ENThe forming social group – the intelligentsia of Lithuanian-Belarussian lands came from impoverished nobility. The article discusses the legal, social and political conditions, in which the official intelligentsia constituted itself. It shows the determinants of its development and the motives for choosing careers in the Russian administration. He analyzes the social composition of individual administrative officials before the outbreak of the January Uprising. He also cites an example of an official biography of the impoverished nobleman Stanisław Doliński.