SUMMARY:

In his essay Pal Tamas attempts to “translate” Lipovetsky’s project into the language of the sociology of science and professions and to determine whether the ITRs as a discursive community (Lipovetsky) and a sociological/professional group coincide. He applies to the Soviet case the classical German distinction between the Bildungsburgertum (the middle class shaped by education rather than economic position) and the proprietor class, and concludes that the ITRs fulfilled the social role of the former under the absence of the later. Tamas traces the story of the Soviet technical intelligentsia and the genealogy of the “Soviet engineer” as the symbol and carrier of Soviet modernity. He focuses on the application of the American and German tripartite model of the engineer, the manager, and the (corporate) lawyer to Soviet realities of the 1930s, and on the Soviet script of the engineer. Tamas summarizes the post-Soviet transfer of former ITRs to global professionals in a basic typology of their habitual maps. The essay concludes with the assertion that a dialogue with Lipovetsky’s model of the ITR culture seems to be a fruitful way of pursuing innovative research on late Soviet modernity.