The Icon and the Axe

Newly infused with historical optimism, the intelligentsia required a further sense of identity through its ???^?^?^?~?^1 amp;???/^ policies that predormnated_in^the late yeare_ci^lexajader^J[eigii. They felt obliged to carry on the tradition of uncompromising; protest and strivinpjlor""" sotianjgJie^mentJhaUia^^

skyjjo carry on the critical traditions of the dead Dobroliubov and Pisarev

and the journalistic traditions of the newly abolished Sovremennik. Ironically

enough, the introjhictionoJUrj amp;Tbj!jujyin4£_wjrypatified the intelligentsia's

thir^lo1ju^tic£:_Ori_Jie_contrary, it hplrj^jJgrjJfyZftgir ‹pt1sfi .gtjlllill^'""

martyrdomJ3y_j^vMing^for solf-dofense

through impassioned oration.

~ThTrs7]inj5e~^^ radicals had cony^rtedtheiryouthful {attachm.eni.tO} scifiaceinto an optimistic

Chernyjh£y_skjj^ohad suffered fo£jbejr_beliefs. They viewed themselves as a dedicated elite of intelligentnye, kul'turnye, tsivilizovannye, though they were not necessarily "intelligent," "cultured," or even "civilized" in the usual Western sense of these terms. They thought of themselves as practical rather than "superfluous" people: students ~bTl;cieme,jm.d__servants of history. However much they debated over what the scientific "formula for pro^ess"^mght_be and what the coming 'ftfiird age" of humanity might bring, they all viewed themselves as members of a common group which Pisarev and Shelgunov called the "thinkingprolefanat," Lavrov "critically thinking personalities","" and ethers- '-'cultural pioneers?'"

In the summer of 1868, the group can be_ amp;aid to have been formally aptm^h^^^^^^^-^^^^^^^01 attbat^Inte^KfiKhailovsky entitled his critical column for the new "thick journal," The Contemporary Review, "Letters on the Russian Intelligentsia." This column was tihecentral one in a journal designed to_rjergetuate the traditions of Chernyshevsky and Dobroliubov (its title being deliberately chosen forTts"resemblaflce-tB-ftat of their Contemporary). Although this journal did not last long, Mikhailov-sky soon joined" the r^we amp;7btmxls~vf-the Fatherland, the old journal of Maikov and Belinsky in the forties, which now became the medium for propagating the.belief that Russian social thought was providing a new elite*" who were theelect of history ?????????1?^

1870, the Annals increased its circulation from 2,000 to 8,000-the largest monffly^frculatioffattained up to that time by any radicaljcuKar.""Miffiai=~"*-lovsky, aschlefcfitteTof the ]??????????? bSToFBHmsky over his writing

desk. Other critics on it were Eliseev, a former associate of Chernyshevsky, and Skabichevsky, a former leader of the Sunday-school movement; and the belles-lettres department was dominated by the great satirist and former Petrashevets, Saltykov, and the "civic poet" and former editor of The Contemporary, Nekrasov. The Annals became "the bible of the Russian in-te?^ent,sjaJl?^U?lxJ2gca'?se of its self-conscious pose as heir to the radical traditions of Russian social thought, but alsoberau^e^f^jffijpagatiojLoJ, the nelFoffimistic theory of history. Another former associate_ofjCherny-shevsky_j›ojnted independently in the^ sujmmer-of-x86 amp;Jo.the jirnpOTtanceof the optimistic historical faith for the nascent intelligentsia:

the union of the heights and depths, of intelligentsia with the people is not an empty dream. This union is an inevitable historical law. It is the path of our progress. . . ,88

Intelligence mustjkjw into_p£Q_ple, just as the intelligentsia must j›o_out amongjhe people. This was the imperative that Herzen had first presented the young generation_on the pages of the Bell late i" ?^??, gt»g_tbe. University of St. Petersburg was closed because of student riots:

Whither should you go, youth from whom science has been taken away? . . . Listen-from all corners of the vast fatherland: from the Don and Urals, from the Volga and Dnieper the groans are increasing, the murmur is rising-It 'sJ"2£Jgitbi.liS amp;Jf'ar of an nrfii? WflVP • • • Into the people, to the people (v narod! ? narodu)-there is your destination, banished men of science. . . .39