Abstract

The Russian intelligentsia emerged and existed in diversity due to specific political and social conditions within Russian society. The intelligentsia was more than just a class or group of educated people. The present article is an attempt to give a retrospective interpretation of the Russian intelligentsia and its transformation into the Soviet one in the 1920s, when Vygotsky also was an engaged actor in different programmes. At that time the political was as sharp and critical as the scientific, and science became an arena of radical political clashes and struggle. The contradictory historical atmosphere and the sincere wish of a new Soviet state to create a new society made it possible for young scholars to assume their positions in science very rapidly.