The intellectual class is a permanent and much-discussed historical factor. Its emergence, development, its zenith and crisis reflect the evolution of modern European society. Moscow historian Denis Sdvižkov traces the development of an intellectual class and its identity from the times of enlightenment up to the first world war, concentrating on France, Germany, Poland and Russia.Is it possible to speak of the intellectual class? What is the significance and place of this class between the cosmopolitan community and the forming of national identity?The author argues that the transformation of the intelligentsia as a major social stratum largely reflects the development of European society. In the last resort, the erosion and collapse of the intelligentsia gave way to the rise of the middle classes, which shaped Europe’s social development from the late nineteenth century onwards.