CULTURAL ELITE: AN ACTOR THE FORMATION OF NATIONAL-POLITICAL IDENTITY

Abstract

The cultural elite consists of complex structural elements and itself plays an important role in the process of formation and development of national culture and the thinking in the interest of state; Any regime seeks to bring the intelligentsia, prominent representatives of science and culture closer to power, to provide some of them with certain privileges in order to provide an ideological justification for the legitimacy of power; but their role, the degree of autonomy are different in democracies and authoritarian states: a special mission is entrusted to cultural elites in the era of globalization and in such an economically weak small state as Georgia, which can not maintain its sovereignty without the support of large states and international organizations and pursues an unequivocal Western course (another choice - Russia's aggressive policy does not leave), shares liberal values, willy-nilly opens the door wide open for the influx of cosmopolitan mass culture, which poses new challenges and problems for the cultural elite: on the one hand, the intellectual elite is called upon to creatively absorb and enrich the areas of domestic science and culture, new progressive ideas emerging in the period of globalization, scientific and technological achievements, on the other hand, political orientations based only on liberal values pose a threat to national values, a unique independent culture, therefore, the humanitarian  elite must ensure the preservation and further development of national political identity, traditions, culture: political elites, parties must stand on the values of liberalism and conservatism, as is customary for Western democracies.