A Forester in the Forest of Intelligentsia

This paper is a review of I.G. Yakovenko monograph «Russia and Modernization in the 1990s and Beyond: the Socio-Cultural Dimension» The reviewer notes that the monograph is written within the framework of civilizational analysis and fixes the social disengagement (split) in the Russian society. Conservative modernization does not solve strategic problems of qualitative transformation of the country and preserved traditional archaic structures. According to the reviewer, Yakovenko lays a significant part of the blame for the historical failure of Russia in the early 20th century on intellectuals and intelligentsia, noting that it was intelligentsia that deployed a struggle with the prospects of a normal civilized development. The trend of archaism could be found in the contemporary reality and is keeping a strategic threat.