This issue of NZ is dedicated to several topics. The main, cross-cutting subject is the matter of the intelligentsia, its self-definition and social responsibility.

The issue opens with an article by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas published several months ago. It was written in response to Habermas receiving the Bruno Kreisky Prize. In his article – "To be the first to sense the relevant: What defines an intellectual" – Habermas discusses the roots of the idea of the intellectual and its traditional social functions. The main question the German philosopher is interested in is: How does the complete change of the public sphere caused by the rapid development of new information carriers and forms of communication affect the concept of the intellectual?

In his "Humane economics", Yevgeny Saburov also addresses this topic, albeit using Russian material. He discusses the correlation between the "so-called", as the author puts it, intelligentsia and the transforming middle class of Russian society – which exists as a specific social and economic phenomenon.

The problems connected with the self-identification of the Russian intelligentsia receive their most multifaceted treatment in the thematic section, "Nervous people. Intelligentsia – A new round of reflection". The immediate cause of that discussion was a newly published book by Aleksandr Kustarev, Nervous People. Sketches of the Intelligentsia, dedicated to various self-descriptions and self-reflections characteristic of the late- and post- Soviet intelligentsia. As an invitation to a discussion in the pages of our journal, Aleksandr Kustarev prepared yet another essay, "The intelligentsia conglomerate and its narrative", in which in a deliberately provocative form, he describes the narrative and rhethorical devices that the intelligentsia used to construct its social and cultural identity, paradoxically becoming both the subject of a reflection and the effect. The polemic answers are given by: philosopher, orientalist, and writer Aleksandr Pyatigorsky; philosopher, cultural scholar, and political observer Vitaly Kurennoi; and by sociologist Aleksandr Bikbov. The section is concluded by Kustarev answering his critics.

The topic is picked up in the "Politics of culture" section, where politologist Sergei Turkin takes the readers back to the Perestoika era, examining the ways in which the reconstruction of Soviet history was conducted at the time, and which pressing social and political functions it carried out.

In his "Sociological lyrics", Aleksei Levinson studies the dynamics and the structure of the replies to polls concerning Russian society's attitude to the possible conflict with Nato and the US. As a development of the issue's cross-cutting problem, Levinson, amongst other things, pays special attention to the correlation between the answers given by people who have tertiary education and those who do not.

The other topic of this issue is the specifics of the state experiment currently being conducted in Belarus that attempts to combine old political and economic governing mechanisms with the new historical challenges. The block of materials "Constructing the future: The "Belarus" project" presents three papers. An extended article by Yaroslav Shimov, "Belarus: An eastern European paradox", explores the unique social and political case of Belarus in a broad historical and cultural context that grounds its uniqueness in the border position traditionally taken by the country. The articles by Fedor Lukyanov and Yuri Drakokhrust are dedicated to the development and prospects of the Russian-Belarusian relationship as seen from the perspective of both.

The "Culture of politics" section in turn elaborates on the topic of Belarus, focusing on the means and mechanisms of the ideological construction taking place there. Thus, an article by a Belarusian philologist and politician currently in opposition to the Lukashenko regime is dedicated to the textbooks on State Ideology, which has become almost the main subject taught in Belarusian educational institutions. An article by Anastasia Mitrofanova also makes an attempt to chart the contours of the Belarusian ideological project, albeit from somewhat different political positions.

In the "Case study" this issue, we publish a huge work by Pavel Polan that rediscovers the prehistory of the Holocaust. His article, based on an enormous amount of archive materials, tells a tragic story of how Stalin and the Soviet government in 1940 refused a German offer to accept several millions of Jews.

The "'NZ' tribune" this time is written by the famous sociologist, political scholar, and left-wing activist Aleksandr Tarasov. His text, built as a report on a 2006 Athens European Social Forum, is devoted to the crisis emerging within the antiglobalist movement and the perspectives of overcoming it.

A new section, "Around 'NZ'", invites our readers to be more active in discussing already published materials. St Petersburg historian Alexander Semenov shares with us his critical reaction to the "NZ" special issue "1905: 100 Years of Oblivion". He is answered by Moscow historian Aleksandr Shubin, who wrote one of the articles of the discussed issue. Denis Dragunsky's "The great human rights sophism" ("NZ" 1/2006) caused an exchange of opinions between Dragunsky and journalist and human rights activist Aleksei Tokarev.

The issue is concluded with "NZ" standing sections: "New institutions" (on the programme and activities of the Institute of Eastern Europe), "Journals review", and "New books". In the latter section, we have to mention Sergei Ushakin's review dealing with books on youth social and political identity.

Published 2006-11-06