Where the "intelligentsia" lives

[King of Kensington]

It's not that common, but not uncommon, to speak of the "Upper West Side intelligentsia" or "Hampstead intelligentsia."

[erasure]

Originally Posted by King of Kensington

It's not that common, but not uncommon, to speak of the "Upper West Side intelligentsia" or "Hampstead intelligentsia."

Right, but they might be wrong.

Here;
"To understand the sources of Russian communism and make clear to oneself the haracter of the Russian revolution, one must understand that singular phenomenon which in Russia is called 'intelligentsia'. Western people would make a mistake if they identified the Russian intelligentsia with those who in the West are known as "intellectuals" 'Intellectuals' are people of intellectual work and creativeness, mainly learned people, writers, artists, professors, teachers and so on. The Russian intelligentsia is an entirely different group; and to it may belong people occupied in no intellectual work, and generally speaking not particularly intellectual. Many Russian scholars and writers
certainly could not be reckoned as belonging to the intelligentsia in the strict sense of the
word. The intelligentsia reminds one more of a monastic order or sect, with its own very
intolerant ethics, its own obligatory outlook on life, with its own manners and customs
and even its own particular physical appearance, by which it is always possible to
recognize a member of the intelligentsia and to distinguish him from other social groups.
Our intelligentsia were a group formed out of various social classes and held together by
ideas, not by sharing a common profession or economic status. They were derived to
begin with mainly from the more cultured section of the nobility, later from the sons of
the clergy, small government officials, the lower middle class, and, after the liberation,
from the peasants. That then is the intelligentsia; its members were of different social classes and held together by ideas, not by sharing a common profession or economic status."

http://www.jesus-for-all.com/fikr/pdf_3189.pdf

Even if I disagree with Berdyaev somewhat on this matter ( he is a Russian philosopher,) you still can see that definition "intelligentsia" is closely related to class-divided society, and "intelligentsia" is not a production of certain level of wealth, where "intellectuals" are, as a rule.

[King of Kensington]

I wonder if we'll get past Toronto and Helsinki.

[P London]

All the posh areas

[Geggo]

Originally Posted by erasure

( Hint - there are only two countries that I know of, where the word "intelligentsia" had more or less the same meaning were Germany and Russia - at least I know that this terminology has been used in both countries.)

When I hear intelligensia I usually only think of Russia.

[King of Kensington]

I guess not.

[erasure]

Originally Posted by Geggo

When I hear intelligensia I usually only think of Russia.

That's what I always thought too - that it was exclusively Russian thing, until I've noticed that Hitler was using the same terminology and in the same context that Russians do, but referring to Germany.

Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe - Robert Gellately - Google Books

I was surprised not less may be than when Neuling mentioned here that Germans pour their tea into the "untertasse" to cool the tea off and drink it from there. ( I was certain before that it was exclusively Russian thing as well.)
So I looked into it, and lo and behold - here it goes;

"...I should like to call attention to evidence that German word Intelligenz was used as early as 1849 to describe the same phenomenon as "intelligentsia" ( in fact it's spelled with "z" in Russian, rather pointing at the true origin of this word,) namely a group distinguished from the rest of the society by its education and "progressive" attitude. (Why they put the word "progressive" here in quotes, I have no idea.)

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At that, this "educated group" slices across different layers of the society and education can be formal or informal - that's number one, and number two - it has little to do with financial situation of those defined as "intelligentsia."
So I thought about it, and taking in consideration that Germany used to be very conservative country, the monarchy, that in turn was breeding a lot of socialist ideas back then, and that progressive part ( not to say revolutionary - minded) Russian intelligentsia back in the day was spending a lot of time in Europe (namely Germany, since quite a few of them had some German roots, starting with Herzen,)
Alexander Herzen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I've arrived to safe conclusion that this whole concept of "intelligentzia" came to Russia from Germany, most likely.