'Bespochvenniki' and 'Starovery': criticism of intellectuals and intelligentsia in the Dreyfus case and the "Vekhi" (comparative analysis). Report By Maria Chernovskaya

On September 23, 2020, within the framework of the Laboratory seminar "Dialogue between Russia and Europe: the View of Young Researchers," there was made a report by M. A. Chernovskaya

M. A. Chernovskoya compared the positions of the French anti-dreyfusars (based on the texts of Maurice Barres And Charles Morras) and the "vekhovtsy". Based on the assumption that the concepts of 'intellectual' and 'intelligentsia' are synonymous, there were highlighted structural similarities in the criticism of anti-dreyfusars and the "vekhovtsy" and intersecting ideological preferences of the authors, explicated by criticism of intellectuals – first of all, we are talking about conservatism and nationalism. In addition, there was pointed out the difference in the choice of philosophical positions of the authors – if the anti-dreyfusars prefer late positivism and oppose the legacy of the reformation and Enlightenment, the "vekhovtsy" consider the role of the free individual in creating the institutions of modern society and adhere to neo-Kantian positions and "concrete idealism". The mentioned difference in philosophical grounds was considered through the prism of different rates of modernization in France and in Russia. If in France by the end of the XIX century ideologies of conservatism, liberalism and socialism were already developed and did not require additional legitimization in their fundamental bases, in Russia, as noted by A. M. Rutkevich, due to the delayed process of modernizing ideology to the beginning of XX century only began to form and demanded the appeal to the legacy of the Enlightenment, the reformation and German idealism – the legacy inherent in the European culture of the XIX century, which antidreyfusard rhetorically repudiated.

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