The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or Narodnichestvo, was a form of agrarian socialism, though it is often misunderstood as populism.
Arrest of a Propagandist (1892) by Ilya Repin.
The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the intelligentsia consists of scholars, academics, teachers, journalists, and literary writers.
In Russia, the writer Pyotr Boborykin defined the intelligentsia as both the managers of a society, and as the creators of society's high culture.
The surgeon Ludwik Rydygier and his assistants. (Leon Wyczółkowski)
Vissarion Belinsky
"Evening Party" by Vladimir Makovsky (1897). Three generations of Russian intelligentsia discuss current issues.