The characteristics of the Russian intelligentsia, and even its definition, have been debated since the nineteenth century and continue to be a source of disagreement in Putin's Russia. The array of problems relating to the intelligentsia continues to be an inseparable element of ideas about historical experience and its fate that, in conjunction with other factors and symbols, make up the Russian identity. Problems of the group identity of the Russian intelligentsia have special significance owing to the social function this group performs in Russian society and culture, generating new ideas and the ideological constructs and patterns of the self-determination of Russian society as a whole. For this reason, every time this array of problems is addressed anew, it marks yet another crisis of identity in society, its entry into a period of searching for new foundations of that identity, new "social semaphores." For the intelligentsia as a social group itself, such debates have served and largely still serve as a means of group self-identification. This circumstance is by no means always recognized by the participants in the debates: it is as if the debate gets started anew each time, and each person claims that he is expressing a position that is completely objective and not dependent on personal views and preferences. The relationships among education, intelligentsia status, and moral and political issues are the subject of an ongoing discussion. (Contains 2 notes.) [This article was translated by Kim Braithwaite.]