Elite culture has rather blurred boundaries, especially at the present time with the tendencies of the elements of the masses to strive for the expression of individuality. Its peculiarity is that it is doomed to be misunderstood by most people, and this is one of its main characteristics. In this article we will find out the elite culture, what are its main characteristics and compare it with the mass one.

What it is

Elite culture is the same "high culture". It is opposed to mass, which is one of the methods of its detection in the general cultural process. This concept was first identified by K. Mannheim and H. Ortega y Gasset in their works, where they derived it precisely as the antithesis of the concept of mass culture. They meant by high culture that which contains a semantic core capable of developing a human individuality, and from which the continuation of the creation of its other elements can follow. Another area that they identified is the presence of special verbal elements available for narrow social groups: eg Latin and Sanskrit for clergy.

Elite and popular culture: opposition

They are opposed to each other according to the type of impact on consciousness, as well as the quality of the meanings that contain their elements. So, the mass one is aimed at a more superficial perception, which does not require specific knowledge and special intellectual efforts to understand a cultural product. Currently, there is an increased spread of mass culture due to the process of globalization, which, in turn, is spread through the media and is stimulated by the capitalist structure of society. unlike elite, it is intended for wide range persons. Now we see its elements everywhere, and it is especially vividly manifested in the programs of television channels and cinema.

So, Hollywood cinema can be opposed to arthouse cinema. At the same time, the first type of films focuses the viewer's attention not on the meaning and idea of ​​the story, but on the special effects of the video sequence. Here, high-quality cinema implies an interesting design, an unexpected, but easy-to-understand plot.

Elite culture is represented by arthouse films, which are evaluated according to different criteria than Hollywood products of this kind, the main of which is meaning. So, the quality of the video sequence is often underestimated in such films. At first glance, the reason for the poor quality of filming is either the lack of good funding, or the director's amateurishness. However, this is not the case: in arthouse cinema, the function of video is to convey the meaning of an idea. Special effects can distract from this, so they are not typical for products of this format. The ideas of the arthouse are original and deep. Very often, in presenting a simple story, it is hidden from superficial understanding. deep meaning, the real tragedy of personality is revealed. In the course of watching these films, it is often possible to trace that the director himself is trying to find the answer to the question posed and is studying the characters during the shooting. It is almost impossible to predict the plot of an art house movie.

Characteristic high culture

An elite culture has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from a mass culture:

1. Its elements are aimed at displaying and studying the deep processes of human psychology.
2. It has a closed structure, accessible for understanding only to outstanding personalities.
3. Differs in the originality of artistic solutions.
4. Contains minimum visual media.
5. Has the ability to express something new.
6. In it, the approbation of what may later become a classic or trivial art takes place.

Elite culture

Elite culture- this is "high culture", opposed to mass culture by the type of influence on the perceiving consciousness, preserving its subjective characteristics and providing a meaning-forming function [ style!]. Its main ideal is the formation of consciousness, ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality [ style!]. This understanding elite culture Explicated from such an understanding of it as a high culture, concentrating the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations, it seems, in the opinion of Russian culturologists, more accurate and adequate than the understanding of the elite as avant-garde [ style!] .

Origin of the term

Historically, elite culture arose as the antithesis of mass culture and its meaning, manifests its main significance in comparison with the latter. The essence of elite culture was first analyzed by H. Ortega y Gasset ("Dehumanization of Art", "Revolt of the Masses") and K. Manheim ("Ideology and Utopia", "Man and Society in the Age of Transformations", "Essay on the Sociology of Culture") , who considered this culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and having a number of fundamentally important features, including the way of verbal communication - the language developed by its speakers, where special social groups - clergy, politicians, artists - use special languages ​​that are closed to the uninitiated, including Latin and Sanskrit.

Peculiarities

The subject of an elite, high culture is a person - free, creative person capable of carrying out conscious activities. The creations of this culture are always personally colored and designed for personal perception, regardless of the breadth of their audience, which is why the wide distribution and millions of copies of the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare not only do not diminish their importance, but, on the contrary, contribute to the widespread dissemination of spiritual values. In this sense, the subject of elite culture is a representative of the elite.

At the same time, objects of high culture that retain their form - plot, composition, musical structure, but change the presentation mode and appear in the form of replicated products, adapted, adapted to an unusual type of functioning for themselves, as a rule, go into the category of mass culture. In this sense, we can talk about the ability of the form to be the bearer of the content.

If we have in mind the art of mass culture, then we can state the different sensitivity of its types to this ratio. In the field of music, the form is fully meaningful, even its insignificant transformations (for example, the widespread practice of translating classical music into an electronic version of its instrumentation) lead to the destruction of the integrity of the work. In the field of fine arts, the translation of an authentic image into another format - a reproduction or a digital version (even when trying to preserve context - in virtual museum). As for literary work, then changing the presentation mode - including from the traditional book to digital - does not affect its character, since the form of the work, the structure is the patterns of its dramatic construction, and not the medium - polygraphic or electronic - of this information. Defining such works of high culture, which changed the nature of their functioning as mass, allows the violation of their integrity, when their secondary, or at least not their main components are accentuated and act as leading ones. The change in the authentic format of the phenomena of mass culture leads to the fact that the essence of the work changes, where ideas appear in a simplified, adapted version, and creative functions are replaced by socializing ones. This is due to the fact that, unlike high culture, the essence of mass culture is not creative activity, not in production cultural property, and in the formation of "value orientations" corresponding to the nature of the dominant public relations, and the development of stereotypes of the mass consciousness of members of the "consumer society". Nevertheless, elite culture is a kind of a model for the mass, acting as a source of plots, images, ideas, hypotheses, which the latter adapts to the level of mass consciousness.

Thus, the elite culture is the culture of the privileged groups of society, characterized by fundamental secrecy, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. According to I. V. Kondakov, elite culture appeals to a select minority of its subjects, as a rule, who are both its creators and addressees (in any case, the circle of both almost coincides). Elite culture consciously and consistently opposes the culture of the majority in all its historical and typological varieties - folklore, folk culture, the official culture of a particular estate or class, the state as a whole, the cultural industry of a technocratic society of the 20th century. etc. Philosophers consider elite culture as the only one capable of preserving and reproducing the basic meanings of culture and having a number of fundamentally important features:

• complexity, specialization, creativity, innovation;
• the ability to form a consciousness ready for active transformative activity and creativity in accordance with the objective laws of reality;
• the ability to concentrate the spiritual, intellectual and artistic experience of generations;
• the presence of a limited range of values ​​recognized as true and "high";
• a rigid system of norms accepted by this stratum as obligatory and unswerving in the community of "initiates";
• individualization of norms, values, evaluation criteria of activity, often principles and forms of behavior of members of an elite community, thus becoming unique;
• the creation of a new, deliberately complicated cultural semantics that requires special training and an immense cultural outlook from the addressee;
• the use of a deliberately subjective, individually creative, "defamatory" interpretation of the ordinary and familiar, which brings cultural development reality by the subject to a mental (sometimes artistic) experiment on it and, in the limit, replaces the reflection of reality in elite culture by its transformation, imitation - by deformation, penetration into meaning - by conjecture and rethinking of the given;
• semantic and functional "closeness", "narrowness", isolation from the whole national culture, which turns the elite culture into a kind of secret, sacred, esoteric knowledge, taboo for the rest of the masses, and its carriers turn into a kind of "priests" of this knowledge, the chosen of the gods, "servants of the muses", "keepers of secrets and faith", which is often played out and is poeticized in an elite culture.

see also

Notes (edit)

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See what "Elite culture" is in other dictionaries:

- (from the French, selective, chosen, best) subculture of the privileged groups of the society, characterized by a principled closeness, spiritual aristocracy and value-semantic self-sufficiency. Appealing to a select minority ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

Elite culture- a concept that is compared (contrasted) with mass culture. The selection of elite culture is based on its production by representatives (and in the interests) of social groups that occupy a leading position in the spiritual life of society, its ... ... Man and Society: Culturology. Reference dictionary

ELITE CULTURE- a specific area of ​​cultural creativity associated with the professional production of cultural texts, which subsequently acquire the status of cultural canons. The concept of E.K. appears in Western cultural studies to designate cultural layers, ... ... Sociology: Encyclopedia

Elite culture- - cultural samples that distinguish the elite of society ... Social Work Dictionary

CULTURE An elite culture designed for the “elite”. The concept of elite culture received the rights of citizenship in the 20th century. due to the wide spread of its antipode of mass culture, which embraced all, including the uneducated, strata of the population ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

This term has other meanings, see Culture (meanings). Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder (234 149 BC), the word cultura first appears in his treatise on agriculture, De Agri Cultura (oh ... Wikipedia

English. culture, elitarian; German Kultur, elitare. A type of culture characterized by the production of a cult, values, samples, which, due to their exclusivity, are calculated and accessible mainly to a narrow circle of people, the elite. Antinazi. Encyclopedia ... ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

Mass culture- a culture that is accessible and understandable to all segments of the population and has less artistic value than an elite or folk culture. Therefore, it quickly loses its relevance and goes out of fashion, but is very popular among young people, often ... ... Pedagogical Dictionary

A peculiar phenomenon of social differentiation of the present. culture. Although functional and formal analogs of M.'s phenomena to. are found in history since ancient civilizations, genuine M. to. arises only in the New time in the course of processes ... Encyclopedia of Cultural Studies

A culture that is put above the mass. Elite culture (high) is a creative avant-garde, an art laboratory, where new types and forms of art are constantly being created. It is also called high culture, because it is created by the elite of society, or ... Wikipedia

Forms of culture refer to such sets of rules, norms and models of human behavior that cannot be considered completely autonomous entities; they are not also constituent parts some whole. High, or elite culture, folk culture and popular culture are called forms of culture because they are special way expressions of artistic content. High, folk and mass culture differ in a set of techniques and visual means of a work of art, authorship, audience, means of conveying artistic ideas to the audience, and the level of performing skills.

Depending on who creates culture and what is its level, sociologists distinguish three forms of it.

- elite

-folk

-mass

High culture

Elite, or high culture is created by a privileged part of society, or by its order by professional creators. It includes fine arts, classical music and literature. High culture, such as Picasso painting or Schoenberg's music, is difficult for an unprepared person to understand. As a rule, it is decades ahead of the level of perception of an average educated person. The circle of its consumers is a highly educated part of society: critics, literary critics, regulars of museums and exhibitions, theater-goers, artists, writers, musicians. When the level of education of the population grows, the circle of consumers of high culture expands. Its variety includes secular art and salon music. Formula of elite culture "art for art".

Folk culture

Folk culture consists of two types - popular and folk culture. When a campaign of tipsy friends sings songs by A. Pugacheva or<Не шуми камыш>, then it comes about popular culture, and when an ethnographic expedition from the depths of Russia brings material for carols or Russian lamentations, then they certainly talk about folk culture. As a result, popular culture describes today's life, customs, customs, songs, dances, etc. people, and folklore is its past. Legends, fairy tales and other genres of folklore were created in the past, and today they exist as historical heritage... Some of this heritage is still performed today, which means that part of the folk culture has entered popular culture, which, in addition to historical legends is constantly replenished with new formations, for example, modern urban folklore.

Thus, in folk culture, in turn, two levels can be distinguished - high, associated with folklore and including folk legends, fairy tales, epics, ancient dances, etc., and reduced, limited to the so-called pop culture.

Unlike elite culture, which is created by professionals, high folk culture is created by anonymous creators who do not have vocational training... The authors of folk creations (tales, lamentations, bylichka) are often unknown, but these are highly artistic compositions. Myths, legends, tales, epics, fairy tales, songs and dances belong to the highest creations of folk culture. They cannot be classified as elite or high culture just because they were created by anonymous folk creators.<Народная культура возникла в глубокой древности. Ее субъектом являются не отдельные профессионалы, а весь народ. Поэтому функционирование народной культуры неотделимо от труда и быта людей. Авторы ее зачастую анонимны, произведения существуют обычно во множестве вариантов, передаются устно из поколения в поколение. В этом плане можно говорить о народном искусстве (folk songs, fairy tales, legends), folk medicine (medicinal herbs, conspiracies), folk pedagogy, the essence of which is often expressed in proverbs, sayings> 1)

In terms of performance, elements of folk culture can be individual (presentation of a legend), group (performance of a dance or song), mass (carnival processions). Folklore is the name not of all folk art, as is often thought, but only of its part, associated primarily with oral folk art... Folklore, like popular, forms (or types) were created earlier and are being created today by various segments of the population. Folklore is always localized, i.e. connected with the traditions of the area, and democratic, since everyone is involved in its creation.

The place of concentration of folklore culture, as a rule, is the village, and the popular one is the city, since today the majority of the population lives there. Some products of creativity are attributed to folk culture as a whole, without dividing them into folk and popular. For example, ethnoscience, folk crafts, folk games and fun, folk songs and dances, folk rituals and holidays, folk cuisine, folk ethics and pedagogy.

The audience of folk culture is always the majority of society. It was so in the traditional and industrial society... The situation changes only in a post-industrial society.

Mass culture

Mass culture does not express the refined tastes or spiritual quest of the people. The time of its appearance is the middle of the 20th century, when the mass media (radio, print, television, gramophone records and tape recorders) penetrated into most countries of the world and became available to representatives of all social strata. Popular culture can be international and national. Pop music vivid example mass culture. It is understandable and accessible to all ages, to all segments of the population, regardless of the level of education.

Popular culture, as a rule, has less artistic value than elite or folk culture. But she has the most wide audience and it is copyright. It satisfies the immediate needs of people, reacts to any new event and reflects it. Therefore, samples of mass culture, in particular hits, quickly lose their relevance, become obsolete, go out of fashion. This does not happen with the works of elite and folk culture. High culture denotes the passions and habits of the townspeople, aristocrats, the rich, the ruling elite, and mass culture denotes the culture of the lower classes. The same art forms can belong to high and popular culture: classical music- high, and popular music - massive, Fellini's films - high, and action films - massive, Picasso's paintings - high, and popular prints - massive. However, there are genres of literature, in particular science fiction, detective stories and comics, which are always classified as popular or popular culture, but never high. The same thing happens with specific works of art.

Bach's Organ Mass belongs to high culture, but if it is used as musical accompaniment in figure skating competitions, it is automatically enrolled in the category of mass culture, without losing its belonging to high culture. Numerous orchestrations of Bach's works in the style of light music, jazz or rock do not compromise high culture at all. The same goes for the Mona Lisa on the packaging. toilet soap or a computer reproduction of it hanging in the back office.

The main forms of culture

Massive ... And there is an elite one. What it is?

First of all, let's start with the definition of “elite culture”. In a broad sense, elite culture (from the French elite - selective, the best) is a form of culture modern society, accessible and understandable not to everyone. But it is worth remembering that these "not all" are by no means the people who stand above others on the financial ladder. Rather, they are such refined natures, informals, who, as a rule, have their own, special view of the world, a special worldview.

It is customary to contrast the elite culture with the mass one. Elite and popular cultures are in difficult interaction for a number of reasons. The main one is the clash of the idealistic and sometimes utopian philosophy of elite culture with the pragmatism, primitiveness and, perhaps, the "realism" of the mass. As for why “realism” is put in quotation marks: well, you look at modern “masterpieces” of cinema (“Ant-Man”, “Batman vs. Superman” ..., they don't even smell of realism - some hallucinations).

Elite culture usually opposes consumerism, "ambitious, semi-educated" and plebeianism. It is interesting to note that the culture of the elite is also opposed to folklore, folk culture, because it is the culture of the majority. To an inexperienced outside reader, elite culture may seem like something akin to snobbery or a grotesque form of aristocracy, which, of course, it is not, because it lacks the mimesis characteristic of snobbery, and not only people from the upper strata of society belong to the elite culture.

Let's designate the main features of elite culture:

creativity, innovation, the desire to create a "world for the first time";

closeness, separation from wide, universal use;

“Art for art”;

cultural development of subjects, separation from the "profane" culture;

creation of a new cultural language of symbols and images;

system of norms, a limited range of values.

What is modern elite culture? To begin with, let's briefly mention the elite culture of the past. It was something esoteric, secret, its bearers were priests, monks, knights, members of underground circles (for example, Petrashevsky, of which F.M.Dostoevsky was a famous member), Masonic lodges, orders (for example, crusaders or members of the Teutonic order).

Why did we turn to history? " Historical knowledge- the primary means of preserving and prolonging an aging civilization, ”wrote José Ortega y Gasset. Gasset's work "The Rise of the Masses" clearly illuminates the problem of "man of the masses", in which the author introduces the concept of "superman". And it is the "superman" who is the representative of the modern elite culture. The elite, which is not surprising, is a minority; it is by no means "at the helm of modernity", i.e. the masses are not currently in charge of everything, but provide a huge impact on the socio-political aspects of society; in my opinion, it is customary to listen to the opinion of the masses in our time.

I think that the ordinary masses are practically forcibly imposing their thoughts and tastes on society, thereby causing stagnation in it. But still, according to my observations, the elite culture in our 21st century opposes the mass one with more and more confidence. Adherence to the mainstream, as strange as it sounds, is becoming less and less popular.

In people, more and more often the desire to join the "high", inaccessible majority is noticeable. I really want to believe that humanity is learning from the bitter experience of past centuries, that the "uprising of the masses" will not take place. To prevent the absolute triumph of mediocrity, it is necessary to "return to your true self", to live with striving for the future.

And to prove that the elite culture is gaining momentum, I will give an example of its most prominent representatives. In the musical field, I would like to highlight the German virtuoso violinist David Garrett. He performs and classical works, and contemporary pop music in its own arrangement.

The fact that Garrett gathers thousands of audiences with his performances does not rank him among mass culture, because music, although it can be heard by everyone, is not accessible to any spiritual perception. The music of the famous Alfred Schnittke is also inaccessible to the masses.

V fine arts most bright representative elitist culture can be called Andy Warhol. Diptych Marilyn, Campbell's soup can ... his works have become a real property of the public, while still belonging to an elite culture. The art of lomography, which became very popular in the nineties of the twentieth century, in my opinion, can be considered part of an elite culture, although at present there is an International Lomographic Society and associations of lomographer photographers. In general, about that, read the link.

In the 21st century, museums began to gain popularity. contemporary art(for example, MMOMA, Erarta, PERMM). Very controversial, however, is the art of performance, but, in my opinion, it can be safely called elite. Serbian artist Marina Abramovich, Frenchman Vahram Zaryan, and St. Petersburg resident Petr Pavlensky are examples of artists performing in this genre.

An example of the architecture of modern elite culture can be considered the city of St. Petersburg, which is a meeting place different cultures, in which almost every building compels the knowledgeable person to turn to intertemporal dialogue. Still, the architecture of St. Petersburg is not modern, so let's turn to an architectural work contemporary creators... For example, the Nautilus shell house of the Mexican Javier Senosian, the Louis Nycera library, the architects Yves Bayard and Francis Chapu, the Green Citadel by the German architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

And speaking of the literature of elite culture, one cannot fail to mention James Joyce (and his legendary novel Ulysses), who had a significant impact on Virginia Woolf and even Ernest Hemingway. Beat writers, for example, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, in my opinion, can be considered representatives of the literature of the elite culture.

I would also like to add Gabriel García Márquez to this list. "One Hundred Years of Solitude", "Love During the Plague", "Remembering My sad whores“… The works of the Spanish Nobel laureate are undoubtedly very popular in elite circles. If speak about contemporary literature I would like to name Svetlana Aleksievich, the Nobel Prize laureate in literature in 2015, whose works, although recognized by the literary (and not only) community, their meaning is still not available to most people.

So, you need to have a huge supply of "keys" to understanding elite culture, knowledge that can help to interpret a work of art in full. Every day to see Saint Isaac's Cathedral driving along Palace Bridge, and seeing it as a dome against the sky is one thing. But when looking at the same cathedral, recalling the history of its creation, associating it with an example of late classicism in architecture, thereby referring to Petersburg in the 19th century, to the people who lived at that time, entering into dialogue with them through time and space is quite another a business.

© Ilya Shchekin

Editing Andrey Puchkov

Introduction

Culture is a generalized concept that encompasses various classes of phenomena. It is a complex, multi-layered, multi-level whole that includes various phenomena. Depending on from what point of view, on what grounds to analyze it, one can single out one or another of it structural elements, differing in the nature of the carrier, in the result, in the types of activity, etc., which can coexist, interact, oppose each other, change their status. Structuring culture, proceeding from its bearer, let us single out as the subject of analysis only some of its varieties: elite, mass, folk culture. Since on the present stage they receive an ambiguous interpretation, then in this test, we will try to understand the complex modern cultural practice, very dynamic and contradictory, as well as contradictory points of view. The control work presents historically different, sometimes opposite views, theoretical grounds, approaches, and also takes into account a certain socio-cultural context, the ratio of various components in the cultural whole, their place in modern cultural practice.

And so, the goal test work is the consideration of varieties of culture, elite, mass and folk.

culture elite mass folk

The emergence and main characteristics of elite culture

Elite culture, its essence is associated with the concept of the elite and is usually opposed to popular, mass cultures. The elite (elite, French - chosen, best, selected), as a producer and consumer of this type of culture in relation to society, represents from the point of view of both Western and Russian sociologists, cultural scientists, the higher, privileged strata (layer), groups, classes carrying out the functions of management, development of production and culture. Thus, the division of the social structure into higher, privileged and lower, the elite and the rest of the mass is affirmed. The definitions of the elite in various sociological and cultural theories are ambiguous.

The selection of the elite stratum has a long history. Confucius has already seen a society consisting of noble men, i.e. minorities, and a people in need of constant moral influence and guidance from these noble ones. In fact, Plato stood on the elite positions. Roman Senator Menenius Agrippa most the population was referred to as "draft cattle" for which drivers are needed, i.e. aristocrats.

Obviously from ancient times, when in primitive community the division of labor began to take place, the separation of spiritual activity from material activity, the processes of stratification according to property, status, and other signs, and began to stand out (alienate) not only the categories of rich and poor, but also people most significant in any respect - priests (magi, shamans) as bearers of special secret knowledge, organizers of religious and ritual actions, leaders, tribal nobility. But the elite itself is formed in a class, slave-owning society, when, due to the labor of slaves, the privileged strata (classes) are freed from exhausting physical labor. Moreover, in societies different types the most significant, elite strata that make up the minority of the population are, first of all, those who have real power, backed by the force of arms and law, economic and financial power, which allows them to influence all other spheres public life, including socio-cultural processes (ideology, education, artistic practice, etc.). Such is the slave-owning, feudal aristocracy (the aristocracy is understood as the highest, privileged stratum of any class, group), the higher clergy, merchants, industrial, financial oligarchy, etc.

Elite culture is formed within the privileged in any sphere (in politics, commerce, art) layers, communities and includes, like culture folk values, norms, ideas, representations, knowledge, way of life, etc. in their symbolic and material expression, as well as ways of their practical use. This culture covers different spheres of social space: political, economic, ethical and legal, artistic and aesthetic, religious and other areas of social life. It can be viewed on different scales.

V broad sense elite culture can be represented by a fairly extensive part of the general people (nationwide) culture. In this case, it has deep roots in it, including folk culture, in another, narrow sense - declares itself as a "sovereign", sometimes opposed to the national culture, to a certain extent isolated from it.

An example of elite culture in a broad sense is knightly culture as a phenomenon of the secular culture of the Western European Middle Ages. Its bearer is the dominant noble-military class (chivalry), within which its values, ideals, and its own code of honor have developed (loyalty to the oath, adherence to duty, courage, generosity, mercy, etc.). Formed their own rituals, such as the ritual of initiation into knights (the conclusion of a contract with the lord, an oath of allegiance, the taking of vows - for obedience, personal excellence, etc.), ritualized and theatrical tournaments for the glorification of knightly valor. There are special manners, the ability to conduct small talk, play on musical instruments, compose poems, most often dedicated to the lady of the heart. Knightly musical and poetic creativity, nurtured in national languages ​​and not alien to folk musical and intonational traditions, constituted a whole trend in world culture, but it faded away with the weakening and departure of this class from the historical arena.

Elite culture is contradictory. On the one hand, it quite clearly expresses the search for the new, the still unknown, on the other, the attitude towards conservation, the preservation of the already known and familiar. Therefore, probably in science, artistic creation, the new is gaining recognition, sometimes overcoming considerable difficulties. Elite culture, including directions of an experimental, even demonstratively non-conformist nature, has contributed to the enrichment of the ideological-theoretical, figurative-meaningful canvas, to expanding the range of practical skills, means of expression, ideals, images, ideas, scientific theories, technical inventions, philosophical, socio-political teachings.

Elite culture, including its esoteric (internal, secret, intended for initiates) directions, are included in different spheres of cultural practice, performing different functions (roles) in it: information and cognitive, replenishing the treasury of knowledge, technical achievements, works of art; socialization, including a person in the world of culture; normative-regulatory, etc. The cultural-creative function, the function of self-realization, self-actualization of the personality, aesthetic-demonstration function (sometimes called exhibition function) comes to the fore in elite culture.