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This article describes a logic of distinction and succession within the late-twentieth-century Leningrad-St. Petersburg cultural field, whereby consecutive intelligentsia mainstreams were replaced by their avant-garde peripheries. In this dynamic picture of socio-cultural transformations, I propose a working hypothesis of a repeated stratification of the field into an "official', an "unofficial', and a third "non-aligned' intelligentsia. This hypothesis is tested in reference to the "non-aligned' groups founded by the avant-garde artist and ideologue Timur Novikov (1958–2002). Three major shifts are described: from the politicized late-Brezhnevite early 1980s to the apolitical radicalism of Novikov's New Artists; from this anarchistic underground, through the perestroika era, to the playful "classicism' of the New Academy of Fine Arts in the 1990s; and from this postmodern international orientation to an arch-reactionary, neo-imperial posturing at the turn of the 2000s. Lastly, this "non-aligned' intelligentsia is suggested as a possible precedent, or, indeed, a model for understanding other historically significant avant-garde peripheries, which commonly seek to distinguish themselves from (often mutually-exclusive) centres.

DOI: 10.1007/s11212-011-9140-4

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