The book is devoted to the little-studied issue of the formation of intellectuals in post-reform Russia until the end of the 19th century. It reveals the policy of autocracy, forced to reconcile with the appearance of intellectual specialists in the country, but at the same time sought to delay the political development of the intelligentsia. The book covers the training of professional groups of the intelligentsia that performed the necessary social functions, as well as the social and material situation of various layers within these groups. A separate section is devoted to the process of the emergence and development of personnel of professional revolutionaries who fought against the autocracy in this historical period.