Intellectual conflict and conflict of mythologems: 'Milestones' in the Russian journalism

Abstract

The collection of papers about the Russian intellectuals 'Milestones' (1909) instigated the dispute at the beginning of the 20th century about the historical scenarios of development of Russia that now calming down now gaining momentum is still being held in the Russian intellectual tradition until now. The collection 'Milestones' has become the ground for origination of different intellectual myths related to such concepts as 'Nation', 'Intellectuals', 'Power'. At the beginning of the 20th century different political parties and public movements were using the collection of papers about the Russian intellectuals 'Milestones' for their selective purposes. All of this causes transfer and multiplication of the intellectual myths and conflicts between them for more than one generation of intellectuals. The mainstream divide originating from the Slavophiles and Westernizes was summed up by the- as the attitude of intellectuals to the state that does not always cope with its social, thus, a choice shall be made - either to fight against it using revolutionary methods or to try to transform it from the outside. The paper primarily shows origination of this intellectual myth-creating tradition when the same phenomena and concepts caused severe conflicts and acted as indicators of the political belonging of an intellectual. A quite wide range of sources of the beginning of the 20th century containing evaluation of the 'Milestones' collection, namely - the radical-democratic journalism, liberal estimates, conservative statements of the clerical- Black-Hundred circles demonstrate the emotionally negative attitude to the collection. On the other hand, by the end of the 20th century the negative evaluation of the 'Milestones' that was peculiar primarily to the journalism of the beginning of the 20th century and the Soviet historiography transformed into apologetic recognition of this book in the intellectual tradition, among the intellectuals that promoted to creation of the conservative myth of saving Russia.