Solzhenitsyn was certainly not the first Russian intellectual to criticise the intelligentsia. Self-criticism and repentance have long been part of its identity. In “Vekhi”, an important self-reflecting book written in 1909, Sergei Bulgakov describes the sorry state of the intelligentsia, its conceit towards its own people, its lack of discipline and decency. “Russian society, exhausted by preceding tension and failures, is in a state of some numbness and apathy, spiritual disjunction and depression…Russian literature is flooded by a muddy wave of pornography and sensationalism.”