Is the Intelligentsia Still Needed in Poland

The intelligentsia is defined in terms of a social class constituted by educated people in the specific circumstances of 19th century Eastern Europe. What is the role of this class in post-communist Poland? Can it survive the modernisation process? Is it transforming itself into a modern knowledge class? Why has its political role declined so dramatically after the collapse of communism? One of the conclusions reached in this paper is that the rapid increase in demand for educated labour has, paradoxically, resulted in the disintegration of the intelligentsia as a class. Making Sense of the Question In order to answer the question posed in the above title, it is necessary, unfortunately, to begin by making elementary conceptual distinctions. "Intelligentsia" is above all a collective noun for the possessors of certain social characteristics (higher education being most frequently among them) and as such represents a statistical category useful in various historical and constitutional conditions. In Poland (as well as in various other countries of the region) the term "intelligentsia" also has a deeper sociological meaning, namely as denoting a social class which, after finally taking shape in the nineteenth century, played a decisive role in the defence of national identity and the formation of modern Polish society. The text below is of course concerned with "intelligentsia" in the second sense. There is no point in asking whether Poland still needs educated people, but it is worth asking whether the present crisis in intellectual circles represents the twilight of an entire social class.1 It is clear that Poland still needs educated people; the question is whether, given the present crisis in intellectual circles, the present class will fulfil this need. * The first version of this text was introduced during the Polish -American conference "Poland 200 years after the Third Partition: between East and West in her Past and Present" organised by the Polish Studies Association, Polish Sociological Association and Polish Society for Political Studies, Warsaw, August 5th, 1995. 1 Cf. Joanna Kurczewska, "Inteligencja polska: schodzenie ze sceny" (Polish Intelligentsia Descending from the Scene), Krytyka 4, 1993; Marta Fik, "Autorytecie wroc?" [Come back Authority?] Tygodnik Powszechny . April 3