramatic scale, the dissidents failed to do so. Acton (1997) suggests that a combination of factors contributed to the Soviet dissidents’ ‘lack of muscle’: the regime’s success in integrating and incorporating the cultural elite; the very different function of higher education in Soviet life and, as a consequence, the quiescence of Soviet students; and finally, the dissidents’ lack of self-confidence and subsequent failure to develop a coherent discourse and programme for the mobilization of a significant social movement. Nevertheless, dissidents and their less outspoken contemporaries believed that they were taking over from the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia. As Bergman (1992) showed, self-identification with pre-revolutionary intelligentsia served as a source of comfort and spiritual nourishment to dissidents, helped them to endure frequent humiliations, trials and imprisonment, and provided much needed legitimacy and political guidance for their actions. Although the motive for dissidents to trace their historical origins to the intelligentsia was largely political, they, like the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia, admired the moral qualities of the intelligenty:7 fidelity to the truth,

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courage and integrity, defence of the sanctity of human life, and lifelong commitment to intellectual endeavour. The conviction that their historical mission was to be the successors of Russian intelligentsia produced a feeling of obligation to act as courageously and altruistically as their precursors and comply with the high moral standards they set (such as truth, beauty and moral self-perfection, ethical purity, righteousness and self-worth). Bergman discovers that although dissidents focused their attention upon the radical intelligenty, who combined alienation and moral idealism with a determination to transform the existing order, they preferred to find role models among nineteenth-century personalities, and praised Decembrists, Hertzen, Chaadaev, Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Lavrov. Ironically, Soviet government and its official writers, like the dissidents, considered themselves the successors of the revolutionary intelligentsia and honoured the same figures the dissidents related to as true Russian patriots (Bergman, 1992). The majority of debates about the resurrection of the intelligentsia in postStalin time considered outspoken dissidents as a possible proof. However, critically minded intellectuals were not exclusively represented by the most radical types. In reality, the dissidents were the tip of an iceberg, with the large mass of intellectuals adopting more reserved non-conformist attitudes, which allowed them to stay within the system and continue their careers. The degree of conformism appears as a main distinctive factor (stumbling stone) in the contemporary debates about intelligentsia. This is not surprising as the groups described as intelligentsia in official discourse included all white-collar workers, teachers, scientists, artists, party functionaries and the power elite – very few of whom could be described as straightforward nonconformists. Churchward (1973) was one of the first authors who attempted to develop a more complex model of intelligentsia types, instead of the oversimplified dichotomy between the conformists and the dissenters. He looked into the wider social context within which the phenomena of dissidents emerged and found that along with open oppositionists Soviet intelligentsia included such types as careerist professionals, humanistic intelligentsia and lost intellectuals. The majority of more recent studies consider the wider milieu of which dissidents were part as the first generation to take up the intelligentsia identity after decades of post-Revolutionary stagnation. These were young people coming of age in the 1950s and active in social life during the turbulent events of that era: Stalin’s death, Khrushchev’s Thaw and subsequent freeze. As these are also the foci of this book, I will only mention them briefly here. Walker (2000) argues that coming from different social origins – peasants, workers and petty bureaucrats – and having gained access to higher education, they became involved in the process of forming their distinctive generational identity and became fascinated with their intelligentsia predecessors’ prestige and image. Raznochintsy background, as it had been a century earlier, became the driving force behind the formation of their intelligentsia identity.

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Who has the right to be called intelligentsia is still a contentious question in Russia. On the one hand, dissidents are bitter about their fellow intellectuals for not providing them with enough support and accuse them of cowardice. The accused, being in the majority, come up with their own explanations and justifications, often challenging the value of dissidents’ efforts. As a result, the meaning of the intelligentsia is debated. It is crucial to bear in mind that the strong emphasis on the exclusiveness and legitimacy of its special mission makes the intelligentsia mantle particularly attractive and the category is used by various social groups in their claims to power and influence.

The symbolic value of the intelligentsia identity In the previous section we mainly talked about intelligentsia as a class or real group, occasionally referring to it as an idea and a specific identity. In this section, I will explain in more depth what it means to consider intelligentsia as an identity and finally why it can be seen as a myth. I will argue that the power of intelligentsia is not in the real individuals who represent or embody it, but in its symbolic value. How, regardless of who intelligentsia really is, the debates about it can have significant impact on individuals’ lives, groups’ destinies and society’s progress. The concept intelligentsia always presumed reference to the exceptionality of its members and inevitably, the question about belonging to intelligentsia is coloured by the status ambitions (Brower, 1967). For example, in the 1870s, in order to distance themselves from narodniki and underline their own uniqueness, radicals within the intelligentsia circles named themselves socialist or revolutionary intelligentsia, implying that among the educated classes they were the most progressive. In the 1890s the term intelligentsia was frequently used to describe the professional classes who had received advanced educational training. These groups were assured that their practical skills were more important for the country’s progress than ideological insightfulness. Their usage of the term, to refer to a group that by education and occupation was destined to bring real progress to Russia, was again by no means neutral. It served to ‘justify and gain approval’ for the actions of the individuals to which it referred (ibid.: 639). With such an attitude to the concept, it could not avoid taking on a pejorative meaning. Conservative Russians (Dostoevski and Vekhi authors) used it to designate those who underestimated the unique culture and traditions of Mother Russia. In contemporary usage of the word (as I show in Chapter 2) intelligentsia is often accompanied by the adjective ‘real’, assuming the existence of an unreal intelligentsia who lay unfair claims to the authoritative position. Keeping intelligentsia identity alive If we consider intelligentsia as a specific kind of identity, based on a shared story with its own heroes, memorable events and moral claims, then we

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should be asking somewhat different kinds of questions from the traditional historical studies of the Russian intelligentsia. Not where is intelligentsia and who has the right to be called so, but how intelligentsia identity managed to survive against all odds? What is the significance of the intelligentsia story (if any) nowadays? It is the purpose of this book to unravel answers to these kinds of questions. To give the reader what I think is the most plausible explanation of the survival of the intelligentsia story I would refer to two studies – one by a sociologist Sophia Tchujkina and another by a historian Barbara Walker. The first study explains why preservation and transmission of intelligentsia identity was important and for whom, the second explains how exactly it was possible. Sophia Tchujkina (2006) interprets intelligentsia as a community, first of all a community of surviving noblemen and women in a Soviet environment hostile to them. Any community survival is secured by establishing and protecting symbolic boundaries (Cohen, 1985). For the Russian nobility the intelligentsia story was crucial in the struggle for boundary maintenance. Tchujkina gives an elaborate account of how, in the early years of the Soviet Republic, the ideas of the old and the newly emerged intelligentsia often clashed. Social origins and social status of those who could be related to the new Soviet intelligentsia were so diverse that the term became a formality and social identifications occurred according to different criteria. On the contrary, the community of the ‘old intelligentsia’ had clearly defined boundaries, which were constantly renegotiated. It is this community that needed constant establishment of its difference and was looking for a new language for self-identification. The word ‘old’ was used with a positive meaning despite official derogatory connotations. The heterogeneity of the old intelligentsia, which included both people with high status and the declassed, meant it was easiest to define its borders by contrasting it with those who did not belong to it. The abstract image of Soviet intelligentsia became an anti-model. The process of building symbolical boundaries began in the 1930s, but continued particularly intensively after the Second World War. Tchujkina argues that old intelligentsia was synonymous to nobility. While the questions about one’s social origins were not part of everyday conversations and politically significant topics were taboo, the descendants of the old elite were able to recognize each other by some subtle signals. What united people were the world view, interest to culture, the ways of thinking and discussion and spending free time. Silences about certain themes were equally significant to recognizing ‘one’s own’. Barbara Walker (2000) sheds light on what these subtle signals might have been and investigates the mechanisms for the preservation of the intelligentsia identity. She shows that the intelligentsia identity is not some sort of unproblematic, unambiguous role model ready to be adopted, but instead is, and has always been, the subject of controversies and arguments within the circles of intellectuals. She points to certain discursive practices through which identity was claimed and uses memoirs as texts where the rhetorical

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construction of this claim can be observed. She argues that although ‘it is difficult to formulate scientifically neutral terms of analysis that adequately describe the group’s historical existence’, there really was ‘a self-conscious intelligentsia’ which may be recognized through its attempt to ‘secure its identity through staged and ritualised displays of cultural values’ (Walker, 2000: 331). To support the claim she studies a collection of the Soviet memoirs and observes how a particular genre – ‘contemporaries’ genre – evident in these texts, is an example of the ‘ritualised display’ by which the social group of Russian intelligentsia attempted to secure its identity. This genre of self-narrative can be traced back to the late eighteenth century. It is distinct because instead of looking for self-explanation and selfunderstanding the authors focus outward, concentrating upon one particular community, the Russian intelligentsia. The tendency to canonization and the integration of the oral tradition into the written are the main features of the ‘contemporaries’ genre. The intelligentsia circle (kruzhok or kompaniya in Soviet narratives) is the most important institution of intelligentsia history. Memoirs contain the evidence of negotiation in the difficult process of circle formation and illustrate the effort to define and control not only the behaviour appropriate for circle members but also the meaning of the category intelligent. Crucially, the ‘contemporaries’ memoirs picture the ways in which members of the Russian intellectual elite have themselves struggled with the problem of intelligentsia identity. Walker describes the role memoirs played in the continuity of the intelligentsia tradition in the second half of the nineteenth century. At that point the intelligentsia circles were experiencing rapid transition and generational change, and were threatened with disintegration due to the appearance of the young radical generation. Memoirs served to preserve and transmit older gentry intelligentsia values to a younger, rougher generation. For example, their authors provided detailed descriptions of the personalities, the milieu, and the look and feel of a place. On the other hand, the older generation justified their gentrified image by frequently moralizing about the past. Walker observes the evidence of attempts to catch hold of previous times as a means of self-explanation, self-defence and self-advertisement in the memoirs from that period. It was then that the Decembrists and Pushkin became popularized as vital intelligentsia role models, as their circle offered a standard of gracious gentry’s intellectual life and culture. At the same time, writing memoirs offered a means of access to intelligentsia identity for those individuals who, originating from various social and professional non-gentry and non-literary backgrounds, were searching for ways into intelligentsia circles. Intelligentsia identity depended upon whom you knew and so, therefore, writing about the famous people one had met was a way of establishing one’s circle legitimacy and identity. This, as Walker claims, is the origin of the intelligentsia cult phenomena. Later, in a period of uncertainty and anxiety for intelligentsia and divisive internal arguments (such as the Vekhi collection of articles, Slavophiles and

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Westernizers disputes), distinctive types of cult figures were essential for the intelligentsia to secure its identity. Starting from the early 1930s, when the establishment of a series of official unions (of writers, musicians, artists, etc.) put an end to the circle structure, and then during the purges, civil society networks and the identity of the Russian intelligentsia were severely damaged, the genre of the contemporaries memoir again played a crucial role in the preservation of intelligentsia tradition. The dominance of the cult figure from the previous century in the early-Soviet period memoirs helped intelligentsia to establish the link with the pre-revolutionary past. Memoirs were immensely important for the reconstruction of the dilapidated web of the pre-Stalin intelligentsia (e.g. memoirs by Erenburgh, Allilueva, Solzhenitsyn and Mandel’shtam). The two authors reviewed above explain how the story of the intelligentsia survived through turbulent times. Neither, however, tells us why it is so important for educated Russians to fight for its survival. Why all these talks about historical continuity of the intelligentsia? Why the interest in claiming the intelligentsia identity? The answers to these questions can be found in the studies advocating that the intelligentsia should be interpreted as an important cultural myth.

Intelligentsia as a myth Myth can be defined as ‘a story or fable, which acts as a symbolic guide or map of meaning and significance in the cosmos’ (Barker, 2000: 387). Barthes considered myth as a second-order semiological system or metalanguage, which speaks about a first-level language. The sign of the first system, which generates denotative meaning, becomes a signifier for a second order of connotative mythological meaning. Barthes pointed out that through the naturalization of the connotative level of meaning, myth makes particular world views appear to be unchallengeable because they are natural or God-given: ‘Myth has the task of giving an historical intention a natural justification, and making contingency appear eternal’ (Barthes, 1972: 155). Some authors argue that the myth of the intelligentsia as a unique social group with a particular mission and ability to fulfil this mission was created by narodniki and originates in Mikhajlovsky’s works (1896–97) (Confino, 1973, 1990; Zhivov, 1999a,b; Orlov, 2002). As I mentioned above, the term narodnichestvo describes the agrarian socialism of the second half of the nineteenth century, ‘which upheld the proposition that Russia could by-pass the capitalist stage of development and proceed through the artel and peasant commune directly to socialism’ (Pipes, 1964: 441). The first overt manifestation of the narodniki movement was ‘going to the people’8 in 1872–74. Historians describe this movement as an ‘act of expiation’ (ibid.: 443) on the part of the Russian intelligentsia, who in return for the part the peasants played in the emancipation of nobility decided to pay back the people by bringing socialist ideas to the village. The movement failed because the

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peasants turned out to have a great respect for the monarchy and equally great suspicion of the intellectuals. The authors suggest that the purpose of the myth was to repair narodniki’s damaged self-identity and return self-esteem. The myth helped to ‘dispel the doubts, overcome the crisis and retrieve’ (Confino, 1990: 517). After the journey to the people resulted in catastrophe . . . narodniki faced the task of self-justification and self-assertion. They had to cover up the abyss of mutual misunderstanding . . . and prove to themselves that ‘progressive ideas’ had not been rejected by the deprived peasants, but were still being digested. Therefore educated people needed to work harder to assist the process. (Confino, 1973: 125) Orlov (2002) views the intelligentsia as an element of political mythology. He also considers the marginal strata of raznochintsy as the creators of the myth; however, he gives a different explanation for their interests in myth making. He argues that the origins of the myth can be explained by the specifics of the appearance and development of Russian bureaucracy, which had its own corporate interests and created and used the mythology to bring these interests to life. Orlov explains how the myth of the intelligentsia is related to the main myth of Russia – the myth about the people (narod), which can be transformed either in the narodophilia or narodophobia. In the first instance, narod is considered as a source of wisdom and morality and one should only find out what narod wants and realize these aspirations in life. In the second case, narod is seen as backward and it is argued that one should not consult narod at all when pursuing social reforms. Orlov points out that in both cases the creation and existence of a special, better equipped, better educated, superior group is rendered necessary. This group either establishes its mission to translate and fulfil the aspirations of the people, or argues that it knows better than narod itself what it wants and can realize these unarticulated wishes in their name. For Orlov this means the existence of another myth – the myth of identification, when individuals (or groups), forced out of the habitual social milieu or wishing to improve their social status and become a real subject of political action, create an illusory community and identify with it. Zhivov (1999b) identifies intelligentsia with the shestidesyatniki of the nineteenth century – the 1860ers – and argues that after this generation (which, as he claims, can also be seen as a myth) we should talk not of the continuity of intelligentsia but of the transformation of its myth: In the 1870s the cultural paradigm of shestidesyatnichestvo loses its totality and divides into the spectrum of several paradigms . . . The notion of intelligentsia continued to exist, although the analysis of its usage reveals that different people have attributed different meanings to it.9

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In its projection onto the social fabric the conceptual net captured various social groups. Zhivov claims that subsequent generations have inherited the myth from narodniki, but the group itself never reappeared in history. Since the 1860s different groups have claimed the right to be called intelligentsia. This view is also supported by Orlov (2002) who shows how, in pursuing the task of positive self-identification, various political groups in Russian history have appropriated the myth and provided it with specific criteria (social–ethical for narodniki, class-based for Marxists). The only stable element of the myth was that intelligentsia was seen as the best part of society (by narodniki) or the best part of class (by Marxists). The homonymic nature and vigour of the intelligentsia concept is a really striking phenomenon. It has survived historical perturbations and proved more vital than those it was used to define. Since the nineteenth century, the intelligentsia myth has been used by thousands of men and women to give meaning to their lives – as a source of inspiration and name for their calling (Gessen, 1997) – and the moral component of the intelligentsia category still informs contemporary identity creation. White (2000), for instance, interviewed teachers, doctors and librarians in the provincial Russian town of Zubtsov. Her respondents were aware of the Soviet use of the word intelligentsia as an automatic label for professionals with higher education, as well as the adjective intelligentnyi meaning wellbehaved, but they did not adopt either of these simplistic definitions, and were unable to separate the idea of polite behaviour from that of social status and education. Association with the intelligentsia meant much more for those people than just professional identification. Some of the respondents saw themselves as intelligentsia; others perceived it as an ideal to which they aspired. All of the respondents believed in the reality of the intelligentsia, and this belief was an important resource for the formation of their identity. Even when denying their own claims ‘to match up to that ideal’ the respondents often referred to a friend or colleague who ‘almost did’. This happened even if the respondents raised the issue in order to deny the link, making statements like ‘not all professors are polite’ or ‘all ministers are criminals’. The respondents also admitted their particular leading role in the local community.10 Velikaya (2002) makes a similar point. She argues that not only do myths surround the representation of the Russian intelligentsia, but that it is a group characterized by mythological consciousness. She describes the typical components of the intelligentsia’s mythological ideal image as originating from the one main myth – the myth about the hero. This myth describes the Son of God, who has special qualities and stands in opposition to the gods. Here we can see the motive of struggle with the gods for the sake of liberating the ordinary people from their oppressors. The struggle with the gods signified dissatisfaction with one’s role and the tendency to prescribe the responsibility for our own mistakes, confusions, passivity and inability to be creative to the external forces. The Russian intelligentsia has adopted as ideals disinterested service to the abstract idea of truth, concern and

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responsibility for the whole of humankind, critical antagonism to external social conditions, and opposition to power. The myth about the hero was also particularly close to the Russian intelligentsia because of the guilt it felt towards the people: the guilt of the educated strata in an illiterate country, satiated and clean in front of the hungry and dirty. As part of the educated stratum intelligentsia felt alienated from the people as well as the powerful gods. Rapoport (2003) argues that in post-Soviet times the intelligentsia not only perceives itself as Other, but is also perceived in this way by different social classes. He notes that ‘in public places, where in everyday life the classes meet each other (the market) intelligenty almost always automatically recognize each other, and others recognize them by the external features (clothes, manners, speech)’. Meeting each other face to face is not the only way of identification. The intelligentsia is characterized by a well-developed system of symbols and artefacts. For instance, Gleb Pavlovsky, in an interview with the Russian Journal, claims that he can tell whether the flats he rents previously belonged to intelligentsia by looking at the books, records and magazines left behind. Material artefacts are only minor attributes of intelligentsia identity. The discursive and mythological fields are of equal importance. In the modern situation, when polite behaviour and education are not the exclusive attributes of the intelligentsia estate, appellation to the intelligentsia myth and discursive practices become the only possible ways to fix self-identity and make it clear to others where one belongs socially. To sum up: arguably, the myth and the category survived because they were crucial for the preservation and transmission of the intelligentsia identity. However, the rhetorical power of the concept also proved to be a valuable resource for discursive contestations of power and superiority, which explains why, even while trying to reject the category and undermine its value, postSoviet intellectuals are still willing to safeguard the myth. It is crucial to keep in mind that behind the myths supporting both categories of intellectuals and intelligentsia lies over a century of ruthless division of labour. Each category defines persons who maintain their ability and right to address the rest of society (other parts of the educated elite included) in the name of reason and universal moral principles. Parallel to the construction of specific self-identities of men of knowledge, social boundaries are drawn between ‘us’ – the superior group – and the rest (primitive cultures, the East or narod) who need our guidance and support, cannot speak for themselves and need to be enlightened. If at first the category intelligentsia was coined to suppress the guilt felt by educated Russians and restore their damaged identity, it later became a significant resource for the rhetorical construction of the superiority of a narrow group over the majority.

Conclusion In this chapter I have reviewed the range of approaches to the phenomenon of the intelligentsia. I pointed out that in the studies of the Russian

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intelligentsia it is considered as a unique social group, shaped by a specific historical and socio-political situation of Russia at the end of the nineteenth century and characterized by a complex system of shared values and beliefs. I further observed that this perspective was largely abandoned in the studies of the Soviet intelligentsia and the intelligentsia tradition on the whole was declared extinct. I also noted that the minority of the authors attempted (with different success) to find the continuation of this tradition in the Soviet era, mostly focusing on the group of Soviet dissidents. Finally, I reviewed the perspective that my research sets out to develop. The ontological basis of this perspective is that intelligentsia is a particular identity, which can be claimed through certain discursive practices. I also pointed out that it is the myth of the intelligentsia which makes the intelligentsia identity particularly attractive and valuable. The myth of the intelligentsia is an influential and important element of Russian culture. During Soviet times the class interpretation of the intelligentsia dominated academic and official discourses. Recent shifts to cultural and interpretative approaches in social sciences has encouraged scholars in both Russia and the West to reconsider the meaning of the intelligentsia. The ontological basis of this new perspective is that intelligentsia is a particular identity, which can be claimed through certain discursive practices. A few authors go further and investigate how this identity is preserved and transmitted despite the collapse of favourable socio-economic conditions for the privileged intelligentsia lifestyle (White, 2000). So, what are the core components of the intelligentsia myth? If we were to distil an ideal type from the multitude of portraits appearing in disputes about the authenticity of the intelligentsia, what would it look like? The word ‘ideal’ in this case not only connotes the Weberian concept but is also used in its literal meaning. The myth of the intelligentsia creates a God-like portrait of a hero and hardly any living individual can live up to it. To sum up, the myth establishes intelligentsia as: •

• •

possessing unique characteristics: intellect, ability to be critical and reflexive, perfect morality and outstanding creative talent. It is an ‘educated, cultured and progressive group’ (Andrle, 1994: 240); occupying a distinct social position, being alienated from the power and the masses (narod); fulfilling special roles or missions: – to preserve, develop and transmit culture; and – to reform social order for the well-being of the people.

The following details of the myth can also be noted. Intelligentsia is a unique Russian phenomenon, which emerged in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century and continues to the present day. Intelligentsia thus is a historical tradition, which cannot be started anew. There can be only one ‘real intelligentsia’ and so, therefore, the following generations should preserve and

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maintain the tradition. One cannot become the intelligentsia: intelligentsia qualities cannot be learned; they are transmitted through the generations. Intelligentsia is not simply educated – it is cultured. Intelligentsia takes responsibility for what is going on in society – being an intelligent means being a public person. Intelligentsia occupies a specific social position; it stands in opposition to the power and is different from the people. It should use its specific qualities for public good and serve to refine social order. At the same time it is the task of the intelligentsia to preserve, develop and transmit culture to the unenlightened. Intelligentsia despises and opposes bureaucracy and cherishes the people and, thus, the intelligentsia devote their lives to serving them. As Andrle puts it: the intelligentsia had its venerated leaders and heroes, and an ongoing history of brushes with state authorities which confirmed them in the intelligentsia’s eyes as capricious, irrational, inefficient, unenlightened, uncultured, and bureaucratic. The intelligentsia thus defined itself vis-àvis the autocracy and, in addition, vis-à-vis ‘the people’ whom it wanted to help out of ‘darkness’. (Andrle, 1994: 239) Intelligentsia is unselfish and pursues only high aspirations. Intelligentsia is not materialistic – it does not chase material gratification, status or prestige; moreover, it considers such aspirations immoral. Intelligentsia is and should be independent and free; it can enter into an alliance with any other social group (but not with power) if it feels this can help its higher mission, but it cannot be bought and made to serve (particularly by the power or the state). Many questions still remain unanswered. Have the intellectuals finally reached a consensus after those long attempts to consolidate intelligentsia identity illustrated in Walker’s study, or do we once again witness a conflict over the meaning of the intelligentsia? Does the myth of the intelligentsia still bear relevance to the present day? In the period of post-Soviet transformations numerous inter-group controversies arise, individual and collective integrity was threatened and identity choice was pressurized. What role did intelligentsia rhetoric play in this context? How were the attributes of intelligentsia social positioning, life values and relations with the other sections of society articulated at the end of the twentieth century? How has the cultural story of the intelligentsia changed during the Soviet period, and which form does it take in the post-Soviet period? What modern image of the intelligentsia emerges nowadays: to what extent does it resemble the pictures of the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia and how was the traditional image modified to fit with the lives and experiences of a particular generation or group? Crucially, if the myth of the intelligentsia consists of so many complex, idealistic and axiological norms, how can anyone claim to be the intelligentsia? Will the myth be adopted, adapted, challenged or modified when a certain group embarks on a project of identity politics?

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Dead or alive

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The discourse on intelligentsia in Russia at the turn of the millennium

In this chapter I explore the discursive dimension of the intelligentsia and provide further illustration to the argument that it is far from being simply a social group, but can be seen as a rhetorical device aimed to fulfil certain functions. I demonstrate that the debates about Russian intelligentsia that took place at the turn of the millennium confirmed the prestige of intelligentsia identity. I explore how the process of identity search or identification took place in post-communist Russia and argue that by claiming intelligentsia identity intellectuals can justify the right of the special role of one group in society and establish their superiority over both the masses and the power. In Russia intelligentsia are usually perceived as a particular ideal type. The words ‘real intelligentsia’ are frequently used to define those who are closer to the ideal than the others. The hallmarks of the ‘real intelligentsia’ include an excellent education, wide knowledge and weighty intellect, as well as polite behaviour, a refined moral sensibility and social conscience. As I demonstrated in the previous chapter, for a long time, the category successfully provided the country’s intellectuals with a distinctive identity, a clear sense of their position in society and the idea of purpose and role: to act as educator, guardian of culture and moral conscience. After Perestroika the new symbols of private property and the market economy have started to crystallize in Russian reality. One of the outcomes of the radical market reforms was the dramatic drop of funding for education and science – traditional pursuits of intelligentsia professions. The arena of culture also underwent drastic transformations – fast saleable products were in much higher demand than the long-term moral and aesthetic projects. This put the elitist status intelligentsia enjoyed during Soviet times at risk. Their public authority was also undermined when the ideological function of buffer or conscience in Russian society was reclaimed by the Orthodox Church. The frustration of the country’s intellectuals poured over into the mass media, which then enjoyed a brief stretch of freedom, and also into academic papers. The shared view was that intelligentsia in its traditional interpretation seemed incompatible with capitalist society and moreover, the establishment did not need the intelligentsia’s ideological aspirations and preoccupation with morality but required loyal experts only. Some regretted that ‘the

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Russian intellectual class quickly loses its traditional intelligentsia identity’ (Pokrovsky, 1998), others appeared almost pleased that finally intelligentsia has died out both as a group and as an identity. Most of the debates in both academic and political contexts seemed to evolve around two contrasting claims: intelligentsia is alive or intelligentsia is dead. As I will argue in this chapter, these conflicting discourses illustrate two distinctive strategies of identity management at the times of social transformations. Some people attempt to hold on to the identity they know well and are used to, and preserve the stability of the category. Others resist the limitations of a conventional identity category and want to break free from the straitjacket it imposes on their actions and self-expressions. I demonstrate how conventional representations of the intelligentsia and the intelligentsia myth limit the freedom of identity choice for contemporary Russian intellectuals. I argue that the discursive contestation of the meaning of the intelligentsia is an example of the legitimation of a form of social superiority. However, as I also show, the attempts of intellectuals to undermine the category of intelligentsia can be interpreted as a mechanism of resistance to the power of definitions. I suggest that it is time we abandon the romantic expectations that a Russian intelligentsia possessing its perfect attributes will somehow emerge from the grave to save the holy land and its people, as well as distance ourselves from the rhetoric of blame that charges modern intellectuals with failing to live up to expectations. Rather than attempting to answer the question ‘What is happening with the Russian intelligentsia?’ or ‘Is the Russian intelligentsia alive or dead?’ I am interested in trying to explain the interests standing behind opposing narratives and what these perspectives serve to achieve.

The resurrection: intelligentsia is alive as a group and as a concept As I mentioned above, there are two types of discourse on intelligentsia one can observe in the post-Soviet discursive space. The first is what we might call an affirmative discourse and this presents intelligentsia as alive; the second, on the contrary, propagates the metaphor of the death of intelligentsia and denies it both conceptual validity and ontological existence. The following quotes give the reader an idea of how affirmative and negative discourses are expressed by the participants in one of the numerous debates on the topic (Mattloff, 1998). Film critic Ilya Lepekhov argues that the advance of a capitalist economy makes it hard for intellectuals to maintain their previous identity. We are witnessing the last climax of our great intellectual tradition. This is partly because writers today must work like horses rather than live for ideas. We must put food on the table for our kids.

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To which publisher Natasha Perova objected, insisting that the reappraisal of values does not lead to the extinction of the intelligentsia tradition:

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Not only is the intelligentsia not dead, it is more alive than ever. The intelligentsia are maybe three percent of the population, but they are like yeast in the dough – they make society rise. These discourses exist not only in the form of informal discussions, but penetrate media news, political debates and academic texts. There are different interests behind each discourse and they are used to achieve different tasks. I will now look at how both types of discourse can be seen in operation in the academic and political territories. Modern disputes about the death of the intelligentsia1 are primarily inspired by the components of the intelligentsia myth, with the only difference being that in the more opinionated papers the claim may be presented by illustrating the cynicism, opportunism and heartlessness that have spread among the intelligentsia (Synyavsky, 1997). In research articles the argument is supported by figures showing the overall decline of educational standards and prestige of intellectual jobs. The academic context The use of affirmative discourse in the academic arena can be seen in attempts made by academics from provincial universities to turn the debate about the existence of intelligentsia into a legitimate field of study on its own right. Specialized research institutes were opened in the 1990s: Intelligentovedenie or Intelligentsia Studies at Ivanovo State University and ‘The twentieth century in the destinies of the Russian intelligentsia’ at the Ural State University in Yekaterinburg. Both universities offer elective courses related to the discipline of intelligentsia studies. The Ivanovo research institute has organized more than a dozen conferences and published several issues of an academic journal: Intelligentsia i Mir (Intelligentsia and the rest of the world). The result of these activities is not only ‘really existing’ intelligentsia, but also ‘really existing’ specialists on intelligentsia. Intelligentsia thus becomes the same disadvantaged subject as the peasants in the nineteenth century. It is deprived of the right to account for itself. The interests behind this type of activities are transparent: to establish a new discipline of social science, along with research institutes, university courses, journals, academic departments and all the other institutional attributes that legitimize it. The example illustrates how academics can utilize the popular belief in the uniqueness and importance of the Russian intelligentsia in order to safeguard their position in the professional community. As Bauman and Tester describes it: ‘academe is a world of cut-throat competition for funds, and some people need to prove that there are kinds of research and expertise which only they can deliver’ (2001: 39).

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Discussions over conceptual definitions can be seen in terms of the struggle for academic power. They enable the appearance of new disciplines by giving people something to research, publish about and teach. Social scientists therefore have a vested interest in preserving the intelligentsia concept because it provides them with both an object of study and a disciplinary perspective to study it from. It also gives them the right to claim the power of knowledge: they are specialists on the intelligentsia, with exclusive rights to speak about it. The political context The establishment of the All-Russian Congress of the Intelligentsia by a group of the country’s intellectuals in 1993 is an example of how affirmative discourse was utilized in the political sphere. The All-Russian Congress of the Intelligentsia claimed to have encompassed a well-developed network of over eighty regional organizations in the seventy-five regions of Russia. Its web page (www.kir.ru, now inactive) described the Congress as a social movement ‘organised by scientists, artists, teachers and doctors to provide support and community for the intellectual labourers and assist together the prosperity of Russia’. The registration of a non-governmental organization of the intelligentsia solves the existential problem: if the Congress of the Intelligentsia exists, then the intelligentsia must exist as well. In this way, the members of the Congress of the Intelligentsia automatically acquire a legitimate identity and the right to pursue the role of legislators. The Mission Statement of the Congress illustrates how, in pursuing this task, the myth of intelligentsia was skilfully utilized and adapted to the contemporary situation and the interests of power holders. The document translated the intelligentsia myth into modern political language, bolstering the claims made by its membership to the intelligentsia identity. The statement portrayed the modern intelligentsia as not only concerned with its own narrow professional interests but also troubled by the acute political, social and economic problems facing the country as a whole. The modern intelligentsia, according to the statement, displays its ‘love for the people’ by advocating a socially oriented market economy and contributing to the development of the social sphere. Its second major task is to enlighten, to preserve and disseminate culture. Finally, a third point was made about the intermediary position of the intelligentsia, which stands somewhere between the people (society) and the power (i.e. the establishment). It is therefore ideally placed to play the role of mediator and encourage dialogue between the two sides. Intelligentsia status was presented as independent of social class or nationality. The ambition of the intelligentsia to act as a neutral intermediary in different forms of social conflict was implied throughout the document. In contrast, its belief in its own uniqueness and authority was made explicit. However, those who openly declared themselves the intelligentsia represented only part of the country’s intellectuals. Their opponents told the

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story in a different way. They claimed that the organization of the Congress in 1993 was yet another governmental attempt at creating an obedient official intelligentsia. They recollected that the first draft of the mission statement written by the journalists from Literaturnaya Gazeta strongly emphasized the critical role of the intelligentsia in relation to power: ‘the patronage of the President does not free him from the criticism of the Forum’ (Sabov, 2002). As the authors of the first Mission statement draft explained, it had been rejected and instead the Congress was organized by the Initiative group from the President’s administration. Only representatives of liberal, proPresident intelligentsia were invited. Each point of the adopted mission statement covered a different aspect of the intelligentsia’s role, but one essential element was missing. In the document the emphasis was placed on the intelligentsia as a constructive social force well integrated into the social fabric, and the image of the intelligentsia as social critics alienated from power was totally absent. Unlike the original version, almost every point of the adopted mission statement started with ‘assist’, as if its authors were consciously trying to avoid giving the impression that the Congress had any critical ambitions in mind. The role it established for the intelligentsia was one of helper or mediator to the holders of political power. At the time of writing (early 2009), the web page of the All-Russian Congress of the Intelligentsia is non-existent and the last mention of its activities date the late 1990s, which again confirms the thesis that its establishment pursued a particular political goal, relevant for the 1990s. Only vague traces of its existence remain, such as the Order of the Government of Russian Federation 1328 from 15 September 1997 about the financial support for the Congress. In contrast, The Congress of the Ukrainian Intelligentsia is still politically active – having recently issued a statement condemning the Russian President’s response to the anniversary of the 1930s famine in Ukraine and appealing to the Russian intelligentsia and Russian people to mark the anniversary in solidarity with the Ukrainians. In 2008 the president of Ukraine, Yushchenko, authorized and funded the All-Ukrainian Forum of the Intelligentsia. At the Forum he appealed to the participants to take a more active public position and support the government’s plans of joining NATO and other pro-Western state initiatives. His speech caused the disapproval of many participants who criticized Yushchenko for turning the Forum into part of his electoral campaign. The recent top-down attempts to mobilize Ukrainian intelligentsia in support of the Government and the actions of the Ukrainian Congress of the Intelligentsia that appear to fulfil this goal once again demonstrate how the myth about the special authority of the intelligentsia as an elite social group is mobilized at a time of political instability and struggle for power. While it is obvious why the government is interested in legitimizing the particular kind of the intelligentsia, it is puzzling why intellectuals are

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interested in participating in this game. Why in the Russian case was it necessary to establish the organization of the intelligentsia and liaise with the establishment on this occasion? Why did Ukrainian intellectuals buy into the President’s invitation? One possible explanation is to use an opportunity to unite, to be heard, to get access to the power holders by shaking the hand stretched towards them, even if only in a symbolic way. But the more latent interest is in acquiring the benefit of a secure and stable identity of the intelligentsia, which in this case justifies their privileged and superior position and political influence. Discursive practices oriented towards confirmation of intelligentsia identity in both academic and political contexts correspond with what Castells (1997: 8) identifies as a legitimizing identity ‘introduced by the dominant institutions of society to extend and rationalise their domination vis-à-vis social actors’. For Castells (ibid.) the construction of a legitimizing identity is the first step towards civil society, although not in its positive connotation as the necessary attribute of democratization, rather as form that corresponds to the original Gramscian model and stands far away from more recent connotations of a structure that underpins democracy. The question is to what extent the organization of the Congress fits into the model of civil society and which kind of civil society does it represent? The concept of civil society became popular in the official post-Soviet rhetoric as one of those attributes Russia must have in order to be perceived as a truly democratic state. The example of the Congress of the Intelligentsia illustrates the ‘top-down’ (Hudson, 2003) model of civil society formation in Russia, where the government in theory declares support and encourages the formation of civic organizations but in practice is interested in a ‘civil society’ formed by a series of apparatuses, which aim to prolong the dynamic and exclusive power of the state. ‘Civil society’ emerges in Russia upon governmental initiative and under its strict control. The usual practice is to select representatives of the so-called ‘public’, with whom the government conduct ritualistic meetings. It is enough to remind the reader about the fuss over the organization of the Civic Forum by presidential initiative and continuing attempts of Putin’s (officially Medvedev’s) Administration to gain control over both domestic and foreign non-governmental organizations (Mereu, 2001; Soros, 2004). The establishment of the Congress of the Intelligentsia responds to the interests of both state power and a particular group of intellectuals. The result is an official organization loyal to the government, whose members have exclusive rights to call themselves the intelligentsia. Criticisms of other intellectuals can now be easily deflected as coming from an unauthorized source. It gives the government an opportunity to dictate from this safe position the rules of the game for non-obedient intellectuals (just in case it ever needs to). In other words, it secures the power to construct definitions even if it does not fully exercise this power at the moment. We should bear in mind that identities ‘emerge within the play of specific modalities of power’ (Hall, 1996: 4) and the social construction of identity

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always takes place in a context marked by power relationships (Castells, 1997: 7). As Bauman argues, in an unstable and uncertain world, ‘withdrawing to the safe haven of territoriality is a constant temptation and defence of territory – the “safe home” – becomes the passkey to all doors one feels must be locked to stave off the . . . threat to spiritual and material comfort’ (Bauman, 2002: 29). It is obvious that intelligentsia is one of the ‘safe homes’ perceived as worth defending. It is not only one of the categories used to create social boundaries (and hence modern inequalities), but also a powerful rhetorical device in the struggle for power and dominance. The category of intelligentsia is incompatible with the discourse of civil society, based on the equal participation of citizens in politics and public activities. It necessarily connotes the superiority of particular individuals who have an exclusive right to speak for the inarticulate public. Roberts et al. (2005, 115–35) note that in communist times the intelligentsia were able to maintain high status and, in this sense, inherently elitist lifestyles: Partly because of their elitist character, these lifestyles could facilitate a combination of political influence with rulers and leadership vis-à-vis the wider public. The intelligentsia could act as mediators, keeping the people informed and governments responsive, in societies which, for most of the time in most of the places, were emphatically not democratic in the Western sense. Greenfield (1996) argues that the Russian intelligentsia withdrew its support from Yeltsin and the new democratic order, having realized that democracy undermines the very core of their identity. In her insightful analysis of the rhetoric of ‘gloom and doom’ so popular among the Russian intelligentsia after 1993, she notes a persistent new theme – ‘the theme of the continuity and kinship, if not identity, between the Russian/Soviet intelligentsia and the Russian nobility’ (Greenfield, 1996: 431; see also Tchujkina, 2006). She observes that most of the essays which were concerned with this theme ‘by giving the proposition “the intelligentsia as the descendant of the nobility” a positive interpretation, intimated the legitimacy of the intelligentsia’s claims to the status of an aristocracy and the illegitimacy of denying it this status, namely, the illegitimacy of the new “democratic” order’ (ibid.: 432). It is interesting to note that the authors of the recent Statement by Russian NonGovernmental Organizations avoided appellation to intelligentsia and instead addressed their concerns to ‘all political and public organizations and movements, mass media, scientists, those who are involved in education and culture’ (On the Formation and Development of Civil Society in Russia, 2001). If affirming the continued existence of the Russian intelligentsia is associated with the legitimizing identity, then the opposing discourse proclaiming the death of the Russian intelligentsia may be considered as a resistance identity, which ‘constructs forms of collective resistance against otherwise unbearable oppression, usually on the basis of identities that were

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apparently clearly defined by history, geography or biology, making it easier to essentialize the boundaries of resistance’ (Castells, 1997: 9). I will further demonstrate how intellectuals experience and deal with strong cultural boundaries in which a new form of their identity can be constructed and will show that practices of resistance can actually lead to a strengthening of the legitimizing identity. According to Foucault (1990, 1995), when something is taken to be the truth, obvious and natural, we can take it as a sign that power/knowledge complexes are operating. Therefore if someone presents the intelligentsia as extant, it can be interpreted from Foucault’s perspective as an application of power, which depends on ideologies and collective constructions, on the network of beliefs, assumptions and ideas people have about their place in life. As Foucault also points out, where there is power there is also resistance and in this case, opposition is expressed through the second major type of discourse – one that denies the intelligentsia both conceptual validity and ontological existence. Some authors though have criticized Foucault for placing too much faith in the liberating power of counter-discourses, counteraffirmations, or reverse discourses as they leave ‘little if any room for [resistance] in any literal sense’ (Evans, 1993: 13). Indeed, as I will show, Evans’ criticism of Foucault can be supported through the analysis of the negative discourse on the Russian intelligentsia as to a great extent this discourse appears to serve as a ‘demonstration by subjects of their successful internalisation of knowledge/power and their ability to police themselves’ (Evans, 1993: 13–14).

The discursive massacre or the mass suicide of post-Soviet intelligentsia? The metaphor of death was propagated in both academic articles and the articles published in non-academic genres: in the newspapers and intellectual magazines; and in both cases the use of this device was inspired by the myth of intelligentsia. The intelligentsia was declared dead, perhaps not as a group on the stratification ladder or the hierarchy of social prestige, but as a unique cultural identity centred around the vision of a distinctive social role to serve as a moral example, to be the people’s conscience (Klopov, 1996). There is something suicidal about this ritual of the discursive assassination of the intelligentsia. However, in contemporary Russia this is one of the ways to claim and perform the intelligentsia identity. The struggle for power often begins with conflicts over definitions and from this perspective the contra efforts of other intellectuals to devalue the intelligentsia concept can be interpreted as an unwillingness to be defined. Breaking down ‘the stereotypes and reductive categories that are so limiting to human thought and communication’ (Said, 1996: x) can be seen as a major task of intellectuals but, as I will show further, this task is much harder to realize when intellectuals try to break free from the category that defines them.

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The metaphor of death is the central structural element of what I call negative discourse on intelligentsia. It is present in both academic articles and in articles published in non-academic genres (newspapers and intellectual magazines), both of which are often authored by the same people. In the more opinionated papers it is alluded to in accounts of the cynicism, opportunism and heartlessness that (as claimed) have spread among the intelligentsia. In research articles, the demise of the intelligentsia is demonstrated by reproducing statistics charting the overall decline of educational standards and the prestige of intellectual jobs in post-Soviet Russia. However, in both cases the use of this device is inspired by the myth of intelligentsia. At this point, the motivation behind the question I put forward as the title for this section should become clear. If we could prove that those who declare intelligentsia dead speak from outside of the frameworks of the intelligentsia myth we could call it a massacre. What we actually observe though is an attempted suicide. In other words, the negative discourse declares intelligentsia dead, but at the same time popularizes the intelligentsia myth and traditional intelligentsia identity. The negative discourse is born out of the reaction to the affirmative discourse and is supported by those who do not accept the bending of intelligentsia identity. Among the many supporters of the discourse, Gleb Pavlovsky2 is probably the most well-known and the most radical: death, corpse, burial ground, resurrection are the metaphors he used to describe the intelligentsia’s situation in contemporary Russia in an interview with the Russky Zhurnal (Pavlovsky, 2001). Pavlovsky identifies himself as ‘one of the intelligentsia tribe’ but says that he ‘through all his projects maintained a distrust of it’. He reinforces this impression of ambiguity by claiming that he cannot help feeling like ‘one of them’ (there are no alternatives), however at the same time he feels unhappy, unsatisfied with what this identity implies. Pavlovsky’s slander of the intelligentsia aims to reaffirm his belonging to the very same intelligentsia. For instance, he claims: Even quarrels are very much a part of intelligentsia business. For me the attacks on the intelligentsia were part of intelligent’s self-identification. In other words, an intelligent has to be sceptical towards the intelligentsia. For an intelligent it is appropriate to slander intelligentsia, thereby feeling one of them. Another example of how myth can be reaffirmed via denial is in the writings of Semyon Faibisovitch.3 His criticism of the intelligentsia (Faibisovitch, 1998) is targeted at such sins as the manipulation with the nostalgia for the Soviet past and the usage of Soviet aesthetic symbols in art productions. He accuses post-Soviet intelligentsia of substituting the interests of the people with their own, of losing their capacity for individual creativity and bona fide behaviour. By blaming modern intelligentsia for failing to live up

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to their historical stereotype and for distorting tradition, Faibisovitch nevertheless maintains the distinction between the people and the intelligentsia as a superior group. The need to be different is crucial for the author – he calls it ‘an instinct of self-preservation’ – and if the intelligentsia is becoming more like narod, the only way to become a true intelligent is ‘to become the Other by incorporating weaponry not from the arsenal of the raznochintsy but from that of nobility’. In practice, what this means is an about-face: instead of approaching the people the intelligentsia should now distance itself from them. In turn, sociologists have attempted to devalue the concept of intelligentsia by portraying it as ambiguous, value-laden (Stepanova, 2003) and without sociological meaning (Pokrovsky, 1998). It is interesting to note that, despite their declarations and ritual demonstrations of objectivity and value-neutrality, personal opinions invariably permeate academic texts whenever an author talks about the intelligentsia. Thus academic publications serve as a performance stage where the claims for the intelligentsia identity are realized. Sociological texts on the intelligentsia are normally written and read as texts by the intelligentsia on the intelligentsia question. For example, although the conclusions of Gudkov and Dubin (1995) from the public opinion research centre VCIOM are based on the results of mass surveys, their findings are framed within an evaluative intelligentsia discourse and not in the genre of scientific publications. They argue, for instance, that soon Russia will rid itself of the dysfunctional intelligentsia in favour of a productive class of intellectual professionals. They suggest that the intelligentsia has abandoned (at least definitely failed to fulfil) its historical mission: ‘to reveal social deficits of meaning and values, to take emerging points of view, which have not yet been fully formed, and to confront them critically in the field of open discussion, to shape them into new texts, visual practices and types of public discourse’ (Gudkov, 1998). The results of public opinion surveys provide Gudkov with the opportunity to conclude that ‘the “intelligentsia” has lost its social and moral authority in the opinion of the public’ (ibid.) and become dysfunctional, blocking the development of Russian civil society. By undermining the value of intelligentsia as a social group and accusing it of forgetting its responsibility for the masses, Gudkov and Dubin at the same time prove that the critical potential of intelligentsia has not been completely exhausted. Sociologist Pokrovsky (1998), whom I quoted at the beginning of the chapter, concludes that debates about the intelligentsia question in a market economy are cynical, hypocritical and initiated by the state propaganda machine. He admits that the demands of the intelligentsia myth are a burden on present-day intellectuals, preventing them from entering socio-economic relations on an equal footing with other social groups. His argument is very similar to the one put forward by Gleb Pavlovsky, who admits: ‘The mythology of the intelligentsia mainstream in Russia should be ignored and utilized, if one does not want to be exploited by it’ (Pavlovsky, 2001).

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Resistance and control: intelligentsia and power This brief overview of the discourses produced by post-Soviet intellectuals illustrates that the construction of new identities takes place within a restricted framework of available options. The myth of intelligentsia remains prominent in public discourse and serves both as a guide in the search for new identities and a criterion for evaluating the identities of fellow intellectuals, therefore mapping social reality. The intelligentsia myth constitutes the essential part of the cultural context for the self-representation of intellectuals in post-Soviet Russia (and Ukraine). Even by distancing themselves from this identity, intellectuals cannot overcome the limitations of the intelligentsia stereotype, as what it means to be a moral person is still framed in public discourse and their own cultural memory in a way that correlates strongly with a particular historical tradition. My brief review of the current intellectual debates about intelligentsia in the field of modern Russian academic and public discourses suggests that, although many intellectuals insist on devaluing the validity of the intelligentsia as a group and as an identity, they continue to popularize the intelligentsia as a name. Thus, the concept remains a useful category for reflecting on and understanding social reality. Intellectuals have a certain amount of power to construct definitions and, at the same time, are able to destroy definitions they themselves created. In this sense intellectuals have an advantage over other groups with less cultural capital, although in the post-Soviet period Russian intellectuals seem to have spent more time dismantling concepts than they did creating new, alternative definitions. Oushakine (2000: 1003) argues that ‘the incapacity of the discursive regime to symbolically frame, to verbally describe, to reproduce on the level of speech the new social, political and cultural situation, forces the post-Soviet subject to build his/her new identity on the basis of “mythic notions retrieved from the past”’. As I have demonstrated, intellectuals use the same strategy as Oushakine observed in his study of the school children. Categories (and the systems of meanings attached to them) provide us with identities and power but can also be used to deprive us of these. The usage of categories in discourse is also an important methodological device for investigating the operation of power in society. Social change usually activates the process of ‘identification’ (Hall, 1996: 2–3). This involves the renegotiation of previous criteria for belonging to one or another category and legitimation of one’s claim to possessing one or another identity, but it should not necessarily be seen as a dissolution of all previous categories and identities. It is important to keep in mind that the transformation from a quasitraditional to a quasi-post-modern or late modern mentality does not necessarily mean that fixed categories and identities are being substituted with fluid and flexible ones. New categories are emerging and old categories have been revived and rendered with new meanings. Epstein (1993), for instance, notes that in post-Soviet Russia the temporal sequencing has broken down

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and cultural artefacts from at least the past two millennia coexist in a peculiarly synchronous way. As Ray argues, ‘post-communism has opened up new terrains of struggle for modernity’ (1997: 547). In the post-communist landscape ‘many individual and collective identities are not only in transition, but also many of them are up for grabs. Diverse forces are competing to shape new identities and to capture the popular energies released by the embrace of new identities’ (Breslauer, 1996: 1). Post-modern self-identity is believed to be individual and personal, rather than monolithic and free from internal contradictions. However, the picture is much more complex than this. Martin O’Brien notes: ‘If you told an ordinary working-class Irish man that he had a fluid identity he might well agree with you and suggest that it was your turn to buy the drinks’ (O’Brien, 2002: 39). Joking aside, what this quote illustrates is that identity formation in contemporary societies – instead of a conscious lifestyle choice – is in actual fact a ‘mucous, viscous, lumpy, sticky gel. It is not a clearing away of previously established reference points and the channelling of free-flowing identifications in a bright blue sea of potential identities, but an uneven, politically dangerous and socially regulated process of sustaining old inequalities and producing new ones’ (O’Brien, 2002: 39). I argue that intelligentsia is one of the sticky identities or safe territories perceived as worth defending, one of the categories used to create social boundaries (and hence modern inequalities). At the same time it is also a powerful rhetorical device in the struggle for power and dominance. Given the essential unpredictability and instability of almost all identities, ‘it is the degree of genuine or putative freedom to select one’s identity and to hold it as long as desired that becomes the principle measure of social advancement and a successful life’ (Bauman, 2002: 23). The realization of this freedom in the Russian context can be seen through the popularization of the affirmative discourse on the Russian intelligentsia. Some intellectuals though are not satisfied with this freedom to conform to the limitations of the intelligentsia identity and perceive it as a mechanism of control. Instead they struggle to break free from this strait jacket and develop a resistance identity – their efforts realized through the negative discourse on intelligentsia. In his recent interview with Gane, Bauman (2004) distinguishes between positive and negative aspects of freedom of identity choice and even between freedom and un-freedom. Genuine freedom is, however, a privilege (though unstable) of the global elite. On the other hand, a substantial part of the majority do not come anywhere near to obtaining the ‘freedom to refute and reject the differences enforced by others, and to resist being “socially recognized”, against their will, for what they resent to be, and would actively refuse to be were it in their power’ (Bauman in Gane, 2004: 34). As this chapter demonstrates, the un-freedom of identity choice is experienced not only by the socially excluded, but also by the intellectual elite. This social group occupies an advantageous position when it comes to the articulation

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of new ideas, but they fall into the disadvantaged group when they struggle for freedom of identity choice. Advocating and propagating the metaphor of death serves as an adaptation resource for intellectuals faced with new socio-economic conditions and power relations. The intelligentsia throughout history has rebelled against its own moral criteria, thus trying to overcome the restriction of the concept morale. It can be argued that what we observe today is just another example of the intelligentsia’s struggle with the boundaries of the concept through which it is socially and culturally defined. Indeed, as it has been recognized by theorists of identity: the problem of identity ‘is the ongoing dialogue between the changing individual (or self) and the continuity of the collective identity known by its name as a signifier of social meaning’ (Bailey, 1999: 10–11). The conceptual difficulties that post-Soviet scholars experience with the term intelligentsia can be explained by the fact that these searches for appropriate definitions are at the same time concerned with the search for self-definition, self-description and self-presentation. The question ‘who are they?’ becomes ‘who are we?’ instead. So far the efforts of the intellectuals to articulate a new identity for themselves have failed. The new identity is constructed as a defensive one. It, on the contrary, popularizes the intelligentsia myth and reaffirms ideal typical features of the traditional identity. Thus even the supporters of the discourse of death of the Russian intelligentsia leave themselves an opportunity to reclaim the traditional intelligentsia role and the superior social position associated with it. As Gessen points out: ‘Entitling my book Dead Again was optimistic. It implies that the intelligentsia can die and be reborn – again’ (quoted in Mattloff, 1998). The totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union effectively controlled the vocabulary and meaning of the words and things through the mass media. The Party alone had the power to give names to things and to identify good and evil; socialist realism was a major source of deception, maintaining an illusion that things are as they should be. The extent to which anti-communist revolutions in Eastern Europe and Russia have been successful in eliminating the totalitarian practices of the previous regime is debatable. Totalitarian methods of control over the economy, political institution and mass media seem to appeal to both previous and current Russian Presidents. Whether the resistance practices of post-communist intellectuals will be enough to prevent the restoration of totalitarian control over citizens’ identities remains to be seen. In this chapter I have illustrated the absence of a consensus about the intelligentsia in post-Soviet Russia, by pointing out two distinctive discursive practices: one aiming to secure the myth of the intelligentsia and the position of the group claiming to be the intelligentsia in the socio-political arena, the other arguing that the idea of the intelligentsia and the norms associated with it are incompatible with the vector of Russia’s development. The advocates of the second perspective resist being measured according to the intelligentsia

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standards, but nevertheless acknowledge the pressure they feel to conform and attempt to secure their liberation by destroying the very origins of their oppression – the myth itself. The analysis of public discourse about the intelligentsia demonstrates that the myth of the intelligentsia still underpins the identity projects of Russian intellectuals. Although there are attempts to construct and legitimize alternatives, the intelligentsia myth remains the only culturally acceptable version of what an intelligent is and should do in Russia. For some it is a starting point to deviate from, for others it is something to aim for. It is important to note that perspectives advocating either the life or the death of the Russian intelligentsia are essentializing in their nature – it is the existence of the specific group and identity that is argued about, and no suggestions are made about the possibility of different intelligentsias. Having established the existence and potency of the intelligentsia myth in contemporary Russia, I will now explore in more detail how this myth influences the identity project of one particular group of Russian intellectuals – the so-called shestidesyatniki.

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The story of a fallen or failed intelligentsia

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Outsiders on the shestidesyatniki

Why the shestidesyatniki? The previous chapter explored the attributes of the debate about intelligentsia that captured the minds of intellectuals in the 1990s. Many have referred to what was going on in academic and media publications as the crisis of the intelligentsia. Most recent studies in Russia (Pustovaya, 2008) have concluded that: the so-called crisis of intelligentsia in Russia has only defined the change of values, that constituted the core of the traditional intelligentsia myth. The mythology of the intelligentsia as a phenomenon of spiritual and public life in Russia will continue into the new millennium, as well as the debate about the intelligentsia aiding its self-identification. This monograph aims to understand what nourished the crisis of intelligentsia in the 1990s, how it was manifested and what its consequences were for a particular group of the intelligentsia as well as for the intelligentsia myth. In the 1990s debates about the intelligentsia, one group figured most prominently. This was the shestidesyatniki – also known as the Thaw generation or the children of the Twentieth Party Congress. The concept shestidesyatniki is closely associated with that of the intelligentsia. They are usually referred to as the last embodiment of the Russian intelligentsia or, on the contrary, deprived of the right to claim this status and role. In this study I aim to understand the phenomenon of intelligentsia through the life experiences of those considered as belonging to this group. What does being the intelligentsia mean for real people? How does the myth of intelligentsia influence the way they live their lives and tell their stories? If the myth has real importance for real people, how does the way they live their lives and talk about it, reinforce or change the myth? The concept shestidesyatniki is as elusive as that of the intelligentsia. Different authors writing about the shestidesyatniki draw different boundaries for the group and inevitably come across difficulties in definition. As Nemser (1992: 230) put it:

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Nobody could tell exactly who they are. The word [shestidesyatniki] was used as a swear word, as a symbol, as a compliment, as a slogan, but not as a definition. As I was reading about the shestidesyatniki, I noticed that their image had axiological connotations and that the representations of this group were controversial. Although there seemed to be an agreement that the shestidesyatniki formed a generation, the opinions about this generation were far from neutral. It was obvious that the value of this group was challenged in public discourse. The identity frame for the people named as the shestidesyatniki included not only discourses on the intelligentsia, but also discourses about the category shestidesyatniki. I presumed that the members of the generation would feel pressured to respond to the accusations levelled at the category shestidesyatniki and take into account the images that others imposed upon them. In this chapter I explore the images of the shestidesyatniki constructed by the outsiders. I try to understand who the others that aim to bond the representatives of the generation into one particular category are and what their interests might be for doing so. Finally, I consider the disputes about the shestidesyatniki, asking if they are in any way related to discourses about the intelligentsia. The practice of assigning individuals and groups of people to categories is a rhetorical device used to win political arguments and shape public opinion. Opponent categories can be fenced out and discredited much more effectively than isolated or idiosyncratic individuals can. Thus, by paying attention to the process of categorization and the construction of public representations, the underlying clash of interests in post-Soviet Russia and the struggles in the redistribution of power are revealed. Referring back to the focus of this study, by analysing mass media representations of the shestidesyatniki we can see which themes provide the basis for the discursive framework the members of the shestidesyatniki group use to perform their identity work. The focal point of this chapter is analysis of the outsiders’ representation of the shestidesyatniki. I will point to the variability of discursive repertoires and the theme that underpins them. The dominant account in the newspapers reviewed seems to be that the shestidesyatniki are fallen or failed intelligentsia and I will demonstrate which repertoires are drawn from the intelligentsia cultural story to substantiate this claim.

Why newspapers? Social representations (Moscovici, 1973, 1984) are generated and maintained in the realm of public discourse. The mass media is one area of social life where these social representations are created, nourished, maintained, contested and transmitted. It is ‘a site on which various social groups, institutions, and ideologies struggle over definition and construction of social reality’ (Gurevitch and Levy, 1985).

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To get an idea of the kind of portraits created for the shestidesyatniki by their friends and foes, I analysed a sample of articles published during the 1990s in the Russian newspapers, contrasting in their history and ideology.1 Newspapers paint a necessarily distorted picture of public life, but these distortions are rather useful, as they give us an idea of whose interests stand behind the competing versions of reality put forward by media messages. It is also important to note what the author takes for granted and which stock of cultural knowledge goes unchallenged in the articles, as this may be considered as a discursive device aimed at influencing the reader (Develotte and Rechniewski, 2001). I started with the newspaper that published the highest number of articles mentioning the derivatives of the word shestidesyatniki. This was Nezavisimaya Gazeta (NG – The Independent Newspaper). NG saw itself (and was seen by its opponents) as the flagship of the democratic press in Russia. Placing NG at the centre of attention enabled me to contrast its discourse with the newspapers representing the so-called ‘patriotic opposition’ – Zavtra (ZVR) and Sovetskaya Rossiya (SR). These anti-democratic, pro-nationalist and pro-communist newspapers did not contain as many mentions of the shestidesyatniki as NG but as it turned out, the topic was no less important here than it was in the democratic press.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta: the Sons versus the Fathers Nezavisimaya Gazeta is a national daily newspaper, first published in December 1990. In the 1990s it was a reputable daily for the high-brow and politically active sections of society. The authors of the articles included many writers, artists, politicians, scholars of various convictions and inclinations as well as staff journalists. Its typical reader, according to the newspaper’s contributors, was an intelligent-intellectual, a successful professional and representative of the modern Russian middle class. Both shestidesyatniki and their opponents were given the floor here. Unlike in the ‘oppositional’ press, the rhetoric of which is unilaterally antishestidesyatniki, the representations of the shestidesyatniki in NG (even those promoted by the outsiders) are contrasting and contradictory. Three features underlie the different accounts. The first of these we might call positional. Outsiders and insiders define the shestidesyatniki differently: those who position themselves outside of the category portray the shestidesyatniki as a homogeneous group, whereas those potentially included within the category see the shestidesyatniki as a much more diverse phenomenon. Insiders also question the existence of the category itself and often attempt to undermine its validity or stability as a discursive device.2 Only those articles whose authors could be identified as non-shestidesyatniki were included in the further analysis and where appropriate I will be pointing out how their perspectives on the shestidesyatniki’s past, present and future contradict the opinions of the shestidesyatniki themselves.

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Second, the outsiders’ opinions about the shestidesyatniki are polarized into either positive or negative and neutral comments are hard to come by. Third, the accounts are either critical or defensive. Critical accounts are pervaded by a strong and uncompromising rhetoric. This rhetoric is powerful enough to force even pro-shestidesyatniki to present their views defensively and to go through a ritual of recognizing the dominance of negative argument. The word ‘shestidesyatni*’ is usually used in three different but frequently overlapping contexts: shestidesyatniki’s role in politics, shestidesyatniki’s role in culture and shestidesyatniki as a generation. Crucially, the last theme dominates all accounts in NG. Shestidesyatniki are often compared with people of the younger generation: the generation that followed them – the so-called people of the 1970s (the semidesyatniki), or with the post-Soviet generation. In spite of the range of opinions offered, NG can be seen as a newspaper of the semidesyatniki.3 Their appraisals of the shestidesyatniki are like that of the pupil who has outgrown the teacher, that is, much more cautious and respectful than those found in the oppositional press, but nevertheless constituting a form of patricide – an attempt to overthrow their spiritual fathers. Generational conflict, and the differences between the shestidesyatniki and the semidesyatniki, permeates the newspaper’s discourse. In this chapter I will preserve the version of the historical past advocated by the newspaper, because these particular representations of the history, however distorted they may seem, are crucial for the identity of the shestidesyatniki. The myths about the liberalism, free spirit, hopes and illusions of Khrushchev’s Thaw and the gloom of Brezhnev’s years are inherent to the shestidesyatniki image. Crucially this is the story of the past advanced by the intelligentsia. The majority of the population of the USSR, workers and peasants, probably did not notice any shifts in the country’s ideology during the 1960s and on the opposite, remember Brechnev’s era as the years of stability and economic prosperity.4 Shestidesyatniki’s discharge from the political scene Two epochs are relevant in connection to the shestidesyatniki: Khrushchev’s Thaw and Gorbachev’s Perestroika. During the first they entered active social and political life and their values, style and world outlook were formed. During the second they (some of them to be exact) finally got a chance to bring their ideals to the political arena. The de-Stalinization declared by Khrushchev in his famous secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 was an impulse that gave birth to further hopes for democratization in all spheres of social life. This formal recognition of the fallibility of Party officials, an acknowledgement that they were only human and could commit mistakes, had the unintended consequence of undermining their authority. They did not seem so threatening any more. As one author put it: ‘[Thanks to Khrushchev] the intelligentsia stopped shaking and gave birth to the shestidesyatniki’ (Panomarev, 2000).

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The shestidesyatniki (born in the late 1920s to early 1930s) were too young to feel either the fear associated with Stalin’s repressions or the affection for the leader that many from the older generations still felt: ‘Predecessors of the shestidesyatniki, soldered by fear of the System and the brotherhood of the trenches, felt themselves at best cogs in the empire machine, at worst as simply dissolved till indistinguishable in the plasticine mass of “Soviet people” ’ (Bujda, 1997). On the contrary, the shestidesyatniki accepted Khrushchev’s ideas with enthusiasm. They were ready for change and eager to actively participate in introducing it (Alpatov, 1998). Encouraged by Khrushchev, the shestidesyatniki relished the opportunity to become involved in the political life of the country. Although the union between Khrushchev and the shestidesyatniki could not be called the happiest, they did give him their support and energy. Khrushchev’s slogans provided a base for further spiritual searching by the shestidesyatniki. But the search did not go in a completely different direction to the Party line: the shestidesyatniki were interested in a new type of socialism ‘with a human face’. Lenin’s legacy was a source of inspiration, but first it had to be purified of Stalinist distortions. The denunciation of Stalin’s crimes at the Twentieth and Twenty-second Party Congresses was a difficult cross to bear for all socialists but it did not undermine the shestidesyatniki belief in Leninist ideals (NG, 1998). However, disillusionment quickly followed. In the same year that the Twentieth Party Congress was held, Khrushchev took several steps back,5 which came as a shock to the shestidesyatniki’s hopes for a better and freer future. The next chapter of the shestidesyatniki’s story involves the struggle for the continuation of democratic change in the country – the struggle which is often attributed as a source of the protest movement in the USSR. NG authors accept that the shestidesyatniki’s aspirations fit within the traditional intelligentsia role. The shestidesyatniki are portrayed as having taken on the role of social critics: ‘shestidesyatniki struggled not with communism and Marxism-Leninism, but with the whole Party apparatus, with “Soviet imperialism”, with everything connected to the state, law-enforcement authorities and with the idea of national interests’ (Tsipko, 1996, 2000). The shestidesyatniki were neither anti-communists, nor anti-socialists; they were against totalitarianism and state bureaucracy. When elaborating upon their views of the shestidesyatniki, NG contributors tend to define the group narrowly. Not all of those born in the late 1920s and early 1930s are described as shestidesyatniki, only those who were active in social and political life; not all activists, but only those within the communist tradition; not all communists, but those struggling for socialism with a human face against state bureaucracy and totalitarianism; not all communists born in the same years who raised their voice against totalitarianism either, but only social democrats of the internationalist type. This narrowly defined cohort is contrasted with the nationalist communists. This opposition is analogous with the eternal conflict

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within the ranks of the Russian intelligentsia: Westernizers versus Slavophiles, where the shestidesyatniki are described as the former. In NG the shestidesyatniki are ridiculed for their continued belief in a new and better form of socialism, even when reality has proved otherwise. Their liberalism is called timid and romantic and they are pictured as spineless and naive. In the end, the dreams of the shestidesyatniki did not come true – theirs is a ‘generation whose mouths were gagged in due time’, which explains why they appeared on the scene again during Perestroika: to say what they did not have a chance to say before, to finish unfinished business. Not only did they ‘fill the posts in Gorbachev’s government, having substituted Brezhnev’s elderly house’; their ideas also drove the reforms implemented and were ‘the engine of Gorbachev’s Perestroika’ (Meshkov, 2000). Indeed, the four major principles of Gorbachev’s Perestroika (see Lane, 1992) can easily be traced back to Khrushchev’s 1956 speech. The speech served as an inspiration to searches of many intellectuals and resulted in the ideas of khozraschet, glasnost, democratization inaugurated in the late 1980s by the new Party leader. NG contributors do not oppose these principles per se, but are nevertheless bitter about the far from ideal results of their implementation. As we know, Gorbachev’s reforms, despite initiating a wave of change across Eastern Europe and Eurasia, failed to improve the living standards of Soviet citizens and he was eventually toppled in 1991 by a team of ‘democrats’ headed by Yeltsin. Later the shestidesyatniki, who had been the first to back Yeltsin and secured his ideological and propagandist support (Shokhina, 2000), were also dismissed. ‘They were left out of business, when after August 1991 the new Russia required practitioners. To the front came people born in the 1950s’ (Bujda, 1997). Here, the shestidesyatniki are contrasted with the thirty and forty year-old members of Gaidar’s government, to the ‘young liberal wolfs’ (Modestov, 1999) who came to power with Yeltsin. Whereas in the context of the Khrushchev reforms the shestidesyatniki emerge as a non-controversial generation – I did not identify any examples of negatively coloured discourse, their description in the context of Perestroika appears much more ambiguous. They are the same people, but still different: the ‘boys have grown up’ and the attitude to them has altered. In the context of the Thaw they appear as excited about the novelty of it, full of energy and enthusiasm to realize their ideas. That is how the shestidesyatniki were – no one seems to argue, but in their current state, when the ‘gilding has crumbled’, they cause nothing but irritation (Kravchenko, 2001). In this context they are exposed as failed or fallen intelligentsia. The focus shifts from their youthful gullibility to the perceived mistakes of the Perestroika period. No one in NG disputes that Perestroika was achieved by the shestidesyatniki, although it is evaluated differently from Khrushchev’s Thaw and so too are the shestidesyatniki as its authors. The prevailing position seems to be that the shestidesyatniki are responsible for what went wrong during and after Perestroika. The accusations are directed towards things that

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were left unattended to as well as towards the shestidesyatniki, who were uncertain and indecisive about future plans and allowed a group of egoist politicians to seize power and pursue their own interests. The shestidesyatniki are accused of losing control of events they themselves had set in motion, of not knowing what else to do or, at least, of being unable to make up their mind. Perestroika looked like a series of false starts and aborted attempts to find a way forward. Gorbachev himself was not an example of determination and firmness. As Fedor Burlatsky (2001) commented: ‘He suffered (anguished) anti-Stalinism like many shestidesyatniki and that’s why he had so much difficulty imposing his will.’ To sum up, there is a pattern to NG contributors’ representations of the shestidesyatniki. The bright new things that came onto the scene awakened by Khrushchev’s Thaw and influenced by his initiative of democratization are said to have ultimately failed to live up to their promise and outlived their usefulness. Nevertheless, when the shestidesyatniki resurfaced during Gorbachev’s Perestroika, aiming to change the world once again, they were still pursuing their belief in socialism with a human face. Their determination to chase this utopia was their Achilles’ heel. Instead of modernizing their agenda and decisively moving forward, they got lost. The more ruthless and cold-blooded politicians took advantage of the shestidesyatniki’s shillyshallying. By the time the shestidesyatniki realized this, it was too late and they were out of the political scene. They are therefore failed intelligentsia, recognized as intelligentsia in relation to their past selves, by virtue of their biography, but no longer worthy of the role. The main criticism levelled at the shestidesyatniki by NG contributors relates to the generation’s apparent failure to translate its ideas into practical (social and political) reality. Here, the same interpretative repertoire of the intelligentsia cultural story that was used by the generation of the intelligentsia Sons to denounce their Fathers at the end of the nineteenth century is employed to assess the shestidesyatniki. Pragmatism, action, results and manoeuvrability are prioritized over the strength and rigidity of beliefs. This particular repertoire demands that intelligentsia not only strongly believe in their ideas but also are ready to put them into practice and to critically reconsider these ideals when incompatible with reality. It is an interpretative repertoire often utilized during times when one generation of intelligentsia strives to substitute another and, arguably, functions as one of the mechanisms of social change in Russia. It is important to note the ambivalence here: the shestidesyatniki are criticized for being romantic idealists and it is accepted that more practical men should have taken over but at the same time their unselfishness is also valued. This ambiguity reveals that one criterion of the intelligentsia’s moral image remains unchallenged in NG. It is the sincerity of aspirations and the unselfishness of motives that both idealists and pragmatics are required to abide by. As we shall see, this is the main repertoire used by nonshestidesyatniki to reinforce the shestidesyatniki’s moral image or denounce

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them as fallen intelligentsia, as well as by the shestidesyatniki themselves to rebound these accusations.

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Cultural changes during the Thaw Before proceeding with the discussion of the shestidesyatniki’s representation within a cultural context, I should perhaps remind the reader about the changes that took place in the Soviet Union’s cultural life during the 1960s. Cultural production in the USSR was tightly controlled by the Party, which utilized literature and other forms of culture to manipulate mass consciousness and transmit official ideology. Socialist realism was the only permissible form of Soviet literature or art. As the Constitution of the Union of Writers stated: Socialist realism demands from the author a truthful and historically grounded artistic depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover . . . it must be combined with the task of ideological remoulding and education of the workers in the spirit of socialism. (The First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934) The creative intelligentsia received numerous benefits from the state but only when it remained obedient. Nevertheless, being the intelligentsia, it tended to go beyond the limits set by the system, which in turn responded with repressive methods to keep things under control. The situation changed after Stalin’s death. With the change of leadership the old methods were not enforced as effectively as before and the creative intelligentsia were able to at least partially evade censorship, especially the limits imposed by socialist realism. One of the earliest indications of the Thaw after Stalin’s death was the appeal, bold for its times, for greater literary freedom. In 1953, literary journal Novy Mir – a leading promoter of liberalization in the post-Stalinist period – published an article by Vladimir Pomerantsev entitled On Sincerity in Literature. In it, the author argued that writers should be allowed to express their feelings and deliver personal messages. Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, declined by Novy Mir and eventually published by the Italian publishing house Feltrinelli in 1958, offered an example of such literature, having substituted the moral individualism of the writer in place of official ideology. However, the novel contained a deeper meaning – the implication that the Revolution had in reality sacrificed individual liberation for the sake of social transformation. Immediately after Stalin’s death writers rushed to pronounce the start of a new era. The Thaw (Znamya, 5, 1954) and Not by Bread Alone (Novy Mir, 8–10, 1956) were the first signs of the new literature emerging – literature that was not just about revealing the bad people within the system but which attempted a limited and timid criticism of the system itself. The Party perceived this flowering of literary freedom as a threat. Khrushchev’s speech denounced the crimes of Stalin and his gang of close

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collaborators, but the question of why it ever became possible for one person to gain so much power was never posed. The socialist system and Communist Party were left intact. New literature threatened to ask the question ‘why?’. The very idea of the ‘individual writer isolated from the struggle and creative activity of society’ and literature leaving its ‘lofty positions of teacher of the feelings and character of the builders of communism’ was not acceptable (Ob oshibkah zhurnala Novy Mir, 1954). Khrushchev admitted: ‘We were scared, really scared. We were afraid that the thaw might unleash a flood, which we would not be able to control and which could drown us’ (Talbott, 1977). This was a risk that the Party could not afford to take and the literary thaw did not last long. Initially the cultural intelligentsia were not imprisoned but the launch of a smear campaign against Novy Mir in September 1954 and the sacking of its chief editor Tvardovsky ‘for serious political mistakes’ was enough to demonstrate the strong hand of the Party. Novy Mir was required to publish an official resolution condemning its ‘mistakes’ and criticizing several recent articles, including the one by Pomerantsev (1953). In 1957 (hastened by events in Hungary) ‘Not By Bread Alone’ was severely criticized as ‘ideologically vicious’. The Thaw was a constant movement backwards and forwards. In 1958 Tvardovsky was reinstated as chief editor of Novy Mir (where he remained until 1972). In the same year Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Doctor Zhivago but was forced to refuse it by officially encouraged baiting in the USSR. Pasternak died prematurely in 1960, partly as a result of the bitter attacks against him, and his funeral turned into a public demonstration. A month later, in July 1960, Alexander Ginsburg was arrested and sentenced to two years imprisonment for the unauthorized publication of the magazine Sintaksis. Samizdat (self-publishing) was not the only unofficial activity of Soviet creative intelligentsia. Unable to publish their novels in the USSR some writers decided to publish them abroad (e.g. Arzhak (Daniel), 1962). Khrushchev then initiated a second wave of de-Stalinization in 1961, having restated his condemnation of the cult of personality at the Twenty-second Party Congress. Stalin’s body was removed from the Lenin mausoleum and the thousands of places named after Stalin were renamed throughout the country. This new cycle of liberalization was soon reflected in the literary realm. The publication of Solzhenitsyn’s first novel One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch in Novy Mir (9, 1962) was approved personally by Khrushchev and in its wake thousands of labour-camp memoirs and novels swamped the editorial offices of weighty journals. Solzhenitsyn’s novel implied that Stalinization was a mass phenomenon – it was not simply the product of individual decisions, which claimed individual victims, but characterized the Soviet system at all levels. Around the same time, Evtushenko’s poem The Heirs of Stalin was published, which suggested that there were still many Stalinists in the USSR yearning for the good old days and dreaming of a return to power. Cultural liberalization soon proved to be an illusion though. The Cuban missile crisis (1962) weakened Khrushchev’s political

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position and gave his opponents an opportunity to counterattack. Then, in December 1962, when Khrushchev and other high officials visited an exhibition of modernist paintings at the Manezh gallery in Moscow, the Premier had an outburst of earthy indignation, including abusive and threatening exchanges with some of the artists. By early 1963 the campaign against liberal intellectuals was in full swing. Evtushenko and other young and outspoken writers were criticized. But at the end of the year, when Khrushchev had cemented his position, those writers he had attacked just a few months before were restored to favour. So far I have spoken about culture within the wider political context and not without reason. As we have just seen, in Russian history, politics and culture are intimately related. Under Khrushchev the cultural thaw paralleled the political thaw and the freezing in culture was a reaction to political freezing. Likewise, during the de-Stalinization campaign literature was ‘the most sensitive barometer, registering the successive changes in the political weather of the Khrushchev era’ (Shatz, 1980: 101). The Khrushchev period came to be known as The Thaw after Ehrenburgh’s novel of the same title, which was published in 1954, and the shestidesyatniki were christened after Stanislav Rassadin’s article ‘The Shestidesyatniki’, published in Yunost in 1960. The enforced redundancy from the Enlightenment mission The range of opinions about the shestidesyatniki as a cultural phenomenon expressed by NG contributors is much more polarized than their representation in the political context, partly because shestidesyatnichestvo in literature was not simply a new style. As well as reflecting the social and political changes taking place it also attempted to shape social values and set the moral agenda. In this the literature of the shestidesyatniki can be seen as a return to the interrupted intelligentsia tradition (see Bioul-Zedginidze, 1996). It was written with a purpose in mind: to reveal the truth, to criticize, to denounce social faults. It aimed to teach,6 but not everyone from the younger generation of the intelligentsia could appreciate such a patronizing attitude. In NG the shestidesyatniki are remembered as ‘musicians, writers, and theatre and film directors – bards who during the brief Khrushchev’s Thaw managed to express the pain that tortured them’ (Mishchevskaya, 2000). The uniqueness of their contribution to culture is recognized but its value, in terms of its social and political usefulness, is contested. The pro-shestidesyatniki authors praise the shestidesyatniki as keepers of the flame and guardians of culture (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1998). They see the shestidesyatniki as ‘distinguished by high moral breeding, ideational purity and disinterestedness of motivations’, as the last of the impeccably moral Russian intelligentsia (Kharitonov, 2001). Their literature is applauded for its unflinching honesty, and this is considered as a feature (even if just an ideal) of the shestidesyatniki themselves. Their enthusiasm and friendship,

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as well as their detachment and disinterest in pursuing a career or making money are seen as core generational values. The anti-shestidesyatniki accuse the shestidesyatniki of the very sins the pro-shestidesyatniki claim they were free of: greed, careerism, status seeking, amorality and a readiness to sacrifice their ideals to succeed. They do not deny that the shestidesyatniki’s literature was hugely successful, but explain it by referring to the manipulative features of the shestidesyatniki’s personalities. The shestidesyatniki are pictured as skilful temporizers, their dissent called operetta-like and their anti-Soviet manner and honesty – no more than an imitation. They are claimed to have lived according to double standards, adjusting to situations (Zaslavsky, 1998). They are pictured as people who never missed a chance to profit, even when it contradicted with their moral standards. It is argued that the shestidesyatniki are old, have nothing new or even relevant to say about modern reality; their political views and aesthetic standards are naive and outdated, and all in all it is time for them to go: the shestidesyatniki resist and do not leave their positions willingly and in due course. Their task is to leave the scene gracefully. This they could have done already. That is why our generation should seize the power. (Brusnikin, 1999) As we have seen, the shestidesyatniki are either defended on the basis of their successful realization of intelligentsia ideals, or accused of betraying the intelligentsia tradition, as well as failing to live up to its high standards. The younger generation feels suffocated by the cultural legacy of the shestidesyatniki and aims to clear some space for themselves, drawing upon the intelligentsia’s cultural story to denounce the shestidesyatniki’s moral image. As Boris Yukhanov (born 1957) put it in his interview to NG (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1996): As an enterprise theatre today belongs to the generation of the shestidesyatniki. Having made names in the 1970s – now they sell them, sucking out money from private enterprises – the simplest way of advertising . . . Our generation of theatre directors is completely deprived of any opportunity to realize not only our aesthetics but also our individual talents. And this is tragic. This power motive does not go unnoticed by the pro-shestidesyatniki authors (and is a major concern for the shestidesyatniki themselves, as I will show in the next chapter), who warn that such conflict between generation-based power blocs is a potential time bomb waiting to explode. In a cultural context, as in the political context, the ageing shestidesyatniki of today are compared unfavourably with their younger, more radical selves and honourable past. The underlying message is that they are failed

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intelligentsia. They are not simply pictured as dinosaurs, comical in their attempts to compete with the progressive younger intelligentsia, but it is claimed that they have discredited themselves and therefore cannot be trusted to take on the intelligentsia role. This can be illustrated by a quote from an article written by the well-known critical leftist political scientist Boris Kagarlitsky (born 1958). Although the author recognizes the shestidesyatniki’s influence on the period up to the mid-1990s he denies them a place in modern culture, arguing that ‘the shestidesyatniki have discredited themselves’: Up to the mid-1990s the shestidesyatniki set a cultural example . . . But society changed and so did tastes. The shestidesyatniki are different too – the younger generation of 25 to 30 year olds does not remember their honourable past, it sees only their present . . . Especially now when because of the efforts of the older generation of intelligentsia their own life experience and culture have been completely discredited. To some they are relics from the Soviet past and some see in the heroes of the 1960s no more than the current President’s servitors . . . shestidesyatniki’s culture was connected to its epoch and ideology. Having destroyed both, the shestidesyatniki have exterminated themselves in a spiritual plan. (Kagarlitsky, 1997) Their attitude is understandable, although it is often conflated with other social problems. For example, the argument that the old elite should be overthrown is backed up by another one: that it is not just the wish of the younger generation but a requirement of the times, which are characterized by the clash between modernist and postmodernist values. The conclusion we are expected to draw is that it is obvious that the former must give up and the legitimacy of the latter be accepted. The generational conflict: old intelligentsia dismissed As I have already discussed, the term shestidesyatniki is usually reserved for people born in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Those born in the 1940s7 are denied any collective generational identity – they are a non-generation, by virtue of the fact that they were born between two distinctive generations. The next outstanding generation is that of the semidesyatniki, people born in the 1950s. In this section, I will consider in more details how the shestidesyatniki and the semidesyatniki generations are pictured by the nonshestidesyatniki in NG. The journalists seem to spend much more effort establishing the differences between generations than pointing out similarities and creating continuity. Both shestidesyatniki and semidesyatniki are depicted as homogeneous groups but only the shestidesyatniki are allowed an identity of their own. The semidesyatniki, on the other hand, exist solely in terms of their relationship to the preceding generation of shestidesyatniki. Their defining characteristic

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seems to be that they are different from the shestidesyatniki, as can be seen in Table 3.1. There is no explicit mention of the features members of the two generations share, or of the aspects of the myth both groups subscribe to. This means that, at times, there seems to be little difference between shestidesyatniki and semidesyatniki, although journalists never comment upon this. Both generations are sometimes presented as romantics, although when one is called romantic the other is automatically denied this feature, and vice versa. For example, one article emphasizes the semidesyatniki’s fascination with mysticism and religion in contrast to the irreligious shestidesyatniki (Shtepa and Sergeev, 1996), another casts them as cold-blooded practitioners devoid of the shestidesyatniki’s romanticism and naivety. Elsewhere we see the semidesyatniki as pragmatists, cynics and hypocrites, as a generation ‘distinguished by disbelief, malice, tiredness presupposed in advance, an absence of romanticism, and as a result – the presence of a mocking, witty view of the world’ (Tsvetkov, 1997). We find out that if the shestidesyatniki were cautious in their reformism, the semidesyatniki were decisive; their approaches to problems were as different as the therapist is to the surgeon (Bujda, 1997). Shestidesyatniki were non-conformists in the sense that they were good at denying things and dreaming about the world but unable to make any practical steps towards changing it. Semidesyatniki, on the contrary, wanted change and succeeded in implementing it. Further contrast emerges between the communalism of the shestidesyatniki and the individualism of the semidesyatniki, who quickly realized ‘that their solitude is a fact of life and creation’ (Tsvetkov, 1997) and learnt to say me instead of we (Bujda, 1997). The shestidesyatniki are associated with the lines from the Okudzhava’s song: ‘Let’s hold our hands friends, not to vanish on our own.’ They are well known for their ability to make friends and keep friendships. The semidesyatniki, however, are like ‘islands in the ocean’, each by himself: ‘When they hear Okudzhava’s famous song, they turn away in embarrassment. Each of them has survived on his own’ (ibid.). The shestidesyatniki were ready to believe the promises of Party leaders. Again and again they were disappointed but their illusions remained unaltered. The semidesyatniki learnt from their parents’ experience and because of this it was more difficult, if not impossible, to deceive them. The shestidesyatniki

Table 3.1 Shestidesyatniki versus semidesyatniki Shestidesyatniki

Semidesyatniki

Idealistic, naive, romantic, spineless Enslaved by ideology Collectivistic Cautious reformers Dreamy

Cynical, sceptical, pragmatic, rational Free generation Individualistic Decisive reformers Clear-headed

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went through a series of disillusionment, but remained unshakeable in their convictions, naive beliefs and hopes. Even when Perestroika gave them a chance to try again, they emerged on the stage unchanged, which from the point of view of NG authors is quite laughable: One cannot help but draw a comparison with our first democrats: the same persuasion that proved truth is unambiguously accepted by everyone, the same naiveté that authorities need only the truth and not something else; the same inability to foresee what their ideas will lead to in practice; the same miscomprehension when the spirits they freed begin acting against the will of their creators and often against them. (Nosov, 1998) In contrast, the picture of the semidesyatniki is different. We find out that from the very beginning they believed in neither ideas nor ideals, instead scepticism was the air they breathed from birth. They grew up in the atmosphere of disillusionment experienced by their parents, in a situation where anecdotes debunking all previous authorities had replaced social realism as the main form of political criticism. The parents’ whisper became their cry and it was the background for the formation of their character and outlook on the world. Attitudes to socialism are an important point of contrast between the two groups. Whereas the shestidesyatniki are presented as strong believers in the idea of good socialism, who in spite of all the criticism never questioned the basics of socialist ideology, the semidesyatniki appear to have been radical anti-communists from the outset (Shapoval, 2003). NG is highly critical of the shestidesyatniki’s inability to reconsider their views and compares them with teenagers looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses. Although another, contrasting view also emerges from the paper when shestidesyatniki are accused of mental and emotional duplicity, skilfully adjusting to the demands of the time and ready to renounce their beliefs when it suits them: Rozov is not a shestidesyatnik. First of all he is older. Secondly, his straightforwardness and eternal sincerity prevent him from bending and living with split feelings. (Zaslavsky, 1998) Whatever they do is seen as insincere; even their non-conformism is believed to be false, motivated by their quest for popularity and attention. They are called time-servers, valuing their own, often material, well-being more than their ideas (Toporov, 1999). It is important to note that in any of the three contexts – political, cultural or generational, positive comments about the contemporary shestidesyatniki are hard to come by. Even when contributors attempt to defend them, their accounts are usually formulated as a defence or resort to what we might call

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the ‘yes, but’ strategy, where ‘yes’ serves to establish the rightfulness of the dominant negative discourse, and as a consequence ‘but’ does not completely undermine the negative opinions. A positive approach to the shestidesyatniki is necessarily preceded or followed by a reference to the dominant negative discourse, as if the journalists intend to demonstrate that they are aware of the prevailing attitude and even agree with it to some extent, but nevertheless want to present a balanced argument. Here is an example of this discursive strategy: In general it was an evening of the shestidesyatniki with their clear ideas of morality, faithfulness to the old friends and literary tradition, stories from the past. Probably this aesthetics is already outdated, but the journal Zvezda (The Star) . . . exists and still shines in the sky of Russian literature. It happens with the stars. (Klimova, 1998) Here the journalist seems to accept the dominant idea that the time of the shestidesyatniki has passed and masks her positive attitude to the generation behind metaphors, implying that the shestidesyatniki are stars and in spite of whatever one thinks or says about them, they do exist and shine. As I argued above, the shestidesyatniki are represented as failed intelligentsia in relation to both their political and cultural agenda. This repertoire is exploited by the younger generation of the intelligentsia in their attempt to win the war of generations. Discursively, the keyword and associated value NG contributors use to denounce the shestidesyatniki is belief; conversely the superiority of the semidesyatniki is signified by the use of the key-wordvalue reason. This replays the takeover that took place a century earlier when the idealistic philosophy of the intelligentsia Fathers was substituted with the rational thinking of the Sons. Interestingly, the strongest accusations against the shestidesyatniki are based on their failure to live up to those aspects of the intelligentsia moral image that the semidesyatniki want to preserve. Therefore, NG contributors want to keep intelligentsia ‘alive’, but only that modification of it they want to pursue: sober, practical and pragmatic, but nevertheless unselfish, independent and non-materialistic.

The oppositional press: the shestidesyatniki’s wicked treachery or down with the intelligentsia werewolves In this section I look at representations of the shestidesyatniki in newspapers of the so-called oppositional camp.8 Sovetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia, SR) and Zavtra (Tomorrow, ZVR) are very close in terms of ideology and discourse, although ZVR is much more extreme and nationalist than SR. The first point I would like to make is that the oppositional press do not judge the shestidesyatniki according to the traditional cultural story of the intelligentsia. This is because its discourse is underpinned by moral standards

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that the communist regime imposed on all its citizens. This discourse starts from the premise that all social groups should be valued according to what they contributed to industrialization and the stability of the regime. The moral image for the Soviet citizens was based on the faithfulness to the regime and devotion of their lives to serving it loyally. Some aspects of this idealization resemble key elements of the intelligentsia stereotype: selflessness – a devotion to the people and hard work – again for the state and the people and not for themselves. The critical aspect of the original story was however purged, as was alienation from the authorities and the people. The state, the Party and the people became one in this discourse, therefore if the intelligentsia struggled to maintain freedom and intellectual independence, it faced either forced immigration or a one-way ticket to a labour camp as the ‘enemies of the people’. The judgement of the shestidesyatniki is unilaterally negative in both oppositional newspapers, and betrayal (of the Party, the people and the nation) is the key word in this discourse. This is the cardinal sin for the intelligentsia, and it is more than enough to slander the shestidesyatniki. Thus, while the oppositional press clearly draws upon the idea that the shestidesyatniki were a form of the intelligentsia, it is ideologically predisposed to denounce their non-conformity and instead glorify the real shestidesyatniki, the loyal Soviet citizens that remained faithful to the regime and its agenda. The articles in both newspapers usually present one point of view only. All opposing viewpoints are dismissed, the assumption being, you are either for or against us. Political opponents are regularly accused of being enemies of the state and the people. Both newspapers describe themselves in editorials as oppositional, which involves being against democracy, the destruction of the communist past and Soviet values, and other changes brought by Perestroika and subsequent reforms. The word democracy is usually written in inverted commas: ‘democrats’, ‘democratic’ and ‘liberal’ are used pejoratively. These papers are self-consciously conservative. Their conservatism is reactionary and is rooted in the past – in Soviet, Tsarist and medieval Russia. The papers also have strong links with the post-Soviet communist parties. Zavtra is a weekly newspaper published since 1991 (until 1993 it was called Den’). It is a product of the democratization of the press in the 1990s, but ironically, this child rebelled against his parents. Like SR, Zavtra can be seen as an anti-democratic newspaper but its discourse is much more extremist, nationalist and xenophobic. The Russian Federation’s Ministry of Press regularly issues warnings threatening to close Zavtra down, accusing it of extremist activity. SR could, ironically, be called a Shestidesyatnik. It was established in July 1956 right after the Twentiethth Party Congress ‘with a mission to become the mouthpiece of Russia, whose voice in a multinational country should be pronounced from the pages of the Russian people’s newspaper’.9 I say ‘ironically’ because it views the shestidesyatniki as enemies with opposing values. SR claims that two-thirds of its articles are authored by the readership

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but, unlike NG, most of its lay journalists are members of the Communist Party or at least pro-communists and pro-Stalinists. The paper declares ‘the majority of its authors and readers stand for honest historicism, gosudarstvennost (the value of a strong state), social justice and power of the people’. Honest historicism resists attempts to critically reconsider Russian and Soviet history, to free it from ideological distortions and the heritage of Soviet times. Attempts to reveal previously unknown facts about the brutality of collectivization, forced migration of whole nations and other numerous crimes of the Stalinist period are strongly objected to. Stalin is presented as a hero whom evil forces aiming to destroy Russia want to remove from the pedestal. He is also seen as the Soviet leader who won the Great Patriotic War and defeated world fascism; who presided over industrialization and turned the Soviet Union into a great power. The idea of a strong national state unites both newspapers and forms the basis of their ideology. The Soviet Union, especially under Stalin’s leadership, embodies this ideal. A return to the totalitarian methods of Stalin is seen to be the only way out for modern Russia, the only way to bring order to democratic chaos. Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their supporters, together with other liberal democratic-reformers (including Putin and Medvedev), are the main enemies, because they have destroyed the Soviet Union and discredited the honourable Soviet past. The lexicon and structure of SR articles reflect the ‘best’ traditions of Soviet journalism: articles characterized by their simplicity, brief and to the point phrases, a complete lack of originality that caters to the lowest common denominator, the over-use of black and white imagery, emotionally-charged slogans and adjectives such as great and legendary, articles about great people of the Soviet epoch, the great Soviet Empire and so on. Anti-Semitic, antiWestern and anti-Government positions dominate and are mixed with proSoviet rhetoric and reference to cultural artefacts such as Stalingrad, Stalin, Lenin and the Communist Party. Zavtra’s rhetoric is noticeably less primitive. Its editor Prokhanov is a well-known writer, defender of aesthetic standards and supporter of the genre’s claims to intellectualism. There is also a branch of Zavtra called Den’ Literatury (Day of Literature) edited by Vladimir Bondarenko, deputy chief editor of Zavtra. Zavtra’s postmodernist blend of Soviet and religious discourse is more sophisticated than SR’s ranting. The denigration of enemies is an essential feature of this newspaper’s discourse. As Rodionova (2000) explains, oppositions are crucial for constructing the meaning of key codes in the newspaper’s mythology. Taken separately, each of the ideological clichés appears to be empty and acquires meaning only through the contrasts with opposing concepts. So, for example, images of Russia or the Motherland do not make any sense until they are opposed to their enemies. If the NG denunciation of the shestidesyatniki value is driven by the conflict between two generations of liberal intelligentsia, the SR and Zavtra discourse

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aims to denounce the liberal intelligentsia project altogether. The shestidesyatniki here appear as an important opposing ideological type. They are pictured as failed intelligentsia in the NG, whereas the patriotic press denies them any moment of the glory – they appear polluted by nature. The number of articles that the search of the electronic database returned was not as impressive as it was with NG, but these low figures do not mean that the topic is unimportant. The reason for low return is that the category shestidesyatniki has many synonyms in these newspapers: liberals, liberal intelligentsia, anti-patriots, democrats and numerous common nouns such as gorbachevs, bonners, svanidzes, sakharovs, okudzhavas of all sorts constructed from the surnames of those people associated with the shestidesyatniki. In SR and Zavtra, as well as in NG, the shestidesyatniki are placed in both political and cultural contexts, however there is no underlying theme of generational conflict. Writer-shestidesyatniki are dealt with decisively: ‘We have torn off the false clothes from the shestidesyatniki Bulat Okudzhava and Evgeny Evtushenko’ announces Zavtra in the new issue of the Den’ Literatury (Zavtra, 1997). In politics, shestidesyatniki are strongly associated with Perestroika and Gorbachev is called a caricature of shestidesyatnichestvo. The ideology of Perestroika is strongly denounced, as are all Gorbachev’s suggestions. Even his policy of Glasnost is referred to as a crime. Whereas NG authors, using the discursive strategy ‘yes, but’ can accept that the results of modern freedom of speech are an achievement of Perestroika and the shestidesyatniki, the patriotic press does not see anything positive in it, ‘the shestidesyatniki’s model has crashed shamefully and totally’ (Bobrov, 2001). Again, as they were in NG, shestidesyatniki are referred to as: ‘the children of the Twentieth Party Congress’ who later became Gorbachev’s companionsin-arms. However, at this point, dissimilarities between the two newspapers begin. If NG portrayed shestidesyatniki as those who did not experience strong psychological shock during Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, for SR, on the contrary they are ‘the generation in which psychosis happened, a great break-down, who betrayed their ideals’ (Ivanov, 2000). They were people ‘born in Stalin’s times, brought up in fanatic faithfulness to him but who had to drag their idol through the mud upon orders from above. It was violence over the psyche, which left deep traces in their personalities. The result of this was cynicism and disbelief, typical for this generation’ (ibid.). In contrast, in NG we saw shestidesyatniki as naive romantics who, in spite of objective social transformations, appeared to be unable to change their ideals. The generation of their children was characterized by cynicism and disbelief but the shestidesyatniki remained idealists. The oppositional press also views the reasons behind Gorbachev’s appeal to the shestidesyatniki for help differently. It was precisely due to this trauma of the psyche that these people turned out to be useful: ‘Because those who betrayed once, will betray again’ (ibid.). They were spiritually supple and prepared to commit treason. Curiously enough, both NG and SR accuse the

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shestidesyatniki of flexibility and a readiness to betray previous ideas, but from different temporal frameworks. NG cannot forgive them for turning away from Gorbachev, SR for initially helping him. The ideological orientations of the shestidesyatniki are far from consensual across media discourse. Whereas NG pictures the shestidesyatniki as incorrigible communists, naive believers in socialism with a human face, for the patriotic press they are unquestionably anti-communists and their affiliation with socialist ideas is never even mentioned. Shestidesyatniki and dissidents are used as synonyms. They are pictured as people who lived at the same time as ‘patriots’ but whose historical memory is distorted, who remember only the worst of Soviet history, but do not understand that it was the cruelty of the Soviet system that helped them to mature as personalities. Gorbachev appears in these oppositional newspapers as a figure sponsored by the West, whose aim has always been to destroy Russia. Anti-patriots and Westernizers are other synonyms for the shestidesyatniki generation. They are claimed to have idealized the West, thinking that all the achievements of Great Russian and Soviet civilizations deserved only condemnation. All they dreamt of was to subordinate Russia to the West and America, and the liquidation of the Soviet Union was only the first step of their programme. They aimed to destroy Russia: Lebed’ suggests we support the slogan ‘give all the power to the Federative Soviet’, which for American establishment means a straight line to ‘the quick separation of Russia under American protectorate’. That’s what Sakharov and other shestidesyatniki dreamed of. (Zavtra, 1998) Admonition of a praiseworthy Soviet history is seen as another part of the shestidesyatniki’s wicked calumny. The claims of well-known Russian TV journalist Vladimir Pozner that Russians should publicly recant the crimes of Soviet times, such as the mass deportation and execution of people, have ‘Russian patriots’ seething with righteous anger and SR readily publishes their emotional letters. Here is an example of one such opinion, which belongs to a member of the CPSU since 1957: ‘Russia is not an object for sale, as different pozners, bonners and numerous shestidesyatniki would have us believe, who receive thousand-dollar honorariums for their slander and hatred of our past’ (Sharshatkin, 2001). I have defined NG as a newspaper of the generation of the semidesyatniki. SR is a newspaper mainly oriented to the supporters of the Communist Party, the active majority of which is concentrated among citizens aged over sixty. As such it has to be more precise in whom it calls shestidesyatniki, as denouncing as enemies everyone born in the 1930s would be politically incorrect – the majority of the newspaper’s readers are of the same age as the shestidesyatniki. If, as we have seen in NG, more or less all people born in the 1930s fall under the definition shestidesyatniki and are contrasted with

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people born in the 1940s or 1950s. SR defines shestidesyatniki more narrowly, as a group within a generation, characterized by a common ideology and patterns of behaviour. They are first of all children of the urban intelligentsia, in contrast to those contemporaries born in the provinces to peasant or worker families, the origins more honest and prestigious from a communist point of view. Secondly, they are readers of certain journals: Novy Mir and Ogonek in contrast to the readers of Nash Sovremennik and Oktyabr – liberaldemocratic versus conservative pro-communist and Slavophile literary journals.10 If in NG, shestidesyatniki were presented as a homogeneous generation, SR on the contrary repeatedly claims that shestidesyatniki were diverse: There were different shestidesyatniki. For some the 1960s is the romance of the taiga, Komsomol construction sites, a pride in their work . . . But for others it is a time of speculation with foreign goods, ‘dissent’, squabbling about politics, begging for chewing gum and crossing fingers behind their back. But while heroes were working, building, creating, hucksters have threaded their way to power. (Demidenko, 2001) SR accepts that these days the term is fixed after those people of the 1960s associated with anti-Soviet, pro-Gorbachev politics, dissidents, Westernizers and liberal-democrats, although it considers the fame these people received unfair and the true heroes were different: There is a lot of talk in the ‘democratic’ press about the shestidesyatniki. The names of Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky, Voznesensky, Evtushenko, Sakharov are praised. They are called the ‘conscience of the nation’. But nothing is said about the other shestidesyatniki: Gaganova,11 Gitalov, Korolev (1907IK), Kurchatov (1903-IK), Gagarin (1934-IK), Titov (1935-IK) . . . It is not incidental. Some think historical memory can be extinguished, in vain. It is eternal. National pride and fame are eternal. (Sovetskaya Rossiya, 2000) I have purposefully noted the dates of birth of those whom SR prefers to define as shestidesyatniki. It is another illustration that affiliation to a certain generation is not important in this case. Liberal press authors use the date of one’s birth as a major criterion for defining whether or not a person belongs to the shestidesyatniki. This affiliation of the term to those born in the late 1920s and 1930s has been widely accepted in public discourse and SR cannot ignore it. At the same time it is a newspaper oriented to the people from the same age cohort as those defined as the shestidesyatniki. Therefore it cannot express negative attitudes to all shestidesyatniki. When we see negative images projected onto the shestidesyatniki, the category is accompanied by further clarifications, defining the shestidesyatniki as a unit within the generation of

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the 1930s. However, on other occasions the author may imbue the term shestidesyatniki with positive connotations. In this case the generational barriers are blurred and the shestidesyatniki become those who participated in the creation of the Soviet legend in the 1960s, regardless of how old they were then. If in NG the young shestidesyatniki are perceived as real heroes of the 1960s, who lost their charisma with time, the patriotic press deprives the shestidesyatniki of any heroic title and instead introduces the real heroes of that era. These were heroes who condemned Khrushchev’s actions and were brave enough to express pro-Stalinist views. For instance, poet Felix Chuev, who realized that the struggle against the cult of personality was the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union and talked about it at length in his poems. The future ‘perestroishchiki’ and ‘reformers’, who appropriated the title of the shestidesyatniki, could not forgive him for this (Sovetskaya Rossiya, 1999). The newspaper assures readers that people such as Felix Chuev deserve to be called shestidesyatniki – unlike his enemies, the ‘democrats’ and dissidents – because they are the real conscience of the nation, who did not repent and remained pro-Stalinists till their death. SR and ZVR reveal that there were and still are good and bad shestidesyatniki, but the latter have unfairly expropriated the name and do not deserve to be called so: the degenerated, overfed by Brezhnev party nomenclatura, who call themselves shestidesyatniki, robbed the country, deserted to the ‘democrats’ and took with them all the calories, all the values they got from the people and the Party. Degeneration of elites is as natural as bladder cancer. (Prokhanov, 2002) For the patriotic press the bad shestidesyatniki are liberal reformer-democrats, who betrayed the Communist Party, Stalin and the great Soviet culture; the real ones are Soviet shestidesyatniki, who remained faithful to socialist ideas and the Communist Party, did not repent and did not follow Gorbachev. As we have seen, NG also admits that the shestidesyatniki remained faithful to socialism as an idea, but is on the contrary, quite ironic about this, calling them naive romantics. The oppositional press praises the real shestidesyatniki’s devotion to their ideals.12 Zavtra adds further complexity to this picture by bringing to the fore the eternal conflict within Russian intelligentsia between Slavophiles and Westernizers. We come across a definition of the real shestidesyatniki as not only Soviet patriots but, above of all, Russophiles who went along with the Communist Party while its ideology was based on the Leninist idea of the national pride of the Great Russians. It is argued that not all communists were good – there were certain hostile elements even within the party leadership ‘who promoted Russophobic ideas under the cover of “internationalism”’.

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ZVR decisively accuses Perestroika and all ‘democrats’ of promoting Russophobic policy (Vikulov, 1999). In NG, non-shestidesyatniki authors are usually younger than those they call shestidesyatniki; the main criteria for the difference is an affiliation with various age groups – I am not a shestidesyatnik because I am younger than them – is the standard explanation. In SR and ZVR, age differences are not the main criteria for distinguishing the group. We are given the chance to familiarize ourselves with the point of view of those who are the same age as shestidesyatniki but who do not affiliate themselves with the category. I have already noted when talking about NG that the people to whom the newspaper applies the term shestidesyatniki oppose the tendency to unify and label. They either question the validity of the category itself or argue for differentiation among the shestidesyatniki. Thus, the distinction made by the patriotic press – between, on the one hand, the good Soviet shestidesyatniki and, on the other, the werewolves or democrat-betrayers – can also be seen as an attempt by those that have been labelled to escape this categorization.

Conclusion The comparison of representations in different newspapers suggests that the term shestidesyatniki is indexical, the usage and meaning of the concept being flexible. Depending on the context, the meaning of the word can differ. While it is widely used to refer to the generation born in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which lived through and was profoundly influenced by the Khrushchev Thaw, it is also used to label a group of intellectuals. These are politicians, writers or artists associated with a particular worldview, values and creative style. Some personalities are unarguably employed in discourse as personifications of the generation, such as Okudzhava, or the poets Voznesensky and Evtushenko; the status of others is disputed. Gorbachev, for example, fits the generational definition by virtue of his date of birth but his social biography is more ambiguous. For a start, he came from the top ranks of the Communist Party and as such cannot be accepted as one of us by other shestidesyatniki, however outsiders often describe him as a shestidesyatnik, an assumption challenged by the shestidesyatniki themselves.13 As is to be expected, the representation itself does not cause many controversies; it is accepted as a satisfactory tool for the process of defining social reality – no attempt to invalidate the category of the shestidesyatniki or at least question its meaning is made by the outsiders. Somers (1994: 629) argues that although social action may only be intelligible through the construction, enactment and appropriation of narratives, this does not mean to say that social actors are free to fabricate narratives at will. Rather there is only a limited repertoire of available representations and stories, and the kinds of narratives that predominate socially are contested politically and will depend to a large extent on the distribution of power in society. In the current situation, the narrative of the younger generation

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is obviously the dominant one. The nationalist and patriotic xenophobic narratives are on the margins of official political discourse, although still supported by many ordinary people.14 Contributors to both the democratic and patriotic newspapers analysed clearly judge the shestidesyatniki according to (versions of) the intelligentsia’s moral image. They are unarguably pictured as intelligentsia, however as a fallen one. If for the NG their fall happened after they turned away from Gorbachev, for the ZVR and SR they fell much earlier – in the late 1950s when they denounced Stalin and committed treason. The subsequent generation of intelligentsia (the semidesyatniki) have tried to silence the shestidesyatniki and what they stand for by practising a form of intellectual cleansing. Discursively, this works by first homogenizing the shestidesyatniki and presenting them as a uniform entity, defined in terms of what they resist. A new, dominant power narrative of the moral self is further based on downgrading the narrative plot of the shestidesyatniki. Thus, romanticism becomes something shameful, realism substituting illusion as the better value. NG establishes a new version of the intelligentsia – the radicals and pragmatists versus the soft-hearted, naive and illusory shestidesyatniki. Zavtra and SR, by denouncing the shestidesyatniki, denounce the critical aspect of the intelligentsia’s moral image. They impose the Soviet modification of the myth of the intelligentsia valued for its intellectual and creative potential, but feared as a dubious group for ‘noble’ social origins and critical ability, things the Party tried to suppress. Faithfulness was the most cherished quality, therefore the shestidesyatniki are condemned on the grounds of their betrayal of the regime and ultimately of the people. The shestidesyatniki appear to have violated one of the crucial aspects of the intelligentsia’s myth – the intelligentsia’s love for the people alongside a mission to serve them. Crucially though, both the democratic press and the oppositional newspapers analysed in this chapter denounce the shestidesyatniki on the basis that they have failed to conform to the core dictate of the intelligentsia’s morality – being unselfish. Contributors to both types of newspaper are also clearly using discourses similar to those reviewed in Chapter 2, which again suggest a strong relationship between appraisals of the shestidesyatniki and the intelligentsia myth. The semantic field of associated meanings of the concepts intelligentsia and the shestidesyatniki is the same – death (or leaving the social-political arena and accepting defeat) and illusion. The shestidesyatniki are accused of the same sins as the intelligentsia in general: idealism, progressivism, romanticism and escapism. At the same time, in the NG, the shestidesyatniki are blamed for betraying the ideals of the Russian intelligentsia – by entering into an alliance with the Establishment, becoming too famous, immodest, or receiving too many plaudits for their work. Arguably, discourses about the death of the intelligentsia and representations of the shestidesyatniki as a pitiful and failed intelligentsia cohort can be seen as related to the same agenda – attempts by the younger generations of intellectuals to gain control

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over the political life of the country. Their claim to power was restricted by the framework of the intelligentsia myth and by the authority of the older generation; therefore both had to be purged. I want to emphasize that I do not consider the intelligentsia or the shestidesyatniki to be a homogeneous group, but rather define them as an ‘imagined community’ (Anderson, 1991) belonging to, or distance from which may be articulated via the process of constructing and telling cultural stories. The notion of cultural stories or ‘public narratives’ (Somers, 1994: 618–19) is particularly relevant for understanding the shestidesyatniki–intelligentsia. Public narratives are understood here as: those narratives attached to cultural and institutional formations larger than the single individual, to intersubjective networks or institutions, however local or grand, [and include] micro- or macro-stories . . . Like all narratives, these stories have drama, plot, explanation, and selective criteria. (ibid.) Cultural stories (or stereotypical image of a group) are constantly being challenged via collective stories produced by both the insiders and the outsiders. Different versions of cultural stories may co-exist; moreover, we should remember that different social groups might hold and advance their own versions of the intelligentsia image. Cultural stories are not static entities engraved in an historical document; they may be and in this case are indeed subjected to negotiations, disputes and challenges from the contested sides. In times of rapid social transformations they enter into the centre of political dispute. As we have seen in this chapter, one way of placing claims for authority and leadership involves creating a certain form of cultural story for the rival group, and by downgrading this story, the rival group is deprived of its authority. Another way of achieving the same result is to assert a cultural story to be an essential attribute of a social group and to argue that, since no living individuals correspond fully with the story’s characters, the social group does not exist any more. If the first strategy is employed against a group criticized for having a dubious influence on public affairs, the shestidesyatniki, the second is more suitable for the concept with indisputable authority, such as the intelligentsia. I attempted to demonstrate how this strategy is employed in contemporary Russia in Chapter 2. In both cases, it is the others who perform the cleansing while the right of belonging to the category is denied to the demonized group. I am interested not only in this process of cleansing, but in how the people being demonized respond to it, for example which practices they use in order to protect their identities.

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The shestidesyatniki’s self-image

In the previous chapter I analysed outsiders’ constructions of the shestidesyatniki and concluded that they are portrayed as a fallen intelligentsia. In this chapter I turn to the accounts of insiders and explore how those labelled as shestidesyatniki respond to their opponents, as well as the alternative versions of both the shestidesyatniki and the intelligentsia story they accept. My analysis of insiders’ representations of the shestidesyatniki shows that their narrative identities are constructed against one repertoire, that fuelling the attacks made by the younger generation, and from within another – the framework of the intelligentsia myth, which is used to give their accounts historical value as well as contemporary worth. I argue that the intelligentsia myth is used by the shestidesyatniki as their story in order to produce a defensive identity. This defensive identity project starts from the premise that the worth of their generation can be, and ought to be, measured according to traditional intelligentsia standards, modified where necessary to compensate for the impact of totalitarianism. Unlike younger generations of intellectuals, the shestidesyatniki do not make claims about the death of the intelligentsia, but on the contrary seem to argue that they be seen as intelligentsia, warts and all. They do not openly rebel against the requirements of the stereotype (i.e. identify with the cultural story), but attempt to challenge or negotiate them (i.e. construct collective stories). As Fairclough (1999: 75) argues, ‘people are not simply colonized by discourses, they also appropriate them and work them in particular ways’. How do the shestidesyatniki reconcile the lives of their generation with the cultural story of the intelligentsia, and what adjustments to the myth do they make in order to accomplish their identity project and restore their tarnished self-image? These are the questions that will be explored in this chapter.

The setting for the collective representation The accounts analysed here were given at a conference convened to clarify the meaning of the shestidesyatniki phenomenon.1 It took place in Moscow in October 2000 and provided a unique opportunity to explore how the shestidesyatniki talk to each other, in a non-hostile atmosphere. The participants

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narrated their recollections to an audience of like-minded people belonging to the same age group and social milieu. Many of them knew one another well. As the organizers explained at the beginning, in order to secure productive, self-reflexive communication and to prevent the discussion from sliding into a bull fight, they had not invited people with obviously polarized ‘orientations’, but those whom they believed shared a commitment to civilized debate and the ability to hear each other out. Each participant in this situation has to fulfil two tasks: to maintain face in front of the audience and ‘face’ of the audience at the same time (Goffman, 1955, 1967). The conference participants’ expectation of sharing a common version of the past and the present is of particular interest here. Considering what is taken for granted by the participants in this situation contributes to our understanding of what the unique perspective of the world they share is, which collective memories they rely upon, and which symbols and codes appear to be operative in relation to the past and the present when used by this particular group of people. Firstly, the conference was a setting for the narrative construction of a collective identity. However, as far as this identity is rooted in a particular historical period, negotiation of the present collective identity goes hand in hand with the reconstruction and reinterpretation of past events and meanings. As one of the conference participants stated: History is made not by people, but by history, which is rather careless. And it recruits. We are recruits of a certain epoch. Therefore, the second purpose that the conference fulfilled was a conversational reconstruction of the past, enactment of collective remembering. In the contest between varying accounts of shared experiences, people reinterpret and discover features of the past that become the context for and content of what they will jointly recall and commemorate on future occasions. Oral historians introduce the notion of popular memory, which refers to the commonly held representations found in oral accounts people give of past events, traditions, customs and social practices (Johnson et al., 1982). Discussion of popular memory immediately extends beyond a conceptualization of memories as the property of individuals. From the social constructivist perspective, the very concept of human memory is seen as a discursive artefact and the conditions for ascribing memory as socially designated (Gergen, 1994a). The definition of a memory as a discursive achievement signifies that having a memory involves participation in a cultural tradition (ibid.). The study of oral history is not concerned with the verifiability of accounts. In a study of memory the important question is not about the accuracy of the recollection, but about the reasons why the historical actors construct their memories in a particular way at a particular time (Thelen, 1989). Because of their orientation to the present, historical accounts are only manifestly about the past. In fact, the construction of such a past is significant in terms of its

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Intelligentsia as fallible 75 contribution to contemporary cultural life and the range of values it illustrates. If positivist sociology sees everything as a symptom of something else, interpretative sociology describes lived experience as it is and aims to identify the goals of the various actors involved (Maffesoli, 1996). Variability becomes a resource for revealing the relationship between what people remember and the ideological dilemmas of their past and present socio-economic and political circumstances. Historians working within the oral history tradition have argued that the struggle for the possession and interpretation of memory is rooted in the conflict and interplay between social, political and cultural interests in the present (Thelen, 1989: 1127). The process of collectively reconstructing the past, as Thelen notes, ‘is not made in isolation but in conversations with others that occur in the contexts of community, broader politics, and social dynamics’ (ibid.: 1119). Conference participants negotiating the meaning of the shestidesyatniki as a category spoke from within the popular discourses surrounding both the category itself and the 1960s as a historical period, and located their identity at the intersection of contemporary debates. The accounts they gave can also be seen as a response to the anticipated myths and stereotypes, an attempt to get a fair hearing both for their generation and for the 1960s. However, as I will demonstrate, this ‘impartial’ construction of the shestidesyatniki identity also aimed to reconcile the experience and image of the generation with the intelligentsia story. The participants judged their generation on the basis of an idealized image of the intelligentsia. They were frank about the ambiguities in their biographies and about events in their past that did not fit well with the ultimate model, and came up with justifications to resolve the apparent contradictions.

Reclaiming the positions: the old intelligentsia fights back Each of the conference participants was obliged to position him or herself in relation to the shestidesyatniki category. Much of the unease and disagreement this caused can be explained by the implications of the label, which tacitly connotes shestidesyatnik–intelligent. Those that embraced the shestidesyatniki label argued that the members of their generation unit were also the intelligentsia, despite their deviations from the mythological image, whose unique experience has enriched the tradition. Those who distanced themselves from the shestidesyatniki category emphasized that it was more important for them be recognized as the intelligentsia without prefixes. At the conference, one participant argued that the label shestidesyatniki was sometimes used as a compliment, sometimes as a stigma. Not surprisingly, the majority of speakers were more concerned with this latter connotation. None of them appeared to feel honoured to be ascribed to a somewhat blemished category. Some accepted it philosophically as their destiny, as an unfortunate fact in one’s biography; others used the occasion either to deny their membership completely and to point out that they were related to the

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category solely due to a misunderstanding, or at least to claim the right to distance themselves from it. The shared feeling of being forcibly assigned to a category and, furthermore, to one with negative connotations clearly influenced the content and rhetoric of the speeches. The shestidesyatniki as a self-conscious group emerges in response to the pressure of public disparagement. Many participants mentioned the hostility felt at present both towards the generation of the shestidesyatniki, and to them personally as supposed members of this collectivity. Some contributors referred directly to the ‘contradictory reproaches addressed to us and to me personally’ (Lazis); ‘the damnation that our younger successors frighten us with’ (Anninsky) while ‘dancing the can-can on our coffins’ (Bulkova). Bulkova, a lecturer in philosophy at Moscow University, recounted: My students said to me: Those shestidesyatniki, those shestidesyatniki [intonation reflects the wicked grimaces of the students]. I responded: Who do you refer to? Me? Or perhaps to Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili, who was your lecturer? Or to Natan Ejdelman, whom we all adored? They looked embarrassed. They did not think about these people as the shestidesyatniki! The manifestation of self-identification with the shestidesyatniki as a category is not always as straightforward as the examples above might suggest. Nevertheless, the participants demonstrated their awareness of the public attitude to the shestidesyatniki, and the fact that they themselves were often perceived as belonging to this category. ‘We’re being pinned to the historical herbarium and we can’t avoid it’ is how Yuri Karyakin describes the collective feeling: ‘We want to fly, but cannot.’ The self-image can be projected in numerous ways, depending on the social identity one wants to reveal to others. In different situations one can emphasize different identities. The same person can tell on one occasion how she or he has always loved and respected her or his children in order to maintain a reputation of a good and loving parent, on another occasion the story may not concern family life at all. This is not because the family suddenly loses its relevance for that person’s life, but because the story is told in a different context and a different (for example professional) identity is at stake. We see a loving parent in one case and a devoted scientist in the other. Which identities did the conference participants display in the context of the shestidesyatniki theme and how are these related to the intelligentsia cultural story? To give a short answer, their self image was based on the ideas and beliefs, on the justification of the real motives for their actions and on their intention to remain public speakers. We did not see good parents among the shestidesyatniki attending the conference (which is hardly surprising), but we did not see devoted professionals either. We saw public men and men of ideas, for whom what they actually worked at and achieved as professionals did not matter as much

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Intelligentsia as fallible 77 as what they thought about and did as public figures. The identities that the participants projected to each other and to some extent to the public (we should not forget that journalists were present in the audience and a press conference was planned to follow the session) were composed of ideas and beliefs, following a particular script: I am what I know, what I doubt and what I believe in. The participants spent a great deal of time reaffirming their continued relevance, which can be seen as a direct response to the attacks discussed in the previous chapters. They were particularly concerned about the younger generation’s attempt to turn the shestidesyatniki into history – but less bothered by the slanders directed at them by communists and patriots. One of the central themes that emerged during the conference was that the shestidesyatniki still have much to contribute to the public life of the country. They justified their relevance to the present by: (1) demonstrating their concern with the current political situation and accepting responsibility for it; (2) arguing for historical continuity and rejecting the idea that history can be started anew; (3) justifying the relevance of their main beliefs to the present situation; and finally and most importantly (4) by separating their past selves from their present selves. As I will demonstrate in later chapters, the shestidesyatniki often frame their biographical accounts as conversion stories. This particular genre proves to be multifunctional. Depending on the context and the point they want to make, narrators are drawing different meanings from the reported experience of radical personal change. Establishing their relevance to the present seems to be one of the functions of this genre. Linde (1993: 101–7) notes that the purpose of the life stories that people tell is to establish the coherence of the self, because ‘the kind of self we recognize as a self should have continuity through time’. This social norm is socially shared, used by people not only to preserve personal integrity but also to project this integrity so that others can recognize their own selves as proper and comfortable. Interestingly, some conference participants challenged this strong social norm of the consistency of the self. It is worth focusing on the fact that at the conference only those participants who rejected identification as shestidesyatniki argued for the stability of their selves (read ideas and beliefs) through time. By contrast, those who accepted the shestidesyatniki’s identity celebrated not the static but the dynamic aspects of their personalities. Batkin even pleaded that they ‘complete the moral task of the shestidesyatniki and refuse our yesterday’s selves’. The conference participants drew attention to the fact that, although they came together in the 1960s, they have evolved considerably since then and therefore earned the right to stay in the present and progress to the future. Many of them argued for the necessity to distinguish between their retrospective (shestidesyatniki of the 1960s) and present identities (shestidesyatniki today). The majority of participants preferred to present the shestidesyatniki in the 1960s as united by their shared belief in socialism with a human face. However, this only partly determines their

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togetherness today. It is presented as the starting point from which everyone went through similar but still unique trajectories. The shestidesyatniki were presented as the ‘children of ideological wreckage and collapse’ (Anninsky) united by the ‘exceptional regaining of sight after exceptional blindness [osleplenie]’ (Karyakin). It is important to note here that in both these formulations the agency of the shestidesyatniki, in relation to their divorce from previous beliefs, is limited. Karyakin used blindness in the passive mode, as being blinded by someone; being born as someone’s child is never the conscious choice of an individual. This wording is an example of a construction of a defensive resource in discursive wars. Individuals cannot be accused of betraying previous ideals if these ideals were imposed and not freely chosen. This reversal of the standard practice of the discursive presentation of one’s self as continuous through time served to legitimate the shestidesyatniki’s presence in public life today and protect against the survival of the fittest law. This principle operates not only as a law of nature, but also as a feature of social life. For men of ideas, exclusion from the field of public discourse is equal to physical extinction and, therefore, must be resisted. ‘They have not heard the last of us yet’ argued Karyakin, implying that the shestidesyatniki would continue to prove their worth with words and ideas. The very public accusations against them were interpreted as an indication of the shestidesyatniki’s vivacity. If you feel pain it means that you are still alive; however unpleasant it might be to become an object of public slander, it is still better than being ignored and neglected: ‘The accusations that our younger successors scare us with are a sign that we are still alive’ concluded Anninsky. The NG portrayed the shestidesyatniki as a generation belonging to the past, but which is reluctant to stay there. I have already mentioned the importance of reconstructing the past and the role this process plays in the production of collective identities. However, the conference actually began with a reconsideration of the present. Alluding to the current socio-political situation in the country, speakers demonstrated that they have a finger on the pulse of the times. They argued that it was too early to trash the shestidesyatniki because Soviet history, of which they were a part, was not over yet. They claimed that this was the root of today’s situation and should not be improvidently ignored or rejected as the younger generations try to do. It turns out that it is impossible just to throw out that social order. It resists being trashed. It resists being thrown out from life and our consciousness. (Burtin) I have jokingly addressed you ‘Dear old men’. On the one hand, we belong to history and it has remained somewhere in the past. But on the other hand, the breakdown of regime, which began in the 1960s,

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is not over yet . . . To argue that it has all finished and we now live in a completely new Russia would be wrong. (Batkin) Participants emphasized Soviet history was full of valuable lessons and regretted that now, instead of a respectful attitude towards it, they witnessed its neglect. One of the lessons they see is contained precisely in the much criticized attempts of the shestidesyatniki to transform bad socialism into good socialism. The first speaker, Burtin, a former member of Tvardovsky’s Novy Mir editorial board, created a framework for further presentations by demonstrating the continued relevance of the socialism question for the understanding of both the shestidesyatniki and the present socio-economic situation in the country: At one point, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of us, including me, thought we knew our perspective well. It was simple: we had destroyed or were destroying our totalitarian order and the communist ideology that was shaping it. And then we would get on to catch up with the Western World . . . We were thinking that the 1960s, as a period when one wanted to perfect socialism, give it a human face, was outdated and not interesting any more. It means that [in the 1960s] people were only beginning a process of some sort of spiritual liberation and were thinking shallowly. I believe that time liberates us from such arrogance. (Burtin) The presentation of the shestidesyatniki as a socially active group continued through the criticism of the present situation and the appeals for future collective actions. ‘We are in a new transitional period,’ claimed Batkin; ‘the task we are facing now is to a great extent the same that we were facing in the 1960s: how to transform and humanize that social order which existed for several decades and completely transformed our country and our society’ argued Burtin. Batkin, emphasizing his agreement with Burtin about the shestidesyatniki’s responsibility in the present transition stage, summed up: ‘Our business is straightforward. If we have some energy, we should act as we think necessary and correct.’ Even their failed illusions were justified on the basis of the sincerity of their reformative motive. Moreover, the nature of their reforming project is seen as much more advanced than that of the current reformers: they wanted to transform the existing order, instead of building everything anew as modern reformers attempt to. As one speaker suggested: Our moral task is to refuse our yesterdays’ selves and search among the young for people honest, as capable as us in our young years, to be unselfish and think about Russia. And together with them, probably advising them on some things, try to think about Russia’s future because

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its present is lamentable. This is the meaning of the talk about the shestidesyatniki: what to do tomorrow! (Batkin) It is worth pointing out that, while arguing that they should overcome their resentment and establish contact with the younger generation in order to bring them over to their side, the shestidesyatniki could not avoid revealing a certain indulgence towards the younger generation. They want to enter into positive contact with younger people partly because they need their energy for the realization of their own ambitions, but mostly because the younger generation needs them, need their experience and wisdom (but just do not know it yet). In the previous chapter, we saw that the shestidesyatniki are often accused of being failed reformers and few of the conference participants denied their reformist ambitions, or that they had failed. But their failure was re-framed in order to maintain their moral image and reinforce their social worth; what really matters, it was argued, is not that they failed (everybody makes mistakes, after all) but that they tried and that their intentions had been good. Most of the speakers supported their claims by attempting to reconcile their portrayal of events with the concept of the intelligentsia as a socially concerned group, free from ulterior motives and merely wanting what is best for Russia and constitutionally incapable of giving up on it. One speaker, however, reinterpreted this same repertoire in a similar way to those environmentalists who emphasize the importance of thinking globally, but acting locally. This second repertoire is also based on the assumption that the intelligentsia is a group on an active mission to transform reality and change things for the better, but which prioritizes small projects as an equally moral task. It is important to note that this repertoire allowed the narrator to justify his rejection of the shestidesyatniki component of the intelligentsia identity and represent himself as a straightforward intelligent without the additional generational meanings. Crucially, his account aimed to prove that a professional can also be an intelligent. Let us consider his talk in more detail. A famous actor and current director of a theatre and an institute, Oleg Tabakov advocated little achievements instead of following a grand narrative pattern: ‘like General Terpilin, who was proud that his regiments escaped captivity and were not destroyed, I am proud that once a day hungry students in the institute I head can get food for one dollar and my actors are saved from poverty.’ His distance from the shestidesyatniki’s identity was pronounced at the beginning very cautiously, in a humorous self-deprecating way: ‘being related to this time by the writing people and due to the absence of a relevant education on the one hand, and, on the other, due to some drawbacks of my own psychophysics, thoughts rarely come to my mind.’ The two parts of this phrase fulfil different functions. The beginning declares involuntary prescription to the category. The second part precedes the expression of a somewhat heretical self-identity and serves as an excuse for the violation of a general pattern. Tabakov is aware that his version of self-

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identity challenges the shared version and repetitively asks the listener to excuse him for saying these low-minded things. His identity is individualistic and not collective: he says I instead of We and tells an autobiographical story instead of generalizing about the collective experience. The presentation of himself as a professional and not as a public intellectual can be illustrated through the following extract: Having not been noticed participating in anything honourable, neither in dissent nor in anything like that, and being an ambitious professional I am speaking about my own guild, and of what was happening there. Instead of legitimizing himself as a capable and socially concerned political actor, Tabakov advocates a programme of little achievements. He argues that these are equally essential. Since, although such achievements rarely lead to socio-political transformation, they nevertheless safeguard humanitarian values: The routes of capitalism and socialism do not interest me as much as the preservation of a human face in the chosen profession and the preservation of humanitarian values. Crucially, what was first declared as a challenge to the shared collective identity finally emerged as a rather conformist perspective: his position in life is also an active one and is justified by a grand narrative, albeit cultural and moral, not socio-political. He emphasized another aspect of the social role of the intelligentsia: ‘(little things should be realized), so that before my death . . . I can tell my son: Pasha, believe me, by the end of life I was an intelligent.’ The long applause that he received at the end of his talk can be interpreted as the other participants accepting this ‘alternative’ position. To conclude this section, I want to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the participants’ search for collective identity evolved around the category shestidesyatniki. However dissatisfied they may be with their Procrustean bed of the concept, its limitations and restrictions; however they may reinterpret, widen or narrow its margins, they stop short of undermining the existence of the phenomenon altogether. Probably this is because it gives them a feeling of their own exclusivity and distinctiveness, so cherished by the intelligentsia myth. The historical significance and uniqueness of the shestidesyatniki generation were emphasized by several speakers. Sharing their feelings of exceptionality was important, but not enough. It was essential for the participants to understand who they are, and to reflect on this question together, away from public representations. To put it in Bulkova’s words: We are of course occupied with ourselves. And we should be occupied with ourselves, because we haven’t finished our lives yet. That is why

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On the other hand, they feel that this self-identity should be explained and passed on to the younger generations because it is in their memory that the shestidesyatniki will live on. They are not indifferent to what this memory will be and want to influence it while they are still able to do so.

Negotiating the inclusion and exclusion criteria The search for an answer to the question of who are (or were) the shestidesyatniki began with attempts to establish certain criteria that would allow inclusion or elimination from the group. In this discussion I will rely on Mannheim’s (1952) conceptualizations of different phenomena within what is commonly referred to as generation: generation, generation actuality and generation unit. Although the speakers did not use Mannheim’s terminology, his theory is useful to make sense of the shestidesyatniki generational identity. Different speakers at the conference considered different criteria to be relevant for the purpose of self-characterization: • • •

Chronological or demographical – shestidesyatniki as a generation. Experiential – defining shestidesyatniki through their shared experience and activities – generation actuality. Ideological or stylistic: through the beliefs and ideas that characterized the shestidesyatniki – generation unit.

These criteria were derived from public representations of the shestidesyatniki as a generation, but the participants were not happy with this categorization. As I will show in this section, their dissatisfaction with the generational classification can be explained by referring to their insistence that they were more than just an age group – they were first and foremost part of the historical intelligentsia tradition. In defining the borders of the phenomenon, they emphasized the importance of shared ideology of shestidesyatnichestvo rather than their date of birth and they negotiated the inclusion and exclusion criteria, distancing themselves from both the party functionaries and the people. They described themselves as a generation unit and rejected the definition of a generation. The distinctions between generation, generation as actuality and generation unit was introduced by Mannheim (1952), who pioneered the investigation of generation as a sociological phenomenon. He pointed out that generation is a collective fact different from a concrete group or a community: first of all because members of the generation are united not by their own free will, and secondly, because unity in this case does not depend on the proximity of the contact between the members (as in communities). It is the generation

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Intelligentsia as fallible 83 location in the social and historical dimension that unites them above all: ‘The phenomenon of generation represents nothing more than a particular kind of identity of location, embracing related age groups embedded in a social and historical process’ (Mannheim, 1952: 292). The issue of time and age is essential but not all-encompassing in this case. Mannheim introduced the concept of generation actuality, which involves more than mere copresence in the same geographical, historical and social region. An additional nexus, which constitutes generation as an actuality, can be described as participation in the common destiny of this historical and social unit. The same actual generation consists in turn of different segments – the generation units. The members of generation units are tied by even more concrete bonds than the members of the generation actuality. They share mental data. As Mannheim argued, not only loose participation of a number of individuals in a pattern of events, but identity of responses, a certain similarity in the way in which all members of the generation unit move with and are formed by their common experiences make them form a unit within the generation actuality. The conference proceedings provide an illuminating illustration of how the image of the shestidesyatniki generation unit was discursively constructed: starting with marking the boundaries of the generation, then defining the meaning of the generation actuality and, finally, specifying which particular beliefs the shestidesyatniki share. The conference participants, for instance, negotiated what Mannheim would define as a shared generation location and created a certain temporal framework for their discussions. They agreed upon which cultural and political events of the 1960s were central to understanding the phenomenon of the shestidesyatniki. It is important to note that the participants were referring to landmark events significant to people like themselves. They produced a subjective version of history – a history as shestidesyatniki see it, based on their experiences, feelings and memories. It is also interesting to mention in this context that the historical periods we refer to as the fifties, sixties or seventies do not necessarily coincide with the decades in the normal chronological sense, nor do they have any immanent or natural existence, independent of the analytical needs of historians. Marwick (1998) notes that we prefer to think in decades only because we count the years as we would our fingers. He argues that different historians identify different chunks of time depending upon their interests and the countries they are dealing with. For example, in his comparative study of the cultural revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, he postulates a long sixties, beginning in 1958 and ending in 1973–74, a year of international oil crisis. In the Soviet Union, different events distinguished and defined the era of the sixties. Indeed, conference participants agreed to consider as the sixties the period between 1956 and 1968: the Twentieth Party Congress and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia appear to mark out the period. The year 1962 was the year in which Solzhenitsyn’s One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch was published:

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this stands out as a remarkable event in a remarkable year within this period. As Tabakov, for instance, stated: ‘In my consciousness the Rubicon goes through the publication of One Day. It was the moment of acquiring a spine.’ The second important theme for the conference participants was establishing demographic boundaries to define the shestidesyatniki generation. Anatoliy Strelyanyj suggested allocating to the shestidesyatniki everyone who completed his or her higher education in 1956, the year the Twentieth Party Congress took place. He also distanced himself from the shestidesyatniki, explaining that in 1956 he had only completed secondary education. Therefore, although he relates himself to the category, he looks at the shestidesyatniki from aside. This served as a legitimation for his further criticism of the shestidesyatniki. Although subsequent contributors readily accepted this definition for the purpose of explaining their own relationship to the category, this position was criticized by them as being too narrow and excluding many others who might also be described as the shestidesyatniki. For instance, another speaker, Kozlov, claimed that: It became absolutely clear today and proved once again that the phenomenon of the shestidesyatniki was not confined to the generation in its demographical boundaries. Shestidesyatnichestvo is a phenomenon of consciousness: cultural, moral and aesthetic. Kozlov illustrated his position by referring to the dates of birth of the people who formed a central part of the shestidesyatniki’s jointly acknowledged generational and cultural identity. Taking the year 1962 and analysing who this year is associated with in his (and others’) memory (Tarkovsky (born 1932), Korzhavin (1925), Khutziev (1926), Okudzhava (1924), Solzhenitsyn (1917), Viktor Nekrasov (1911), Michael Romm (1901)), he demonstrated that neither date of birth nor any other demographic criteria could be accepted as relevant to understanding the phenomenon. These wide age margins of the people associated with the shestidesyatniki’s ideology were the main reason why the generation definitions were rejected. As Karyakin explained, in the 1960s boundaries between age cohorts became blurred and ‘time has pressed us so that first it seemed incommensurable, but later we appeared more and more together’. However, not all the figures associated with the cultural revolution of the 1960s were accepted within the shestidesyatniki category. From this observation one may get the impression that the conference participants, in spite of perceiving the category as blemished, still want to keep undesirable people out of it. For example, Eidlis suggested that Khrushchev should be considered a shestidesyatnik because he initiated the social changes that formed the generation. He received a bitterly ironic comment from the chairman of the conference in return:

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In this case I think we should consider Beria as the first shestidesyatnik, because he exclaimed on the doorsteps of the room where Stalin died: ‘The tyrant is dead!’ That’s how the 1960s started. (Vinogradov) Leonid Batkin attempted to clarify the situation by describing the shestidesyatniki through their shared experiences. He argued that the ‘shestidesyatniki were people of different ages, who appeared to be overtaken by the slow landslide of the regime after Stalin’s death’. This image of the shestidesyatniki as the generation actuality, which includes all people living in the same historical period and experiencing the same events, was not very popular among the participants either. It included many groups from which the participants preferred to distance themselves: the Party functionaries and the careerists, who had to adjust to the new conditions, and the kolkhoz workers, who received passports and started moving into the cities (as a result of Khrushchev reforms). Batkin, a well-known historian, set aside any doubts that history was perceived differently by peasants or workers, and those events that were outstanding for the intelligentsia might have gone unnoticed by other social groups. Moreover, further into the narrative, he completely deviated from the concept of shared experience, suggesting that moral criteria (‘If we narrow the circle, united by the concept of shestidesyatniki and include only more or less decent people’) and the feelings one developed as a result of living through the experience were more important. The feelings he was talking about include an anticipation and expectation of, and desire for, historical changes and a feeling of awakened personal dignity: Erenburg found a title of genius for his novel: The Thaw. Everybody was aware that it was not spring and not summer yet, but that the water had started flowing and something would be happening. And something should be done. This desire and the feeling that history returned after the ice age first appeared after the Twentieth Party Congress . . . And the second, closely related to it, is the self-awareness, that Me is me. Me, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov . . . Although Batkin may have attempted to challenge the traditional interpretation of the shestidesyatniki and come forward with an original description, he still conformed to the shared perspective. There was an agreement among the conference participants that not all people in their mature and formative years during the 1960s, who experienced the same events, and not all who initiated or promoted cultural and political changes, could be considered as the shestidesyatniki. It was more or less agreed that the major unifying factor for the shestidesyatniki in the past was their belief in socialism. It was easier to find

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common denominators in the past. Historical development has divided people who were once similar and close to each other into various groups. It was less complicated to answer the question ‘Who were we?’ than ‘Who are we now?’ In the present situation, individual differences are more visible and generalizations more difficult to make. If the shestidesyatniki’s retrospective identity was described as static, the present identity emerges as the result of a process. If the first is usually the target for confessions, denunciation and criticism, the latter is celebrated and referred to with pride. As if following Nietzsche’s wisdom ‘to make ourselves heroes of the new, we must murder the past’, conference participants have subjected the shestidesyatniki’s retrospective identity to a ritualized flagellation. In the following sections, we will see how the participants’ critical reflections on their past identities accentuated those aspects of the shestidesyatniki’s past experiences that they consider problematic. Crucially, those were the experiences that allowed the younger generations of the intelligentsia to strip them publicly of the intelligentsia status and role. In an attempt to re-instate the value of their generation and crucially to reclaim the intelligentsia position, the shestidesyatniki reinterpreted the cultural story of the intelligentsia to fit in with their particular case.

Justifying idealism and accounting for ideological ‘mistakes’ In this section I will discuss how the conference participants dealt with what others describe as their failed illusions and more generally with their reputation for being idealists. I will show that while they are willing to accept that their beliefs were misguided, they refuse to denounce their idealism because it is this trait that links them with the moral image of the intelligentsia. The connection made here parallels the justifications made in the section on the shestidesyatniki’s reformism. Again, what matters is not that their beliefs were illusory, but that they were strong, sincerely held and untainted by vested interests. They now treat their misplaced faith in socialism like some sort of sickness, from which they have recovered older but wiser. They claim that it is the recovery and not the sickness that characterizes them. By employing this repertoire, the conference participants humanize the mythological ideal of the intelligentsia, suggesting that humans can never truly become Gods, but should nevertheless keep trying. Participants denied neither the argument that they hold strong beliefs in the past, nor that those beliefs were utopian. Instead, they emphasized that these beliefs were action-driven and that they have changed since the 1960s. To sum up, participants described the shestidesyatniki of the past as liberal Soviet intelligentsia, united by a utopian belief in the possibility of a perfect world, which could be achieved through good socialism. Their idealism was action-oriented, as they believed that their ideals were realizable. They wanted to convert their ideas into social levers and strove to change the world a little

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Intelligentsia as fallible 87 towards these, to achieve at least some approximation. ‘It was a struggle for the purity of an ideal, as they understood it. It was a struggle for the purity of Leninism, Marxism, for its refinement from Stalinist distortions’ (Illyushenko). They strove for novelties, although all they wanted was ‘to persuade authorities to do something slightly better. The real shestidesyatniki aspired for neither radical changes, nor for a return to basic humanitarian values’ (Berman). Atheism is another common trait emphasized by the participants and another target for their confessions. Although they agree that it was a characteristic of the shestidesyatniki in the past, they argue that since then most of them have reconsidered their views and rid themselves of their previous arrogance. The non-spirituality of the shestidesyatniki was considered along with one of its more important consequences: socio-political idealism. Idealism and beliefs were interpreted as being of existential value for the shestidesyatniki: Shestidesyatniki were, and many still remain, people of ideals. They were not indifferent, they needed to believe, they were aware of this need, were proud of it, encouraged it in the younger generation and lamented . . . and many still lament, observing the atrophy of this need for belief in the youth. (Strelyanyj) This conviction was of the same order as a religious faith although secular in its content: ‘shestidesyatniki were believers, but this was completely divorced from religious belief’ (Ilyushenko). Now that the shestidesyatniki agree that they were naive and idealistic, time has revealed that their aspirations were utopian: We thought that by its nature humanity was benevolent, and we only needed to free its kind nature from barriers and obstacles. We realized that by its nature humanity is the same beast it has been for the thousands of years of its history . . . We thought that human collective life could in future be organized according to the laws of benevolence and beauty. We realized that the more you know the truth, the less you believe benevolence and beauty are a part of it. (Anninsky) Idealism as an existential feature of the shestidesyatniki has found its most obvious realization in the belief in socialism, as Strelyanyj pointed out: ‘I think, I do not agree with the formal interpretation of socialism, therefore I exist.’ Eidlis further observed: We were idealist and not only due to our unselfishness or romanticism but also because of this deeply socialist or communist faith in the possibility of an ideal state, an ideal world order.

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The validity of this image was not challenged. Those who accept the shestidesyatniki’s identity stressed that it was true for them or at least did not argue the opposite. On the other hand, the transformation of the shestidesyatniki’s identity and the key to its present state were established through picturing the evolution that each of the participants personally, and the shestidesyatniki collectively, have undergone in their move away from socialism. In contrast, some participants highlighted their rejection of the shestidesyatniki label by articulating their cynical attitude to socialism from as early as childhood, following the discursive pattern in reverse: ‘I am not a shestidesyatnik because I have never believed in socialism.’ For example, Eidlis, a theatre playwright, advocates his view of the 1960s as everyday life, with all its ambiguities and diversities – a life in which the previous myths of the Revolution and the romanticism of the Civil War were still very much alive. However, he claims that he did not believe in these myths sincerely and was speculating on them in his plays – mostly in response to audience demands: In 1960, in the Theatre on Malaya Bronnaya, my play Volnolom was performed, a naive and silly play, but the finale was Okudzhava’s Sentimental march. And all the audience of shestidesyatniki used to stand up and sing with the actors . . . And that was the truth, they believed in it, although they were born much later, after the October Revolution. As the author of this kind of play, so popular among the shestidesyatniki, Eidlis argues that he, on the contrary, did not have reasons to believe in or love Soviet power: I was eleven when I became a Soviet citizen, I was already a grown-up. I was a boy who had begun every day at school with a prayer since age six. When I was nineteen my father was imprisoned for seventeen years. Pomerantz, a well-known philosopher and author of many Samizdat publications, provided another example of negative identity establishment. He explained that his essay The moral image of a historical personality was mistakenly considered to be an articulation of the shestidesyatniki’s values and outlook. He argued that it was written for a presentation at the Institute of Philosophy and he wanted to secure support from the audience: I must say that in this text I have consciously taken a step back . . . and distinguished between Lenin and Stalin . . . Tactically it was a successful decision because all liberal communists supported me. Pomerantz justified his claim that ‘he was present in the 1960s but was not a shestidesyatnik, by first of all arguing that his anti-Soviet identity was recognized as early as 1939, when his essay on Dostoevsky was denounced

Intelligentsia as fallible 89 by the University department as anti-Marxist. Further he recalls a second deep impression relevant to this particular context:

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On November the Seventh, 1949, when half of the cell inmates were taken for a walk . . . we were counted on fingers and engineer Bittenberg, who was walking behind me, in all seriousness remarked: Socialism is a balance sheet. He further accentuates certain details of his biography in order to demonstrate how his rejection of socialism strengthened. After his amnesty and rehabilitation, Pomerantz returned to Moscow and got a job refereeing German language literature on socialism. Reading the classic works of Hayek, Revke, Hensel and others he learned the scientific arguments against the application of command-administrative economies under peacetime conditions. The Pasternak affair and then acquaintance with Alexander (Alik) Ginsburg were further marking points. At the conference, the shestidesyatniki’s belief in socialism emerged as not only a distinguishing criterion, but also a fault, a target for blame and something the participants need to confess to: ‘I believed in good socialism until 1987. I explain it due to a lack of knowledge and credulity, either caused by this lack of knowledge or standing in more complex relation to it’ (Anninsky). Belief in socialism is considered here as a symptom of sickness, which requires medical examination and not argumentation. None of the participants attempted to justify socialist ideology, as if its failure was accepted. Belief in socialism was treated as an obviously ridiculous idea. This reminds me of Freud’s observation: ‘if we meet someone who argues that the centre of the world is made of jam, instead of directing our intellectual objection to the investigation itself, as to whether the interior of earth is really made of jam or not, we shall wonder what kind of man it must be who can get such an idea into his head’ (Freud, 1933, cited in Merton, 1957: 458). Instead of serious discussions about socialism, one could observe a ritualized performance of discursive self-flagellation, as if confessions could safeguard the speaker’s authority and sanity, and secure his being treated seriously and not with pity. Participants seemed to fall into two categories: those who accused shestidesyatniki of being enslaved by socialist beliefs and those who offered justifications for this particular feature. There was, however, a third point of view. Some participants argued that instead of criticism one should analyse the phenomena of collective belief and its results objectively: One can prove and consider it proved that socialism with a human face is nothing but an oxymoron, and it cannot exist. But nevertheless I repeat that illusions of this kind have a potent influence on the cultural and creative consciousness of their time . . . We should concentrate on precisely this side of the phenomenon. (Kozlov)

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The accusations implied that the shestidesyatniki were public men, and were occupied with the transformation of society more than with their own selves: ‘shestidesyatniki needed alternatives to the bad social order, but instead of creating this alternative within themselves and being occupied with their own soul and self-perfection, they tried to ameliorate others’ (Strelyanyj), ‘and we could not understand that instead of thinking of socialism or communism, we should restrain our own nature’ (Anninsky). Other participants, not denying these accusations, concentrated on explanations – how it could have happened that they, being educated and intelligent, still managed to succumb to socialist beliefs. The proponents argued that these accusations, made from the current perspective, were unfair and that critics should place themselves in the 1960s in order to understand and justify these faults. They claimed that it was easy to condemn socialist beliefs when socialism as a historical experiment had obviously failed: It is funny and ignominious to be clever in the 1990s, when you know what has happened. But nobody knew this in 1956! . . . When we tried and found out that it did not work, and in historical process no one knows what will come out unless it is tried out. Then one could know for sure – it did not work. (Lazis) To perform this justificatory practice, one needs to reconsider the past, reshape collective memories about the 1960s, and present the choice of socialism as obvious and inevitable in these conditions. The objective causes for mass illusion were to be found in the unique historical and cultural location of the time. The lack of information and necessary knowledge due to the breakdown in intellectual and cultural traditions after Lenin’s and Stalin’s purges was presented as a particular feature of the shestidesyatniki generation. The second reason, which should serve as a certain palliative in our judgement – is that the shestidesyatniki had to perform a special feat of mind, which none after them had to perform. There was a discontinuity of the generations . . . All cultural memory, even Soviet, even revolutionary historical, had disappeared and no one could give it to us in the 1960s. We had to clear our heads from the rubbish, lodged there since childhood, before creating anything new. Subsequent generations did not have to do it. It was already a normal movement. They stood on our shoulders as every normal generation would. (Lazis) It was necessary to remember (or to reconstruct) what one’s feelings in the past were. Batkin supported Lazis and reminded everyone that it was easy to be critical after the Soviet system collapsed, but that kind of cynicism was hardly possible in the 1960s. He claimed that the shestidesyatniki wanted to perfect socialism because they could not imagine that it would ever disappear:

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There was confidence in the eternity and metastability of this regime. . . . It was not romanticism, but . . . sensation of reality. Something should be done. Something should be changed, but what? In this country – the CPSU, Old Square, KGB . . . This was the inspiration for the people of the Prague Spring. They also did not intend to declare: Down with socialism! Down with communism! Only later did it become clear. (Batkin) He remembers that, even at the beginning of the 1980s, before Brezhnev’s death, the majority of the intelligentsia (he says ‘of us’) feared that it could get only worse: renewed terror and a return to Stalinism. Only a minority predicted the Thaw, but nobody predicted more than the Thaw. Only at the end of 1986 did I dare to tell my friends: There will be something unpredictable, not a repetition of Khrushchev’s Thaw, but something new, but precisely what I did not know either. (Batkin) The process of coping with the crisis of illusions – which was unique for each person but, at the same time, shared by all shestidesyatniki – was identified as what unites them nowadays: We are all children of crisis and wreckage. Ideological wreckage. We believed that a person could manage without God. It turned out that a person cannot manage without God. He crawls to Him to get rid of his own powerlessness, his own horror. (Anninsky) I agree that we are all children of ideological crisis and wreckage, and that we realized we cannot manage without God. I think that the essence of the shestidesyatniki’s drama is that the shestidesyatniki, who experienced the collapse of utopia, again started looking for the way out from political and existential deadlock in the political sphere . . . The way out was not only in the triumph over communist ideology but on a route of spiritual rejuvenation. (Ilyushenko) Karyakin argued that the generation of the shestidesyatniki was unique not only because it witnessed social transformations and actively participated in them, but also because it experienced spiritual drama: ‘Never in history has there been such a generation. Such a change of beliefs fell upon one human life span! It can be only compared with the transition from paganism to Christianity.’ This experience justifies the historical and intellectual importance of the generation: ‘Such experience, such blindness and recovery of sight has never happened to anyone apart from us’ (Karyakin).

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In public discourse the shestidesyatniki are often portrayed as perevertyshi – those who easily change their ideals or betray them (see Chapter 3). At the conference, this image was opposed and the disillusionment with socialism presented as a long and painful process: from the first doubt till the final point, when no doubts were left. The first bell for Karyakin, for instance, was Stalin’s death and the final recovery of sight occurred as late as 1989. He recalled why for all these years he was resistant to disillusionment: ‘Until very recently I was clinging by the tips of my fingers to communism with a human face, with Marx’s clever face, but I have broken all my nails.’ Developing his other metaphor, that of blindness and the regaining of sight, he described how ‘when our eyes opened to see the reality of Stalin, they closed even more to Lenin, and when they began to open for Lenin, they closed even more to Marx’. He confesses, assuming that this would be a shared memory for many shestidesyatniki, how he was afraid to observe the process of disillusionment in himself. This fear was of a dual nature. On the one hand, it was an easily explicable fear of losing the feeling of security and self-control that a stable value system provides, but on the other, it was the fear of punishment, of becoming a social outcast, that was still present in the 1960s and acted as self-censorship for heretical ideas: Since 1953 I have been writing diaries. I am terrified when I read them: how daft I was, how I believed. Some glimpses occur, and I see that I fear them. Whenever I have a heretical idea, I write: X said to me that socialism is bullshit. I see how I was afraid of my own ideas. (Karyakin) The same process of value change is ascribed to the personalities around which the collective identity of the shestidesyatniki emerges. For example, Karyakin reminded the audience that Solzhenitsyn was also under the charm of Lenin and alluded to lines in Gulag Archipelago where Solzhenitsyn writes about his camp experience: ‘There was a prisoner there with the nickname Ilyich.2 And someone says to him: Ilyich, take the latrine bucket away. And Isaitch (Solzhenitsyn) writes: Everything turned upside down inside me! How could such patronimic be linked to a latrine bucket!?’3 Another example is the reaction of Kabyrnutsky and Karyakin to the argument of Strelyanyj that the late Igor Detkov, a well-known provincial journalist and writer, had died still believing in socialism. They went on to defend Detkov, claiming that he did not remain socialist, but on the contrary, had undergone a quite dramatic evolution away from socialism. The participants emphasized that shestidesyatniki did not pursue selfish economic interests: ‘At their best, shestidesyatniki lived with a certain ideological verve, a certain unselfishness’ (Kabyrnutsky). Unselfishness is one of the very few features that did not become the target for discredit and criticism. It is a feature that the shestidesyatniki do not mind inheriting from the previous identity. No one suspected cynicism as a feature of the

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Distancing from the Party and the regime Even though they distance themselves from the past shestidesyatniki, the shestidesyatniki of today fiercely oppose their public representation as collaborators with the regime. They stress that although they did not want to overthrow the regime and did not acquire the ambitions of revolutionaries (in contrast to the dissidents), they were nevertheless in opposition to the authorities: ‘For us, in the 1960s, there was an enemy, doubtless, concrete and definite: the Party and the Soviet regime’ remarks Eidlis, although at the same time ‘we felt unity with the regime’ (Lazis). It is interesting to note here that Lazis was aware that his emphasis on the feeling of unity with the regime contradicts the cultural story of the shestidesyatniki and provided reasons for having such a feeling: ‘It was the regime with which we won the victory over Fascism. It was our childhood and we could not get rid of it.’ They remind us that after 1968, when the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia signalled the end of the liberal era in the Soviet Union, the majority of the shestidesyatniki completely dissociated themselves from Soviet power. Illyushenko argued that ‘in 1968 many of the shestidesyatniki, although not all, drew a borderline between themselves and the powerful. The term Sophia Vasilyevna appeared, designating Soviet power with which shestidesyatniki did not want to be associated any more’. What started as disillusionment with social and political outlooks grew into a crisis of world-views. As Karyakin emphasized, ‘the specific feature of the generation from this point is their break with communism’. The range of reactions to this was extremely wide: ‘from exile, prison and death, to escape into the pure academia, science and stylistics’ (Batkin). Dual thinking and cynicism substituted the naive openness and sincerity of the shestidesyatniki. Debates and disputes were transferred into kitchens, and Aesopian language flourished in publications. Moral straightforwardness gave way to numerous compromises with conscience (such as joining the Communist Party) for the sake of the result: ‘create theatre, create sectors in an academic institute.’ As Batkin claimed: ‘We all have these scars.’ Although many of the participants were members of the Communist Party in the past, they wanted to dissociate the shestidesyatniki from Party functionaries and Party leaders. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev, who considers himself a shestidesyatnik, was denied membership of the category. Anninsky remarked: ‘I look at the shestidesyatniki from aside, especially when I look at such people as Gorbachev’, and Batkin shared his story: In a more general sense even Gorbachev was the shestidesyatnik. He once said that he was a shestidesyatnik and I immediately ridiculed it in Literaturnaya Gazeta. If I am a shestidesyatnik, how can he be? Tut-tut!

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Membership of the Communist Party is definitely not what the shestidesyatniki are proud of. It is a fact of many biographies, which they feel needs explanation and justification, arguably, in order to respond to the accusations that they have betrayed their party (which we have seen pronounced in the patriotic press). But what was more important in the context of the conference was to explain to each other one’s motivation for this ‘disgraceful’ behaviour. Some justified this anticipated betrayal by their merry cynicism towards the Party: they never felt any unity with that organization and its values and used it as a resource for the achievement of their goals. However, participants emphasized in these justifications that they pursued collective and not individualistic interests. That is how Tabakov, for instance, talked about his association with the Party and other official Soviet organizations: I became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Komsomol, and the chairman of a trade union committee, secretary of a Party unit, and later a director – I think this was an honourable route for many of us. He uses ‘honourable’ ironically, implying the reverse – a career path the majority in the audience would feel ashamed of. Emphasizing that this was not an individual experience but, on the contrary, one shared by many of his contemporaries, he thus saves face. The explanation he offered was as follows: What was it? Obviously, we would not have built the theatre if we had not had a primary Party organization. In a similar situation any colloquium or symposium would simply have been closed. And because Efremov explained it to us with such disarming sincerity and straightforwardness, Evstigneev and I were the first to join the Party. Again, the reference to the authority of Oleg Efremov and allusion to another respected actor could be interpreted as an additional resource in the justificatory practice: the decision to join the Party was not only motivated by some practical reasons, but he was persuaded to do so by his mentor and took the decision together with a friend. Lazis suggested another explanation, implying that the shestidesyatniki’s membership of the Communist Party should not be interpreted as a violation of the intelligentsia’s cultural identity. He explains that he and others had to be communists because it was the only opportunity for collective association. As a result there were people with different orientations within the CPSU. The Party had different faces: ‘we were in one, but at the same time as if in different parties.’ Batkin later attacked both of these positions. He observed in them the attempts of individuals to deviate from shared collective identity (of which denunciation of the Communist Party is a part) for the sake of saving face. Conversely, other participants suggested that affiliation with the Party should

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not be treated in such a clear-cut way. They seemed confused about how to resolve the contradiction: on the one hand, the Party is definitely perceived as hostile by the shestidesyatniki, but on the other hand, there were some liberal intellectuals who remained within the Party apparatus in the hope of promoting liberal changes from the inside. However, these participants did not challenge the disgraceful image of the Party in general, in the way Lazis attempted to do, but instead posed questions as to whether Party liberals could be considered shestidesyatniki. Were the shestidesyatniki people who worked in the Party apparatus and tried to move things on slightly? I do not know. Len Karpinsky was working in the central Komsomol Committee, as were Bovin, and Arbatov. Even Burlatsky, who was in Andropov’s sub-division and ensured that the state was not declared a proletarian dictatorship but an all-people’s state. (Eidlis) From 1968 a new phenomenon originates – ‘the dissidents’, from whom the shestidesyatniki also separate themselves: ‘Our generation did not go to the Square.4 Those who went to the Square have inspired and woken up the semidesyatniki and vos’midesyatniki [people of the 1980s]. They were human rights activists, people of a different kind’ (Lazis). ‘Alik Ginsburg and Sinyavsky were not shestidesyatniki. They went on to fight the regime and both were imprisoned. Few shestidesyatniki were imprisoned and I wasn’t’ (Berman). They respect and admire the fearlessness of the dissidents, bitterly repent their own passivity and cowardice, and immediately offer justifications. The participants do not describe themselves as free people. In contrast to succeeding generations they were still handicapped by fear and not yet ready to confront the regime openly and to take risks. So what? I did not join the Party, refused. So what – I did not do this, did not do that, but more important is what I could have done, what my friends were doing and what I didn’t do. Valya Turchin suggested that I join Amnesty5 [International]. Suggested indirectly, delicately by giving me the documents to read overnight. I did not sleep all night and decided not to join, not to sacrifice my profession, freedom, something else. We all remember too well, only one step had to be made, a signature for example, and that’s all, your biography would have been ruined. (Batkin)

Conclusion In this discussion of the collective identity construction process, the following aspects of the shestidesyatniki have been highlighted. We have seen how their identity is created from within the context of wider public discourses

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but is projected onto like-minded people. Both factors shape the rhetoric of the presentations. In contrast to the public representations, where the shestidesyatniki appear to be an easily distinguishable social group, conference contributors challenge this image and point out the ambiguities surrounding the historical period of the 1960s and the generation associated with this era. In order to reconcile the ambiguities of their collective identity and legitimize their relevance to the present, the participants distinguish between their past and present identities, criticizing the first and celebrating the change they have undergone from this common starting point. This form of narrative could be termed a ‘conversion narrative’ (Smith and Watson, 2001: 192). This narrative mode is structured around a radical transformation from a faulty before self to an enlightened after self. The typical pattern involves a fall into a troubled and sensorily confused dark night of the soul, followed by a moment of revelation, a life-and-death struggle, a process of re-education, and a journey to a ‘new Jerusalem or site of membership in an enlightened community of like believers’ (Smith and Watson, 2001: 192). For the conference participants, the conversion narrative helps to protect their stigmatized identity; however, as I will argue in Chapter 5, this genre has a wider significance for claiming intelligentsia identity. For the moment, I would like to emphasize that the transition the participants described usually involved a volte-face from the momentous political concerns towards spirituality, culture and morality. All of the speakers at the conference either emphasized their distance from their past identity or accepted this identification, but none argued against the validity of the category itself. On the contrary, they agreed that the generation of the shestidesyatniki was a unique phenomenon in Russian history and none attempted to oppose the generally accepted idea of the historical significance of this group. They did not question the legitimacy of talking about the shestidesyatniki as an exclusive category. Major efforts were directed towards the reinterpretation of the meaning of the definition, and positioning themselves in relation to this label. Moreover, although they declared it necessary to destroy the mythology surrounding the shestidesyatniki, only unappealing aspects of this mythology were criticized, whereas those aspects of the image that seem flattering (for example disinterestedness in material gratification, absence of careerism and self-interest, intellectual potential) remained unchallenged. Participants seemed to agree that the shestidesyatniki were a generation unit united by a common historical location and, more importantly, characterized by a distinctive belief system, that of a belief in a socialism with a human face. However strong the participants’ condemnation of the shestidesyatniki’s reformist instead of spiritual orientation might be, however they might declare their distance from these traits and accentuate the makeover of their previous selves, their discourse still reveals that they have not evolved much from how they describe their past selves. Even when Burtin and Batkin advocate actions instead of submergence in ideology and reflections, they

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Intelligentsia as fallible 97 still perceive these actions as a result of the individual’s possession of the right kind of knowledge. Although the participants condemned ideological slavery as a collective feature of their generation unit in the past, most of the speakers still presented themselves as people of ideas. Deep down, they do not denounce idealism as a trait, but their belief in the wrong ideas. The way out of the ideological crisis, they suggest, should have been in the direction of spirituality and religion, and one grand narrative should have been substituted by another. The participants demonstrated their evolution from socialist illusions, but their main identity – that of men of ideas and public men – although challenged and denounced in past shestidesyatniki, still appeared to unite the shestidesyatniki today. Most of the participants spoke as public figures, as people not expected to talk about personal and private matters, but who care about society, have opinions about it, want to share these opinions with the others, and want to participate actively in securing a better future. This portrait resembles the traditional image of the Russian intelligentsia and we can argue that, deliberately or not, the conference participants reconstructed the collective identity of the shestidesyatniki as a continuation of the intelligentsia tradition. I have noted in the text of the chapter how participants justified their proximity to the regime, whereas accounting for hatred of the power the regime wielded was simply stated and not followed by any argumentation. Even when Tabakov challenged the shestidesyatniki’s self-presentation as public men, he immediately explained that he chose to ‘mind his own business’ because most of all he wanted to concentrate on the area where good deeds were do-able at that moment in time. He openly states that he is not ashamed of his membership of the Party, because it allowed him to protect and promote culture. This reference to the intelligentsia’s enlightenment mission serves to purify the speaker’s moral image and minimize his ‘sins’. I have argued above that the shestidesyatniki’s collective identity emerges in response to the slander from rival social groups, but I want to conclude that this was not the most important influence at the conference. If we look at the participants’ speeches from the point of view of the shestidesyatniki identity, they appear to be full of contradiction and ambivalence. However, if we adjust the lenses and expand the framework, we can reinterpret and explain the controversies, as fitting into the image of the Russian intelligentsia. The identity emerges not just as a response to the semidesyatniki’s accusations, but also as a response to those who declare the Russian intelligentsia dead. Shlapentokh (1997), for example, argues that ‘The Russian intelligentsia, as a special stratum of society, disappeared after the anti-communist revolution’. He insists that: The end of the Soviet Union – the overlord of the intelligentsia – and the emergence of pluralism in the economy and politics initiated a radical and historical shift, which led to the decline and disappearance of the Russian intelligentsia at a fantastic rate . . . Today, those in Russia who

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have had higher education are simply ‘professionals’ who work for one or more of the four different ‘masters’: the state, with its authoritarian tendencies; oligarchs, with their control over the media; democratic institutions; or criminal organizations. The conference participants presented exactly the opposite picture. To conclude, I would like to quote Batkin: ‘If we want to stay alive and exert influence somehow, through conversation, or at least through our individual examples, let us remain people of unselfishness and ideas.’ Referring back to the ideal type of the intelligent (p. 33), we can identify several interpretative repertoires that the conference participants borrowed from the cultural story of the intelligentsia to reclaim their moral image. • • • • • • •

The value of their uniqueness. Determination to play a role in public life – resisting being pushed out from their roles as opinion formers. Acceptance of the responsibility (both for their past deeds and in the projection to the future). Necessity and ability to be reflexive and critical – accepting the guilt for being blinded by the ideology. Determination to remain in opposition to power, to maintain and safeguard their independence from it. Value of the enlightenment mission – accepting that this is their task. Determination to be seen as moral in whatever they do or say. The argument ‘I wanted to do what was moral’ seems to be justifying what was actually done. Which motives can be recognized as moral motives are derived from the intelligentsia story: e.g. rejection of self-interest and determination to be seen as unselfish in their aspirations and actions.

There were some modifications made to the traditional myth. Two repertoires appear equally valued, however are separated in different accounts (prioritized by different speakers): the first involves taking responsibility for the future of society in general and aiming to retain their influence on public life, and the second is restoring connections with culture and pursuing a spiritual path and therefore staying above the worries and troubles of everyday life. Interestingly, within the intelligentsia story both repertoires are reconciled – intelligentsia is required to accomplish both tasks – but to justify their past lives and future aspirations, the conference participants draw upon one or other repertoire independently. For example, one person justified shying away from public life and therefore abandoning the grand reformist project by the ideology of small deeds. This was then adapted to the framework of the intelligentsia myth – one has to do something about the injustice of life, and the scale of the project is less important than the motivation itself. The aim of this chapter has been to explore the conference participants’ attempts to repair their damaged collective identity. In previous chapters

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Intelligentsia as fallible 99 I showed that in public discourse the intelligentsia has been declared dead and the shestidesyatniki represented as a failed or fallen intelligentsia. The conference participants oppose these arguments by arguing that the intelligentsia is alive but fallible. They admit to having committed mistakes and perhaps having violated the standards of the ideal, but they now want to leave these failings behind. What really matters, they argue, is that they have recognized their deviations and admitted their mistakes; that they have changed considerably through the painful reflexive process. That means that they are intelligentsia, no less than those who have never faltered. In the following chapters, I will be looking at a different type of discursive biographical data with the aim of exploring whether in different contextual situations the shestidesyatniki’s identity project is also affected. I will also examine how the cultural story of the intelligentsia is creatively modified and reworked to perform particular rhetorical functions in different contexts. Will I be able to identify the same repertoire of the fallible intelligentsia in the biographical stories of other representatives of the generations, when these biographical productions were not influenced explicitly by either the shestidesyatniki category, public declarations of the death of the intelligentsia or the public accusations levelled at the shestidesyatniki?

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5

Becoming and being the intelligentsia

Participation in a culture includes participation in the narratives of that culture, a general understanding of the stock of meanings and their relationships to each other. (Richardson, 1990: 24) The following three chapters are devoted to an analysis of fifteen life story interviews with the representatives of the shestidesyatniki generation unit, which I conducted in Russia during the summers of 2002 and 2003 (see Appendix 1 for details about the participants). The choice of this data collection format was determined by my interest in how individuals construct and present themselves beyond the ideological context of thematic discussion or public gatherings, and which cultural story they would choose to participate in. I approached people of the 1930s birth cohort who had received higher education and who were pursuing intellectual professions or were in highly qualified professional jobs. The sample of interviewees included two schoolteachers, three academic philosophers, three sociologists, two biologists, an academic engineer, a literary critic, an architect, an artist and an actor/ professor in an acting school. Based on the details of each interviewee that I could obtain prior to the meeting (age, occupation, education and place of work), I could only hope that they would appear as participants in the shestidesyatniki generation unit, i.e. would share the mental data with other members of the group. I was dealing with a very vague definition of the category, which many of those I thought as being the shestidesyatniki were reluctant to accept. Even when someone was recommended to me as a true shestidesyatnik, I could never anticipate whether or not the person really saw him or herself as belonging to this category. Indeed, even those interviewees who confirmed that they did belong to this contested group when I first contacted them later turned out to vary in how they understood the shestidesyatniki. If, at the beginning of my research I was hoping to find a single shared cultural story, as I progressed through the analysis it became clear that such a story does not exist in the form I had imagined. As we have seen in Chapter 3, the

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outsiders’ portrait of the shestidesyatniki does vary, and in Chapter 4 I have shown that the shestidesyatniki themselves do not necessarily agree completely as to what constitutes their story. There are several interpretative repertoires that are prioritized in different discursive situations and at least two genres are used to phrase them. Not surprisingly, not all of my interviewees shared all the repertoires of the shestidesyatniki cultural story, but neither did the conference participants. The life stories I discuss in the following chapters provide us with additional details of how different members of the same birth cohort and of comparable social status may vary in what meaning they give to their lives. In other words, they enrich our understanding of the various cultural and collective stories and interpretative repertoires shared by the shestidesyatniki-intelligentsia. In addition to identifying the cultural and collective stories in use, my approach to the data in this and the following two chapters consists of paying close attention to the way in which the narrators present their life stories, on which occasions they put forward arguments to justify their past actions and smooth over possible contradictions within their overall message about themselves, and on which occasions they put their message across as selfevidently coherent. I will argue that argumentation occurs when the narrated experience appears incongruent with the intelligentsia cultural story and I will demonstrate how the narrators either employ interpretative repertoires to restore the coherence or construct collective stories, thereby challenging the intelligentsia myth. All but one of the narrators shared the cultural story of the intelligentsia. One interviewee, however, explicitly distanced herself from this identity. I will present this case first in order to create a contrast with the majority of the life stories in my sample. Interestingly, this person had previously also been approached by the researchers working on the project Russian sociology of the 1960s in memories and documents (Batygin, 1999), but had refused to co-operate. As she explained to me, she was aware that her story would stand out from the others and did not want to risk becoming an outcast.

‘If intelligentsia idealized the people, the people secretly hated it’1 This person was a female (I will call her Maria) academic sociologist, senior researcher and lecturer in one of the Institutes in Moscow. Nothing about her social position and workplace suggested that her interview would be the odd one out, however hers was the only story of an ordinary person distant from the intelligentsia circles, a story where the intelligentsia was attacked and downgraded with all the passion of class hatred. She deliberately chose to distance herself from this social group and associated herself with narod rather than with the intelligentsia. It was a story of a person from narod striving to join the intelligentsia, but constantly aware that she was not one of them. Her family background (her great grandmother was a serf peasant,

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her mother the wife of a worker), her awareness of where she originates from, her cultural memory and collective consciousness as a person from the people all made her intrinsically different from the intelligentsia, even though she was part of the intellectual profession and worked at a research institute. She repeatedly referred to her social origins to explain her views of the intelligentsia and her stance in relation to the establishment and to politics. Her story consisted of a rather deep reflection on the reasons for her feelings and, at the same time, a bizarre mixture of un-reflexive reiteration of the ideological clichés followed by the stories of her family, which contradicted the clichés, followed by critical generalizations regarding the course of Russian history and politics and by illustrations from her personal experience that seemed to state the opposite. She seems to be so deeply indoctrinated by Soviet ideology that, despite her personal experience, she had to feel as she was told to. IE:2 I had a happy childhood, in spite of poverty, etc. Because the horizon was open, the world was for me; it lay at my feet, even though I knew I’d never reach the horizon. There was social justice. In the present situation I doubt I would get higher education if my father were killed in the Chechen war. I would be quickly told where my place is and even then I was also told that. But the official line, propaganda was as such: ‘there are hundreds of ways and roads open for you.’3 She is grateful to the Soviet power for ‘letting her feel her own significance, belonging to the great cause, to the great country, which has won the War’: IE: I grew up in the atmosphere of victory songs and marches. We were the best country in the world, we were the winners, we’d freed the world from fascism. It was the Soviet regime that made her feel proud to belong to the great people who ‘gave birth to the great Russian classics and literature’. She loves Russian literature for its appreciation of the ‘little person’ and is grateful to the Soviet power that gave rights to this type of person. This, in her opinion, justifies all the crimes committed by this regime (particularly as she sees them as crimes against the privileged estates). In establishing her appreciation of literature, she aims to prove that literature was not the exclusive domain of the intelligentsia, but addressed to the people, about the people and for the people. At the same time, the main line of her story recounts the experience of a ‘little person’: ‘I was a child without a father.’ IE: We compared what we saw on the screen with reality and many things didn’t coincide. The real world seemed unreal somehow.

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She tells how she found the wedding dress of her grandmother in the wardrobe, a very simple and cheap dress:

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IE: I started to realize that the fairytales we were shown were not for everybody and definitely not for me. She makes a strong point of her early experience of insecurity; she knew she could not hope for any support from the state and on the contrary was constantly made aware that she comes from the poor, she is of a disadvantaged background and a fatherless family: ‘After the war, life was for the victors and I very soon realized that I do not belong to the victors . . . I have chosen to become a sociologist because I was painfully hit by this society.’ She tells that when her father was killed fighting in the war, her family lost its housing rights, as it was not rated as a military family any more. In order to avoid being thrown on the streets, her mother had to quit her much-loved job at the city library and get a clerical job in a military garrison. Although Maria praises Soviet power, there are several stories in her account that suggest the possibility of an alternative position, the stories which for another person could have caused an attitude critical of the regime. She explains that criticism was not her virtue, it was the domain of the intelligentsia, her destiny was to endure and survive. For instance, she argues that the peasants did not need revolution; after being forced from the villages into the cities, half of them perished from hunger, unemployment and alcoholism. However, when she tells a story about how her grandfather became a city dweller (he almost fell victim to the dekulakization policy, but saw the threat coming, sold his possessions and moved to the city just in time) there is not a note of criticism of the injustice with which the powerful treated ordinary people. The moral of the story is the people’s wisdom and their ability to accommodate to any situation the powerful create for them. The story about her mother’s involvement in the dekulakization of a peasant in the neighbouring village (‘She used to tell me that it was terrifying, it was comparable to an eclipse of the sun’) concludes with the moral: ‘You see, it was always dangerous to play any games with the powerful.’ She mentions: ‘I tell you these things and I am terrified myself about what I tell you.’ However, although she is very critical of current politicians and their policies, there are never any critical reflections about Soviet power. Even though she is terrified of its mistreatment of the country and the people, she seems equally terrified of doubting her belief that it was the right thing to do. The people in her narrative appear as always suffering at the hands of the powerful, but possessing incredible tolerance and cunning and always finding ways to escape and survive. In contrast, the intelligentsia, as she sees it, were always very privileged. She calls them nedobitki dvoryanskie – the odd remains of nobility who survived the revolutionary purges, barskie deti or bare – the masters.4

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Becoming and being the intelligentsia IE: I have a very vivid memory from my early childhood. Father talking to my mum: ‘These are the new noblemen crawling out, they will now divide everything and then start gnawing each other.’ I did not know what he spoke about; I just heard adults talking.

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Sharing the attitude of the people meant that she has never been interested in politics – ‘it is the game of the powerful and rich’. IE: They had something to lose. They had power and they quarrelled over these power pies, imprisoned each other as it usually happens. It was like this after the revolution, repeated in the 1930s and is still the same. Her position was always: ‘There are many of them, but I am alone. When the war comes, they’ll tell me.’ When the euphoria of the conquest of the virgin lands captured her friends and she was seriously considering joining in, her aunt talked her out of it: ‘Be realistic, who needs you there? This is the initiative of the lords who sit at the top. Their children will make a career out of it, but all of you will die. Nobody needs you.’ The position of a person from the people defines her attitude to the dissidents, who ‘originated from the intelligentsia circles’ and therefore were ready to explicitly express their dissatisfaction ‘with whatever’. As she had come from the people, her attitude, ‘possibly transmitted via social genes’, was one of tolerance, patience, alienation from politics and adaptation: IE: I always felt, fair enough, you share your pies, so well, go on, but excuse me, I am not going to join in. Because I knew that my future will be a bullet in the back or prison in the first instance, because they will still be the leaders. In the lower social strata, experience and memory are completely different. She believes that the main reason for the dissidents’ protest was their social origins; they were people who lost their power and social status and, although they can also adapt and subdue, they are always the first to protest. Secondly, they had the resources of culture, education and social connections (svyazi). She explains that the poor may find repressions offensive and feel resentful of them, but they never rebel. In contrast, the intelligentsia readily explodes because it knows what it has lost: lost power is preserved in the genetic memory and is transmitted through the generations. IE: I also grew up in the atmosphere of subordination. It was a global subordination . . . The low strata are apolitical, because they (2.) It is a myth that they have nothing to lose but their chains. They lose their lives and leave their children vulnerable. Because the elite they have culture, education, connections – this kind of social support. And they can save

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themselves somehow. But on the low level you are absolutely helpless. Nobody needs you. That’s why I have for a long time been apolitical. It is interesting to contrast Maria’s emphasis on accepting an offence as integral to her social position as a person from the people and another respondent’s (Olga) assertion (when she recounts her experience of being a daughter of repressed parents) that offence was a feeling alien to her. Olga is confident about her intelligentsia background. She stresses that although her parents were party functionaries, she grew up in a narodniki family and was brought up in the best narodniki tradition. She recollects that while at school she was very active socially because she ‘did not want to feel offended’. She says that if the system wanted the children of such backgrounds to feel like this, it was what they resented: ‘It was our world, we were a part of it and we did not want to be offended.’ Maria compares dissidents with the lord of the manor’s children, whose sweet pastry was taken away, who had lost something and regretted the loss, felt angry with the regime which dared to take that away, had energy and strength to protest and demand the return of what was stolen. She notes sarcastically that they nevertheless always escaped unharmed from the most difficult situations, unlike the ordinary people who were particularly vulnerable. She does not trust the stories about the terrors of the Gulag and treats them as the stories of the survivors – the intelligentsia – who now try to present themselves as true heroes. She does not believe they really suffered in the camps, as only workers and people with low education endured genuine hardship, but those who survived were mostly educated people, who had the easy jobs. Dissidents, revolutionaries, rebels are not the real heroes for her. She compares human organization with that of a group of animals: first comes the leader, he has charisma, he is brave, but he will most definitely become a victim and fall. But behind the leader are the masses; they are strong, they have stamina and obstinacy, they will survive, they will continue the life of their kind. These surviving masses are the real heroes. IE: Probably we humans also have such laws . . . But with us, this propaganda of definite stars, dissidents are stars now. They are presented as martyrs and heroes, but that is not exactly true. Another reason for her apolitical attitude is a shortage of energy and time, which was spent on achieving and securing her status within the intelligentsia domain. She was enthralled by the proximity of the wonderland of science, into which by chance or miracle she – the daughter of a peasant and a worker – managed to enter and had to work harder than the others to be recognized as a worthy member of this new world. At the same time, her energy was spent on resolving the contradictions between the idealistic image of the world of science she had and the reality, whereas the children of the scientists

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knew this world well and had neither illusions nor high expectations. She recounts several episodes which tell how she realized that those scientists she idealized were not perfect and how the romanticism collapsed. None of the repertoires or genres used by other narrators (including those discussed in the two previous chapters) were significant in Maria’s life story. First of all, she did not feel she had to be apologetic for anything in her life, or to smooth out the contradictions by reiterating some sort of conversion. She accounted for neither failed beliefs nor complicated relationships with the authorities. The motive of estrangement from power and love for people was present in her story, albeit for different reasons. She talks about herself as one of the people and loving them as her own kind, rather than aiming to enlighten them or learn from them. She does not engage with heroic discourse, does not render her conformist position problematic and states openly her denunciation of the critical attitudes of the intelligentsia. Obviously the intelligentsia cultural story was alien to her, as well as the cultural story of the shestidesyatniki. She did not structure her life account around the typical shestidesyatniki landmarks (e.g. Stalin’s death or Twentieth Party Congress), and did not account for her beliefs in socialism, her feelings of comradeship with her colleagues (rather the opposite), or her experience of disappointment when the hopes for the liberalization of the regime failed (she did not even mention hopes of this kind). Her story is one of vertical mobility, of a poor person from the people who was given a chance to enter the intelligentsia world thanks to the Soviet power, but who never really joined the intelligentsia, who was not for a moment deceived into believing that she was one of them, who was always aware of her social difference and had combined feelings of envy, admiration and class hatred for this privileged estate. Her story proves that intelligentsia is not defined by level of education and place of work, but by identity, which can be shared or not. The rest of the narrators maintained their intelligentsia identity even though not all of them originated from a privileged background or from intelligentsia families. However, the way the interviewees accounted for belonging to the intelligentsia varied and different versions of this identity were created. One story – that of the Count (which I look at in detail in Chapter 7) – stands out as a unique case: a narrator with a non-problematic intelligentsia identity. He firmly believes that he belongs to the intelligentsia and constructed a story of personal continuity – there was nothing in his life he regretted or wished he had done another way. He was the only one who did not perceive me as a threat, but on the contrary trusted me and saw me as potentially able to empathize with his values. The majority of the interviewees though took great care to repair their damaged identities and reconstructed their intelligentsia identity out of the broken pieces. During this process, some aspects of the intelligentsia identity (cultural stories) were challenged to fit with the narrators’ experience. This was accomplished by an emphasis on personal transformation, by an

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explanation of the role of fear and liberation from fear in the narrators’ lives, by establishing their attitudes to power and by accounting for conformist and non-conformist behaviour. The salience of the conversion mode of the shestidesyatniki’s personal and collective accounts is a recurring theme throughout this book. This chapter is not an exception. Indeed, the first major difference between the life stories in my sample is the two distinctive genres the narrators used to organize their self-presentations. Whereas in the Count’s story intelligentsia identity is produced through his story of personal continuity, the majority of the lifenarratives in my sample were framed as conversion stories. I will argue that this particular genre is widely used by the members of the shestidesyatniki generation unit and that it can perform different functions. In Chapter 4, we have seen how conference participants radically distanced from their previous selves in order to establish their relevance to the present moment and resist the attempts of the younger generations to turn them into history. The second function of this genre is to reclaim their moral identity and status as the intelligentsia, by arguing that failing in the past can be redeemed through the experience of conversion. By placing an emphasis on their personal change they construct a collective story of the fallible intelligentsia. In the following sections, I will examine whether individual narrators have used the same genre and with which rhetorical aims. I will distinguish the presence of the first two functions, identified in the earlier chapters, and will point to the third rhetorical task it aims to achieve: legitimating and supporting the repertoire of achieving intelligentsia status or ‘becoming intelligentsia through culture’. I should remind the reader that I use the term conversion story as a generic name for the narratives where a radical transformation from a faulty before self to an enlightened after self is emphasized and the distinction between protagonist and the speaker is significant. The conversion narratives I discuss in this study should not be confused with the Christian conversion stories researched by cultural anthropologists (e.g. Bankston et al., 1981; Cadwell, 1983 or Stromberg, 1995). The self-transformation reported by my interviewees did not necessarily turn all of them into religious believers, although for some this was indeed the case. There are no mysterious or miraculous events that caused the change, and the use of Biblical language for the account of personal experience is not noticeable. At the same time both Christian conversion stories and the narratives in my sample are accounts of personal transformation, of ‘a change in what one is’ (Stromberg, 1995: 16). In both cases it is a strategy that helps to construct socially legitimate identities. Stromberg (ibid.: 17–18) considers conversion narrative as ‘a ritual generated around certain contradictions in our common sense conceptions of character and intention’, which otherwise can be seen as mental illness or emotional distress. In the case of my interviewees, it is a reaction to dramatic social transformations undermining the value of their previous image.

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Out of fifteen life story interviews in my sample, three stood out as stories in which the experience of conversion was the main element holding the story together; it was the main line along which the narrators chose to organize their self-presentations. These were the stories of Mikhail, Boris and Anton, as I will name the narrators for the purpose of anonymity. In the other twelve stories, the experience of changing from the past to the present self, even though it was not the main topic, was nevertheless present and, indeed, is the main theme that makes these various idiosyncratic personal accounts similar.

Intelligentsia reborn The careful account of personal transformation is aimed to make us believe that the intelligentsia can be reborn: it can come out of the debris, shake off the pieces of its shell and re-establish connections with past glories. This message is similar to the one conference participants put across. The construction of Mikhail’s life story was centred on an explanation of how he changed his principles, on the experience of a personal break with communism, painful disillusionment and the cruel discovery of the truth. Unlike the Count, in whose story no change of values or beliefs was recounted in any of the life episodes, Mikhail chose to organize his life story around what he called a law of changing values or principles. He claimed authorship of this ‘philosophical law’ and provided me with examples from the lives of famous personalities, which helped him to establish the law and prove its validity: Saint Augustine, the Apostles Paul and Peter, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn – all have dramatically changed their convictions. IE: The law of changing principles is the law. It is not possible otherwise, life changes, everything changes, but the person doesn’t change – that is ridiculous . . . If you like, it is simply daftness and illiteracy. Pushkin5 thought, that anyone who sticks to the same principles and does not dare change them is simply not human. According to the narrator, there are three essential criteria that help to recognize when the law is at work and when a person simply pretends that she or he has changed beliefs but in fact remains at the same position. First of all, a person should be disinterested and sincere, second merciless to him/herself, and finally, the process should take a long time – ‘I do not believe in a momentary turnover’ – the narrator claimed decisively. Mikhail provided examples from his own life to illustrate all three criteria in action and to confirm that in his case it was a natural working of the law and that he was not one of the post-communist werewolves. The change was triggered by the ‘pressure of the facts, to which I naturally resisted and objected’ – emphasizes Mikhail, to show the inevitable working of the law in his case. He then

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immediately demonstrated that the second condition of the law was also relevant in his case: ‘I know the truth, I know, but I cannot realize it, I lack willpower or something else.’ The dual emphasis, first on the lengthy process of gradual searches for truth and gradual transformation, and then on the early start of such searches and their sincerity, is a significant element in the many conversion stories I have heard. The epoch of the 1960s (particularly after Stalin’s death and the Twentieth Party Congress) appears to be prominent in their narratives as it put some burning questions in front of all thinking people living through that period: ‘What is our social organization really like? Is it really true what we are told is going on? Is this really a democracy and the rule of people?’ (Interview with Anton). It was not a choice for the intelligentsia to answer or to avoid these questions – it was their responsibility. Anton talked about crisis and a catastrophic perception of the necessity to deal with these questions, which people brought up with loyalty to the party course found particularly difficult. Nevertheless he emphasized that it was ‘our duty and our obligation’ to respond and to search for the answers to these questions. He projects here a clearly recognizable intelligentsia identity. Similar to the Count, he emphasizes responsibility as one of the most important traits that make intelligentsia different. An intelligent is not only a thinking person, but someone who cannot simply walk away and avoid responsibility, whose social role and identity require him to face the questions with courage and look for the answers. There is a sense of social superiority in this acceptance of social responsibility, a distrust of the ability of ordinary people to find answers themselves and the belief that they need the help of a better qualified and equipped group – the intelligentsia. A similar sense of distance from the people and of superiority is present in Mikhail’s account. He recollects that even he failed to understand what was happening around the time of Perestroika, although by the nature of his profession – philosophy – he was better equipped than most to see beyond the slogans. He emphasizes that he felt it was his and the intelligentsia’s responsibility to help people to understand, to enlighten them and to be patient when they did not immediately appreciate the message. In contrast, he accuses the leaders of Perestroika of forgetting their social distance from the people, expecting them to share their knowledge and goals. He is probably right here, as we can compare his point with the irritation regarding Perestroika in Maria’s account: ‘Gorbachev used to say that people understood and followed us. What a fool!’ All three narrators were born when Stalin was still alive and in full flow; they were educated in Soviet schools and they joined the pioneers, Komsomol and finally the Party. Now this past experience is seen as the shell they were to shake off in order to establish the purity of their intelligentsia identity. Instead of denying that they had been influenced by Soviet ideology, they choose another strategy. Maria, Mikhail and Anton found a way to account for their ideological indoctrination. They acknowledge it, but condemn it

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and treat it as a feature of the past selves that they have now broken free from. The second essential criterion of the law of self-transformation according to Mikhail is merciless self-criticism: ‘if you had misconceptions, it means you were enjoying certain benefits, didn’t you? You were with the winners, therefore there should be merciless self-criticism, absolutely merciless.’ He talks here about the necessity of penance and in the interview he is really pitiless towards his previous self. Anton used an interesting metaphor to describe his past self. He compares himself and his contemporaries with a mancurt – a character from an ancient legend, the victim of a cruel custom. In order to turn a captured enemy into an obedient slave, the legendary tribe would tie a camel skin around his head. By the time the skin dried up and shrunk, the victim would have lost all memories and any sense of previous identity. He emphasizes the strength of previously held beliefs by saying that he was almost ready to commit an immoral act at the party’s request: ‘I could have accused someone. I did not have any reasons for not trusting the party.’ When I probe Mikhail to discover how it was possible for him to fit together his love for Pushkin and Dostoevsky and his belief in Marxism-Leninism, he readily admits: IE: There was a conflict, which I carefully and actually rather cowardly silenced. Because they were incompatible but I wanted them to be compatible. It was a sort of naive cowardice of thought. But at some point a question came to my mind, what would they have done to Pushkin and Dostoevsky if they were alive in 1917? Such a tiny thought, I was scared of it, I ran away, but it stuck nevertheless. And I began to think and think and finally have realized, that they would have killed them without mercy. And I faced inevitable choice – who am I with? Throughout the interview he frequently resumes the same line of selfcriticism: IE: I knew very little about what was going on in life or, to be honest, I rather tried to avoid knowing. Even when my uncle was imprisoned, I was afraid to think about it . . . I did not know anything. I did not read the Bible and I was afraid to read it. He describes an esoteric route to himself: IE: I was approaching myself gradually, gradually, gradually, reading, observing, listening to the music, etc. etc. And finally I’ve come to the conclusion that the mystery of communism and its biggest mistake is that it has rejected gradual movement and wanted to turn everything overnight.

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He talks about coming to terms with his true self by getting rid of the layers of additives inherited from his background and accumulated through many years of life in an atmosphere of spuriousness.

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Becoming intelligentsia through culture There is another deeper meaning in Mikhail’s narrative than simply accounting for the distance from communist ideology and Soviet power. It is a story of achieved nobility (Andrle, 1994: 23). For Maria, nobility is the feature of alien privileged classes; she was never able to feel one of them as she originated from a poor, working-class family. The Count also traces his characteristics of being intelligent and noble in heart to his family background: although his father was a poor worker, he was not an ordinary man, he knew the Bible by heart and was therefore cultured. Mikhail sees himself as a raznochinets. He emphasizes that his intelligentsia identity was not given to him, but was gained by considerable effort from his side and he stresses his becoming a member of the intelligentsia through ‘becoming part of culture’.6 This is a recognizable collective story, which challenges the dominant cultural story about intelligentsia as an identity that can only be inherited. Indeed, the majority of the interviewees emphasized their family backgrounds to prove they have the right to consider themselves intelligentsia. Mikhail’s conversion narrative challenges the dominant cultural story and confirms that one does not need to be born as an intelligent, everyone who can think and feel, who has morals and sincerely desires to become part of that identity, can acquire it. In the quote below, Mikhail explains how, unlike ‘true intelligenty’, he faced a choice, experienced frustration and anxiety when the two systems of ideology and culture conflicted with each other: IE: Because who endured [the hardships of the Soviet regime]? (2.) Those who were belonging to the very roots of culture. (4.) Why some did not have a problem of choice, but I did? Because, how can I put it, you see, I am a raznochinets. But the noble people, such as Akhmatova or Ivanov, belonged to culture from the very beginning, originally, inherently. Me, on the other hand, how can I put it (1.) I am a follower, my process of becoming a part of it started later, but while I was becoming its part, I was constantly feeling that nothing was right, that on the one hand what was being put in me [by the education and propaganda systems] and what I read and learned myself (3.) did not correspond, whereas for those people it was inherent. It is interesting to note that when narrators could not prove their intelligentsia identity by their family backgrounds, they did so by claiming to be cultured and to belong to world culture. Nowadays, as in the nineteenth century, ‘the attribution of moral superiority and high social significance as having an

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education and “being cultured” . . . is the key to intelligentsia’s sense of social identity . . . To the intelligentsia, being cultured conferred [and still confers] social status’ (Andrle, 1994: 21). The narrators see first of all Pushkin and then other Russian and world classics of literature and art as their heroes. In other words, they presented themselves as being part of a world culture, not confined by the borders of one particular nation, social group or historical time. This theme was particularly pronounced in the life stories of Mikhail, Boris and the Count, who emphasized that attachment to culture creates a feeling of atemporality, of being able to rise above the immediate worries of a historical moment and acquire a broad vision. Mikhail’s self-transformation is triggered by his experience of culture. It comes through reading literature and listening to music. Like the Count and Mikhail, Boris found the solution for his inner conflict by appealing to world culture, coming to realize that culture enables one to rise above momentary troubles and demands. IE: We are out of the time, we are above the time, we do not belong to the time, time is a signal of the presence of some inner truth on earth . . . You see, for instance, Pushkin was born in 1799; he lived in his time, but real talent, real phenomenon like a tree exceeds, overcomes its concrete historical time, rises above this cup of tea, above this table, above this communication and operates with cosmic, atemporal notions. The transformation the narrators describe was by no means sudden. Even in what is commonly recognized as Christian conversion stories, transformation is not immediate and narrators emphasize that they always were different from siblings and peers. The route ‘from the first doubt till the last decision’ in Mikhail’s case took more than thirty years – from 1956 till 1990. The emphasis on the length of the process serves as another proof of the sincerity of his conversion. When he talks in more detail about this process he sees the first doubt occurring already in childhood. He was ‘injected with Soviet ideology from the early years’ and was a happy Soviet child, but gradually small contradictions he ‘encountered here and there grew into an enormous bifurcation’. Contradictions emerged from the experience of reading world classics at the same time as the Communist Manifesto and admiring both. He compared the Communist Manifesto with the devil’s temptation – these ideas inspired ordinary people to feel higher than Gods – ‘to feel superior to Shakespeare and Hegel, who were unaware of the most important principle – that of the class struggle’. Although Mikhail insists that it took him many years to change his beliefs, he remembers precisely the date of the final realization that all his life he ‘was walking along the wrong route, enthusiastically and selflessly’. Unsurprisingly, the final moment of truth coincided with coming face to face with death – Mikhail pictures sitting on a bench in the park one Tuesday and

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thinking about a forthcoming heart operation after three heart attacks: ‘The operation is tomorrow and I sit on a bench thinking will I survive or not? And suddenly everything became clear, that I am a fool, that in reality the truths are different.’ This episode resembles the miraculous events in the Christian conversion stories, only without encountering the Divine. Mikhail deliberately structures his account of self-transformation to prove the validity of his ‘law of changing values and principles’ and the same rules are recognizable in the accounts of Anton and Boris. All three narrators are merciless to their past selves, drawing a clear line between the protagonist of the stories and themselves in the present. The same emphasis on transition applies to various topics in their stories: the experience of fear, relations with power, the gaining of spirituality and truth. I will discuss these later, but now let me complete the argument about the conversion story being a cultural story of the shestidesyatniki by presenting a boundary case – the narrative constructed to maintain personal continuity.

Continuity in spite of change I definitely changed, but remained the same nevertheless. This epigraph could briefly summarize the theme of Gennady’s story. I will use his account as a boundary case, which confirms the importance of the experience of personal transformation even if the narrator does not explicitly acknowledge this. His is a story constructed to prove personal continuity, however at the same time an element of conversion is included as if necessary for self-justification and moral self-presentation. Gennady’s narrative is an attempt to integrate personal and community stories, to build a categorical identity, maintaining a balance between individuality and typicality. Modern biographical production of individuality involves an emphasis on a person’s uniqueness in relation to social categories: ‘I am not typical this or that.’ Gennady’s image of himself projected throughout the interview, however, seems to coincide with the stereotypical representation of the people of the 1960s as intelligentsia with ambitions to reform social order through humanizing socialism. He constructs his story to prove that his life was and still is a life of a typical shestidesyatnik, concentrating on his attempts to bring socialism with a human face into life via architectural projects. IE: We are the shestidesyatniki, people who having read the books about Stalin’s cult believed in socialism with a human face, precisely in socialism. Who lived inspired by this, who from the childhood, from the upbringing in the pioneer organization, thought that one should live for the sake of the people, who tried to realize it, succeeded little but remained faithful to these ideas.

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IE: I am a shestidesyatnik, I graduated in the 1960s, but I became very socially active already in my student years and all my life was interested in social problems. I think my life m-m-m proves a lot. At least all my life I was occupied with these things, I tried to understand, influence and m-m form. It is interesting to compare his story with the view of the intelligentsia we have seen in Maria’s account. For her, the intelligentsia are the fighters and the rebels, they are always ready to protest and do not hesitate to express their critical views, unlike the people, who are patient, tolerant and willing to obey in order to survive. At the start of the interview, Gennady emphasizes his active agency in life, presents himself as a fighter, who had strong principles and who nourished humanistic values, who cared above all for the well-being of other people and who waged a war with the system for the realization of his ideas and ideals. His life story consists of a series of experiences of breaking points – the lifting of the veil, followed by illness and professional standstills. The final emphasis is placed on the fact that in spite of all these dramas he did not become completely desperate and disappointed and is still determined to realize his life-project. Even though he claims continuity for his actions, attitudes and beliefs throughout his numerous crises in life, it is important for him to emphasize that these crises did not change his personality or outlook on life. Nevertheless, he almost ritualistically insists on the change of values at the moment his generation should have experienced it. He mentions the conversion in passing and after my probe gives a detailed confirmation that indeed like everyone else in his generation he also experienced a breakdown of values. The striking feature of this example is how he both associates with a collectivity, each member of which has experienced this crisis, and dissociates from it as an individual who did not. IE: When we were in our third year at the University, we were all experiencing this terrible breakdown. It was in 1956 – the struggle with excessiveness [in architecture] . . . When we entered the Institute we were drawing beautiful details, talking about harmony and architecture being music of space, that this is what people need. And here suddenly comes Khrushchev, mass housing, and a turn to industrialization, industrial building – struggle with excessiveness. And all those beautiful buildings turn out to be done incorrectly, because first of all we need to solve housing problem. And we m-m-m there m-m-m experience (1.) a sort of ceiling, but we with our, me with my upbringing, I accepted it wholly and organized a group which began (1.) started to wage a war exactly for this.

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This excerpt illustrates how the interviewee maintains a balance between the stereotypical image of the shestidesyatniki and an individual image of himself. The problematic moment is indicated by the presence of a hesitation – m-m-m – the change from we to me and the pauses. On the one hand – we – the collectivity including the author – experienced frustration after Khrushchev’s turn to mass building. On the other hand – I – the author – did not experience it at all, and on the contrary, accepted the reforms enthusiastically. As he later summarizes, a fascination with the future of the architecture of the city building was one of his numerous ‘skids off the road’. At another point during the interview he explained his attitude to the communist regime and ideology. He does not consider this topic to be particularly relevant as in spite of some encounters with the dangers of the regime and an unpleasant experience with repressive bodies during his student years, it did not affect his belief in socialism with a human face. Even in such a context, he chooses to distance himself from the true believers by saying that if at school he could explain much better what communism was than the school secretary of pioneer organization, at the Institute ‘we very quickly began to make sense of the communist principles’. Thus a controversy emerges: a true believer in socialist ideas on the one side, and a person with a critical attitude and shrewd insight into the core matter of these principles on the other. Concluding the stories about his experience with the KGB while in his third year at the Institute and during the student protests across Moscow he sums up: IE: This is just a prelude, because nevertheless we believed in communism with the human face, believed that we lived very well. At the end of the interview I once again invited him to return to this topic. The context changed and so did his account: IR: Did you personally doubt socialist ideology? IE: Socialist ideology? Of course I did. And there was a breakdown. The doubts emerged in communism and even in the attitude to Iosif Vissarionovitch [Stalin], but I solved these problems in a scientific way. I was building my own new economics and sociology. I discovered my own laws and some new discoveries and changes originated from them. This last quote again reveals the importance of the balance between individuality and typicality. He presents his individual attitude to the doubts he and many others have experienced during social transitions. Personal transformations are attributed to his ‘scientific’ approach; they come as a result of it and not as simply triggered by the external factors. He thus protects his agency and insists on having had power over the circumstances. He talks rather emotionally about the personal transformation from his young years to adulthood and emphasizes the transitions from the ‘very-very orthodox, Soviet, very daring, joyful mood’ inherited from his happy childhood

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to the reality of adult life, where the protection of his loving family was not helping any more (see Chapter 6). He further explains how this transition became possible. During the changes in the country’s political and ideological climate, new information about the regime’s atrocities became available, students were having serious political conversations, they put forward their demands and encountered strengthening repressions. He recollects the increased supervision and surveillance at the university. The result was ‘a break in our minds’ – for the narrator it ‘was in the right time’. He entered university soon after the death of Stalin, still full of happy childhood memories and emotions. Early university years were characterized by encountering the complex mixture of his identities and interests: a long-lasting interest in religion (after the death of his best friend at the age of fourteen), his activism in Komsomol and Jewish nationality started to cause problems, he realized that he was not a child any more but could be viewed by the regime as a suspicious subject.

‘Neither dinosaurs nor weathercocks’ To sum up, most of the people I interviewed told me one or another version of a conversion story. The narrators do not simply mention personal change, but make it the main theme of their stories, the main pillar on which their personal identity is based. This observation creates a contrast between my study and the study conducted by Andrle in the Czech Republic in the late 1990s (Andrle, 2000). He notes that sudden social change (such as revolution) threatens to stigmatize personal identities and urges people to change their life stories. In his reading of the life stories of Czech middle-class, middleaged professionals, Andrle concentrates on the treatment of what he calls the ‘dinosaur–weathercock dilemma’, where both polar images are undesirable. He analyses how narrators respond to the demand of personal change prompted by the revolution and at the same time how they establish personal continuity in spite of this change. Andrle hypothesizes that as none of the sixty-seven people he interviewed ‘told a story of radical self-change, it means that in a culture which has seen five radical changes of political system this century, narratives of a revolution occasioning a radical conversion are liable to be heard as signifying a weathercock’ and are therefore avoided. He also suggests that when a revolution heralds and demands so much change, the ‘conservative impulse’ of the self strengthens. Indeed the narrators in my sample also carefully account for being neither ‘dinosaurs nor weathercocks’, but solve this dilemma not by strengthening their continuity, but by emphasizing one dramatic change in their minds (consciousness, self) rather than a series of changes depending on change in the political climate of the country, thereby distancing themselves from the weathercocks. By rooting their transformation in the 1950s and 1960s, they purge the dinosaur image. The transition in their stories usually coincides with the hero entering young adulthood (however, in some narratives it is happening in early childhood or

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the teen years). Some narrators emphasize how early they lost their beliefs, others on the contrary describe the long process of departure from previously held values, which stretched far into 1980s. The transformation might have been influenced by events in the narrators’ personal biographies such as family tragedy, in which case the death of Stalin and subsequent Twentieth Party Congress do not figure as important landmarks. Nevertheless, the majority of narratives confirm the dominant media representation of the shestidesyatniki as those who experienced a loss of belief as a result of the shock after Stalin’s death and Khrushchev’s speech. Stalin’s death comes out not only as a definite demarcation line of the political life and personal/social experience of the narrators (life presented as before and after Stalin’s death), it is a demarcation line for their personal transformation. This event for many came as a shock and suddenly opened up many contradictions and controversies in what before seemed a clear and one-sided reality. For some of the interviewees, transformation was triggered by family misfortunes, for others by the changes in the political climate and the shifts in ideology. For most of the narrators, the death of Stalin coincided with or actually caused dramatic changes in their personal or family lives, therefore it is difficult to distinguish the personal reasons from the political ones in our analysis. In all cases, the transition changed their attitudes to the official ideology, socialism and communism, and influenced the narrators’ decisions regarding participation in public life: some became closely involved with it, having decided to do all they could to prevent the restoration of Stalinism, others, on the contrary, withdrew to the safe harbours of their professional lives and their circles of friends. The transition reported in every narrative resembles awakening from a happy dream world to a harsh reality. It is not a pleasant experience, but a personal tragedy, which only now, ex post facto, is perceived as a lucky moment. None of the interviewees regret this transition, but all accept it as an inevitable stage in their lives, the earlier the better. The conversion stories told by Russian intellectuals of the shestidesyatniki generation resemble Christian conversion narratives in at least one respect: they are journeys from darkness to light, although instead of becoming more certain, the narrators on the contrary stress the experience of losing previous beliefs. The life story is narrated within two temporalities: the past and the present. In the conversion stories, two types of identity structure the narration of the past and the present: who I was and who I am now. Coherent identities, such as we will see in the Count’s story, were very rare. The majority of the respondents in my sample choose to emphasize the journey, the transition from the past self into the present self. Within this strategy, the past identity can be criticized and denounced, meaning that it is accepted as a negative one (‘I was a fool’). Criticism, however, does not come without justifications. Narrators give reasons why the past bad me was not their fault, but the result of ideological brainwashing. This can also be seen as a way of managing damaged identity and strengthening the conversion pattern in the narrative.

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Accounts of fear and of relations with power and conformism

In this chapter I will look at the little stories that appear within life stories. A story is an account of a sequence of events that has significance for the narrator and his or her audience. ‘It has a plot, a beginning, a middle and an end. It has internal logic that makes sense to the narrator’ (Denzin, 1989: 37). Stories serve a variety of functions, for example, they can pass on a cultural heritage, maintain a collective sense of the culture of an organization, give warnings of what not to do (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996: 56). Stories are also ‘a common genre from which to retell or come to terms with particularly sensitive or traumatic times and events’ (ibid.). They signify the presence of potentially sensitive themes for the narrators that require additional rhetorical support, clarification and argumentation. The shestidesyatniki tell stories in order to account for a latent difficulty in aligning one’s life experiences with the intelligentsia cultural story. The pool of cultural values and meanings assembled within the intelligentsia story seem to contradict the lives of the real people, and, therefore, to construct a coherent sense of self the interviewees need to solve these contradictions. As I will illustrate, rhetorical justification is achieved by either accounting for the real motivations behind actions that seem incongruous with what is culturally accepted as a coherent intelligentsia identity (see also discussion in Chapters 4 and 5), or by selecting a particular theme in the intelligentsia story and prioritizing it over others.

Accounts of fear I will start by drawing the reader’s attention to some important differences between the Count’s life story (see Chapter 7) and the life story of Mikhail (which is in many respects similar to the other narratives in my sample). The first theme, absent from the Count’s story and distinctively pronounced in Mikhail’s, is liberation from the feeling of fear. Both narrators describe shestidesyatniki as those who knew fear but found the strength to break free from it. However, there is a difference: if the Count does not admit that he knew and experienced fear, for Mikhail liberation from fear is an important element in his personal transformation. Mikhail is convinced that this

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experience is the main difference between the shestidesyatniki and the younger generations and the reason for frequent misunderstandings between them. He talks about it as his personal (and shared with other shestidesyatniki) pain and shame, and, at the same time, as a source of pride. The transition moment is introduced to explain the birth of a hero: the narrator suddenly realizes what kind of coward he was and pulls his strength together to rebel against oppression by fear. The clear demarcation between past self (which can be a villain) and new self – a hero – is a distinctive feature of the shestidesyatniki’s accounts. IE: There is a border beyond which the following generation cannot understand us. The reason is m-m (4.) we were struggling with fear. And we were overcoming this fear. The following generation did not know this fear – it was literally free. You see there is a shelf there (points to a narrow chest-high shelf in the corner packed with colourful paper-cover notebooks). These are my diaries for almost sixty years. They are encrypted, because I was scared. He recollects several episodes that illustrate how this fear was enforced and maintained, and at the same time the accounts serve to justify and accept fear as a normal reaction. IE: [my diaries are encrypted] because they were being stolen from me. Repair workers, electricians used to come to me and while I was making coffee for them, they would steal them. And because I knew about it, I encrypted them. And further: IE: The next generation does not know it [fear], they cannot comprehend, you see, for instance, if every day there is a car at your porch, if I come to Isaitch [Solzhenitsyn] we exit from the door and here is that car, absolutely brazenly follows us, and another one gets in its place. We go to a park to talk, and there is another car already waiting for us in the park, because they already know where we would go. Fear, cowardice and ignorance are the main reasons for confession and ruthless self-criticism in his account. At the same time, however, these are the reasons for the justification of the shestidesyatniki and a source of self-importance. Mikhail believes that the experience of overcoming fear makes the shestidesyatniki’s knowledge more valuable and their life experiences richer. For example, something he was ashamed of is transformed into a matter of pride. He gradually moves from describing the experience of fear to the contrast between hard-working shestidesyatniki, who acquired knowledge through blood, sweat and tears, and the younger generation, who received this knowledge without much effort:

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IE: What I have achieved secretly and suffered through, they received easily. They are cleverer than me, they are more talented, and I envy them. But at the same time, [their truth] is free of charge without following the thorny route leading to it, it is not tormented out. Because as soon as you start talking to them, you discover hollows . . . We, unlike the younger generations, laboured terribly honestly. It is both tragic and comical. I remember a picture from my life: I get up at six, my winter student holidays, do long and hard physical exercise, and start making notes on Capital. I still have these notes. Although he eagerly admits his previous sins (of pretending, lying and fearing), we soon learn that these sins belong to the past. The narrator can treat his past self critically because he has dramatically changed since then. The ruthless denunciation of the sinful character of his past makes the moment of transformation even more dramatic and causes the reader to respect him even more. As in Christian conversion stories, previous sins are redeemed at the moment of confession. Alongside confessing previous sins, he emphasizes personal victory over the demons of fear and cowardice. In the following extract from the interview we see how first he humbly distances himself from the brave true shestidesyatniki who were at the frontline of the political protest, and then further proceeds with his personal story of brave behaviour, which leads to the joy of liberation. IR: Do you think the shestidesyatniki were not a free generation? IE: No of course not. We were beaten generation [not to be confused with beat generation], we lied, and we were hiding. If those seven who went to the Red Square [he means demonstration in 1968] etc. were the tip of an iceberg, there were I think tens thousands of the shestidesyatniki. I was not one of the most prominent shestidesyatniki. IR: Who are the most prominent? IE: Of course those seven are, Bukovsky and the others. Yes. However, [the story begins] I still blurted out sometimes in the 1968 at [name of a famous writer deleted] memory evening, when the restoration of Stalinism began, that you won’t achieve anything, you sit here KGB guys, I did say it exactly in this way (sneer), you go and report to your bosses, that I want to bet with them, where they will be in 20 years and where Solzhenitsyn, Neizvestnyj, Maksimov and Bulat [Okudzhava] will be. For this I was expelled from the Party, kicked out of the job. But m-m-m (4.) the difference is that the following generation does not know fear, but it also does not know the experience of overcoming it. First time I put tail between legs, second time again, but on the third time I had enough and here I suddenly blurted out. I simply have had enough. You simply stop feeling like a normal human being if you do not blurt out. But at the same time it is fear and the overcoming of this fear. [end of story]

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The enemies, previously feared, acquire comical traits: the narrator can now treat them as any ordinary criminal who interferes in his life. Victory over personal fears makes the evil power diminish to a negligible scale. To put it in his own words: ‘Why did I now fall in love with Goya? Because he went along the same route, he was first fascinated with being close to the power but realized the nullity of this enthralment.’ Here Mikhail tells me what happened after he openly challenged the authorities. We can see in the story that the enemy does not have a name, he is simply described as a KGB officer and a weirdo; however the ‘good guy’ who helped the hero is given a full name. IE: [. . .] after that speech a KGB guy comes to me (4.) and I sense an opportunity to overcome myself as if it was a game of some sort, because I’ve had enough. He comes to me and says: ‘[Name deleted]’ (1.) we had bizarre situation, there were three people in every Institute: Party secretary, trade union representative and Director. Without the three of them [agreeing it was impossible to do anything]. The Party secretary and directorate are for my expulsion, but a trade unionist [full name deleted] stood against, and without his voice they could not do anything. He stood against. Such a wonderful person he was, he stood against and they could not expel me by the law. So a weirdo comes to me, we lived on 11th floor, and says: ‘[name], you see yourself what kind of situation we are in. Would you please write a letter yourself [asking to be removed from this job], we will find you another place, but (1.) but you understand that your trade unionist is not a very wise man, he does not understand the situation, but you do. Do not put us in this trouble’. I say: ‘May I?’ – literally we are on the 11th floor – ‘Come here to the window’. He came to the window (sneer). I grabbed his legs and pushed him out of the window. He screamed madly, I almost threw him out but held on. I said: ‘You suggest me to throw myself out of the window and say I will benefit from it? Benefit if I leave with a yellow ticket? If so, jump yourself there. Why do you keep saying to me this crap. I won’t jump there, I won’t give you this letter, bugger off from here.’ And I kicked him out [of my flat] half beaten. This was – I remember it perfectly well, the joy of liberation from the fear, I suddenly realized, that’s it, my fear and my fears are over I can talk to them only in this way. You understand? But I had to come to this, because before if I did not vote for, I still did not vote against. In Mikhail’s story the fear of power prevented him, for a time, from becoming a cultured person. He was ignorant; he ‘did not read Bible, did not know anything and was afraid to read’. Newborn hatred of power comes through experiencing culture, and it becomes even stronger when a person realizes what he was previously deprived of. ‘Becoming part of culture’ helps to restore selfdignity as Mikhail emotionally demonstrates in the following extract:

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IE: Not only some abstract love of freedom helped us to overcome our illusions, but culture. Getting to know and becoming part of culture suddenly helped you to realize the nullity of this opposition. They are crap, but rule over me, over them [he points to the portraits and pictures on the wall], rule over Goya, Michelangelo. How dare they rule over us! The shestidesyatniki in the life story of Olga are people who, on the one hand, had fresh memories of the repressions and were captured by fear, but, on the other hand, had to win the battle over this fear in order to behave morally. Here she explains how her husband suffered when he was doing something that he knew he might be prosecuted for: IE: Some time after 1968 we made acquaintance with, even befriended, some foreigners and they used to come and visit us. We could not allow ourselves not to receive them – that would be undignified. And when they invited us, we used to go. But for [name deleted] it was a big stress that we went – it was fearsome. But nevertheless, one had to behave as a human being. Fear for her is the demon one had to live with and constantly wage battles against. Other narrators frequently refer to fear in order to account for their conscious conformist position. For Olga, signing a protest letter was important because it was part of a battle against fear, an action to justify her humanity, while for the others, fear is a justification for not signing any protest letters and not getting involved with protest actions. The fear the interviewees are talking about is closely related to the image of, and experiences with power, they recollect from their past.

Accounts of relations with power and conformism That intelligentsia should be distant from politics and power-holders are shared norms. There is a possible contradiction between, on the one hand, a self-identification with world culture and its timeless values and, on the other hand, an affiliation with politics and state power. For most of the narrators the latter is a sensitive matter when they are discussing their biographical experiences. Mikhail, for instance, played a significant role in the political struggle between the communists and the ‘new democratic leaders’ during and after Perestroika. However, by emphasizing his true interests in culture and religion, he creates an impression that his involvement with politics was a sideline, which he did not enjoy. He does not talk about his participation in various Parliamentary committees as an important experience; it is only valued because it gave him an opportunity to ‘help people’. At some point in the interview Mikhail compares Gorbachev and Yeltsin. The following example illustrates how the narrator accomplished identity

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repair by explaining his true role in the government and emphasizing that it had nothing to do with politics. He first creates legitimate grounds for having a radical opinion about the President (Yeltsin) by stressing that he worked alongside him for several years and therefore knew him well. Although emphasizing close proximity to the President, at the same time he accentuates that he was not one of his ardent supporters – he was ‘sitting left from him’. Having said that, he realizes that I might conclude they were collaborators and adds some extra details, explaining his true reasons for being in the Soviet and his bitter feelings about this experience: IE: This one, I was sitting with him for five years, when I was a member of Presidential Soviet, I sat left from him. IR: From whom? IE: From Boris Nikolaevitch [Yeltsin], and when he (1.) [at this point the logic of the story breaks down and another sentence starts from the middle] notes, merely of practical significance, simply to help someone, to save someone, yes? And feeling a torture that I am simply sitting there, I could at least do some little deeds, I helped someone with a flat, I saved someone, did something else for someone, yes? A-a (.) this builder he is not an ideologist . . . [picks up the earlier abandoned theme and proceeds with the characteristic of Yeltsin]. Small details in the construction of this account reveal his concern about the impression he is creating: for example, the narrator twice asks rhetorically for approval of his position (‘yes?’), twice he repeats ‘save someone’ (indisputably an honourable action). Another thing that unites shestidesyatniki’s narratives is the presence of they – a collective pronoun signifying power and people in power. Power takes different forms in the stories, so do they. On the one hand, we encounter a faceless omnipresent Kafkaesque power. The individual is helpless in front of this power and fear is a shared feeling caused by it. It is feared precisely because it is insidious and omnipresent at the same time. On the other hand, there is what can be called ‘petty power’ – it is a tangible bureaucratic authority often represented by people the narrator knew personally. If the second kind of power is quite common across various cultural narratives (most people dislike their bosses and are happy to explain why), it probably would not be too far-fetched to claim that the first feature is unique for the post-Soviet narratives. They do not usually take the form of particular individuals; Kafkaesque power is fearsome precisely because it is invisible and not materialized or expressed through individuals. This impression is reinforced by the fact that when particular personages are introduced here their personalities do not matter. They are not bad guys, they are not evil themselves, but only as the representatives of power – we learn very little about these people, they are not described and they simply speak for the

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power or its representatives. When an interviewee wants to emphasize his or her liberation from fear (or stress that they never experienced it), it is usually accompanied by the realization that Kafkaesque power does not exist. Only petty bureaucratic power remains on the scene and it is much easier to cope with. It is interesting to observe that if the first power appears in the stories as evil, the second is ridiculous. It exists and it is still within the individuals’ power to turn their backs on it and make it disappear. As we have seen in the extract from Mikhail’s story, at some point he realized that Kafkaesque power is actually embodied in those pitiful individuals who could only be despised but not feared. This symbolically represents a moment of liberation. If the reaction to the first form of power is usually fear and hatred, the whole range of attitudes and practices of dealing with the second form of power are described in the stories. It could be ignored, resisted, ridiculed or fooled. It is usually associated with tangible barriers put in the narrator’s way. However, these barriers could be avoided or overcome. The stories contain numerous examples of skilful manipulations of the loopholes in the bureaucratic system. These arguments could be illustrated by two types of stories told about the narrators’ experience with repressive bodies. The first type could be named scary stories, which usually serve to justify the fear and deliberate political conformism. Here is an example of such a story, told to me by Gennady. IE: The detective story I started telling you started when I was suddenly summoned to the police. I was at my work placement at that point; I was at my second year at the University [1955]. It was a building-site practice and I used to come home very tired. I receive a request to come to the police, come there at about 7 or 8 pm, sit there till midnight – they do not let me go. Later they order me to sit down by the door, direct the bright light to my face and two people begin the interrogation . . . [the explanations he gives for the reasons of the interrogation, or, to be precise, for the absence of any real reasons, are omitted] It all could have ended very badly for me, but the guys turned out to be not vicious, however they worked very well – until 3 or 4 am. And my mother all this time was walking back and forth on the other side of the street. The story points to his first experience of insecurity. ‘Mother was walking on the other side of the street’ while he was interrogated by the police officers. The safe family haven has been breached (‘I came home tired – receive an order’) and the breath of the new cruel and evil world, where a person is not an individual but an object of manipulation, was felt on his own skin. It is illustrated through the shift of agency from the narrator to the prosecutors. Spatial and temporal organization of the experience, as well as the emphasis on the physical sensations, is used to support the drama of the story. He was leaving home to go to the interrogation feeling exhausted after a hard day’s

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work on a building site, had to wait for hours in the police office until when the grilling started at midnight and continued until three or four o’clock in the morning. The disruption to his daily routine, abuse of his physical sensations (bright light), psychological pressure (‘They wanted to find out why I killed a man’, two officers interrogating him) – all these experiences left extremely unpleasant memories. Although his family were sympathetic they were helpless to interfere and protect him from the evil forces and unfair accusations. This same experience of helplessness in front of a repressive apparatus is present in a story told by Victor. The story about interrogations and the narrator’s feelings about them is rather similar to the story I reproduced above: unpleasant physical sensations, confused special organization of the building, where a visitor easily gets lost, a long wait in uncertainty, loss of agency – all he could do was wait and answer questions. The same elements of spatial and temporal restrictions, and horrible physical and emotional sensations are present here, but the coda of the story is different. By emphasizing the almost animal fear of repressive bodies this experience has elicited, the narrator aims to justify his conscious conformist position. The following extract from the interview is an introduction to a lengthy story of how he was summoned to Lubyanka and interrogated by the senior KGB officials: IE: I simply withdrew. I cannot say that I wanted to fight. First of all, I feared three bodies in Russia. You see, I am terrified of the forces, which I cannot logically communicate with, to which I cannot explain anything: these are the KGB, the police and the army. I was afraid of the army, I was never in the army – we only had to go there for forty days. Not because I am afraid of the hardships, no. I had a very thorny childhood, I worked hard, but m-m-m it was a kind of daft force, which you could not negotiate with, cannot explain anything. Who can you communicate with in there? I was being taken to the KGB for over a year. It is a whole story. He notes that in Stalin’s time he did not experience fear: that came later. Memories of the Thaw are attributed to the young generation in general. He recollects the fearlessness of the post-Stalin student generation and points out its dangers as they became apparent in hindsight. IE: We were not afraid – it was the main reason for perceiving us as a threat. We were not anti-Soviet, we simply did not have any other consciousness, but we were not afraid to speak out. I was always puzzled: Why is it we say one thing but in reality things are the other way around? As he argues, fear is an attribute of the liberal time following totalitarianism, when a person realizes the contrast between the present and the past and

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fears losing what was gained. His experience of fear relates to the much later years when he first encountered the illogical nature of the repressive bodies. Another type of story about the experience of repressive bodies could be named funny stories. Narrators tell them as anecdotes, inviting me to laugh with them at the ridiculousness of their experience and the silliness of the representatives of power. The following examples of such stories come from the interviews with Vladimir Yadov1 and Olga.2 In the first example Yadov accounts for his dealings with the KGB and the police. The first episode is related to how the prosecution of Roy Medvedev3 did not affect their friendship with the narrator and illustrates that neither took the repressive measures seriously. As in Mikhail’s story a similar theme of surveillance is present here, but no fear is mentioned, the danger is not emphasized and the experience is recounted with humour. IE: He [Roy] was locked at home and a policeman was placed at the door to his flat. When he [Roy] was ringing me, he used to introduce himself as a ‘teacher from Kanteevo’. He really was a teacher there at some point. And when I rang him, I introduced myself simply as Volodya. When I was coming to visit him, I had to register with that policeman. He [the policeman] had a good time there, he had a TV and when Roy and family were going on holidays, the policeman got bored. In the second extract he explains that, like any socially active person, he had his own KGB agent. Again, unlike in Mikhail’s story, the listener is invited to laugh rather than feel the fear of a proximate repressive secret service. IE: Every socially active person had his own KGB agent. I had one as well. We called him Colleague. He suggested himself how I should call him. We still laugh at it – colleague (laughs). And the Colleague of course had talks with me and I explained that Roy is a Marxist and a socialist; he is not like Solzhenitsyn who is a half-monarchist, that they should not be compared. I tried in this way [to influence Roy’s situation]. In other words, these people from the KGB used people like me, but they also understood, that I won’t report on anyone and did not ask me difficult questions. My mission was, as they envisaged it, to report on foreigners – we had many contacts. What it was: [they would ask me] ‘Is such and such a spy? What do you think? And what about that one?’ Things like that. The story seems to highlight that the narrator did not take the repressive forces seriously. He talks about dealing with them as if he was playing a game and makes it clear that by knowing the rules of the game one could play it successfully. The third example involves Party officials and is also filled with humour. Unlike the faceless colleague, the representative of the repressive bodies, the

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opponent in this story has a name. We see a real person of flesh and blood, not just a ghost-like figure as in the second story. IE: This example is absolutely wonderful. (laughter) I cannot remember which study we were doing at that point, we were a section of the IKSI [Institute of Concrete Sociological Research] in Leningrad and I was the head of that section. We occupied a funny place in Gostinyj Dvor [shopping centre] amongst the warehouses and shops. A strange place – three rooms, one on each of the three floors. Suddenly there is a telephone call from the regional Party Committee and a car comes to pick me up. Tolstikov, the first secretary of the regional Party Committee, summoned me to his office. Why, for what reason the courier does not tell me of course. So, we drive there, no one will summon me for a good reason, I know that. We arrive; I enter Tolstikov’s office, which looks like Hitler’s office, only without the globe. My God, what a territory!4 Somewhere in the depth of the room sits Tolstikov. I walk in – he keeps sitting. And starts shouting as soon as I emerge at the doorway: ‘*** (swearing)’ – just swears, I don’t even understand what this is all about – ‘*** What the *** you are doing there!’ I enter: ‘Who said you could sit down!?’. I reply: ‘I don’t know, no one. It’s just what usually happens’ (laughs). ‘*** – OK. Sit then. What are you there?! What do you think you are doing? You in that region ask about sex, who, how much, how often – tra-ta-ta’. I respond . . . [explains that it was not them but probably some student has stolen the questionnaire and does it without their permit] ‘We did not give any permission to anyone’. He: ‘You are sure?’ And here he grabs a receiver and like in that film [I am not sure which film he meant] his tone changes to a very polite and submissive: ‘Nikolay Petrovitch, this is not . . . I have a head of laboratory here and he explains that it’s not them.’ Finished the conversation and back to me: ‘*** I do not want ever to hear about such things again’. We see that the hero remained calm and confident during the episode and it is the representative of power whose emotions and anger boil over. The top Party official swears like a sailor and easily switches tone when speaking with subordinates and superiors. He obviously does not know much about sociological research and at the same time is responsible for supervising it. He does not need to go into detail when speaking with the head of the research unit, as his power is based upon the intimidating and nerve-racking techniques of conversation. We see a vivid portrait of the ridiculous representative of power. Such a person could obviously not be feared. In the following extract Olga illustrates that treating such unpleasant and tragic events as a dismissal (her punishment for signing a protest letter) with humour helped her to fight back and win. On 14 April 1968 she and her husband were both kicked out of their jobs. She laughs when she says it, as it was the anniversary of Mayakovsky’s death. They appealed to the court

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against this decision and were both allowed to return to teaching. Her husband found another job while the appeal was being considered, but she resumed teaching. As many people told her afterwards, the positive decision at their appeal was taken thanks to the notes she took during the denunciation meetings at the schools where she and her husband worked. IE: During these meetings, and they were very intense and loud, I, following my friend, made notes. Later we combined our two notes and they were published in Samizdat. And as people say these notes reached academician of educational studies, who was outraged. IR: Because of what you were accused of? IE: The thing is that they were saying nonsense, silly things. Not because of what they were accusing us of, but because the number of silly, daft things exceeded all limits. Those were very funny notes. For instance, the secretary of the school’s Party Committee said that I defended the wife of Sinyavsky and Daniel (laughter). [the irony is that Larisa Bogoraz was the wife of Daniel, Sinyavsky was another person] . . . So these notes were circulating around Moscow and probably this has played some role, someone just said: this is all such nonsense, that she had had enough. Leave her in peace. It is interesting to note that in whichever genre narrators report their experiences with the repressive bodies, the major theme that unites both funny and scary stories is the production of alienation from power. For example, in Victor’s narrative the account of his conformism is followed up by a reference to his alienation from the holders of both petty and Kafkaesque power. He has to balance the conflicting identities. On the one hand he has to account for having built a career in an ideological institution, and for never taking part in any protest actions, and at the same time present himself as a nonorthodox, free-minded individual distant from the Soviet regime. He accomplishes this by organizing his account around the main theme of being deprived from opportunities to travel abroad. The longest story he shares with me depicts in great detail how his ten-minute speech at the first international conference he attended (by chance, in 1983) brought him recognition from his foreign colleagues and opened up the horizon of international travel. As he explains, only those philosophers who were on good terms with the Party Committee (mainly the old guard) were permitted to travel to international conferences and he was never allowed to until Perestroika. Deprivation of international contacts serves to protect his selfimage. At the same time he seems overly eager to convince me of his competence, making sure that I do not conclude that his confinement to the domestic academic life was because of the low academic value of his work. From the very start of the interview he quickly launched into a discussion of his choice of topic, and how he was a pioneer in his field. He defined

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himself as a non-traditional Marxist, which not only set him apart from the old guard but also from his young colleagues who were looking for fresh ideas within Marxism: ‘It was a period of fascination with the early Marx, although I was more interested in the latter’, ‘Positivism was in fashion, but I never liked positivism’. He gives reasons for his non-participation in protest activities – because he wanted a public life and feared punishment from the system. However, at the same time he makes it clear that he was not close to the Party, and was perceived by the Party authorities as an unreliable person, and that was the main reason for him not being allowed to travel abroad until the mid1980s. His distance from the power holders is projected through the reference to an almost organic difference between him and them: IE: I was never on good terms with the Central Committee . . . You see, I never had, you should understand, I was not a dissident, I did not participate in any underground organizations, but I could not speak the same language as them . . . I couldn’t serve anyone, couldn’t write for someone, but this was important there, it’s like an order, one needed to know a particular language. I could never understand this. I could never do it. His distance from petty power is established decisively by ridiculing daft bureaucratic bosses ‘whose notes of annual leave had to be edited’ and emphasizing that he did not belong to the official hierarchy. In the following passage he reacts to my enquiring how it was possible that on the one hand his books were translated into several languages and published abroad, but on the other he was never allowed to appear at international conferences. IE: True, the books were translated. You see it was very strange. First of all, I never occupied any posts. I was simply an employee in [names of departments deleted]. I never had any posts, neither administrative nor in the Party. I was never a member of any committees or bureaus. I am still like this. I do not like it. I hate managing someone; I cannot manage myself properly let alone anybody else. Right. This is the first reason. Secondly, you know what a sense of class is? There was a sort of Party stench. Ours/not ours. One could talk a thousand times more eloquently about Marx, than they, and they would even admit it, but you were not one of them. How did it happen? I do not know. At some other point during the interview he emphasizes the generation gap between him and the Party intellectuals. Although the difference in age was only three or four years, he still perceives these people as an older generation. He disparages them for their affiliation to the Central Party Committee, and does not trust their liberal image, because it was tainted by a desire to be loved by the Central Committee. In contrast to these people, the narrator

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describes how he was always indifferent to how the Party was feeling towards him, and was always aware that he was distrusted. He knows that a certain degree of servility was necessary in order to be accepted by the Party and makes it clear that this was alien to him.

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Probing into the obvious: signs of conflict within the intelligentsia identity Let us now move from discussing the treatment of the feelings of fear and the attitude to power to observing which reasons narrators give in order to justify their conformist or non-conformist behaviour. As we have seen in Maria’s account, presenting herself as belonging to the people rather than the intelligentsia justified her conformism and her alienation from politics. How do those narrators who maintain their intelligentsia identity deal with this issue? The conflict between morality and professionalism, between being critics of the establishment and preserving culture and knowledge, emerges as inherent to the contemporary intelligentsia identity. Raisa Orlova,5 for instance, admits to an irresolvable conflict between the professional and the ‘feeling person’ she experienced while living in the Soviet Union: the ability to work was important for her, but no less important than protecting those who suffer. She cannot give an answer to the question: ‘what is more precious – a clear conscience or a contribution to culture?’ and cannot condemn those who did not want to risk losing their reason to live, or their audience. To her, ‘any honest published book, good film or drama – is a battle won in itself’ (manuscripts Dissidentka li ya). Non-conformism is usually seen as being a cultural norm of the intelligentsia identity. However, as the analysis of the life stories in my sample reveals, this norm is not straightforward and is subjected to bending and negotiation in discourse. On the one hand, the analysis of the life stories proves the existence of the norm. The hero’s rebellion against the establishment was usually presented as a natural thing, which does not require elaborate explanation (cultural story), whereas the opposite – conformity – was carefully accounted for as a result of a rational choice, with a vocabulary of motive built around one’s value of profession (collective story). But, on the other hand, as I will demonstrate, not only do narrators achieve moral and credible self-presentation, in spite of undermining this norm, they even go as far as challenging the norm. This clearly proves that the contemporary intelligentsia identity is not a static entity existing out there as a source of credible identity claims, but rather it is a flexible resource within controversial scenarios, which gives one an opportunity for manipulation and discursive contestations. I would like to start discussing this topic by using an example, the account of an academic engineer (Gleb). His self-presentation is interesting for two reasons. He started telling me about his life rather reflexively by making two straightforward points. First, he defined himself as second-generation

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intelligentsia, anchoring his identity in his family background. Second, he was the only person in my sample who claimed to have always been a conformist, thereby undermining the dominant cultural stereotype of the intelligentsia as non-conformist critics of the establishment: IE: I was born in 1933. In Moscow. (2.)

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IR: Uhm. (3.) Into which family were you born? IE: Father was a doctor, a surgeon. Mother – a housewife. I could possibly say that I am the second generation of the intelligentsia. (2) IR: Uhm. IE: Because my paternal grandfather was a village priest. My maternal grandfather was a trader (kupets) of the third guild, something like this; I was born after they died. IR: Were they victims of repressions? IE: No, they simply died early . . . This is beyond my life. Now the next thing, I perhaps always, I should possibly say that I always had a tendency to conform with the system. (2.) I was not directly acquainted with the Stalinist repressions, apart from distant roars of thunder that reached me. These roars of thunder were perhaps the talks between my parents at night, which I could overhear. It is obvious that he is well aware of how non-typical conformism is for the identity he is trying to establish. I did not come to this conclusion only because of the pause after his claim, which possibly indicates that he was waiting for my reaction, but also because, after I remained silent, he proceeded with explanations for this conflicting characteristic. If, in the case of his family background, he considered a reference to the occupation of his ancestors sufficient to support this claim, the explanation of conformism continued throughout the interview. He was well aware that his account would be unconventional and challenging and was looking for culturally acceptable reasons to justify it: family background, nature of his profession and workplace, and traits of his personality. He presents himself as a rational practitioner, who avoided criticizing the faults of the system unless he knew better ways of organizing things, and found ways to skilfully manipulate the system and avoid the barriers it put in his way. As we can see from the extract, the first reason he gives for his conformism (perhaps not without the influence of my previous question) is his ignorance about the degree of the repressions. However, later in the interview, he elaborates that even when he learned more about it, it still did not change his attitude – conformism was not a matter of choice, it was inherent to his upbringing.

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Accounts of fear and of relations with power and conformism IE: The Thaw started and the information about repressions became available. But m-m you know, it was not easy for us to denounce the tough command system. You see we lived by some sort of inheritance from the War. I am perhaps not a shestidesyatnik, but a man of the 1950s. IR: Uh-hmm.

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IE: And the war and the feeling that one had to (2.) endure by all means, was strong even in us children. That is why no costs, neither human nor financial, seemed extreme. Later on, the irrationality of the system became obvious, however, because by that time he had found a way around the system and never went any further than criticizing the system in the company of friends: IE: All of us at that time in late 1970s–early 1980s were very critical about it, we fantasized how it could be organized better, but we never spoke about it publicly. I remembered then, that I read somewhere that in the late nineteenth century if two or three intelligenty got together you could guarantee they would be criticizing the government and the situation. And a hundred years from then the situation was still the same . . . But we were actually proud about our ability to avoid these stones [he means barriers the system put in their way], it was a sort of professional competitive sport for us. I simply know that in my field of radio-technology I did avoid them not once. He repeatedly undermines the norm of criticizing the establishment, claiming that he personally did not believe this was productive. He admits that of course he was tempted to get involved in the intelligentsia’s favourite pastime, but did not find it satisfactory: IE: I personally, when someone was next to me, we always of course grumbled (laughs), but I always said: I can’t say anything, because I do not know how to do better . . . My attitude is not to criticize when I do not see how it can be done better. Finally, he concludes that his conformism was mainly due to the specifics of his professional field and his personality. Technical science did not experience strong ideological interference: ‘I strongly distinguish between science and technology, we did not have severe storms (in contrast to biology), it was a quiet backwater.’ Lastly, he described himself as a non-emotional person, who always found it difficult to speak publicly and express himself eloquently. Although the reader may by now have assumed that this was an account of personal continuity, this would be wrong. His was another story of personal transformation, a change from a Komsomol activist to the devoted

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professional, who rebelled and completely broke with the previous part of his life, even though it had threatened his career at that point. As it turns out, he distinguishes between the conformism of his adolescence, which was a result of ignorance and upbringing, and the conformism of his adulthood, which was a result of a conscious decision to devote himself to his profession, rather than continuing his involvement with strengthening the falsity of the system. Escaping into the straightforwardness of technical science, where figures spoke for themselves and words were reduced to a necessary minimum, seemed the only honourable way out. IE: There was a clear-cut route in my life up until 1953, when I experienced a turning point in my mind. I realized that it was conformism, stupidity, discourtesy, inability to critically evaluate the role of Stalin and all sorts of propaganda slogans . . . IR: I did not quite get what you mean by change in mind? IE: In my case the break in my mind coincided with the death of my father and the death of Stalin, when I stepped down from Komsomol activities [he was responsible for ideology and propaganda in the student Komsomol Committee]. IR: Was it a conscious decision or did you simply become too busy with your work? IE: It was my conscious decision. I was too disgusted to continue doing it. I did not want to do it any more. I did not believe that it was useful and necessary . . . [He continues, describing how he was a devoted agitator within the Komsomol before this happened] [even before the Twentieth Party Congress] the feeling of ‘the brilliance and firmness of our way’ [uses propaganda cliché] was already gone. There was a general gloominess because of the death of my father. Numerous doubts cropped up in my mind, and finally the realization that at least I don’t want to and won’t participate in this. What really has value is practical work and politics is a dirty business. However, although he defines himself as an intelligent, he presents this identity as peacefully coexisting alongside his professional identity: he deliberately chose to concentrate entirely on his profession, rather than on waging ideological battles. It is interesting to note that he does not doubt my acceptance of this choice. He does tell me when and how he made it, but does not feel the need to persuade me that this was the only possible and right decision. His treatment of the matter illustrates that, at least for some members of the intelligentsia, the value of profession is indisputable and justifies the choice of conformist behaviour. However, this was not the case for everybody. Overall two distinctive vocabularies of motive (Mills, 1940) are present in the shestidesyatniki’s accounts: justification by profession, or on moral

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grounds. There is no consensus among the intelligentsia about which motivation is more acceptable and the reason for this disagreement lies within the conflicting nature of the contemporary intelligentsia identity. Its role is seen to be to guard knowledge and enlighten the masses, while at the same time preserving moral values and setting an example for others, and finally to stand against the injustices and reveal the wrongs of the holders of power. The pressure is enormous and in an authoritarian society it is a no win situation. Standing on strict moral grounds (which usually involved going against the authorities) and particularly criticizing the establishment severely limited one’s chance to get access to knowledge (large number of books and documents, considered dangerous by the authorities, were held in secret archives), not to mention their chance to deliver this knowledge to the public. As I will show in the next chapter, the Count solves this conflict by despising scientists, who chose knowledge and sacrificed their moral values. We know how painful it was for Andrey Sakharov to realize that knowledge could be utilized for immoral ends. However, the majority of the shestidesyatnikiintelligentsia would, and indeed have, preferred a middle way and it is this middle way that causes most controversy. Physicist Simon Shnol recently published a book of short biographies of the famous biologists of the Soviet Era. The title of the first edition of the book was Heroes and Villains of Soviet Science. He added ‘Conformists’ to the title of the second edition and when I interviewed him (his account is not included in this monograph) he admitted that he did not know whether those whom he defined as conformists were heroes or villains. On the one hand, yes, they had to pretend, lie, bow their heads and follow the orders of the power holders, but at the end of the day these were the people who survived when their rebellious colleagues perished in the camps, these were the people who in spite of the agony of consciousness chose to carry the torch of knowledge, and it is to them we are now obliged for the achievements of science. It is interesting that the actions of those rebels who chose to act according to their principles are not unilaterally admired. Even by doing what one thought was moral she or he could at the same time damage the lives of others who chose another route and believed that devotion to their profession was equally moral and important. For instance, Tatiana Zaslavskaya remembered how scientists who signed the protest letter in Novosibirsk were persecuted by the authorities, sacked from their jobs and humiliated, how public opinion turned against the person who had persuaded these scientists to sign the letter, and, by doing so, risk their careers. Although this person suffered the same fate, the public concluded that if he had done it on his own, that would not have been a problem, but that he did not have the right to involve others. By no means do I want to pass judgement or support either of the positions. What strikes me is the absence of consensus among the intelligentsia and I believe we should pay attention to the way in which the interviewees discursively negotiated the rightness of their position. As Garfinkel (1967) has demonstrated, we rely in communication upon numerous assumptions of

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shared common sense. Usually for communication to be successful both participants have to demonstrate to each other that they share similar cultural grounds, otherwise communication abruptly ends or turns into a battle of viewpoints. Because of our cultural background and our common sense some of our actions may indeed require explanations and we are not surprised when asked to define our choice. In other situations, asking your co-conversant ‘Why did you do that?’ may make you feel as if you were conducting a breaching experiment. We also know that the reaction would be particularly strong if our question is recognized as threatening the other person’s moral image. In our everyday interactions we usually avoid probing into the obvious and in most situations we can predict when this is about to happen. However, we cannot always avoid finding ourselves in an awkward position. We might not be familiar with a particular culture, or the values within that culture may be controversial and contrasting cultural stories might compete with each other. Indeed, that is what I experienced in interviewing shestidesyatniki. I could never predict how a person would react to my probing the reasons for their conformist or non-conformist behaviour. Some interviewees accepted it as a legitimate question and were happy to give me their reasons (as in the example of the engineer I gave above). Tatiana Zaslavskaya was also very patient in explaining her early conformism: IE: We knew we had only one life and were neither willing nor found it sensible to simply refuse from this life and bury our talent in the ground. That’s why I saw my mission as achieving as much as possible within the limits of the system that was given to us. Others, on the contrary, were rather annoyed with my apparent ignorance regarding what they perceived as obvious. The reason for their choice seemed unambiguous to them and they found my question not only unnecessary but also even somewhat offensive. Interestingly, this was the reaction of both those who accounted for their conformism and those who presented themselves as rebels. For instance, Yadov explained that he did not sign any protest letters because he wanted to work and became very annoyed when I tried to probe further. IR: How did it happen that you did not sign any protest letter? IE: What do you mean ‘happen’? I myself did not go and did not sign, because I wanted to work. It was more interesting for me to work in the laboratory. I was doing interesting things. I did not want to run around looking for jobs. I was already excluded once from the Party, I know what it’s like. IR: You mean because you already realized . . . [overlap] IE: I did not want it!!! [Nearly shouts] Why on earth did I need it? [Still very agitated and annoyed] I wanted to do my work!!!

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In other situations I encountered the same strong reaction of annoyance when probing into why the person did choose to sign a protest letter or get involved with any risky activity that could potentially threaten their profession and the stability of their life in general. As can be seen in the extract from the interview with Boris, my probe for confirmation of what he had just said was recognized as a ‘Why’ question. He was telling a story about how he was asked by KGB men to start his TV show by blackening the artists he respected: IE: That’s it. This kind of rubbish I had to say . . . My tongue did not move to say this. But when I put on the headphones I heard someone say: [first name deleted], come to the mixing laboratory after the show. IR: So, you did not say it. IE: I did not say this, excuse me, I would have been the lowest bitch if I did. And I went there and there were the representatives of the KGB . . . [The story continues] Overall my interviewees seem to fall into two categories: those who presented themselves as professionals and men of knowledge, and those who presented themselves as men of morality. The first type of self-presentation contained elaborate accounts of the narrators’ professional achievements: books published, research completed, machinery or buildings built. These narrators devoted significant parts of their narratives to establish themselves as competent professionals and further used a potential or real threat to their professional activities as an explanation for non-involvement in the protest actions. The decision to stay away from dangerous activities was accounted for as the result of a rational choice: (1) ‘I liked my job and wanted to retain it’, (2) ‘I liked what I was doing and wanted to continue doing it’, (3) ‘I wanted to be able to speak publicly’. These narrators usually managed to maintain successful Soviet careers and now feel the need to account for this and protect the value of their professional identity by emphasizing the enlightenment mission of the intelligentsia. Liking a job is not justified by the self-indulgent interests of an individual, but because staying within one’s professional job one had a better chance to reform the faulty system, contribute to culture and fulfil the enlightenment mission. In contrast, we hardly learn about the professional lives of the authors in the second type of accounts. One explanation for this is because most of them were forced to abandon their professions in the late 1960s to early 1970s as a result of their non-conformist behaviour and were only able to resume professional activity in the 1980s (as was indeed the case for the Count, Mikhail, Boris and Anton). Being forced out of their professions, they now explain, was inevitable, as remaining within the system meant the unbearable sacrifice of their moral values. Whether by choice or by force of circumstances, these people have broken free from the confines of their professional identities. For the Count it is more important to be recognized as a poet,

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while Mikhail defines himself as a very good reader rather than a professional philosopher: ‘How can I say that I am a philosopher by profession? It is like saying I am Socrates or Aristotle. I am just a very good reader. I used to write it like this in the questionnaires.’ Within the justification on moral grounds, no rational choice is reported and the actions are attributed to natural cause: the narrators simply could not have done otherwise. Boris explains his transformation by relating a series of episodes where he felt he was being forced to act against his nature, and forced to lie and pretend. As he could not do it, he was persecuted and finally realized that he did not want anything to do with the Soviet regime and Soviet ideology any more. This realization brought forward a feeling of guilt for previously held beliefs and an inner need of penitence. The first story in his account, retold a few paragraphs above, describes the moment that caused the punishment. It is interesting to note here that instead of attributing personal courage to himself or presenting himself as a brave man, he implies that he almost physically could not do what was expected of him: ‘my tongue did not move.’ Refusal to follow orders and act against his own beliefs happens to be a natural and inevitable reaction for a person like him – which is similar to Mikhail’s account: ‘I simply blurted out, I could not help doing it.’ It is not persecution that figures in the narratives as the main reason for personal transformation, but an unbearable feeling of living a lie. Further episodes are recounted to emphasize the impossibility of constantly lying in spite of the safety and security it provided. Here is another extract from Boris’ account: IE: Can you imagine I enter the auditorium and students ask me: ‘What would you say about Solzhenitsyn’s works?’ And I had to answer and I did not lie, I said ‘You should read them’. Furthermore the stories of honesty and an incapability of lying are complemented by stories of honourable behaviour, proving that honesty often requires suffering with those who suffer, and that the narrator was ready to experience this. The story about the students protesting about the quality of food in the University canteen proves that Boris was not only decisive in his words but also in his actions. IE: I enter the University and see students sitting leisurely on the banister swinging their legs – they declared a protest because the food in the canteen was horrible. I ask: ‘Why are you sitting here?’ – ‘We do not want to eat that food – we have sick stomachs from it’. I did not eat a single cutlet all that day. I did not sit at that table. I could not be a black leg. I only took all those students to the worker’s canteen so that they could at least eat something. That’s it. I could not lie! That is how my turning point happened.

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Rebellion against an unbearable life of lies is reported as an impulsive decision. No choice is reported and the reference to moral grounds serves to explain the action. Similar to Boris, Olga frequently refers to personal dignity and the impossibility of ignoring her principles to explain her actions. For instance, explaining why, in spite of finishing school with a gold medal, she was not accepted into university, she claims that it was below her dignity not to mention on the application form where her parents were (her parents were imprisoned as enemies of the people). Later she clarifies that her involvement with a company of friends considered suspicious by the authorities might have triggered her arrest. She says she suspected that, as some of her friends had already been arrested, she might be next but when I probe if she tried to avoid such an outcome by cutting off her contacts with them she very strongly rejects it: IE: How can you say it?! I did not even have such an idea. First of all one does not do it at the age of 19. Secondly, it is below human dignity. It was so before and it will always be! As I have tried to demonstrate, the cultural story of intelligentsia as social critics of the establishment is disputed by the intelligentsia itself. Instead, an alternative collective story emerges, where the other component of the intelligentsia’s mission – the enlightenment – is prioritized to justify conformist behaviour. As some of the narrators argue, social progress in Soviet society could have been achieved only through the enlightenment of the authorities and the holders of power, rather than the people. Therefore, their goal to accomplish the intelligentsia’s mission required them to stay within the system and maintain contact with the power. In post-Soviet reconstructions of the intelligentsia identity, the ‘daft’ power holders rather than the illiterate people play the role of the backward class. While the stories of most of the narrators in my sample indicated potential conflicts, and sensitive topics that required careful justification in their production of consistent and coherent identity, one narrator in my sample did not have any obvious difficulties in confidently and straightforwardly claiming intelligentsia identity. In the next chapter I will look at his story in more detail in order to demonstrate how exactly his self-presentation of intelligentsia identity was achieved.

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This book concentrates on the biographical discourse, but so far I have not given the reader a portrait of any particular individual. I was discussing similarities and differences between individuals’ life accounts, trying to see the forest rather than the trees. This chapter is aimed at achieving the reverse. I want to give the reader a chance to get to know one person in the full complexity of his life experiences rather than comparing and contrasting his story with the others. I selected the Count (as he was affectionately nicknamed by friends and as I will call him here) as a hero for this chapter for several reasons. First, it was he who inspired my interest in the shestidesyatniki. Second, I already knew him before the interview, therefore he was more open with me than the other narrators, producing a much longer and much more detailed account. Third, he was one of the few narrators in my sample who explicitly declared belonging to the shestidesyatniki and insisted on being a typical and ordinary representative of this group. I, however, felt obliged to reciprocate his openness and sincerity, by meeting his expectations for how I would use his story and not taking advantage of the trust he gave me. He insisted that his story should be taken as a typical story of the shestidesyatniki and that as few details as possible should be omitted. His account turned out to be different from the others though, which was the final reason to select it for an elaborate analysis. As we have seen in the previous chapters, for most of the narrators, claiming intelligentsia identity was problematic. In the process of reconciling personal life with the cultural story of the intelligentsia, the latter was often challenged and a number of alternative collective stories were produced. The Count was the only one who delivered a straightforward self-presentation as one of the intelligentsia. He was confident that he (his friends and those he names as the shestidesyatniki in general) proved that one could live life up to an ideal intelligentsia benchmark. He was not justifying the slip-ups, apologizing for weaknesses or challenging the ideal. To the contrary, he had doubts about neither the rightness nor the value of the intelligentsia story, or about his life and that of his generation entirely corresponding to it. He did not account for any past illusions, dubious activities or mistakes. There was nothing he regretted or wished he had done otherwise.

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There was no room for self-flagellation and no account of radical conversion or even of minor change in his principles and beliefs in his life-narrative. Why did his narrative stand out from the others? Was it because of the different meaning he attached to the intelligentsia story that helped him to smooth out the contradictions or was his life experience different in any respect? In analysing his story I was trying to achieve an empathic understanding of what life meant for him, what he wanted me to know about it and how he wanted to be known. In reading his story my goal was to abandon a critical position and be perceptive, sensitive and insightful instead. I present the Count’s life story in two parts. I will start by reconstructing his biography and pointing to the key periods in his life and the core meanings/ themes he attaches to them. I then discuss the thematic topics of his narrative (and his poetry) with the aim of achieving an empathic understanding of his worldview.1 Bearing in mind that the life story cannot provide incontrovertible evidence of what the narrator really thinks now or thought before, or how the events he describes really were in the past, I am taking the life story to be a self-presentation, made up of interpretations rather than indisputable hard facts. By dividing the analysis into two parts, I will demonstrate how the complexities and controversies of his life were reconciled by aligning his life with the intelligentsia story. The idea to organize the presentation in this way was borrowed from the biographical-interpretive method (Rosenthal, 1991, 1993; Fischer-Rosenthal, 1995; Chamberlaine et al., 2001; Wengraf, 2001), where the researcher tries to separate the life as lived from the life as told and mark out the correlation and ambiguity between the two. The interviews took place in September and October 2002, in Pushchino (a small academic town in the Moscow region) where the Count lives and where I am from. I knew the Count from my school years, when I attended his private lessons on Russian literature and language.2 He was the most popular teacher of his subject in town and several generations of local youth were his pupils. When I first contacted him, he soon warmed to my idea of writing about the shestidesyatniki and almost immediately agreed to co-operate. After the first telephone conversation, he called back a couple of hours later, saying that he had been thinking about it and that he had an idea: to take him as a typical representative of the shestidesyatniki and look at his friends and his biography in order to draw a portrait of the generation. He was ready to spend as much time with me as needed, which seemed a stroke of good luck. It proved extremely difficult trying to extract an autobiography from the Count in a form similar to that which my other interviewees managed to produce. Unlike the others, he was a reluctant self-narrator and preferred to talk about his friends rather than himself. He projected a strong sense of belonging to a circle of like-minded individuals, to a particular type of people – the intelligentsia. Walker (2000) would perhaps interpret this particularity as a common way of claiming and legitimizing intelligentsia identity, which

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as she argues depends upon whom you knew. I would disagree with her. When praising his close friends the Count by no means emphasized those who became famous. He makes it clear that the ‘nobility of spirit’ that he admires in his friends can be found in both famous people and those whom only a few have heard of. He kept insisting that the literature of the 1960s would give me a better idea of that time, and if I wanted to understand him I should read his poetry – the key to his spirituality. He was more interested in sharing his insights and reflections than giving a chronological account of his life, which he referred to only to illustrate and support his arguments. In this sense, the Count would appear to be an example of a narrator who retrieves events and relocates them in ‘a realm of order where events bear to one another a relationship of significance other then chronology’ (Olney, 1980: 247). However, as Skultans (1998: 24) argues, all narrative life histories are revisionist, as in a creative reordering of events the original event is endowed with a meaning that it may not have possessed at the time. As I listened to the Count’s stories, I felt as though he was trying to persuade me. He presented himself as a man who knew the truth and whose pronouncements on life the younger generation should reflect upon. Like Mikhail he frequently mentioned the moral lesson his generation had to teach the youngsters. However, unlike Mikhail and his guests, the Count did not feel threatened by me. He bore no hard feelings towards the younger generation and trusted me to take his words and the lessons of his generation seriously.

Temporality, sequence and place: life history through the life story The Count’s life story can be divided into five periods, which after childhood correspond with the consecutive places of his residence: Kharkov, Academgorodok, Zhukovka and Pushchino. Moving from one place to another turned a new page of his life story. Childhood 1928–45 (up to the age of 17) The Count was born in 1928, the first son of a Jewish Ukrainian shoihe, who was responsible for helping the rabbi and the local community to slaughter animals in the traditional way. In 1932 he moved to Volokolamsk in the Moscow region after famine broke out in the Ukraine. The family struggled to make ends meet, but when the father became a worker at the only factory in the town, they ‘moved into another category’. The Count soon became well known around town – he was a brilliant pupil and was often invited to speak at public demonstrations and on the local radio. When the Count was thirteen the Great Patriotic War started and the family fled to a small military town in the Urals. There they lived in a tiny converted

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bathroom, just five metres square. The father was called to the front and killed in 1942, and so the Count had to start working to support his brother and sick mother, giving private lessons in a number of subjects, as well as working in the local school library. In 1944 the Count became an orphan: his mother and brother died, and all his other relatives in the Ukraine were also killed during the war – mostly victims of the Holocaust. After the war, the mother of one of his pupils invited him to join their family and move to Kharkov (Ukrainian regional town) where they had returned after evacuation. In the interviews he does not refer to this period as important for him. Only when I prompted him about why he was not grateful to Soviet power and the Soviet authorities for his ascending career did he share with me the details of his young life. It seems reasonable to expect that a person from a very poor working class family, who was moreover able to get a University degree and become a professional, should be positive about at least some aspects of the regime (as was the case in Maria’s account). But the Count explained that he never felt culturally deprived, because although his father was a worker, he was not illiterate or backward. He knew the ancient Jewish language, Hebrew, and The Bible by heart and ‘a person who knows The Bible is already an intelligent’. The Kharkov period 1945–64 (the Count is 17–36 years old) We lived as free people. In Kharkov, the Count became a student of the University’s Philological Department, ‘moved to the student halls of residence and started collecting books’. His college friends christened him ‘the Count’ – an ironic but at the same time affectionate nickname, as he was as poor as a church mouse but noble at heart. After completing his degree, he took an evening job teaching Russian language and literature, and got married. Many like-minded people were attracted to the marital home, enticed by the atmosphere created by the young couple. The Count recollects: ‘those people often didn’t communicate much with each other away from our house, but with us they were all together as one group.’3 Another factor was important for making friends: the Count ran a ‘home library’. He does not call it so but simply explains that he liked to lend books and usually had about seventy regular borrowers. The people that came to the house were creative, ‘very interesting and outstanding’ individuals, poets and writers. At this point, the Count was not writing, ‘only buying books, reading books and loving my wife’ but judging from one of the episodes he recalls from this period he seems to have been a socially active person. In 1962, at the peak of the Thaw, he and two other friends formed a debating society and for four months chaired discussions about the latest publications in the literary journals. The society was popular with the Kharkov intelligentsia and four hundred people turned up to the final meeting, but the club was closed by an order from the city authorities, which felt threatened by this source of free thought and open debate.

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The Count remembers his twenty years in Kharkov as his best. It was at Kharkov University that he met his friends for life. He was able to say that he and his friends lived for twenty years not noticing them (see Chapter 5), not feeling a strong pressure from the ruling power. It was a time when they were able to escape from official life and to live as they wanted, free to pursue their own interests. In the 1960s freethinking people experienced enforced politicization. They wanted to live outside of politics, to read what they thought was worth reading, to write and talk without descending to selfcensorship.4 Their mode of behaviour suggested not opposing but ignoring the latent prescriptions of performance from the Party authorities. One of the basic values for them, as the Count claims, was ‘to live as if they did not exist’. They in this context means the Party and its officials, the State authorities, repressive bodies and Soviet power in general. The Novosibirsk period 1964–70 (the Count is 36–42 years old) They thought they would turn the world over, but lost. At the debating society the Count met a physics teacher from the Kharkov military academy. The teacher was interested in educational reform and connected to the leadership of the Novosibirsk academic town, Academgorodok,5 which was looking for good teachers with innovative ideas to join the staff of an experimental physical-mathematical school for talented children and the Novosibirsk University. The Count was offered the chance to draft his own version of the school programme in literature. His draft was accepted and he got a job in Academgorodok. With this the Count entered the most controversial phase of his life, a period of high flying followed by a painful fall, of aspiration and disappointment. At the end of the Thaw and the beginning of the dissident movement, our hero is presented with an opportunity to pursue a professional career and realize his reformist ideals; however, he suddenly found himself cast in the role of enemy of the state. While working in Academgorodok he came into serious conflict with the authorities because of his ‘dangerous dissident’6 activity and his life did not proceed according to his own wishes. He realized through his own experience that people with free thoughts were perceived as enemies of the state. In the end, his career was destroyed and his days as an activist were over. Disappointment with people (and scientists in particular) is the central topic of his narrative about this time. The story about the Kharkov period does not include any villains, but there are plenty in the Novosibirsk story. The Count pictures a conflict within the intelligentsia between rational men – extroverts, pursuing only egoistical and materialist interests and indifferent to spiritual values – and moral men, motivated by the demands of conscience. Our hero realized that not everyone of the intelligentsia estate sincerely pursued intelligentsia values.

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Novosibirsk Academgorodok was founded on a wave of political liberalism and quickly became an oasis of intellectual freedom. At the outset the local authorities actively supported the development of original fields of research, but the energies of ambitious, freethinking intellectuals flowed beyond the academy.7 Academgorodok was impregnated with Samizdat and the popular club of young scientists Under the Integral held not only beauty contests, quizzes and bards’ concerts but also informal discussions on the problems of culture, science, social and economic issues, which often led to serious criticism of the system (Vodichev and Kupershtokh, 2001). The Count concludes that: ‘there were many interesting people and we thrived in this environment.’ When he arrived at the town, there were ‘many intelligent people gathered together and it seemed to them that they could change the world’. Intellectuals saw the town as a New Atlantis, where within the framework of the Soviet model of social organization they could succeed in securing authentic scientific freedoms and realizing democratic initiatives. In practice these opportunities turned out to be illusory and the progress made was short-lived.

Professional self-realization Teaching The physical-mathematical school in Academgorodok, where the Count taught for four years, was a social experiment set up to transform talented students from Siberia and the Far East into the next generation of prize-winning Soviet scientists. A huge amount of money was invested in the school but the administration of the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences remained undaunted. ‘They thought their efforts would be justified if they could manage to prepare at least one Nobel Prize laureate’ – the Count remembers with bitter irony. He, of course, condemned the very idea of measuring the intelligentsia and its contributions to society and culture by awards or prizes.8 For him, teaching was a calling and the chance to teach literature on his own experimental programme was what motivated him to move to Siberia. He believed that literature should bring joy to the reader, and developed a programme that would encourage students to think through the book, understand and love it, not simply study and reiterate other people’s opinions: IE: We face the same problem again: what is more important: to love or to know? Should the school prepare a pint-sized literature specialist or a perceptive and thoughtful reader, one who is able to think independently, to look at the book without imposed schemas and what is most important – to feel it? . . . The teacher should be given more freedom in choosing (what and how to teach) . . . He should encourage differences of opinion, disputes and interesting comparisons in the class.9

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The Count maintains that he was working on a problem of national importance: ‘do we study for the sake of learning or do we help to shape character, help people to be happy?’10 The story of his programme, he says, reflects what was going on in society. ‘At first they were excited: it seemed that was what was needed. But then everything declined.’ For two years the teaching progressed precisely as he had hoped: the Academy was supportive, relations with the local committee of education were good and he was fortunate enough to meet many like-minded people. He initiated a debate in several local newspapers and received a great deal of feedback, and was invited to present his programme at teachers’ conferences around the Soviet Union. Soon though he started experiencing pressure from the authorities. They realized that he was talking too freely with the students about things that were obviously undesirable from an official perspective. Indeed, as the Count recollects: ‘we talked about everything as the literature provides such an opportunity. And when the students asked me about the trial of Daniel,11 I responded that there couldn’t be anti-Soviet literature. There is only literature and not literature.’ Sociology Sociology represents another chapter of the Count’s history. This is another example of the sacrifices he made for the sake of preserving his moral virtues. He presents himself as a successful person ready to open a new career, but his intentions failed to materialize due to his conflict with the system and refusal to compromise. Now he says that he liked what he was doing (the sociology of literary tastes) and was ready to do it for the rest of his life, but nevertheless does not regret the steps he has made and which, ultimately, brought this page of his life story to an end. However, although he was actively involved in sociological research for a few years during this period, he did not integrate completely into the academic sociological community. Unlike many who joined the University research group from different disciplines, the Count had no intention of changing professions and leaving teaching and his programme behind. In his narrative at this point he presents himself as an outsider: as a literary man and a teacher, but not as a sociologist, and he speaks about them lumping scientists and sociologists together. IE: I was interested in the influence of literature on intellectual elite, because in comparison with literature sociology was not that important. Sociologists formed just a small circle. They tried, but, you see, there are some definite achievements in literature, but in sociology, even if there were some interesting books, they circulated within a tiny circle of the intelligentsia and did not go any further. Maria, whose account I presented in Chapter 5, knew the Count from Academgorodok and when I asked her about him, she replied, ‘He was not

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146 A story of a happy man a sociologist. He was a literary man from God’, confirming both his strong reputation as a men of letters and his estrangement from the sociologists. So, how did the Count become involved with sociological research? In 1965 the leading Soviet central newspaper Izvestia asked the Siberian Section of the Academy of Sciences to conduct a regional survey of its readers. The Section delegated responsibility to a sociologist Vladimir Shlapentokh who managed to persuade the newspaper authorities to conduct a nationwide survey instead, as well as expand the remit to include questions about the quality of materials and satisfaction with the information the newspaper provided. Taking into account that the newspaper represented the government and its ideology, to put such questions to ordinary people was a serious step towards liberalization (Shlapentokh, 1987). Other central newspapers such as Trud, Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta commissioned similar studies of their readers.12 But sociologists were not only interested in giving the newspaper information about their readers. They saw this as a unique opportunity to pose broad questions to a mass audience and to gauge the general political and ideological mood of the population. Such questions could not be asked directly and the researchers chose an oblique way. Rather than asking directly: ‘What do you think about capitalism and socialism?’ sociologists enquired: ‘Which modern writers and books do you like and dislike?’ At that time the saying ‘Tell me what you read and I’ll tell what you think’ was true. The answer to this question would provide a picture of the moods and orientations of the most active part of the population. The first three surveys had only one question about literary preferences but a special questionnaire was designed for the Literaturnaya Gazeta (LG) to study this topic. The majority of LG readers were members of the intelligentsia and the sociologists were understandably keen to find out what they liked to read and where they stood on the issue of the future direction of the country. But the researchers needed a specialist in literature and here the Count’s knowledge of literature proved invaluable. He was invited to join the group and did so with great enthusiasm as the intentions of the sociologists coincided with his own ideas and view of the role of literature in society. He composed a questionnaire for the survey, designed a coding list and was made responsible for the survey of the literature preferences of the readers of LG. Based on this study he wrote a PhD dissertation, but was not allowed to submit it, as it showed that the official view of literature and the actual preferences of the readers resembled an inverted pyramid, with the statesponsored, award-winning socialist-realist authors at the bottom of the list. The three authors and titles at the top of the newspaper poll – Solzhenitsyn (One day from the life of Ivan Denisovitch), Simonov (The alive and the dead), and Bulgakov (Master and Margarita) – reflected the prevailing liberal aspirations of the intelligentsia, as well as the deepening divisions between intelligentsia and the state. At this time Solzhenitsyn was already at odds with the authorities: his expulsion from the Writers’ Union was imminent,

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and the results of the research could not be published. The sociologists were offered a compromise, namely to delete Solzhenitsyn’s name from the final report, but they refused. Shortly after the project was completed, the results of the LG survey appeared in the Italian newspaper Unita. Shlapentokh (2000) is confident that the Count submitted the results to the Unita, although the Count rejects this, saying that he would definitely have done so if he had been asked to, but he never had such an idea. Besides, he says, there were many ways for the results to reach abroad as copies of results were sent to newspaper editorial offices and other institutions. The Count’s findings were published in the Problemy Sotsiologii Pressy (1970). As a disgraced intellectual, he was not named as the author, although a footnote attributing ‘the questionnaire composition, coding and text of the article’ to him was included. The article appeared authorless and the Count’s sociological career was over almost before it began. It was not until postPerestroika times that he was allowed to publish two articles in the journal Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya.13 Life in Academgorodok The Count was as well-known in Novosibirsk as he was in Kharkov, again thanks to his love of books. On his initiative and with the help of the local authorities, who provided him with premises and financial support, he opened Academgorodok’s first bookshop and through his personal contacts he managed to acquire many deficit (difficult to find) books to fill the shelves. His new apartment and family home was also filled by frequent visitors: IE: There were always many people around me, as in Kharkov our house was an open house, and in Novosibirsk it became an open house. And immediately many different people came to us: physicists, mathematicians, historians, philologists. And boys and girls – I taught at school and my pupils were coming. His popularity is evident in the memoirs of different people (Zalygin, Shlapentokh, Karyakin), where he is not one of the main characters, but is referred to as ‘a teacher whom everybody loved’ or ‘amicable literati’. However, his popularity also contributed to his professional downfall, as it provided the KGB with a convenient excuse to blacklist him.14 It is impossible to say what finally caused the axe to fall but he clearly played an important part in several defining moments of the Academgorodok. And when the atmosphere in the country changed and the epoch of liberalism and experimentation was over, it was obvious that freethinking in Academgorodok had to be stopped. Some repressive measures were taken and in a short while the decade-long epoch of the Soviet ‘City of the Sun’ was over.

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The following episode gave the authorities the excuse they were looking for to clamp down on liberal activism in Academgorodok. On 19 February 1968 a group of scientists from the Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences and Novosibirsk University lecturers signed a protest letter against the closed court hearings in the processing of Ginzburg, Galanskov, Dobrovol’sky and Lashkova.15 It is worth noting that the Count remembers it as a simple request for information about the process, rather than a fullblown protest letter. The letter, in his words, was inspired by sympathy to those on trial and a desire to help them. It was sent to various official Soviet bodies, however unexpectedly for everyone on 23 March 1968 the content of the letter was published in The American and four days later the Voice of America transmitted the text. Repressive measures against the signatories and their supporters immediately followed, and the Party’s regional committee ordered the directors of research institutes to stage some sort of public whipping of the signatories and their supporters. The Count was one of the two initiators of the letter and was chosen by the authorities as the main scapegoat. What finally overwhelmed their patience was the appearance of protest slogans painted across the town by a group of his students. The Count was accused of inspiring the youngsters to do this and was expelled from his jobs at the University and school. As there was no way for him to get another job in town, he was forced to leave Academgorodok, but because he was not permitted to exchange his flat for one in another town, he was basically left without anywhere to live or work. This was the last gasp of protest in the academic town. The measures taken by the authorities to curtail the ferment released by Khrushchev’s Thaw had a chilling effect on the academicians and the atmosphere in the town quickly changed. Scientists did not manage to resist the pressure and probably did not even try. They seemed to reconcile with the new situation swiftly and easily. A value shift also occurred: escapism into one’s professional life substituted previously active lifestyles and an interest in the social-political life of the country. Scientists believed that in the oasis of their research fields it was still possible to preserve the traditional scientific community norms of morality and behaviour. A kitchen culture replaced the open public debates, although the content of kitchen talk in a company of close friends remained very much the same as before. The Count’s Novosibirsk experience changed his opinion of scientists and science as an institution for intellectual labour. He left a completely different town to the one where he arrived. Under pressure from above, scientists had lost the fight for freedom and in the end, as the Count recollects, ‘Academgorodok became no different from other provincial towns’. AntiSemitism, mutual suspicion, envy and the usual squabbling returned: IE: All their ambitions have failed. Maybe they have done something in science, but in relation to people Academgorodok became no better or even worse than other places. Human baseness has won.

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After Novosibirsk After Novosibirsk, the Count and his wife moved to a friend’s country house near Moscow to help with the data analysis and writing-up of a sociological study. He spent three months there, writing the book and waiting to see how his future would unfold. His friends did their best to help and to persuade the necessary people to employ him. He was offered the opportunity to teach literature at schools in Chernogolovka and Pushchino (both academic towns, like Novosibirsk but less well-known).16 However, as was often the case then, a job offer from a potential employer could not guarantee a job. Indeed, the Chernogolovka Party Committee did not approve his application. Pushchino authorities agreed to accept him, however by the time he arrived in town he found out that he was forbidden to work as a teacher (probably his personal files had reached the Regional Party or KGB committee). The director of the Institute of Protein Research, who was assisting his move, suggested employing him as a junior scientific worker and that he decide for himself what to do. As the Count knew he would not be very useful in a biological research institute, he offered to organize a library. He had already had such an experience in Novosibirsk and established the necessary contacts. That was what he loved and could do, and running the library became his main activity for the next few decades. The library at the Institute of Protein Research was the first and, for a long time, only library in town and became a centre for the local intelligentsia. Later the Count learned bookbinding skills and became a book binder/librarian. He did not abandon his calling. In 1993 he was offered a post teaching his author literature course in one of the local schools. He also designed a poetry course, which he had long dreamed of doing. On this course, students had to learn by heart many verses and poems and the Count set himself the task of learning all the verses himself before he gave them to students. He really enjoyed the course and taught it for three years. He also continued to give private lessons on Russian language and literature. The Count did not take part in any protest activity after moving to Pushchino and refused to sign the protest letters that his friends gave to him. He did not want to betray or do harm to the people who had helped see him through such a difficult situation. This did not alienate his friends and he managed to preserve his previous friendships and contacts. Many of his Novosibirsk contacts gradually faded away, due to the geographical distance or for other reasons the Count cannot explain, but he remained friends with almost everyone from his Kharkov circle. This enforced social passivity turned out for the better and he finally found his ‘word’. At the age of fifty he started writing poetry and now claims that this was the best thing that ever happened to him. He did not attempt to persuade me that he was a reformer or a dissident – these things do not matter for him. His identity as a poet and a teacher prevails and he is happy to pursue it.

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Thematic analysis: narrative patterns

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Life story as a love story As a teenager I attended the Count’s lessons on Russian literature. He devoted his first lesson to talking to us about Love in the New Testament sense and read us a quotation from the Apostle Pavel (Paul). He explained that these words were the key to understanding life and the measure of all things. Moreover, he claimed this Biblical quotation was relevant to any literature we might want to talk about.17 In the interviews, he referred to love and creativity as the key components of happiness and balance: ‘Because what do we want from life? We want to love and be loved. And there is nothing more important in the world.’ At the last interview session, when I asked the Count to sum up what is common for the shestidesyatniki as he understands them, for such people as himself and people close to him, he paused and then laughed childishly and disarmingly: ‘The most important thing for us all was to love each other.’ The Count presented himself as a happy person; he kept insisting that this was the key to his identity and to understanding his life. As the factual biographical representation of failures and disaster he gave did not always correspond with this image, the coda for his narrative was often oriented towards projecting this message. It was also important for him to demonstrate that, in spite of a chain of dramatic events in his life, his self remained impermeable and he preserved his integrity. External events could not affect his personality and shake his worldview, and he ‘did not have a day of depression or desperateness in his life’. He describes the consequences of being happy as follows: ‘a happy person doesn’t distinguish victories from defeats’. To not distinguish means to perceive failures as a challenge not a tragedy. The happy person is not affected by problems such as losing his job or expulsion because he or she does not value such external signs of well-being. Love serves as a protective shield against the mischief and desperation. IE: In a case of personal tragedy and helplessness despair can easily capture a person and if he fails to look deep inside himself and does not have firm value kernel, he starts blaming others and looking for scapegoats . . . But if there is something a person can rely upon, nothing bad will happen to him. Love and creativity give you balance. If you have neither, you are in trouble. It seems first that we go together but the harshness of life separates us. Someone turns out to be weaker and experiences the breakdown. If a person allows hatred to fester in his soul, he ends up isolating himself and succumbing to destructive introspection under the pressure of negative personality traits. And in my case, there are only positive characteristics’ (he laughs). His creativity, and the fact that he started writing poetry at the age of fifty, also makes him happy. He sees it as God’s blessing, which could turn out

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to be the most important thing to have happened to him and a key to the meaning of life. All his previous failures – with the literature programme, with sociology – have lost their significance in the presence of this bestowal: being able to master the word, to penetrate into the mystical world of poetry he admires so much.

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Historical continuity For the Count, the 1960s was a time when ‘incredible numbers of remarkable characters and great personalities’ were revealed. The best examples of his generation were strong and brave people, who ‘managed to maintain their integrity through all kinds of challenge’. Those who remained faithful to their ideas and ideals did not recant but managed to be true to themselves in any situation. They were typified by faithfulness to an undistorted voice of life, feeling of inner freedom and moral independence. The Count likes to think about himself as a part of history. Although he refers to himself as an ordinary man, he stresses that ‘if you live a full life and do not avoid hot-points you leave traces’. He was pleased to find his name or reference to his actions in the memoirs of his contemporaries. It was important for him to know that what he did (he was mostly referring to his speech at the meeting with Tvardovsky in Novosibirsk) had been noticed. His story absorbs and reflects ideals derived from history and literature, in order to rearrange the disrupted lives of his generation into a meaningful pattern. He emphasizes the continuity of his generation with Russian history and how important it is for him to interweave his own life with the history of an epoch. He views his generation from a historical perspective and sees it as continuing the best traditions of the Russian intelligentsia. IE: We say that the Decembrists were the first unwhipped generation of noblemen and this immediately produced outstanding people. I would say that speaking about Russian history from the point of view of human characteristics – the movement of the shestidesyatniki follows these traditions. There has not been a brighter and more widespread intellectual movement in Russian history since the Decembrists. For the Count, the shestidesyatniki were people who like the Decembrists ‘stopped fearing’. He admires his generation for this: ‘After Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov I do not see anything more beautiful in Russian history than the shestidesyatniki . . . I knew many of the shestidesyatniki and most of them were beautiful.’ As I showed in the previous chapter accounting for the feeling of fear is a sensitive topic for many of my interviewees. Even more so is the choice between open dissent and conformism, which within the intelligentsia myth is seen as immoral. The Count is aware of these potential conflicts but seems to have resolved them for himself. The values of friendship and brotherhood are more important for him. He claims that he was always

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walking on the edge and that it was only a matter of chance that he did not go to prison. Judging by his narrative, friends were always a measure of morality for him. So, for example he says:

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IE: In my opinion my work on the literature programme was a very important issue for the country. But it never occurred to me that because of the programme I couldn’t say what I thought about [Yuly] Daniel or that I wouldn’t sign a letter. Because if your friend needs your help, what could be more important? The Count sees attempts at distinguishing between the shestidesyatniki and dissidents as useless and impossible: ‘The shestidesyatniki and the Soviet people is more like it.’ For him all thinking people of the 1960s were different to Homo Sovieticus, the widespread social type immortalized in Alexander Zinoviev’s essay: passive in the face of authority, infinitely pliable in his behaviour and values, with no horizons beyond the needs of the moment, but superbly equipped with basic survival skills. For the Count the difference between being and not being a dissident is subtle. Moreover, it is an absurd question for him. The circle of his close friends included both people who are now described as dissidents (Larisa Bogoraz, Yuly Daniel) and those who are not (Boris Chichibabin, Marlena Rahlina, Volya Raizis). IE: Well, so Larisa and Yuly are dissidents, and Borya not? Or Borya is a dissident and I am not? I can’t think in this way. He sees dissidents as the bravest of the shestidesyatniki, but even so no strict line can be drawn between them. They are the same people. IE: How can one distinguish between a dissident and a non-dissident? Okudzhava? Is he not a dissident and Yuly Daniel – a dissident? They were best friends. How can we separate? Or those who signed protest letters are dissidents, and those who did not are shestidesyatniki? They are the same people! There is no such differentiation. If we look at whom the Count names as typical shestidesyatniki, or at the names of the friends whom Daniel (2000) addressed his letters to from prison, or at those Galich and Okudzhava devoted their poems to, we will see that they were often the same people. The Count is proud of his friends who ‘went to the square’ and says that it is only because he was not in Moscow that he did not join their demonstration: ‘My relations with Larisa were such that I could not but join if she went there.’ Some define the shestidesyatniki as the lost or deceived generation but the Count refutes this, saying that the shestidesyatniki were ‘probably the only generation that felt that everything they did was absolutely necessary’. The shestidesyatniki for him are not just a disembodied notion, waiting to be pinned down; neither is the concept a sort of myth, with no reference

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to reality. Rather it is embodied in his friends and the friends of his friends, as well as other people he has met in life and who appear to be ‘the best examples of the shestidesyatniki’. Friendship

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For the shestidesyatniki friendship is a 24-hour concept.18 Friends played an important part in the Count’s life – they ‘became his family’. In contrast, he only spoke about his real family when prompted. Speaking about his circle of friends in Kharkov he comments: ‘In fact we were closer to each other than to our families and we stayed kin throughout our lives.’ For him being a man of 1960s means being no different from his friends in either a biographical way or in the ideals and values he supports. When the Count speaks about we he means his close friends. He presents them in a very idealistic and romantic manner without referring to any ambiguities or contradictions. They all appear as a unified circle of people with a solid shared worldview. They all had interests other than official or political ones and created different forms of life. They were all hunted people because of their independent or unorthodox lifestyles and opinions, but their inner freedom19 allowed them to be creative: ‘without this notion of a secret freedom one can’t write. And we all had it and were all writing albeit with different success.’ Although they were all talented people, career and achievements were not of primary importance for them. They did not strive for official recognition. The Count refers to his friends: Boris Chichibabin, who is now recognized as one of the greatest modern poets of the Ukraine, was working for twenty years in a trolley-bus depot after being expelled from the Union of Writers in 1973. Stella Abramovitch, who was a schoolteacher for thirty years and then worked in the Pushkin museum on a minuscule salary, wrote in the Count’s opinion the best books about Pushkin, ‘much better ones than any research institutes have produced’. Volya Raizis ‘who wrote the best Russian book about Joan of Arc’ was not allowed to teach. What in the Count’s opinion unites all these people? Firstly, the fact that professional realization and self-expression were never more important for them than moral values and when these came into conflict, the priority given to moral standards was never disputed. Secondly, they not only had original ideas and moral values, but were also ready to express and defend them if required, often sacrificing their careers in the process. Being an honest person is, for the Count, no less important than writing good books or poems and he admires his friends who were courageous enough to ‘say their word’.20 He quotes lines from Tvardovsky’s poem (the only good one by this author as he thinks): ‘what I want to say, I would not trust even Leo Tolstoy to say for me.’ Lastly, he believes that all his friends preserved their continuity and inner integrity. They did not repent their values even when these threatened their well-being: ‘My friends all remained people whom nobody can accuse

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from the human point of view.’ The Count tells, for instance, about one scientist from Academgorodok who signed a protest letter. As a punishment, his doctoral viva was postponed until he asked for forgiveness, but he never did and it was not until ten years later that he finally defended his thesis. Describing his friends, the Count often adds ‘and so we remained for fifty years’. He finds it astonishing that he managed to make friends for life, that the attraction and love people felt for each other did not diminish with the years and that the same people stayed close to each other throughout the whole of their lives. The crisis he faced in Novosibirsk was a watershed for his relationships with many people and it was at this point when some people whom he considered friends betrayed him and others had a chance to prove their friendship. None of his friends from Kharkov disappointed him. It is interesting to see how romantically and sincerely friends treated each other. In letters they profess love to each other, address their ‘dear and beloved’, often using also the word rodnye, which in Russian defines kinship relationships and is used metaphorically to signify strong and intimate ties with the addressee. Their closeness can also be seen in the poems the Count and Boris Chichibabin devoted to each other: To the memory of Boris Chichibabin (The Count) ‘We started together Hoping to live so, That the thread of kindness and honour Doesn’t break up. And blood like honey run long through our vessels . . . Between deed and duty We have chosen love . . .’ To the Count (B. Chichibabin) ‘(. . .) Preserving the treasured in our hearts, We fly ribs to ribs. It’s such a happiness for me, That I love you.’ A generation of bookworms In my free time I want to read what I want And what I don’t want – I won’t read. The freedom of reading in our age Is the best freedom. Boris Slutsky What?! You did not like Kafka? You little goose . . . (Interview with the Count)

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I must have lost the Count’s respect quite quickly after having revealed such shameful ignorance of literature. I was incautious enough to admit that I did not read much fiction, did not like Kafka, was not really into poetry and I liked Asadov.21 I signed my own warrant. The Count appears to be a person who judges others by what they read and Greenfield (1996) notes, that ‘literature has always been the central symbol for the intelligentsia’, its ‘collective representation’, the quintessential expression both of its creativity and moral, therefore political significance. For the Count, the dividing line between the shestidesyatniki and the others is drawn through literary tastes: IE: The one who internalises literary culture, who knows poems by heart, who loves Pushkin or Tolstoy – these are one type of people . . . We love Pasternak and not Asadov,22 we love Akhmatova and not Zulfiya.23 One cannot love both Pasternak and Asadov. This example of literary snobbery appears controversial when compared to the narrator’s previous claim. As we saw above, the Count regards a ‘humanistic attitude to the world and people’ as one of the most important characteristics of the shestidesyatniki, and is also confident that this attitude can only be formed by literature because ‘that’s where spirituality originates’. But, as it turns out, sharing humanitarian values is not enough to be recognized as an equal by the shestidesyatniki, who in the Count’s narrative emerge as people that were able to distinguish between art and simple-minded triviality and value the former above the latter. Their refined literary taste is what raises them above the masses. The Count refers to the sociological survey he conducted in Novosibirsk, which questioned readers of Trud (the official newspaper of the trade unions) about their literary tastes and revealed that only three of more than two hundred thousand subscribers named Bulgakov as their favourite writer. The majority of respondents named the official ideological writers, whose books did not have any literary value at all. The Count uses this fact to demonstrate how distant shestidesyatniki were from the rest of the population in their artistic tastes and how rare they were. Literature and books have particular value for the Count. He often illustrates his argument by quoting a poem or a novel. He also claims that the shestidesyatniki are/were above all literary people, close to literature but not to the established literary canon, and ready to take risks and experiment with innovative ideas. The Count’s work has always been connected with books: he has been a literature teacher, librarian and bookbinder. Books helped him to meet people; those who loved books as much as he did soon became his close friends. IE: All my best Kharkov’s friends are ‘knizhniki’ [book lovers]. Probably a passion for books helps people to make friends more easily, not talk about rubbish, but talk about something important – about books.

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’Russian history went into literature’ remarks the Count and he is not alone in thinking so. Historically, literary men were influential as those who wielded power over minds but the spiritual autocracy of literature found a new revelation in the 1960s: thousands of people gathering at the stadiums to listen to new poetry, the enormous popularity and authority of Novy Mir,24 a role that transcended just publishing new novels and poems, to heading a wider socio-cultural movement in the country – all these were signs of the epoch. Literature had particular importance for shaping the minds, ethics and the worldview of the shestidesyatniki. The Count claims that he lived life according to the humanitarian values celebrated in classical Russian literature. As he comments about the nineteenth century: ‘It was not Vitte and Stolypin that defined the intellectual horizon of that era, but Chekhov and Tolstoy.’ In his time, everybody knew Solzhenitsyn, Pasternak and Bulgakov, and social scientists wanting to reach a wider audience published essays in literary journals. A generation brought up on books was the result: ‘We were insatiable readers and became dependent upon books. Books . . . had an absolute power over us. Dickens was more real then Stalin or Beria . . . In the moral sense this generation was among the most bookish in Russian history’ (Brodsky, 1976). In the 1960s, literature gave people a sense of unity, a feeling that they were not alone, that somebody could not only think in the same way but was able to express his or her views publicly. As many of my interviewees noted, the appearance of the new literature marked a turning point in their lives: for the first time they saw brave thoughts being published, read that someone thought as they did. It signified the beginning of changes. The shestidesyatniki were particularly voracious for the newly accessible world culture. It is impossible to separate the atmosphere of the Thaw from the strong impressions delivered by the translated literature – Hemingway, Remarque, Thomas Mann, Saint-Exupéry, Salinger and Faulkner. The Count claims that his love for literature gave him a wide cultural horizon, that the Soviet system could not have had much of an influence on his personality because he was brought up in a world literature and not what was promoted by the system. Analogically, the conference participant Batkin tells a story of how he felt when his behaviour and views were criticized at the Komsomol meeting in the university where he was a student. He was reading Montaigne at that point and was thinking: ‘I read Montaigne, I am the interlocutor of Montaigne, how can all this squabbling concern me?’ This raised him above reality, made the issues discussed at the Komsomol meeting useless and not worth attention.25 Responsibility The Count’s narrative suggests a dichotomy: the shestidesyatniki versus the majority of the Soviet people and it is the sense of social responsibility felt by the former that constitutes the core of this distinction and completes the picture of the exclusiveness of the intelligentsia. There is something very

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Christian in the Count’s emphasis on this sense of social responsibility. It does not necessarily mean political activism, but an ability to take the burden and feel the guilt for the misdeeds of the politicians. The Count claims that the central feature of Soviet life was a total lie: the government lied to the people and people lied to the government and to each other, but what he thinks is even more terrible is that people got used to it and stopped noticing. This situation produced a population of the special breed where mediocrity rules: IE: Why is Soviet power so terrible – it brings up average, irresponsible people: Soviet people do not take responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and do not like outstanding people. The Soviet person uses all the blessings that happen to fall to him and their morals degrade eventually to Anti-Semitism and nationalism. Look, how during seventy years, the thoughts, aspiration for truth and humanity have been exterminated. He argues that the result of the Soviet regime was the destruction of moral foundations, that Soviet reality produced people who did not have any of the moral reference points, which were by contrast supremely important to himself and to his friends. In his narrative, people close to power represent the Soviet system in general, which the Count sees as impregnated with mendacity, mediocrity, irresponsibility and the absence of moral values: IE: This was an antihuman system. It was headed by people who were all with complexes, because they did not mean anything, could not do anything, did not know anything and did not want to know. They spend millions and millions on some stupid projects, like giving weapons to the Third world countries, and all this at the expense of the people. Whom could we respect from those people? Could one find at least a grain of something for which Brezhnev could be respected? We did not have any respect for this system and for those who ruled us. Was there at least one Secretary of a Party committee who did anything for the people? Not a single one! IE: You should remember that people in power hate heterodoxy most of all in their lives and the shestidesyatniki will always be the enemies for them, as people who think differently. Alienation from the authorities and from power goes as far as perceiving the idea of being involved in Komsomol activity as something absolutely unacceptable and ridiculous. ‘From my circle no one could be a Komsomol worker, no one. Not even in a terrible dream could one imagine it.’ Living away from official life did not mean at that point denial of the system and ostracism:

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IE: My friends were teachers, who taught children, wrote some good books. We understood the insignificance and nullity of our authorities, the absurdity of this system. But no one whom I know had to co-operate with the power at a high level. We lived in our world. We knew it was not fair, it was a deadlock, but we did not intend to leave, we were not going to open a war against it . . . How can you fight with this world, you can only go to prison. As Raisa Orlova wrote, freedom for many was the ability to live in a country where they had limitless power ‘as if they did not exist’ (Orlova, Dissidentka li ya). To be free meant to act how one thought was correct, without anticipating approval or condemnation from the enemy. This discursive figure ‘to live as if they do not exist’ is very common in the shestidesyatniki’ accounts. Rassadin (1990) claims it was this striving for independence that irritated authorities the most. The Count also uses this metaphorical description when he explains the shestidesyatniki’s way of life: IE: That was the way the shestidesyatniki lived and it was the only way we could live. When I say we did not notice them, I mean we did not make any attempt to fit in. They did theirs, we ours. Of course I noticed the system, it was hard not to: I was kicked out once, twice. But a person could preserve his integrity, there was a circle of friends, there were likeminded people. The Count says he has never in his life met good people who were in official positions, close to power. He tells a story about meeting the Secretary of the regional Komsomol committee in Novosibirsk, a woman who was ‘like us’. This was so unexpected for the Count and his friends that he says: ‘when we met her, we were really astonished.’ Later this woman became one of the signatories and faced all the usual disasters. In the Count’s narrative some people are responsible and moral, with strong humanitarian values; others are reckless and given to the situational morals of ‘I behave according to what is best for me in any single moment’. This dichotomy is embodied in the characters of the shestidesyatniki and literary men on the one hand and people in power and scientists on the other. The contrast between scientists – the salaried intellectuals and the literary men, who placed morality above all, is an important theme in the Count’s narrative. He claims that the literary men in the 1960s constituted the nucleus of free-spirited intellectuals whereas the scientists failed to go through the challenges honourably and lost face. He does not have much respect for science, seeing it as an enterprise where morality is subservient to knowledge and intellect, and concludes that science did not bring forth people who could be regarded as moral examples of the nation. He condemns scientists for placing their business above human values and is very disappointed with the failure of scientists to form an independent intellectual and moral force in

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the country. The scientists merged with the rest of the Soviet people, lying and adapting without noticing the destructive effect it had on them. To support this argument, he refers to the case when forty-seven prominent members of the Academy of Sciences signed the letter against Sakharov. IE: How did the state treat scientists? It humiliated them all. It commanded them to sign a letter against Sakharov and almost everybody did. . . . How can we speak about honour and self-respect? Prison was not threatening them. Or then again everybody thought: ‘If I don’t sign, my business might suffer.’ Our science is shamed by the attitude to Sakharov: they were silent as if taking water in the mouth and signed this vile letter against one of them who was surrounded by enemies. What can we say? The preference for professional interest over moral values, which was in his opinion just a cover for the fear they felt, is the reason for his contempt: ‘All scientists worked for this terrible military state, they gave in to terrible people, they armed the regime.’ As some authors have noted, attitudes exist not to some general group of people, but to some cases that people memorize and relate to (Potter and Wetherell, 1987). It is not only his belief in the general moral failure of science in the Soviet Union, but also his personal experience in Academgorodok that shapes the Count’s attitude to the scientists. The situation in Novosibirsk, when he was facing purges, was a dramatic experience for the Count. It drew a line between his acquaintances: those who supported him and those who condemned him or remained aloof. Not a single one of the more important scientists he knew personally made any attempt to defend him. Two episodes from his personal experience with high-ranking scientists have also influenced him. The dramatic change in their attitude to him after he fell out of favour characterized them for the Count as pliable, weak people. In the first case Lavrent’ev – director of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, after the episode with the protest letter, did not offer his hand to the Count in public: IE: He gave his hand to my friend, but did not give it to me! Why? What was he afraid of? The biggest personality! Did he want to demonstrate to me his anger that I had different thoughts to him? He is a worldrenowned person! What? Why did he have to act like this? . . . Finally, they all lost. Science didn’t manage to do anything positive in our country. Scientists very much resembled Party officials: ‘They were as ready to denounce free-spirited people as their enemies.’ Yanovsky (Secretary of the regional Party committee, close to Lavrent’ev, with a reputation for being progressive) said to the Count during the last talk he had with Party authorities: ‘You are our enemy and we’ll treat you as an enemy.’ ‘And it was an intelligent person, with higher education and a scientific degree!’ reacted the

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Count in the interview. The continued career growth of this person was further proof for the Count that the system promoted only the worst people to the high level positions. Later Yanovsky was transferred to Moscow and became Director of the Academy of Social Sciences. He then became the first Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Philosophy. The important feature of the shestidesyatniki as the Count sees it is faithfulness to their ideals through life and continuity through time. Most of the scientists seemed progressive and free spirited at first to the Count, but later failed in this respect. IE: They are progressive up to a certain moment. For example, Bichenkov, the second director of the school, the one from the Academy of sciences, at first I befriended him, presented him with the Bible. We talked a lot. But as soon as I started acting independently, he distanced himself from me and finally spoke against me. His expectations from Academgorodok were not fulfilled. The concentration of scientific intelligentsia in one place did not provide any moral example or moral lesson. Competitiveness and career aspirations made these people into mediocrities. IE: As one would imagine: scientists gathered with progressive views, asserting the dignity of science and a human personality – no, nothing like that. The progressiveness of the scientific leaders appeared to be a bubble. Soon Anti-Semitism became as typical for Academgorodok as anywhere else in the Soviet Union. Freethinking evaporated quickly as soon as it became threatening to the scientists’ careers. Not many scientists gain the Count’s respect. Two rare exceptions among his personal acquaintances are the director and deputy director of the Institute of Protein Research in Pushchino, who did everything in their power to rescue the Count from the difficult situation he found himself in after the Novosibirsk purges. He describes one of them as ‘a person of great scale, both human and scientific: brilliant humanitarian education, with a free spirit and wide network of acquaintances’. Natan Eidelman, whom the Count names as one of the main personalities of the shestidesyatniki was ‘not just a scholar, but an outstanding publicist, brilliant lecturer and a very open person’.

Conclusion Let me summarize how, in constructing the meaning of shestidesyatnichestvo, the Count, on the one hand, refers to the continuity of the traditions of the classical intelligentsia and which key elements of the intelligentsia myth we recognize in his story. Malia (1961) observed that: ‘The intelligentsia can only

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exist as an independent observer, less egoistic than the rest of society and guided by the interests of supreme justice, rather than personal interests.’ On the other hand, the Count claims the priority of personal interests for people like him: ‘We understood that we can be free if we have love and if we have our own interests. And really behaved so. Everybody. Extremely free.’ However, there is no contradiction here and both the Count and Malia are talking about the same things. In the Count’s story, the phrase ‘our own interests’ simply connotes interests other than those proclaimed by official propaganda and signifies the inherent alienation of the intelligentsia from officialdom, or to be precise, the other way around. We get the impression from his narrative that it is not intelligentsia that is different from officialdom; it is the power that has alienated itself from the intelligentsia. Intelligentsia bears primal moral values and it is the starting point from which others deviate. There is an account of alienation in the Count’s story, but it is interesting to note that unlike other narrators who emphasized their strong differences from the power holders, the Count does not hesitate to admit that he has not always felt so. Bearing strong humanist values he trusted people, and only when they declared him their enemy did he realize the immense dissimilarity between him and them, the gulf between the values that guide their respective lives. For instance, talking about his relationships with Bichenkov (a scientist working in Party apparatus), the Count tells that first they became friends and he ‘even presented Bichenkov with The Bible’. In this case The Bible is a symbol of highest humanitarian values and the action of presenting The Bible to someone who the Count wanted to become friends with symbolizes sharing values. It was also interesting that the Count gave The Bible to the Party apparatchik. This could be interpreted that at that point he did not distinguish yet between the shestidesyatniki and apparatchiks and could expect the Party person to be one of them. The alienation comes later. People are not bad in his story, the system is and it is the system that corrupts good people if they do not have a strong moral core. He never aspired to be different, was never politically motivated, it was just that the Soviet state interpreted his aspirations for truth and justice as a political stance. The celebration of personal spiritual values such as love was to a certain extent a challenge to official propaganda images of the good Soviet person, who was supposed to live for the collective interest and strive to achieve socialist goals. It was essential for the Count to put across how unimportant the aims of official propaganda, of what a normal Soviet citizen should value and try to achieve, the proclaimed collective goals and interests, were for the shestidesyatniki. The intelligentsia represented in the Count’s narrative are not those who dreamt of overthrowing the Soviet system, but who were either indifferent to its aims or would welcome its radical modification. At the same time, those own interests did not mean egoistic and selfish aspirations, but ones that originated in the humanitarian ethic and spirituality distinguishing the shestidesyatniki from the rest. The Count respects the transition experience of his contemporaries even though he did not have to go through it. So, for

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example, he at some point steps back from the main line of the story to admire Karyakin, who was a respectable writer with the benefits linked to his high-ranking social position, but who then left everything to became a freelance writer because he could not bear the falsity of official life any more. Andrle (1994: 22) observes that ‘Intelligentsia was united in an ideology of “culturalism”. It had a strong belief in the power of the written word and the degree of influence exerted over an individual’s character by what he or she read’. Providing people with access to good literature, encouraging children to think while reading, developing the literature programme for school teaching – these reflect the ideals the Count claims have guided his life, which are underpinned by an orientation to enlightenment. This presented as core to everything that he has done: the opening of a discussion club Listing through the journals in Kharkov, his efforts to develop and teach new literature lessons, running book shops in Novosibirsk and Pushchino, as well as his activity as an unofficial and official librarian. These are the achievements that help him to feel his life has not been in vain, despite the fact that his professional career as a teacher and sociologist was cut short. His is not a career story and each move he made in his professional life was motivated not by vertical mobility or professional achievement, but higher aspirations. He became a teacher to teach others to love literature, went to sociology to learn the truth about society, opened bookshops and libraries in order to give others access to books. The absence of any note of disappointment with the failure of his career persuades the listener of his sincerity. It is believed that the Russian intelligentsia has always placed principles above profession (Malia, 1961). The Count evaluates people not according to their professional achievements; on the contrary, he claims that ‘to evaluate a scientist, we should look not only at what he or she produces but also at what kind of person he or she is’. None of his friends had successful careers, but they realized themselves ‘as people’. He claims that literature teaches us to evaluate a person in this way: the spiritual power of Matrena (the poor marginal woman from Solzhenitsyn’s story Matrenin dvor) makes her no less a ‘complete person’ than Landau. Malia notes, that: If [intelligentsia] betrays its principles, gets too close to power or integrates into power, allows itself to be corrupted by wealth or becomes part of this wealth, in this case it will become part of the pleasure-serving staff, a role alien to the intelligentsia since it has always been a truthseeker. (Malia, 1961: 17) The Count has no doubt that there is a remarkable difference between people ‘contaminated’ by the system and the intelligentsia. The shestidesyatniki in his story are easily distinguishable from the mind toilers such as the Party apparatchiks, Komsomol workers or even scientists, who are more likely to

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be bureaucrats and managers than the intelligentsia. He cannot imagine his friends joining Komsomol, because that would have left them too close to power and threatened their independence. His friends did not strive simply for better pay and promotion but worked in low waged jobs as schoolteachers, librarians or clerks, and money was never important to them: ‘other inner work was going on that made them what they became.’ Social origins are of no importance to the Count. Although he comes from a poor working class family he portrays himself as an educated man, whose self-identification as a member of the intelligentsia does not depend upon his social background – only education, moral position and spiritual values matter. Just as the pre-revolutionary intelligentsia was distant from the people, the shestidesyatniki were distanced and different from the majority of their fellow countrymen – the Soviet people. Nahirny (1983) argued that the Russian intelligentsia, in spite of being cut off from the bulk of society, nevertheless felt they had a mission of responsibility towards it. This sense of responsibility in the Count’s narrative is what distinguishes the shestidesyatniki from both Soviet people and Soviet rulers. Intelligentsia are described in literature as people characterized by independent, critical and creative thinking. The Count’s description of his friends emphasizes their creative talents. He claims that they not only lived to their own standards but were also ‘all talented people and wrote good books’. Unlike the other narrators in my sample, the Count projected a coherent and continuous sense of self. As is evident from the biographical section in this chapter, there were many reasons for disillusionments and disappointments, however he did not account for any experience of breakdown or personal transformation. I suggest that he successfully represented personal continuity by employing confidently and consistently a particular interpretative repertoire provided by the intelligentsia cultural story. This repertoire describes intelligentsia as spiritual others, people who exist outside of the momentous troubles, who live according to the eternal values of truth and love, attached to culture rather than a particular social situation or historical period. This repertoire reconciles potential conflicts between other repertoires: the choices between conformism and non-conformism, enlightenment and criticism of the establishment lose their significance. As we have seen in the previous chapters, the conversion stories emphasize the moment of transition, when narrators, previously engaged in political activity or fooled by the ideology, suddenly discover that spirituality and attachment to culture are the ways towards freedom. Unlike these narrators, the Count claimed to have always felt part of world culture and therefore did not need to search for freedom. He had inner freedom from the beginning. One gets the impression that this strong moral and spiritual position made him immune to the temptations and helped him to avoid difficult moral choices.

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Conclusion and discussion

This research advocated the existence of a powerful cultural myth of the intelligentsia and explored its influence on the identity project of one particular group of Russian intellectuals – the shestidesyatniki. At the same time, I have also demonstrated the converse influence of the challenge faced by the shestidesyatniki, which resulted in their creative reconstruction of the traditional cultural story. The core element of the intelligentsia myth is a belief in the possibility of human perfection. It establishes the existence of a special type of people who combine intellect, refined sensibility and exceptional moral ideals, and devote their lives to fulfilling a specific social mission. By bringing this ideal type to life, the myth promotes a single version of the intelligentsia story and a single yardstick by which aspirants to the category are judged. And because it is rooted in Russian culture, history and tradition, the myth retains its ideological power in spite of the attempts of some groups to devalue it. I argued that the myth of the intelligentsia functions as both an enabling and restricting resource for the contemporary identity projects of Russian intellectuals. It dictates the norms of moral behaviour and establishes rigid frames of identity management for them. I demonstrated that the myth also performs an ideological function and is used rhetorically to secure the dominance of some groups over others. Finally, I showed that the myth does not simply exist out there but is constructed by the participants in discourse and consists of a number of competing and contradictory stories and norms. Therefore, identity projects, which draw upon the myth, involve the creative and reflexive work of accounting for the discrepancy between one’s biography and mythological expectations. In the following sections I will summarize the discursive practices used by the shestidesyatniki to reaffirm, modify and challenge the myth to accomplish their identity project. These rhetorical manoeuvres leave some themes of the original intelligentsia myth unchallenged while others become more flexible and mobile in the shestidesyatniki’s biographical accounts. I will also recap the collective stories the shestidesyatniki construct and interpretative repertoires they employ to project a moral identity. Finally, I will consider the implications of my findings for the fields of intelligentsia studies and the study of intellectuals in general.

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The shestidesyatniki’s version of the intelligentsia identity In this research I set out to study the identity project of one particular group of Russian intellectuals. This group is often referred to as the shestidesyatniki and defined as the generation of intelligentsia that came of age in the Soviet Union on the wave of de-Stalinization. I suggested narrowing down the definition and adopted the notion of generation unit coined by Mannheim (1952) as a conceptual device for my analytical journey. This concept highlights that several generation units co-exist within any particular generation. It gives emphasis to shared experiences and values (mental data in Mannheim’s words) rather than age boundaries or historical location to bond the members of the generation into different generation units. The focus of my study has been on the present (late 1990s–early 2000s), rather than the past. Although the notion of generation unit implies that the shared experiences and values originate and gain prominence during the formative years of the members, I was interested in what unites the shestidesyatniki today. My research demonstrates that it is not only the experiences of their formative years that shape their current outlook on the world, but also events that happened later in their lives and most importantly the contemporary review of these. Moreover, I demonstrated that non-members play an important role in the formation and realization of group identity projects. For instance, in the case of the shestidesyatniki, the recent debates on the value of this group initiated by the younger generation of intelligentsia and by the shestidesyatniki’s ideological opponents from a different generation unit (see Chapter 3) bound the shestidesyatniki together and made the need for a collective identity project particularly imperative. It was the feeling of being under attack that provoked the shestidesyatniki to get together once again and attempt to furnish their lives with meaning and value (see Chapter 4). I considered the explicit claims put forward by the shestidesyatniki about what they believe to be the factors that unite them, and the implicitly shared themes, meanings and values that make their biographical narratives comparable. I argued that these shared themes and the repertoires of their rhetorical justification, like the vocabularies of the accusations made by their detractors, are drawn from the cultural myth of the intelligentsia. Some outsiders see the shestidesyatniki as the embodiment of the classical intelligentsia tradition; others on the contrary argue that this group has failed to live up to it. It is important to note that these disputes operate with the assumption that only one version of the myth exists, and that individuals or groups either fit or do not fit with the definition. There is no suggestion of boundary cases in these debates. It is taken for granted that one either is or is not an intelligent, that the intelligentsia either exists or ceased to be several years or decades ago. Neither is this status contextually bound – one cannot be an intelligent in one situation and not another. In the same way, intelligentsia status can be lost, but it cannot be regained thereafter.

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Such rigidity is an inherent aspect of mythology. As Barthes (1972: 155) pointed out:

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In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions. Barthes argued that myths serve the ideological function of naturalization (Barthes, 1977, 45–46). Their function is to naturalize the cultural – in other words, to make dominant cultural and historical values, attitudes and beliefs seem entirely natural, normal, self-evident, timeless, obvious common-sense – and thus objective and true reflections of the way things are. The power of such myths is that they go without saying and so appear not to need to be deciphered, interpreted or demystified. I used the concept of cultural myth to emphasize the idealistic and axiological dimensions of the cultural story of the intelligentsia. The concept of cultural story implies the existence of a stereotypical plot and characters, to which individuals relate when they construct their narratives. The notion of myth emphasizes the power of the socially accepted cultural story and the normative pressure that it can exercise on individuals. It also allows us to bear in mind that the cultural story portrays intelligentsia as ideal types that few living individuals resemble. Although the notions of cultural story and myth presuppose its existence in a fixed form, in practice they appear more flexible. As some researchers (e.g. Samuel and Thompson, 1990) note, mythical elements are mobile and subjected to negotiation and contestation in discourse. I employed the concept of interpretative repertoires and collective stories to explore the flexible facets of the myth. Analysis of the shestidesyatniki’s biographical accounts allowed me, on the one hand: to examine how the cultural story provides the framework of meanings and norms for their identity project; and on the other, to observe how the shestidesyatniki creatively engage with the story and which themes and norms are accepted and which are challenged in the process. Their opponents often portray the shestidesyatniki as fallen intelligentsia polluted by proximity to power and driven by conformism, careerism, materialism, naivety and idealism. The shestidesyatniki are challenged to refute this representation and restore their moral image. Identity repair work is directed towards reconciling their lives with the intelligentsia myth. In doing so they produce their version of the intelligentsia cultural identity, which does not however simply mimic the mythological representation. In contrast to the myth-making activity we have observed in the newspaper accounts, the shestidesyatniki’s identity project is directed towards demystifying the myth. In their stories the conflict between the themes and norms that the myth presents as non-controversial is made explicit. They humanize the myth and make intelligentsia status attainable to mere mortals. Paradoxically,

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while attempting to reconcile their lives with the myth they reveal the mythological nature of the cultural story of the intelligentsia. The shestidesyatniki identity project is realized via the following discursive practices: 1

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2 3 4

Developing apologetic scenarios – explaining why mistakes and deviations were inevitable. Constructing a conversion story, therefore leaving negative experiences in the past. Revealing moral motivations for what otherwise could be interpreted as immoral (i.e. violating the mythological norms) action. Questioning normative expectations.

Before proceeding with the discussion I want to emphasize that the concept of discursive practice is used here to refer to discursive action. As the reader may have noticed, the definition of each practice begins with a verbal noun. In this context, I interpret discursive practices as the meaning-making behaviours in which people engage following particular conventions or rules of construction and interpretation. The practices usually involve engaging with specific interpretative repertoires. This term refers to the interpretative codes available to members of cultural groups, which offer them the potential to understand and produce narratives that employ these codes. I introduced the concepts of cultural and collective stories to highlight the relationship between interpretative repertoires and the cultural myth. Cultural stories are not told to ‘invite critical deconstruction’ (Andrle, 2000) but to reaffirm the stereotype. In contrast collective stories are aimed at challenging and modifying the cultural story. The discursive practices I outlined above are interrelated. For instance, when the past self is separated from the present self in conversion stories it is often accompanied by a justification that the mistakes committed in the past were inevitable. After making the bold statement that they are now ex-offenders, the narrators invite us to reflect upon the reasons for and the roots of the offence. Likewise the practices of apology and constructing vocabularies of motive appear as two distinctive ways of dealing with the past experiences threatening an otherwise coherent self-image. These discursive practices I observed in the shestidesyatniki’s narratives mirror the distinction between excuses and justifications – two types of accounts that social actors use in everyday situations to account for available evidence of unexpected, awkward or otherwise problematic behaviour (Coffey and Atkinson, 1996: 101). Excuses aim to ‘mitigate or relieve questionable action or conduct’, while justifications seek to ‘neutralize or attach positive value to informed or questionable acts’ (ibid.). As a result of pursuing different aims, apologetic scenarios reaffirm cultural stories, whereas vocabularies of motive developed for the purposes of justifications often challenge these and by contrast result with the construction of collective stories. Let us consider these four discursive practices in more detail.

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Developing apologetic scenarios The vocabulary of apology in the shestidesyatniki’s accounts is based on the reference to generation location. The narrators who chose this repertoire root themselves in a particular historical moment and explain that, although they aspired to the ideal, they nevertheless had no choice but to live their lives according to the situation they were born into: in that country and under that regime. They accept that theirs was not a free generation and contrast themselves with the following generation of the semidesyatniki who were raised in a more liberal environment. The shestidesyatniki explain that they were subjected to ideological brainwashing: they went to ordinary schools and, at home, parents protected them from questioning the reality and noticing the wrongdoings of the regime. They report feeling detached from the cultural traditions of the past and being isolated and deprived of the knowledge and experiences of previous generations. Their accounts therefore hinge upon the idea that they were forced to go through a painful process of regaining their true selves, dignity and pride, reconnecting themselves with the cultural tradition and universal morality. They tell us how they were hungry to find the truth, but the route to it was long and thorny. They also claim that the liberation of the younger generation was the result of the painful process of regaining freedom that the shestidesyatniki went through and feel hurt that these youngsters refuse to recognize that they stand on the shestidesyatniki’s shoulders and pretend that it was their own achievement.

Constructing conversion stories The authors of conversion stories appear to be able to protect their present identities by separating their past and present selves. They do not hesitate to confess their ‘sins’, committed in the past, because the moment of conversion is also the moment of redemption. The shestidesyatniki appear purified by the fact that they have accepted and repented their sins. Their stories tell us that in the post-Stalin time intelligentsia did not simply appear as a result of political change, under the influence of external political or economic factors. They reclaim agency and emphasize going though the long process of becoming intelligentsia, regaining their individual consciousness and reattaching themselves to this identity. What gives the authors of conversion stories pride is the realization that they belong to culture, rather than to the faceless masses of the Soviet people or even to a particular generation. Those who associate themselves with the shestidesyatniki appear proud that their generation unit was able to reattach itself to the historical traditions of Russia and the West, not only without help, but also in spite of the barriers in their way. Those speakers who reject the shestidesyatniki label instead emphasize the universal intelligentsia attributes they value rather than any particular generational traits; thus, in contrast to the authors of apology stories, diminishing the importance of their generation location.

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Saving moral face from public accusations is the primary function of the conversion mode; however, there is a second aim it implicitly helps to achieve. It is a way to establish that one belongs to the exclusive circles of the intelligentsia by virtue of spiritual rebirth, which diminishes the importance of social origins. It has been argued that the experience of the second, spiritual birth is central to the intelligentsia identity: ‘An intelligent is a person born twice, the second time recreating him or herself on spiritual grounds upon their own free will’ (Kantor, 1992). This experience of spiritual selftransformation results in a person overcoming social gravitation, breaking free from kinship, tribal, social-natural ties, dependencies, obligations and desires and becoming the spiritual other. Detaching themselves from time, place, ethnicity, class, diploma, status, awards and profession gives intelligentsia a special ability to see beyond the troubles of everyday life and to justify and defend the eternal values of truth and kindness (ibid.). The authors of conversion stories emphasize how achieving this position (or finding a way to rhetorically account for it) brought harmony and resolved identity conflict. As was noted above, I interpret intelligentsia as a cultural identity related to the ‘nodal points of cultural meanings, notably class, gender, race, ethnicity, nation and age’ (Barker, 2000: 382). However, the shestidesyatniki’s version of this identity is directed towards silencing other aspects of their social positioning. They want to be seen as being beyond these. Crucially, conversion stories promote a particular version of the intelligentsia identity. This involves framing the image of the intelligentsia as people who exist beyond momentary social worries, guided by the eternal ideals of morality, having strong links with world culture and the historical tradition of the intelligentsia. The second genre promoting the same version of the intelligentsia identity is the much rarer story of personal continuity, which establishes that one is able to maintain links with the intelligentsia tradition in spite of the numerous temptations of everyday life. The narrator whose account I presented in Chapter 7 successfully established personal continuity in spite of many turning points in his biographical trajectory. He was able to do so by basing his account on the same repertoire as the authors of conversion stories but, unlike them, he argued that he did not have to be reborn to realize the significance of belonging to culture – this position was inherent to him. He claimed to have never experienced any personal transformations, because he was always guided by the eternal values of friendship, moral responsibility, kindness and love. He emphasized that the aspiration of all true intelligentsia since Pushkin and Decembrists has been to rise above earthly concerns and to dwell in the non-historical, non-social dimension of culture and morality, and he always followed this path. I did not include this type of account in the four-fold typology of discursive practices because in my research it appeared as an exception to the rule, rather than a common genre, which nevertheless shed brighter light on the shestidesyatniki’s collective identity project. It is not the genre that is important in this context, but the message being conveyed.

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I argue that conversion stories challenge the mythological representation of the intelligentsia. First, these stories suggest that one can also become an intelligent regardless of social background. This genre emphasizes that the ideal can be achieved, that one does not need to be born an intelligent or of noble origin. Second, they suggest that one can recover after a fall, recognize one’s mistakes and reclaim the identity. The image of the intelligentsia the shestidesyatniki promote is more humane than the mythological image of the super hero. This idea can be seen as part of the shestidesyatniki’s life-long project to humanize socialism; their literature advocated the depiction of reality and all its problems in contrast to the glossy images popularized by socialist realism (see Bioul-Zedginidze, 1996). Likewise, an intelligent in their version of the story is allowed to make mistakes, as long as the motives for his or her actions are pure. By analogy this identity project can be named as ‘intelligentsia with a human face’. The shestidesyatniki blur the boundaries of the intelligentsia group, but only when it concerns their own admission. As soon as they are inside and feel secure, they vigilantly shut the gates behind them and patrol the walls, wary of the younger generation waiting to get in. As I showed in the book, while praising their own experience of regaining spirituality and re-joining the intelligentsia circles, the shestidesyatniki remain suspicious that anybody else would be able to perform such a feat. They sound very proud of their exceptional life experience and what it taught them, arguing that they are a unique phenomenon and therefore deserve a special place in the history of the Russian intelligentsia. This particular combination of interpretative repertoires is another example of how identity work can be directed simultaneously towards de-stabilizing and strengthening cultural myths and categories.

Constructing vocabularies of motive and challenging the myth Another message included in the shestidesyatniki’s project of intelligentsia with a human face is that although one cannot become a perfect intelligent, one should aspire to the ideal; and in the end, it is this aspiration that distinguishes the true intelligent, which provides an appropriate bridge to the third device in my classification of the ways in which the narrators attempt to reconcile their blemished identity with the intelligentsia cultural story. In what follows I will demonstrate that the shestidesyatniki reconstruct the motivation for their actions and choices, and present these as driven by their aspiration to comply with the norms dictated by the myth of the intelligentsia. I will also show that not all of the norms appear equally important. The shestidesyatniki usually justify what others see as their failure by emphasizing that the real motives behind the actions do not contradict the intelligentsia myth. I have noted the following vocabularies of motive:

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to find, establish and promote the truth; to influence decision-makers with the aim of reforming the social order; to enrich knowledge about reality with the purpose of enlightening the unenlightened.

Professional competence for many shestidesyatniki does not constitute a value in itself, but requires accounting for in terms of the wider benefits it brings to the country and its people. The interviewees accounted for their careers in the ideologically controlled institutions as enhancing their ability to pursue the enlightenment mission and explained that they were not driven by self-interest. They claim to have honestly and sincerely believed in what they did, and that they were not driven by money or career. Most of the shestidesyatniki I interviewed explain that they retained a critical view on the establishment and official ideology throughout their lives, and take pride in how they were continually introducing fresh ideas. Although staying within the limits of the permitted, they argue that they were gradually undermining the ideological pillars of the system from within. What unites these different repertoires of motivation is the absence of selfinterest. The shestidesyatniki claim that whatever they did was meant to benefit others. Their moral justification is based on such themes from the intelligentsia myth as unselfishness, the illegitimacy of self-interest and the need to prioritized the interests of others (the people, and not the authorities), social activism, social responsibility and disinterest in material rewards. Vladimir Nahirny notes that the Russian intelligentsia emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as a unique type of men of ideas, different not only from the uncivilized crowd but also from the bourgeois philistine intellectuals. The term intelligentsia was coined to denote those who ‘do not regard their profession simply as an occupation, rather they fulfil a social mission’ (Nahirny, 1983: 10). This repertoire is clearly recognizable in the shestidesyatniki’s accounts of motivation. But what is even more interesting is to enquire which actions they account for in this way and why they need to employ this repertoire. As Giddens (1984: 6) argues, most of our day-to-day conduct is not directly motivated: ‘Motives have a direct purchase on action only in relatively unusual circumstances, situations which in some way break with the routine.’ Likewise, vocabularies of motive are developed to account for the actions and experiences that appear to contradict a particular cultural identity. It is important to note that the choices the shestidesyatniki feel the need to account for include working within the establishment, collaborating with the authorities, joining the party and abstaining from protest activities. These deprive them of the role of social critics and opponents of the power holders, and the shestidesyatniki cannot ignore such representations as they have a factual basis. Crucially, this array of meanings appears as the territory where the intelligentsia myth is open to invasions, where some of the norms are negotiated and modified to restore the moral image of Soviet intellectuals.

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The shestidesyatniki’s identity project is not based on the rejection of all the accusations as unfair. Unlike the dissidents, the majority of the shestidesyatniki did not rebel, openly protest or get involved in underground activities, and it was because of this that social scientists trying to find the embodiment of the intelligentsia tradition in the post-Stalin period tended to leave the shestidesyatniki out of the picture. For the outside observer the majority of Soviet intelligentsia were loyal Soviet citizens working in the State institutions, receiving a good salary and ritualistically chanting loyalty to the Party and Soviet ideology in their public speeches and official publications. Even those who were aware of the informal culture of the kitchen talks and the proliferation of Aesopian language did not accept these as an appropriate activity for the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia are expected to channel their critical ability into protest actions rather than preserving their discontent for the secure harbour of private flats and for the ears of trusted friends. The shestidesyatniki do not deny that they (1) were members of the Communist Party, (2) did not sign protest letters and (3) did not take part in the demonstrations. Instead they attempt to challenge the expectations that the only honourable route for the intelligentsia is into revolution. The accounts they produce to explain conformism and relationships with the authorities include both cultural stories, where they report feeling ashamed of it, and collective stories, where they deny that conformism should necessarily be considered immoral and not fitting with the intelligentsia image. Constructing a moral image within the framework of the intelligentsia story is not a straightforward process. Real lives do not fit smoothly with the myth and accounting for the past requires certain rhetorical skills. The shestidesyatniki’s stories disclose that the coherent mythological narrative consists of a number of competing norms, therefore individuals aspiring to live up to the ideal are inevitably forced to make tough choices and prioritized some norms over others. Some aspects of the myth are unilaterally accepted whereas others are subjected to negotiations. For instance, the norms of unselfishness, nonmaterialism, having critical ability and making a valuable contribution to culture and knowledge, honesty and truthfulness, social responsibility and being inherently alienated from power are accepted. These norms form the core of the shestidesyatniki’s version of the intelligentsia story. On the other hand, the norms of being in open opposition to the regime and nonconformism are questioned – these can therefore be seen as peripheral norms in the shestidesyatniki’s story. Only a small minority of the shestidesyatniki openly challenge the peripheral norms, for example, declaring that they were conformists or rejecting the burden of civil responsibility. Nevertheless, when they were doing so, they were aware that they were contradicting the stereotype and advancing a radical collective story. In most cases the experiences are accounted for by referring to the values accepted as core to the intelligentsia identity. The majority of accounts of breaching the norms or living lives on

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the fringes of the ideal are based on appellation to the core norms. We are told how individuals deliberately chose to be on the fringes if they saw this was helping them to realize and follow the core norms. The norm of being in opposition seems to have become tarnished with time. Now many in Russia despise intelligentsia for their ability to get carried away with negativism and criticism, rather than being creative and constructive. Some shestidesyatniki ironically accept their engagement with the favourite pastime of the intelligentsia, ‘grumbling about things’. Others establish their belonging to the intelligentsia by distancing themselves from this profile and emphasizing their constructive aspirations rather than their critical abilities. In contrast to dissidents, the shestidesyatniki project themselves as creators and reformers. Likewise, the norm of staying aloof from the authorities is modified. The shestidesyatniki emphasize that one can be alienated from power even when working in close proximity to it. They claim they were inherently different from the Party functionaries, never really fitted in and never tried to become a part of power struggle. When they account for their work in the Party apparatus or ideologically controlled institutions, they claim they were not enjoying it, felt alien as if they were of a different breed than the Party functionaries and only continued working there because they pursued a higher goal. This was their cross and the sacrifice they had to make to achieve their honourable mission: to enlighten backward people in power, to help those who suffer, to pursue the truth-seeking side-project using the recourses of the ideological institutions, or to advance scientific knowledge for the sake of future generations and ultimately the well-being of the people. To recap the argument, the shestidesyatniki’s claim of belonging to the intelligentsia is based on two distinctive vocabularies of motive. In the intelligentsia myth the idea of always being at odds with the establishment and acting as social critics of the regime, and at the same time being guardians of culture and morality and the driving force of the enlightenment, appears uncontroversial. In the discursive practices of identification these two themes are separated into two interpretative repertoires, which are further used for rendering meaning to past experiences and reconstructing the moral image. By prioritizing the second and not the first repertoire participants manage to account for experiences that appear incongruent with the intelligentsia myth as a whole. I have demonstrated that there is a recognizable cultural repertoire behind the accounts of the shestidesyatniki, whether they justify the value of their professional lives or the importance of their generation (Chapter 4). This cultural repertoire serves to re-establish their links to the noble tradition of the classical intelligentsia. The contemporary significance and social value of communities and individuals alike (see Chapters 6 and 7) is reclaimed by construction of their historical continuity. However, I have also showed that shestidesyatniki do not simply adopt cultural repertoires and identities but creatively engage with them and develop their own discursive interpretations.

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The myth and the identity: interpreting intelligentsia as a discursive resource In order to explain the phenomenon of the Russian intelligentsia, various interpretations of its nature have been offered. Some authors see it in terms of class: as either a class bound or classless group, or even a class in itself, distinguished by education, occupation, social prestige and lifestyle, as well as nobility of spirit and refined sensibility. Others suggest that the intelligentsia’s existence originally depended upon the unique ability of its members to maintain and transmit a distinctive identity and cultural/discursive tradition across generations. My research builds upon this latter perspective and uses a discursive approach to explore how the members of the shestidesyatniki generation unit reconstruct their own version of the intelligentsia cultural identity. In a recent public lecture, which took place in Moscow, Theodore Shanin (2005) argued that looking at the Russian history through the lenses of generations could produce incredible effect. It can explain how people who share culture, language and mentality ended on different sides of the barricades. He believes that Russian society had, and perhaps still has, a chance to find the basis for consensus if shared culture and experience are acknowledged. As a first step towards this goal he suggested abandoning the metaphor of mirror, which presented the theory of knowledge as a theory of reflection of reality. Instead, he suggested using the metaphor of lenses: Concepts, myths, mythological scenarios, historically developed intuitions stand between reality and our understanding of it. Therefore, to understand what we see and why we see it the way we see it, we should start with the study of the structure of concepts and definitions that we employ, in other words, with the lenses through which we view reality. This is precisely what I have tried to accomplish with my study. Despite the shared assumption that intelligentsia is (or was) a real group, I attempted to look at this belief as a lens which stands between reality and our understanding of it. In what follows I will summarize what this perspective contributes to our understanding of the intelligentsia phenomenon. Numerous volumes have already been devoted to the topic of the Russian intelligentsia, but surprisingly little consensus has been established regarding the past, present or future of this controversial phenomenon. The consensus is limited to recognition that although the nature of the concept intelligentsia is problematic it nevertheless denotes a discrete social stratum. As I showed in Chapter 1 the majority of sociologists and historical research on the phenomenon of the Russian intelligentsia adopt structural perspective. The origins of the group are attributed to the authoritarian character of monarchical power and the huge gulf that existed in the nineteenth-century Empire between the nobility and the peasant masses. It is argued that this

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gulf created a need for mediators between the two disproportionate social groups, which the most progressively oriented and educated members of the nobility came to fulfil. Other authors questioned why these people were moved to come forward, which feelings and beliefs stand behind the formation of a group. They argued that it was a feeling of guilt that a minority of educated nobility experienced for the people that resulted with the belief that it was their task to bridge the gap. This perspective provides evidence that the intelligentsia’s existence has always largely depended upon the ability of this group for self-reflection and that alongside a specific structural position the intelligentsia was characterized by a particular mode of consciousness and consensus about its unique social and historical role. I also showed that despite the existence of these two alternative interpretations of the nature of the intelligentsia phenomenon, the first approach dominates the debate about the survival of the intelligentsia in contemporary Russia. My study advocates the revival of the second perspective. The belief in the existence of the intelligentsia is a part of Russian history and culture, so is the debate about what exactly characterizes this group, where it can be found, and how it can survive when the social, economic and political situation in the country changes. I deliberately avoided trying to define who the intelligentsia in post-Soviet Russia are. Instead I focused on the existing belief as a cultural phenomenon in itself. The recent transformations in the Soviet Union and the former communist East have brought the topic once again to the foreground of attention. Some observers conclude that the intelligentsia is finally gone for good under the pressure of the market economy and the onset of rudimentary democracy (Greenfield, 1996; Roberts et al., 2005); others persist in looking under the rubble for traces of a continuation of the glorious tradition (Walker, 2000; Gessen, 1997). The supporters of the first argument continue to emphasize the structural and objective characteristics of the intelligentsia and claim that systemic changes have undermined the structural uniqueness of the group’s social position and its particular lifestyle. If we accept the basic assumption of this perspective, that the intelligentsia’s existence is determined by external factors, it becomes difficult to argue against such a conclusion. As we know, the intelligentsia in Russia and many eastern European countries has been deprived of its former privileged status and the benefits associated with it. Educated people are currently experiencing material deprivation, a dramatic decline in the prestige of the intellectual professions and uncertainty about the future. University lecturers and researchers, if they do not leave their vocations completely, have to take up second jobs in the commercial sector in order to survive. One can cite numerous examples to support this observation. A friend of mine, a University lecturer in a provincial Russian town, spent three months as a manual worker at the local market in order to earn money to attend a conference on linguistics in England. Another friend earns £300 a month as a full-time University

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lecturer, and to supplement her income, has to do night shifts as a nurse at the hospital and at the weekend visits elderly people as a social worker. Lack of free time and money seriously reduced the intelligentsia’s opportunities for pursuing a privileged lifestyle. A visiting Hungarian researcher when asked by his English colleagues about his hobbies replied honestly: ‘My hobby is juggling three jobs.’ In spite of these telling examples, I argue that the structural approach does not provide us with a conclusive argument regarding the destiny of the intelligentsia in contemporary Russia. It cannot capture the ability of the intelligentsia to be self-reflective, to maintain and transmit a particular collective identity and cultural story. The interpretivist perspective provides us with more suitable tools to explore the survival and transformation of the intelligentsia as a cultural identity. It can also help us understand why the intelligentsia phenomenon is so hard to pin down and why, nevertheless, the attempts to accomplish the task do not cease. Recent debates about the intelligentsia in both the Russian media and academic texts have largely ignored its discursive nature. Instead they concentrate on identifying particular groups as the intelligentsia, claiming either that it is alive and well, or, upon discovering that no individuals or groups possess the requisite characteristics, declaring it extinct (see the references in Chapter 2). As Bauman (1987) points out, such attempts to build up a collective definition of the intellectuals by the finger pointing method are indicative of the power rhetoric used by many aspirants to the category to fight closure battles. I agree with Bauman that it makes little sense to ask ‘who are the intellectuals?’ and expect the reply to be a set of objective measurements. I claim that rather than contributing to the endless discussions about the life and death of the Russian intelligentsia, we should change focus and try to understand why this discourse gained traction in the first place. In advocating the interpretivist perspective I am not trying to suggest that the realm of discourse and subjective meanings exists independently of systemic social changes, but to emphasize that social theorists should not underestimate its influence. It is important not to ignore the possibility that this territory may resemble a stormy sea more than a still backwater, when various groups are trying to capture the moment of uncertainty and secure their dominance. I argued in Chapter 2 that the spread of the rhetoric of doom and gloom regarding the destiny of the post-Soviet intelligentsia is in fact the sign of a power struggle. In Chapter 3, I showed how the myth of intelligentsia might be used as an arsenal from which a group eager to overthrow their opponents can select sharp arrows to fire in their direction. The declaration of the death of the intelligentsia in post-Soviet Russia did not result in the disappearance of the category from public discourse. Paradoxically, this discourse of doom and gloom only reaffirmed the strength of the myth. As I have demonstrated in this book, in spite of the claims that a distinctive social stratum of intelligentsia perished on post-communist soil, the intelligentsia cultural story survives in public discourse and people’s

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cultural memory and appears to be a valuable resource for identity claims. However, it is not the story (singular) of the intelligentsia we should be talking about in this context, but the stories (plural). I argue that the ideology of the intelligentsia, indeed any ideology, is an interpretative resource (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1983: 32). It does not necessarily determine individuals’ actions, but exists as a pool of meanings, vocabularies or repertoires, which actors may employ to justify, evaluate and explain their actions. In times of trouble these repertoires are subjected to negotiation and contestation. Following Bauman’s invitation I treat the concept of intelligentsia as a discursive territory ‘open to invasions, conquests and legal claims as all ordinary territories are’ (Bauman, 1987: 19). In their recent review of the sociology of intellectuals Kurzman and Owen (2002) emphasize the need to move on from attempts to capture intellectuals as a class towards explorations of how and why identities and social boundaries are created through definition and self-definition. The authors claim that defining intellectuals is less important than exploring how intellectuals define themselves, and are defined by others, in particular historical contexts and that it is important to expose the rival interests fuelling the definition process. It should not be forgotten that the idea of the intelligentsia, its specific social role as well as what exactly constitutes the meaning of the intelligentsia, has always been a contested issue within intelligentsia circles. For instance, the disputes between different generations of educated Russians – between Fathers, Sons and Grandsons – have been part of intelligentsia history since the time the group first acquired its collective name. Some authors suggest that the conflict between Fathers and Sons, first articulated by Turgenev’s novel of the same title, later became an essential component of the intelligentsia myth as a story about the dialectical continuity of intellectual quests (Zhivov, 1999a). This myth first takes shape in the narrative of Gertzen’s Byloe i Dumy (1854–69), which tells how the radical ideas of the Fathers were borrowed and made even more radical by the Sons and how the alienation of the Sons from the Fathers followed. The problems of young people and their search to find themselves – occupationally and ideologically – are usually phrased as a conflict between Fathers and Sons. Intergenerational controversy was silenced during the Soviet era, but it did not disappear. It became articulated with the onset of Glasnost in literature and mass media. The discussion in Chapter 3 demonstrates that the conflict between intelligentsia generations is vividly present in contemporary Russia and is realized as a struggle to promote their particular version of the intelligentsia identity. The closure battles in which either side is determined to secure their position as the sole intelligentsia are not over yet. I concentrated on the interpretation of the intelligentsia as a cultural myth because I wanted to break away from the endless debates about the life and death of the intelligentsia. I felt that this debate is fuelled by the myth and thus can never be conclusive. If we stand back from the mainstream discussion we can see that intelligentsia is an imaginary community (Anderson, 1991),

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a mythical group that is difficult to pin down. The belief in the existence of this community has strong historical tradition in Russia. It is kept alive discursively rather than structurally. On the other hand, intelligentsia is a distinctive cultural identity, which exists in the form of an ideal. One can aspire to it, but it is difficult to acquire or hold on to once (temporarily) achieved. The mythological identity consists of a number of norms that aspirants are required to conform to; moreover these norms appear contradictory in the real life scenario. Unlike mythological heroes, people are not perfect. Because of its idealistic nature, this identity is vulnerable and fragile. Claiming this identity involves constant self-reflection and effort. One can never sit back and say ‘Now I have made it’, as the single mistake and incidental violation of the mythological norms may immediately deprive the aspirant of the status and devalue all previous attempts. Intelligentsia identity is both prestigious and demanding. One cannot simply declare to be the intelligentsia, but has to prove that he or she is worthy of this title. The argument is established rhetorically. The analysis of this rhetoric reveals that different individuals and groups disagree as to what exactly defines one as an intelligent. As a result, there is not a single identity to be claimed, but different or even competing versions of this identity co-exist in discourse. I suggest that rather than talking about intelligentsia’s identity as if it was something fixed in meaning and could be adopted or rejected, we should consider it as an interpretative resource, a framework of meaning. It is a skeleton, an outline, and a moral standard, which establishes some rigid hard-to-breach boundaries. Within these boundaries however, one appears to have freedom to interpret the content in different ways and draw strategically upon conflicting discourses. In my study I focused on how one group of Russian intellectuals establishes their identity. I showed that on the one hand the cultural and historical myth of an intelligentsia with a specific vocabulary of motive, constellation of heroes and villains, and assumptions regarding codes of thought and action provides a framework for the identity politics of the shestidesyatniki intellectuals. On the other hand, I demonstrated that this myth is treated creatively. I gave evidence that the shestidesyatniki produce a particular version of the intelligentsia story, simultaneously constructing and deconstructing the stereotype. Considering the discursive process as a social (de)construction allowed me to observe how the myth can be reaffirmed, modified, challenged or rejected by various groups striving to promote their vested interests. Although my research is concerned with the situation in post-Soviet Russia, I believe it has a wider significance as it explores the process of the discursive construction of identity in the context of rapid social transformation. Recent works on the transformation of identity stress that the changes contemporary societies are undergoing signal a transition from fixity to fluidity. Indeed, the erosion of stable categories and identities has been happening everywhere in the world. It is hard not to notice that previously stable boundaries are being breached: what it means to be a man or a woman, one of the most basic

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social categories, is now contested; nationalities and religious categories are being dissolved. Even the construction of humanity as distinct from its other – the animal – is no longer obvious (Gray, 2003). At the level of the individual, the advance of the post-modern condition is reflected in the movement away from traditionally organized identities to reflexive life-projects (Giddens, 1991). This book demonstrated (with the example of the debates about intelligentsia and the shestidesyatniki) that in a period of social transformations the meaning and value of certain categorical identities becomes the subject of heated discussions between various groups of interests. These disputes do not necessarily signal the advance of fluidity, but the struggle over which particular meaning will be accepted and whose interests backing this meaning will win. While some groups are interested in the disintegration of the previously universally accepted categories, as they feel such categorizations are restricting their freedom to pursue their activities as they wish, other groups on the contrary prefer to protect these stable identities as they provide them with a convenient cultural repertoire for the moral justification of their actions and secure their political authority. Others may likewise cling to the stable categories and imbue them with new meaning (‘new’ in this case may be a revived historical mythology) for the sake of protecting their social prestige and safeguarding the meaning of their lives. I showed that the disruption of identity, which has become a popular topic for contemporary social theorists, is not only triggered by macro social changes but is also frequently catalyzed by the struggle between certain social groups for power and dominance in local contexts.

Appendix

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Biographical sketches of the interviewees

1 The Count, 71 years old (age at the time of the interviews), a former schoolteacher expelled from his job in 1967. Ended up a librarian and a book-binder in one of the Research Institutes in Pushchino, where he still works part time. Now writes poetry and gives private Russian literature and language lessons at his home to local schoolchildren. 2 Mikhail, 73 years old, Doctor of Philosophy, in the late 1950s–1960s worked in the editorial boards of a major ideological journal and later a central newspaper. Was expelled from CPSU in 1968. Afterwards worked as a literature teacher in various schools and colleges. During Perestroika became a close ally of Gorbachev, took an active part in political life and became known as one of the ‘construction managers’ of Perestroika. Now lives in Moscow, continues to write and research. 3 Boris, a friend of Mikhail, 69 years old, artist, during the 1960s lived in Novosibirsk Academgorodok, was teaching literature in Novosibirsk University. In the 1970s changed his career, left job and became a freelance artist. At the time of the interview was living abroad. 4 Victor, 69 years old, Moscovite, graduated from Moscow University Department of Philosophy. Completed PhD in philosophy. Most of his professional life worked in the Institute of Philosophy. Still worked there at the time of interview, no plans to retire. 5 Andrey, 74 years old, academic philosopher, professor. Moved to Moscow from Ukraine in the early 1960s. Since the foundation of Taganka Theatre was a member of its editorial board for twelve years. Has worked at the Institute of Philosophy in Moscow since 1970. Was a close ally of Gorbachev during Perestroika and still works for the Gorbachev Foundation. Proudly declares that he is Soviet person. 6 Olga, 73 years old, not working at the time of the interview. Daughter of a high-ranking NKVD official, both parents repressed in the 1930s, she grew up in a friend’s family. In 1949 she was imprisoned (as a daughter of enemies of the people) and exiled in Kazakhstan. Met her husband while in exile, he was also one of the political convicts. In 1953 she was freed and in 1954 returned to Moscow; her husband joined her in 1955. They both entered Moscow Pedagogical Institute Department

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of Literature and graduated in 1957. She then taught literature at schools until she retired. Both she and her husband were close to the dissident circles, but never took part in any protest actions. Gennady, 68 years old, Moscovite, professional architect, specializes in city building. After graduating from the University in 1960 volunteered to work in Siberia. In the late 1960s moved back to Moscow, worked on the construction of the new residential districts of the city. At the time of the interview, he was not employed, was writing a book, tried applying for research grants without success. Sergey, 71 years old, born in Leningrad but since the war has lived in Moscow. Graduated in physics and engineering, but during his student years in the 1950s became an amateur actor and director. One of the founding fathers of the famous liberal student theatre, which was closed by the authorities in the late 1960s. Since then theatre and acting have been his life. At the time of the interview, he was a professor of several acting schools in Moscow and juggled five jobs. Anton, 73 years old, after graduating from Moscow University became a journalist, worked for Novy Mir. Expelled from Novy Mir in the 1970s, worked for two research institutes, was expelled from both and became a freelance writer. After Perestroika restarted his journalistic career. At the time of the interview, he was the chief editor of a literary journal. Gleb, 69 years old, an academic engineer, since 1959 has worked at the Technical University in Moscow. At the time of the interview, he was a senior researcher and lecturer. He spends half of his time in a Moscow regional town working on solar observations at the telescope he and his colleagues built in the 1980s. Natalia, 66 years old, at the time of the interview she was a senior researcher at the Institute of Biophysics. In 1941 her father was arrested and perished (shot in 1943, as she found out later). Since 1964 she has lived and worked in Pushchino, a small academic town in the Moscow region. Tatiana Zaslavskaya, 74 years old. Academician, professor, sociologist. From the 1960s to the 1980s lived and worked in Novosibirsk Akademgorodok. In the late 1980s and early 1990s was elected as a representative to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. At the time of the interview was co-president of the Interdisciplinary Academic Centre of Social Sciences in Moscow. Vladimir Yadov, 71 years old. One of the founding fathers of Soviet sociology. At the end of the 1950s established a sociological research laboratory for the study of motivation for work. At the time of the interview was deputy director of the Institute of Sociology in Moscow (was the director of the Institute for almost eleven years). Ruben, 70 years old, at the time of the interview – senior researcher, head of the research laboratory in the Institute of Biophysics in Pushchino.

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He lived and worked in Moscow until the early 1990s. His father was a famous biophysicist. 15 Maria, 64 years old, was born in Novosibirsk. Her mother was of peasant origins, father – a worker – was killed in the war. Maria received higher education and a PhD in sociology. At the time of the interview, she was a senior researcher in one of the leading Research Institutes in Moscow.

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Notes

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What is Russian intelligentsia?

1 For an elaborate review of Western perspectives on intellectuals see Misztal (2007). 2 An order of precedence is a sequential hierarchy of nominal importance of people; it is used by many organizations and governments. The Table of Ranks continued to remain in effect until the Russian monarchy was overthrown in 1917. 3 A word that was widely used to stigmatize those suspected of harming the progress of the new regime. 4 The Shakhty Trial (Shahtinskoe Delo) in 1928 and The Industrial Party Trial (Protsess Prompartii) in 1930 have taken their toll. 5 ‘Kolkhoz – in the former Soviet Union, a cooperative agricultural enterprise operated on state-owned land by peasants from a number of households who belonged to the collective and who were paid as salaried employees on the basis of quality and quantity of labour contributed. Conceived as a voluntary union of peasants, the kolkhoz became the dominant form of agricultural enterprise as the result of a state program of expropriation of private holdings embarked on in 1929.’ Entry in the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. 6 For example: Mark Field (1958) ‘Doctor and patient in Soviet Russia’. Cambridge, Mass; Nicholas DeWitt (1955) ‘Soviet professional manpower’. Washington; Alexander G. Korol (1957) ‘Soviet Education for science and technology’. New York; Alexander Vucinich (1956) ‘The Soviet Academy of Sciences’. Stanford; David Granick (1954) ‘Management of the Industrial Firm in the USSR’. New York and Joseph S. Berliner (1957) ‘Factory and manager in the USSR’. Cambridge, Mass. 7 Intelligenty here and throughout the monograph stands for the plural of intelligent, a member of the intelligentsia group. 8 I use the word ‘people’ here; however, it is important to note that in this context the Russian noun narod is semantically closer to the German ‘Volk’, and the derivative narodnyj serves as a Russian equivalent of ‘democratic’, ‘populist’ or ‘on the side of the people’ (Pipes, 1964). 9 On the analysis of the transformation of the conceptual meanings of the word intelligentsia and its role in the self-identification of various social groups see, for instance, Mueller (1971) pp. 137–39, 316–76. 10 Similar findings about the self-identification of educated professionals were presented by Golenkova et al.’s (1995) study of Irkutsk citizens. 2

The discourse on intelligentsia in Russia 1 For example, a selection of articles published between 1990–2001 on the topic of intelligentsia in leading high-brow online publications – Russky Zhurnal and

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Neprikosnovennyj Zapas: Afanasyev, Y. (2001) ‘The image of an intellectual is terrifying’. Interview with Mikhail Remizov. Russky Zhurnal, February; Galkovsky, D. (1995) ‘Russian politics and Russian philosophy’ In Chernyshov, S.B. (ed.) (1997) Anthology of the new Russian self-consciousness. Moscow: Russian Institute (also in Russky Zhurnal); Gudkov, Lev (1999) ‘The end of the intelligentsia and mass reading’, Russky Zhurnal, November; Gudkov, Lev (1999) ‘Educated community in Russia: sociological approaches to the topic’, Neprikosnovennyj Zapas, 1 (3); Diskin, I. (1999) ‘Intelligentsia: the end of the route?’, Russky Zhurnal, March; Pavlovsky, G. (2001) “The XXth century and the world’: uranium burial ground of the Russian intelligentsia’. Interview with Gleb Pavlovsky to the Russky Zhurnal, October; Paramonov, B. (1994) ‘Intelligentsia’, The XXth century and the World, 11–12, Pokrovsky, N. (1998) ‘The hot breath of power’, Russky Zhurnal, March; Tuchkov, V. (1998) ‘Yarkevitch and Intelligentsia’, Russky Zhurnal, January; Faibisovitsh, S. (1998) ‘The songs of the most important’, Neprikosnovennyj Zapas, 2; Shimov, Y. (2001) ‘Requiem to the NTV. Or the third defeat of the Russian intelligentsia’, Russky Zhurnal, January; Yarkevitch, Igor (1997) ‘Intelligentsia and literature. Intelligentsia and life’, Russky Zhurnal, July. 2 Gleb Pavlovsky (born 1951) – adviser of the president Administration, often called the ‘grey cardinal’, ‘provocateur’, ‘great mistificator’, or ‘guru of political consultancy’. He argues that his profession is ‘applied history’. 3 Semyon Faibisovitch (born 1949) is a Moscow-based artist, writer and cultural critic. www.gif.ru/people/faibisovich/. 3

The story of a fallen or failed intelligentsia

1 The texts of newspapers were accessed in electronic format via the online database EastView, I conducted a search for the word ‘shestidesyatni*’, which enabled the search engine to recognize single and plural nouns as well as adjectives. The search returned almost 5,000 records from over sixty national newspapers. Bearing in mind the argument about the importance of context, I chose to concentrate on particular newspapers rather than a random sample. 2 As the writer Victor Kardin (1996) for instance argues, ‘one should distinguish between different shestidesyatniki: nomenclature shestidesyatniki, shestidesyatniki– dissidents and shestidesyatniki–centrists grouped around Novy Mir’. 3 It is telling that the first chief editor of NG, Vitaly Tretyakov (born 1953), called himself a pupil of a famous member of the shestidesyatniki, Egor Yakovlev (famous Soviet journalist, born 1930, and Gorbachev’s close ally until 1991, often referred to as the chief ideologist of Perestroika). The current owner and formally the chief editor of the newspaper, Konstantin Remchukov (economist by education, born in 1954), is more business oriented than his predecessor. His purchase of the newspapers from Boris Berezovsky in 2005 was motivated by an ambition to turn it into an effective business enterprise. Remchukov is also a close ally of Russian aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska, the richest Russian businessman in the world before the credit crunch in 2008, who hosted Peter Mandelson on his yacht – an event that caused a flurry of allegations about corruption in the British Government (see an account of events in The Sunday Times (2008) ‘Peter Mandelson oligarch Oleg Deripaska linked to mafia boss’, October 26). 4 As we know, in Khrushchev’s time the number of political convicts was several thousand a year (e.g. 1957–58) and in Brezhnev’s time hardly more than several dozen a year. Furthermore, during the Brezhnev period the average term of punishment was three years imprisonment, while Khrushchev used the 58th article of the Criminal Code, which prescribed five to seven years, and often even ten years imprisonment. The reasons for this distortion of the intelligentsia’s picture

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of the past become clear when we look at the social status of the convicts. During the Khrushchev era persecution for different thinking was much more common and a person could be arrested and imprisoned for a single case of such ‘anti-Soviet’ behaviour as telling a drunken anecdote or swearing. In Brezhnev’s time repression was oriented towards dissidents, who subsequently struggled against the regime. Most of the victims during the Thaw, in contrast to Brezhnev’s dissidents, were people of non-intelligentsia status, often without even a complete compulsory school education: low-qualified factory and kolkhoz workers (Edelman, 1999). In December 1956 the Central Committee of CPSU distributed a closed letter ‘On the strengthening of political work of the party organisations in the masses and suppression of the raids of anti-Soviet, hostile elements’. Just for contrast, how the shestidesyatniki’s view on their literature differs from the perspective advocated by the non-shestidesyatniki. The quote is from a dialogue between two shestidesyatniki (both identify themselves as such) Yuliu Ejdlis and Konstantin Shcherbakov (NG-225, 1998). ‘We should be talking about 1960s as about the past epoch, about the era which has ended, but something has remained, something has entered the flesh and blood, not only from the shestidesyatnichestvo, but from the preceding two centuries of Russian literature. This is the strong belief that art, particularly drama, theatre, should neither mentor, nor try to perfect human breed, but all the time be aware that kindness [dobro] is something more important, and from a pragmatic point of view, more useful than evil. Thus, we were trying to talk about kindness, which exists in this cruel life and in our cruel country. We lived with the feeling that the world can be kind and that there is a kind bone in the humans.’ In Russian/Soviet context, generations are defined not by their years of birth, but by the social formative years. Rodionova (2000) in her insightful analysis of nationalist discourse, points out that the disparate and diverse organs of the modern Russian patriotic press share certain features in common. For example, they are all oriented not towards delivering new information but instead aimed at correcting information that its readers have already received from other sources. She calls this a ‘position above the press’, the purpose of which is to criticize and correct the opinions of their opponents in order to build up an ideological myth and fix in the readers’ consciousness the adequacy between fact and ideological proposition. Subjective emotional commentaries immediately follow the dry presentation of facts. From the website of the newspaper – www.sovross.ru. This representation is close to reality. In 1968 a group of sociologists from the Novosibirsk University conducted a survey of the readers of popular newspapers about their reading preferences. The results showed that the audience of Novy Mir consisted of writers and journalists (50 per cent), scientists and workers of culture (40 per cent) and only 9.2 per cent of those were workers. On the other hand, Oktyabr was the most popular among employees of various branches of Party apparatus (14.7 per cent), and only 10 per cent of its readers were workers of culture, scientists, writers and journalists. The results are quoted from Biul-Zedginidze (1996: 360–1). Valentina Gaganova and Alexander Gitalov, factory and kolkhoz workers, heroes of Socialist Labour, Kurchatov – the founder and first director of the Academy of Nuclear energy, Gagarin and Titov, first and second soviet cosmonauts. Here is what writer Vladimir Kunitsyn says about his father: ‘Yes, he was definitely a “Soviet shestidesyatnik”, a person persuaded that socialism in Russia was not only possible but the only possible form of existence . . . That’s why he was always in strong opposition to the previous and current power. In Brezhnev’s epoch he saw clearly how the socialist ideal was discredited through the dull and illiterate activity of the authorities. When power changed hands he saw this as a betrayal

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and died absolutely confident that Russia would inexorably return to the socialist way, because it is not the whim of idiots, but historical inevitability’ (Kunitsyn, V. (1998) Vspominaya otsa (Remembering my father) Zavtra, 50). 13 To be precise, even Okudzhava is not seen as a shestidesyatnik by the insiders. 14 In 2008 Russian TV Channel Rossiya organized a show The Name of Russia where viewers were invited to vote for the most notable personality in Russian history. The results have placed Stalin third on the list, after Alexander Nevsky and Piotr Stolypin.

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Intelligentsia as fallible 1 The conference was part of a series of events dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Maximov, the first editor of the magazine Kontinent. The conference was organized jointly by Kontinent and the Andrey Tarkovsky Foundation. Further debates devoted to the shestidesyatniki theme were planned, but were cancelled when the money ran out. Igor Vinogradov (the current editor of the Kontinent, who chaired the conference) insisted that if the money had been available, there would have been sufficient interest from the participants to pursue the theme in further meetings. I obtained copies of the audio tapes from Igor Vinogradov – the chair of the conference. As far as I know the materials have never been published and my analysis is based on the transcriptions I made from the recording. 2 Ilyich was the patronimic of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and was frequently used to refer to Lenin in Soviet discourse. 3 For the accurate quote, see Solzhenizyn, A. (1973) The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–1956: Vol. 1, Parts 1–2. New York: Harper & Row, p. 193. 4 ‘Going to the square’ creates a historical parallel with the Decembrists’ revolt. The metaphorical meaning of the phrase can be traced back to the poem by Alexander Galych – his response to the protest demonstration of the Seven at the Red Square in 1968 against Soviet invasion in Czechoslovakia. He praised this action in his poem and dared his contemporaries to ‘go to the square’. It subsequently became a metaphor for brave protest behaviour and is frequently used by the Soviet liberal intelligentsia. 5 USSR section of Amnesty International was founded on 6 October 1973 by eleven Moscow intellectuals and was registered in September 1974 by the Amnesty international Secretariat in London. Physicist Valentin Turchin, to whom the narrator refers, became the president of the USSR branch.

5

Becoming and being the intelligentsia 1 Quote from the interview with Maria. 2 IE here and further in the presentation of the verbatim quotes stands for Interviewee. IR stands for Interviewer. 3 In presenting the extracts from the interview transcripts I will note significant pauses and moments of hesitation. The pauses are indicated by a number in brackets, e.g. (2.) where 2 means approximate length of the pause in seconds. Significant hesitation usually occurs when a narrator was looking for an appropriate word or clarification of what has just been said. In transcripts this is marked as ‘m-m’ or ‘m-m-m’. I pay particular attention to these non-verbal signals in communication, as the pauses potentially give a co-participant in conversation a chance to step in. In contrast, vocalized hesitation may be interpreted as a sign that the narrator has not finished yet, and is still willing to give his or her own interpretation or clarification and thus retaining the control of the interaction.

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4 Compare for instance with a quote from Gramsci (1971: 9): ‘The peasant’s attitude towards the intellectual is double and appears contradictory. He respects the social position of the intellectuals and in general that of state employees, but sometimes affects contempt for it, which means that his admiration is mingled with instinctive elements of envy and impassioned anger.’ 5 Note the reference to Pushkin as a source of supreme authority and wisdom. 6 This phrase is a rather clumsy translation of what he aimed to express through the Russian word ‘priobshchyat’sya’, which implies the process of becoming a part of, approaching, acquiring and feeling a part of the world culture. 6

Accounts of fear and of relations with power and conformism 1 I decided not use pseudonyms for Yadov’s and Zaslavskaya because (1) they are renowned public figures in Russia and (2) the stories they told me stood apart from other respondent’s life narratives in that they were neither confidential nor confessional, but on the contrary, were public narratives, rehearsed on a number of other public occasions. 2 Olga, former schoolteacher and wife of a writer, well-known in dissident circles, was imprisoned at the age of 16 (as a daughter of the enemies of the people) and spent a year in Lubyanka under interrogation and later three years in exile. After returning to Moscow she was closely affiliated with dissident circles; however, she does not consider herself a dissident, as she never took part in the protest actions. The story I present here explains how she managed to get back to work after being fired for signing the protest letter (the only time she did it). 3 Roy Medvedev is a Russian historian renowned as the author of the critical history of Stalinism, Let History Judge, first published in English in 1972. Since the book’s publication Medvedev was often subject to house arrest and KGB harassment. Medvedev returned to the official political scene in 1989, with the launch of Perestroika. He was elected to the Soviet Union’s Congress of people’s Deputies and was named as member of th Supreme Soviet, the permanent working body of the Congress. Medvedev became a prominent Russian politician and served as a consultant to Gorbachev and Yeltsin. 4 It is interesting to note the contrast between the ridiculously organized tiny rooms of the research centre and the spacious office of the party boss. 5 Raisa Orlova (1918–89) a scholar, writer and editor, wife of Lev Kopelev – Germanic scholar, writer and human rights defender. She was close and active in the dissident circles, although, unlike her husband, is never considered by others a dissident, and, as her unpublished manuscript tells us, had a rather critical stance on the dissident movement. The manuscript was kindly shared with me by one of her daughters living in Moscow.

7

A story of a happy man 1 Gabriele Rosenthal coins the biographical-interpretive approach as reconstructive. She recommended basing analysis of the life story on the thematic structure of the narrative text, an interpretation of interactions between the interviewer and the interviewee, and of the modes of discourse. The detailed description of the method can be found in Rosenthal (1993). For another example of such an analysis see Chamberlayne and King (1997). 2 Private lessons used to be common practice in Russia. Such lessons were essential preparation for university entrance examinations. School would not normally be enough to pass these and even now teenagers who plan to enter university after school have to look for private teachers in the subjects examined.

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3 The social institution of the ‘open house’ was mentioned by most of my interviewees. After a short period of freedom of expression at poetry readings, which took place at the stadiums and attracted hundreds of thousands of people, the authorities took control over public places and attendance at events such as those that had taken place at the Mayakovsky Monument in Moscow became too risky. The only public spaces available were Komsomol and Party meetings, which could not satisfy people. Social activity again retreated to a private territory. Private apartments provided a public space for exchange of opinions and debates; new and different people were coming, attracted by the hospitality of the hosts, but mainly by the environment and atmosphere that existed there. Private apartments often served as a performance site for underground poets and singers. Greenfield (1996) concludes that thanks to ‘open houses’ a vibrant civil society flourished under the repressive Soviet regime, as public opinion was generated in kitchen talks. 4 Self-censorship was an aspect of the Soviet years described by many men of the 1960s and something that ultimately affected not only the content of their texts but also their thoughts. Dissidents claim to have resisted developing this inner censorship in their way of thinking and writing. 5 Not to be confused with the Novosibirsk itself. 6 I deliberately mark out the word in inverted commas to show that he did not perceive his activity as dissident, he just tried to live a free life, be honest and moral, but this, as it turned out, was not permitted. 7 A similar picture is created in the life story of Boris. 8 None of the school’s alumni has received a Nobel Prize so far. Many of them have had good careers in science, but in general this experiment with artificial selection and upbringing has failed. 9 E.g. Uchitel’skaya Gazeta and Za Nauku v Sibiri (1965–66). 10 Of course he was not the only one who cared about reforming the school literature programme – it was one of the most important questions of the time and was widely discussed in the press and professional journals. 11 He refers to the famous trial of writers Yuly Daniel and Andrey Sinyavsky in 1966. 12 From 1966 to 1968 such studies were conducted in one hundred and fifty cities in fourteen republics. More than fifty thousand people were polled. 13 References are not given to maintain confidentiality. 14 He does not mention it, but it is obvious that his circle of friends (Larisa Bogoraz and Yuly Daniel among them) could also have attracted the attention of the KGB to his personae. 15 Forty-six people signed the letter: thirty-five worked in the research institutions (four doctors of sciences and fifteen candidates), nineteen were teachers of the Novosibirsk University, three teachers of the physical-mathematical school. Six signatories were Party members. 16 He had nowhere to go as he was left without propiska – a necessary institution in the Soviet Union. He had to get accommodation and be registered there to live in a town. He did not have any hope of finding a job in Moscow, as propiska in the capital was highly restricted (although he might have been able to get a job at the IKSI and some of his friends were working towards this: IKSI was famous for employing hunted people). Academic towns usually offered a flat and propiska for professionals coming to work there, which is why this opportunity was so attractive. 17 See Corinthians 13:1–3. 18 From a conversation with a daughter of one of my interviewees. 19 The Count quotes here A. Blok ‘To Pushkin’s house’: ‘Pushkin! This great secret treasure – Freedom – we sang after you!

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Give us hand in a bad weather, Help us our mute fighting through’ (tr. by Evgeny Bonver) 20 He talks here about Yuly Daniel and Larisa Bogoraz. 21 Eduard Asadov (1923–2004). His romantic poems about life and friendship are rarely praised by serious literary critics but nevertheless gained wide popularity among ordinary readers. 22 Asadov is given here as a case of a good, honest, kind-hearted person who wrote primitive poetry. 23 He is giving here an imaginary name of an author whom no one knows. 24 It is important to note that often the term shestidesyatniki refers to the literary tradition, represented by such poets as Voznesensky, Rozhdestvensky, Akhmadullina and the many others who became known and popular on the wave of Khrushchev’s Thaw. Novy Mir was the main stronghold and the brightest expression of the literary shestidesyatnichestvo. The journal managed to unite all the best authors that could squeeze through the censorship. 25 Many of the authors were first discovered and fostered by the journal and for the clear and recognizable worldview were colloquially named ‘Novy Mir prosaics’. 26 The quote comes from the conference proceedings I analysed in Chapter 4.

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Index

age see generation of shestidesyatniki agrarian socialism 20, 29; see also narodniki; rural intelligentsia Alexander I 18 Alexander II 16, 20 alienation 19–21, 23, 33 All-Russian Congress of the Intelligentsia 38–40 All-Ukrainian Forum of the Intelligentsia 39 Anninsky, Lev 76, 78, 87, 89, 90–1, 93 apologetic rhetoric 4, 31, 86–7, 99, 106, 139, 167, 168 aristocracy see nobility army 19–20, 103, 143, 125, 159 art 14, 25, 29, 38, 51, 58, 70, 100, 136, 155; Soviet 43, 56, 112, 155 artists 13, 25, 29, 38, 51, 56, 58, 70, 100, 136, 155 atheism 87 authority of intellectuals 14 Barthes, Roland 29, 166 Batkin, Leonin 77, 78–9, 80, 85, 90–1, 93, 94–5, 96, 156 Bauman, Zigmunt 5, 13, 37, 41, 46, 176–7 Bergman, Jay 11, 24–5 Berlin, Isaiah 3, 4, 11, 12, 16–17, 19–20 biography see life story research; narrative Boborykin, Peyotr 11 Bolsheviks 21–2 Brezhnev, Leonid 52, 54, 69, 91, 157 bureaucracy 13, 19–20, 21, 23, 25, 30, 34, 53, 123–4, 129, 163 Burtin, Yuri 78–9, 86

capitalism 35–7 Castells, Manuel 40–2 categorization 11, 45–6, 50, 70, 82, 179 Catherine the Great 17 Chekhov, Anton 151, 156 Chuev, Felix 69 Cold War; see also Thaw collective stories 6, 8, 72–3, 101, 107, 111, 130, 138–9, 164, 166–7, 172 communism 6, 23, 67; collapse of 47–8; Communist Manifesto 112; resistance to 47, 53, 62, 67, 97; see also Marxism; Russian Revolution; totalitarianism Communist Party (CPSU) 57, 65, 67, 69–70, 91, 172; Komsomol 22, 68, 94–5, 109, 116, 132–3, 156–8, 162–3; shestidesyatniki distanced from 93–5 conference see ‘Shestidesyatniki in the year 2000’ conformism 25, 46–8, 106–7, 122–30, 132–3, 138, 151, 163, 166, 172, 178; as accusation 14, 134–5; to intelligentsia perspective 81, 85 Congress of the Intelligentsia see All-Russian Congress of the Intelligentsia; Ukrainian Congress of Intelligentsia conversion stories 107, 108, 112, 116, 120, 132–3, 167, 168–70 courage 14, 25; see also cowardice; persecution cowardice 26, 95, 110, 119–20 creativity 14, 33, 43, 56–7, 70–1, 150, 155, 163

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cultural stories i, xii–xiii, 6, 8–10, 15, 55, 59, 63, 98–101, 118, 164–7; and motivation 8; in post-Soviet period 34, 72–3, 86, 92, 98, 111, 118, 170, 176 culture 56–8, 111–13; fear of 121–2 cynicism 37, 43–4, 61, 66, 88, 90, 92–4 Czechoslovakia 83, 93 death, metaphor of see metaphor Decembrists 16, 18–19, 25, 28, 151, 169 democracy 18, 40–1, 51–5, 65–6, 68–9, 70–1, 98, 109, 122, 144, 175; opposition to 64 defining intelligentsia 2–3, 5, 9, 14–15, 16, 60, 68, 82, 83, 177 Detkov, Igor 92 discourse analysis 5; see also interpretative repertoires Doctor Zhivago 56–7 doctors 2–3, 31, 131 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 88, 108, 110 economics 13, 15 education 3, 12, 35; funding for 35; Western 16–17, 28–9; see also universities Efremov, Oleg 94 Ehrenburg, Ilya 56, 58 enlightenment 10, 11, 12, 38, 96–8, 106–7, 134, 136, 138, 162–3, 171, 173; redundancy from enlightenment mission 58–60 essentialism 7 etic analysis 3–4 Evtushenko, Yevgeny 57, 58, 68, 70 exile 14, 18, 21, 93, 180, 187 fascism 65, 93, 102; see also totalitarianism fear 10, 22, 53, 91–2, 107, 113, 118–27, 129; of the intelligentsia 71; of the people 20; of power 121–2; overcoming 125, 151 Foucault, Michel 42 France 14, 15, 83; Napoleonic wars 16, 18, 20 freedom 3, 46–8; control of intellectual freedom 13–14; meaning of, differences in meaning 13 friendship 61, 123, 149, 151–2, 153–6, 169 Freud, Sigmund 89

generation of shestidesyatniki i, xii, 2–4, 60–3, 84, 100; first 11, 15–16; shares ‘mental data’ 9; and younger generation 9, 52, 58–63, 70–2, 73, 78, 80, 82, 117, 119–22, 129; see also semidesyatniki; shestidesyatniki Germany 15 Gessen, Masha 4, 31, 47, 175 Glasnost 54, 166, 177 globalization 13, 46, 80, 104 Gorbachev, Mikhail 54–5, 65–71, 93, 109, 122; appeals to shestidesyatniki 66, 93; see also Perestroika Gramsci, Antonio 20, 40 Great Patriotic War 65, 141–2 guilt 4, 14, 17, 32, 98, 137, 157, 175; see also responsibility; apologetic rhetoric Gulag 105 heroes 26, 31–2, 106, 116–17, 119, 164, 170, 178 historical continuity 29, 77, 151–3, 173 history, anxiety over 86 human rights 3, 18, 24, 187 humour 125–7 idealism 54–5, 61, 66, 69, 71, 87–8, 97, 166, 177–8; see also heroes idealization 64, 75, 106; see also heroes identity 4, 26–9, 174–9; collective 74, 113–16; continuity of 113–14; definitions of 6–7; as defensive identity 73; and language 7; resistance identity 41–2, 46; see also postmodernism influence 12; of intelligentsia 15, 17–21, 33, 75–86, 96–7, 130–8, 165–7, 174–9 imprisonment 21, 24, 57, 88, 93, 95, 104, 110, 138, 152, 158–9, 180, 184–7; see also Lubyanka; persecution independence 13, 14, 22, 23, 64, 98, 151, 158, 163 indoctrination 102, 109–10 industrialization 12, 16, 22–3, 64–5, 114 intellect 2–3, 12–15, 33, 35, 158, 164 Intelligentovedenie 37

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Index 203 intelligentsia; as automatic label 31; defining 2–3, 5, 9, 14–15, 16, 60, 68, 82, 83, 177; as derogatory term 5, 21, 23, 75; influence of 17; joining 28, 34; literature on 15–16, 27–8, 37–8, 45; meaning of 12, 14; origin of term 11; origins of 15–17; see also identity; nobility; shestidesyatniki Intelligentsia i Mir 37 interpretative repertoires 8, 98, 101, 164, 166, 167, 173; defined 8 Italy 83 Ivanovo State University 37 Kafka, Franz 123–4, 128, 154–5 Karyakin, Yuri 76, 78, 84, 91–3, 147, 162 KGB 91, 115, 120–1, 125–6, 136, 147, 149 Khrushchev, Nikita 52–3, 56–8, 66, 69, 114–15; as shestidesyatnik 84–5; see also Thaw kolkhoz 22–3, 85, 183, 185 Komsomol 22, 68, 94–5, 109, 116, 132–3, 156–8, 162–3 language: and identity 7–8; and meaning 11–12 Lavrov, Peter 3, 25 leadership 16, 41, 56, 65, 69, 72, 143 Lenin, Vladimir 21–2, 53, 57, 65, 87–8, 90, 92, 110, 127 Libelt, Karol 11 life story research 6–7, 117, 140, 150–1 Literaturnaya Gazeta 39, 143, 146 localism 80, 179 Losev, Aleksei 3 Lubyanka 125; see also KGB Malia, Martin 11, 17–19, 23–4, 160, 161–2 Mannheim, Karl 9, 82–3, 165 Marxism 22, 31, 53, 87, 92, 110, 126, 129; distorts meaning of ‘intelligentsia’ 12; see also communism; Communist Party (CPSU); Russian Revolution media 5, 35, 50; oppositions, centrality of 65; see also newspapers; propaganda Medvedev, Dmitry 40, 65, Medvedev, Roy 126

metaphor, death of the intelligentsia as 26, 42–5, 47 Mills, Charles Wright 8–9, 14, 133 moral conscience 17, 25, 33, 133–4, 136, 167, 170–3; preoccupation with 35 myth 29–32, 47, 73, 174–9; consciousness of 31; defined 29; mobility of elements 8; and oral history 8; unattainability 86; see also heroes Napoleonic wars 16, 18, 20 narodniki 20–1, 26, 29–33, 44, 101, 105 narrative 6, 101; as identity 7, 28; power of 8; see also stories Nash Sovremennik 68 nationalism 20, 157 NATO 39 newspapers 50–6; opposition to shestidesyatniki 63–70; on semidesyatniki 61–3 Nezavisimaya Gazeta (NG) 51–5, 58–60, 62–3, 65–72, 78, Nicholas I 18–19 nobility 15–16, 17–21, 27; Charter of the Nobility 17–18; as intelligentsia 16, 41, 103–5, 111; Table of Ranks 16 Novy Mir 56–7, 68, 79, 156, 181 Ogonek 68 Oktyabr 68 Okudzhava, Bulat 61, 66, 70, 84, 88, 120, 152 oral history 6, 24, 74–5; and myth 8 origins of the intelligentsia 4 Orlova, Raisa 5, 29–31, 130, 158 Orthodox Church 35 patriotism 11, 20, 25, 67, 102 Pavlovsky, Gleb 32, 43, 44 peasantry 2, 18, 20–2, 24–5, 29–30, 37, 52, 68, 85, 101, 103, 105, 174 Perestroika xii, 35, 52, 54–5, 62, 64, 66, 70, 122, 128, 147; irritation with 108–9 perevertyshi 92 persecution 14, 21–2, 24, 120, 134, 137; see also courage; fear; repression Peter the Great 16–17, 20 Pokrovsky, Nikita 36, 44 Poland 15, 18 politics 38–42, 52–6; distance from 122; and truth 14 Pomerantz, Grigorii 88–9

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Index

postmodernism 7, 46 power 45–8, 50; Kafkaesque 123–4, 128 Pozner, Vladimir 67 private property 35 propaganda 44, 47, 102, 105, 111, 133, 136, 161 public (noun) 5, 14, 24, 40–1, 134; public intellectuals 13–15, 81; public men, 76, 90, 97; public discourse 3, 5, 44–5, 48, 50, 68, 78, 92, 95, 99, 176; public opinion 16, 44, 50, 134; public narratives 72; public representation 50, 81–2, 93, 96 Pushkin, Alexander 28, 108, 110, 112, 151, 153, 155, 169 Putin, Vladimir 40, 65 radicalism 12 Rassadin, Stanislav 58, 158 raznochintsy 19, 25, 30, 44, 111 ‘real intelligentsia’ 33, 35 Red Square 95, 120 religion 14, 35, 61, 65, 87, 91, 97, 116, 122, 179; Bible reading 110–11, 121, 142, 160, 161; conversion experiences 107, 108, 112, 116, 120, 132–3, 167, 168–70; and culture 111; see also atheism ‘representations of the pastness’ 8 repression 15, 53, 56, 104–5, 115–16, 122–8, 131–2, 143, 147–7; anecdotes about 125–7; see also fear; persecution responsibility 14, 34, 44, 79, 98, 109, 156–60, 169, 170–3 rural intelligentsia 22, 101–2 Russian Revolution 21–2, 108–9 Russian state 17–19; constitution 18

distanced from Communist Party 93–5; as failed intelligentsia xii, 50, 55–63, 66, 71; as negative term 5, 21, 23, 75; perceived as homogeneous 3, 51, 60, 68, 71–2; and politics 52–6; as popular term, reasons for 49–50; uniqueness 91–2, 98 ‘Shestidesyatniki in the year 2000’ conference 60, 107; context of 73–5; opinions expressed 75–86 shestidesyatnichestvo 5, 6, 29, 30, 58, 66, 82, 84, 160 Slavophils 28, 54, 69 social background of the intelligentsia 25–6; see also raznochintsy socialism 67; agrarian 20, 29; see also Russian Revolution sociology 2, 9, 24, 44, 75, 82, 103, 145–7 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksander 21–2, 29, 57, 68, 83–4, 108, 119, 120, 137, 146–7, 156, 162 Sovetskaya Rossia (SR) 51, 63–71 Soviet Union; collapse, effects of 1, 24–6; see also persecution spirituality 3 Stalin, Joseph 25, 52–3, 65, 69, 71, 90–1; death of 3, 26–7, 85, 92, 106, 109, 117, 125; definition of intelligentsia 24 State service 16–19 story 6, 118; funny stories 125–6; see also collective stories; cultural stories; narrative; identity superiority 2, 30, 32, 35, 36, 40–1, 44, 63, 109, 111, 112, 127 surveillance 116, 125–6; see also KGB symbolism 26–9

Sakharov, Andrey 67–8, 134, 159 Samizdat 55, 88, 128, 144 science 14; funding 35; scientists 2, 25, 41, 134, 144–5, 148, 157–62 Second World War 27 self-identification 4, 24, 27, 28, 31, 43, 49, 76, 122, 163, 183 semidesyatniki 52, 60–3, 67, 71, 95, 97, 168 shestidesyatniki 30; age of 2–3, 4, 22, 52–3, 60, 67–8, 70, 100; as controversial 50; defining 3–5, 100; dismissed by semidesyatniki 60–3;

Tabakov, Oleg 80–1, 84, 94, 97 Tarkovsky, Andrey 84 Tchujkina, Sophia 16, 22, 27, 41 teachers 3, 11, 25, 31, 38, 52, 57, 100, 140, 143, 153, 155, 162–3 Thaw 3, 24–6, 52, 54–8, 91, 108–9, 132, 142, 143, 148, 156; memories of 125–6; rise of intelligentsia during 42 Thaw, The (novel) 58, 85 Tolstoy, Leo 108, 151, 153, 155, 156 totalitarianism 47, 53, 65, 73, 79, 125; see also communism

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Index 205 Tvardovsky, Aleksander 57, 79, 151, 153 Twentieth Party Congress 49, 52, 53, 64, 66, 83–5, 106, 109, 117, 133

Vekhi articles 26, 28 vocabularies of motive 133, 167, 170–1, 173 Voznesensky, Andrey 68, 70

Ukraine 39, 45, 141–2, 153; AllUkrainian Forum of the Intelligentsia 39; Ukrainian Congress of the Intelligentsia 39 United Kingdom 83 United States 12–13, 83 universities 19, 23, 37–8, 76, 137–8; and bureaucracy 13; funding 35; higher education as defining intelligentsia 25, 31, 100; intelligentsia barred from 22; see also education Ural State University 37 utopianism 55, 86–7, 91; see also idealism

Walker, Barbara 4, 5, 25, 27–8, 34, 140, 175 Westernization 4, 67, 69; and education 16–17, 28–9; in tsarist Russia 19 xenophobia 64, 71 Yekaterinburg 37 Yeltsin, Boris 41, 45, 65, 122–3 Yushchenko, Viktor 39 Zaslavskaya, Tatiana 59, 62, 134–5 Zavtra 51, 63–71 Zhivov, Viktor 5, 29, 30–1, 177