Abstract
This article considers the evolution of the Russian University system during the First World War. Most of the imperial period, until the end of 1916, thanks to the liberal policy of the Minister of People’s Education, Pavel Nikolayevič Ignat’ev, a reformist course was implemented (drafting of a new statute, increasing the autonomy of universities). Particularly important and promising was the expansion of universities’ network and opening of new universities in Rostov-on-Don, Perm, as well as the expansion of Saratov and Tomsk universities. In 1917 Ministers of Education of the Provisional Government (A. Manuilov, S. Oldenburg, S. Salazkin) also followed the Ignat’ev’s liberal course received support with the bottom-up initiatives (introduction of regular institution of associate professors, attracting of younger lecturers to the university management). Paradoxically, for the university system the result of crisis which lasted through the war period and the beginning of the revolution marked the democratization of management and the expansion of the students’ enrollment and the number of universities.
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Notes
For the international context see Maurer (2006).
For the most detailed work on the Russian universities see Maurer (1999).
See the discussion of "the Russian case" in a large scale project of social history of European Bildungsbürgertum, headed by J. Kocka: Geyer (1985).
Compare with Häfner (2007) (particularly pp. 50–54).
Perhaps the only positive essay about Casso’s activity belongs to his deputy for secondary school affairs: Taube (2007).
For more details see: Dmitriev (2013). See the works of the famous biologist in the future N.К. Кol’cov (1872–1940), founder and director of the Institute of Experimental Biology: Кol’cov (1909a), particularly pp. 36–60; Кol’cov (1909b). After the conflict with his supervisor professor Menzbier, Kol’cov left the university and then successfully taught at the Moscow People's University named after A. L. Šanjavskij; he also held the chair and laboratory at the Higher Women Courses of Professor V. I. Guerrier. See also: Zacepa (1907).
At the beginning of the twentieth century in St. Petersburg, Kiev and Warsaw, the Faculties of Law had more students than the other departments combined. See: Lejkina-Svirskaja (1971, 59).
It should be recalled that until 1917 there were only two faculties at the Tomsk State University: Faculty of Law and Faculty of Medicine. St. Petersburg University did not have a Faculty of Medicine. Saratov University had one faculty which was opened in 1909 (Faculty of Medicine). State humanitarian high educational establishments were very similar in terms of their status: Demidov Juridical Lyceum in Jaroslavl, as well as the under enrolled Institute of Oriental Studies in Vladivostok, the Institutes of History and Philology in St. Petersburg and Nežyn created specifically for the preparation of teachers of classical languages for gymnasiums. Concerning the Demidov Lyceum and also about plans of Lyceum’s transformation into a full-fledged university, see: Pokrovskij (1914).
See also the brochure: K voprosu o narodnykh universitetakh (Kazan 1907), published under the pseudonym “I” and explained about initiative of the lecturers at Kazan University.
See the informative essay of the lecturer of Moscow University M.D. Zagrjackov, who before 1917 often comments on municipal law and legal activity of the zemstvo organization: Zagrjackov (1914), particularly pp. 21–23. About statisticians as a social group in the context of the social self-determination of the “people of knowledge” see Mespule (2003), Stantsiani (2003).
For details about the state of Russian science in the first decades of the twentieth century see Kolčinskij (2003).
About the Petrograd municipal government headed by I. I. Tolstoj in 1913–1916 see Ganelin and Nardova (2000).
The authors cite also the English version of P.N. Ignat’ev’s memoirs, which survived in the Bakhmeteff Archive.
Rossijskij Gosudarstvennyj Istoričeskij Arkhiv (RGIA), Fund 1129, Register 1, Folder 107.
The most detailed minutes of the whole meeting are preserved in the documents in the personal fund of V. Ševjakov: RGIA, Fund 1129, Register 1, Folder 52.
Sankt-Peterburgskij Filial Archiva Rossijskoj Akademii Nauk, Fund 2, Register 1, Folder 1915, fols. 36, 201–202, 237–238v.
About the public reaction to Ignatjev’s initiative with regard to secondary schools, including the dissatisfaction of the ‘rights’, see Cirul'nikov (1992).
For more about Konstantin Dorimedontovič Pokrovskij, the provost of Perm University until 1919, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of USSR from 1927, repressed in 1944, cf. Karetnikov (1994, 58–67) (the list of works and the autobiographic ‘Biography’).
Contacts between Paleček and Meškov continued after 1917, when both of them remained in Soviet Russia: Gudkova (2005).
Already at the beginning of the 1900s, as head of the budget commission of the Perm City Council, he organized career enhancement training for country teachers with the participation of N. Mikhajlovskij; the socialist-revolutionaries Breško-Breškovskaja and Geršuni, organized about 200 stipends for participants. See his detailed biography in Rabinovič (1990, 91–126), (1992).
During the meeting of the Provisional government on July 1, 1917: Arkhiv novejšej istorii Rossii: Vol. VII: Žurnaly zasedanij Vremennogo pravitel'stva: Vol. 3 (M., 2003), 50–51.
Ibid., Vol. 2 (M., 2002), 32–37 (the meeting on May 5, 1917)..
RGIA, Fund 733, Register 226, Folder 292, fols. 16–30. Sr.: Fund 733, Register 156, Folder 561, p. 126–128v.
Ivanov (1991, 24–25). This request was partially satisfied by opening polytechnic institutes in big cities.
K otkrytiju novykh universitetov v gorodakh. Izvestija vserossijskogo sojuza gorodov, No. 40 [1917], 309–314.
Priamurskij universitet vo Vladivostoke. Vladivostok, 1916.
Ethnographer and anthropologist Sergey Mikhajlovič Širokogorov (1887–1939) was one of the founders of the university. He acknowledged the continuity of his initiative from the projects of Ignatjev’s times. See Širokogorov (1919).
Ustalova (1998, 266–298).
See Soskin (1988a, 95).
See Irkutskaja žizn'. 1917. 1 junja (see Gol'dfarb and Šcerbakov 1998, 10).
About the cities of Siberia before 1917 see details in Šilovskij (2005).
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This study (research grant No 12-01-0207) was supported by The National Research University–Higher School of Economics’ Academic Fund Program in 2013–2014.
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Dmitriev, A. The Russian University system and the First World War. Stud East Eur Thought 66, 29–50 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-014-9196-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-014-9196-z