The aim of this paper is to point out that the growing need for well‐educated citizens in the increasingly bureaucratized 18th Century, in itself a wellknown phenomenon, should be seen in a wider context. First, we must consider how it relates to the gradual emergence of the modern European nationstate; and secondly, to the cultural and political consequences of social stratification. In nations with a cohesive social structure and, in some cases, a tradition of statehood, the growing numbers and importance of the new intelligentsia were primarily the result of an expansion of existing elites drawing on their own social class. In emerging nations formed largely through nationalist movements, on the other hand, the process was accompanied by the upward mobility of young men from the middle and lower middle classes. In some nations, such as the Czechs and the Finns, these were often the sons of petit bourgeois and artisan families; but in the majority of cases the emergent national intelligentsia found its recruits chiefly among farmers and the rural population as a whole (Lithuania, Estonia). Understandably, this distinction led to differences in the formation of national stereotypes, political cultures and attitudes to social organization. The use of the term "plebeian intelligentsia" in this context is meant as a typological characteristic rather than a pejorative label., Miroslav Hroch., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy