Russian enlightenment as a cultural feature of the Russian intelligentsia 1750-1800th years

The main trends and tendencies of the Russian Enlightenment are considered in the article. The authors first stop at the interpretation of the concept of “enlightenment” by encyclopaedists, and then conduct a comparative analysis of the existence of ideas of enlighteners in Western Europe and Russia. The article gives characteristics of the main trends of the Russian enlightenment: Valeriana, which became the basis for the emergence of nihilism and radicalism; the Russian humanism, later gave impetus to the development of sentimentalism and romanticism; Russian Freemasonry played an important role in spreading the ideas of the Enlightenment. Within these areas are considered the brightest of their representatives. The final part of the article deals with the analysis of the results of activities of Russian educators, among which the authors identifie and desacralization of social relations, and the secularization of consciousness, and the emergence of a new type of intellectual, capable of action, and the formation of the new Russian literary language.