The results of an international research project "Ubi universitas, ibi Europa"

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The results of an international research project "Ubi universitas, ibi Europa"

AndreevA.Yu.

Posokhov S. I.

International project “Ubi universitas - Ibi Europa. Transfer and adaptation of university ideas in the Russian Empire of the second half of the 18th - first half of the 19th century” was officially implemented in 2008-2010, although some ideas began to be discussed by project participants some time earlier, and the implementation of all scheduled tasks took place in 2012, when the final monograph was published. The base for the project was the German Historical Institute in Moscow (curator of the project by the Institute was Dr. A.V. Doronin), core funding was provided by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung (AZ 02/SR/08).

Participants of the project included historians representing Moscow, Kharkov and Kazan universities. Already at this early stage of the project, the participants were united into three study groups. The objectives of the Moscow group (head - prof. A. Yu. Andreev, he also supervised the implementation of the project) were to study various types of relationships within corporations in Russian universities of the second half of the 18th - first half of the 19th century (disclosed largely through university conflicts that demonstrated a different understanding of ideological foundations of university and, therefore, the characteristics of their transfer and adaptation in Russia). These included issues of formalization of the corporation by obtaining privileges, adaptation of the system of academic titles and degrees in Russia, hierarchical division within the corporation, relations between professors and students as well as their changes due to the assimilation of “classical university” ideas.

The tasks of project participants from Kazan (head - prof. E. A. Vishlenkova) included primarily the study of governance arrangements, formal and informal power relations practices in the university and the state: the role of trustees in the history of Russian universities, administrative problems, roles and functions of Rector, inspectors and other positions in the corporate culture, formation of norms and deviations in an academic environment. Special task of this group within the project, actual specifically for the Kazan University, was to study the “educational colonization” of the region through the university, i.e. its contribution to the development of infrastructure, regional study of life, aimed at improving it, and so on.

The main research of Kharkov group (head - prof. S. I. Posohov) was directed to the problem of “University and the City” in its various aspects, including: socialization of scientists in an urban environment, spatial and temporal organization of their life, material and financial conditions of work, relationships with the city authorities and the local community, forms of representation in public life, etc. university project international

During the preparatory work, on the step of forming the team members and the main issues of the project, big role played the International Scientific Conference “University concept in Europe and Russia in the 18th - early 20th centuries” (St. Petersburg, June 22-24, 2007) held by the German Historical Institute in Moscow at the Russian State Historical Archive in St. Petersburg.

Subsequently, the project participants organized five more workshops:

1) “Academic Conflictology: the nature of university conflict in the Russian Empire” (Moscow, November 5-6, 2007), where main types of conflicts and the resulting clashes between different types of hierarchies in the university, as well as mechanisms of adaptation in Russia of “university autonomy”, scientists' positions and degrees etc. were discussed.

2) “The University and the city in the Russian Empire in the 18th - early 20th centuries” (Kharkov, 15-18 May, 2008), where in comparative aspect the interaction of three Russian universities (Moscow, Kharkov and Kazan) with the social space of the cities where they were located, the impact of university on city as well as the impact of city on university was discussed.

3) “University practices of ruling: Kazan, Moscow, Kharkov (18th - first half of the 19th century)” (Kazan, April 27-29, 2009), where the discussion was focused on the problem of formal management practices (Institute of power of curators and trustees in the 18th - first half of the 19th century, under Russian legislation and the European tradition), presence of informal practices carried out through letters, language, symbols between professors and authorities, gradual forming of “power of intelligence” through the formation of a new elite by Russian universities, who became bearers of European ideas.

4) “Russian-German universities connections in the 18th - early 20th centuries: partnership, mutual influence, intellectual space” (Mainz, June 17-19, 2010). In addition to the project participants, in this meeting took part German scientists involved in similar studies, so it became an international conference and was supported by the Russian Humanitarian Scientific Foundation and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The subject of discussion at the conference was a comparison of university space of the Russian Empire and Central Europe (the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, the German Confederation, German Empire) in the 18th - early 20th centuries, comparative analysis of Russian corporations and German universities by the main parameters stated in the project objectives, and discovery of mechanisms to transfer university ideas from Europe to Russia.

5) The final project meeting was held at the German Historical Institute in Moscow (November 19, 2010). In the form of summary reports the results of the work of each group were presented on it, in accordance with parts of the monograph. Scientific publications, which were prepared in the course of the project, were also presented there.

Altogether during the achievement of project objectives three collective publications were published, as well as and monographs of individual participants. Collective editions opened a series of works of the project «Ubi universitas, ibi Europa», established by the German Historical Institute in Moscow and coming out at the publisher ROSSPEN. In the anthology, “University idea in the Russian Empire of the 18th - early 20th centuries” the texts have been codified, where scientists, statesmen and public figures express their understanding of the processes of distribution, establishment and development of university ideas in the Russian Empire. These texts allow us to show the reflection of different views in Russia, emerged in Europe during the ideological foundation of the universities (utilitarian, “enlightenment”, and “classical” ones). This edition allows to understand that our modern conceptions of the university represent the intertwining of different approaches, interpretations, versions, hypotheses made at different times, but still have not lost their relevance today. These texts also convince us that the design of university idea also took place here in Eastern Europe. The collection includes more than 40 texts distributed into four sections in chronological order. Each section is prefaced, and the texts themselves contain a detailed commentary and biographical information about the author and history of the text. In addition, the most important for understanding of the meaning of university idea, papers by theorists of European university education Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schleiermacher, are shown in annex in the original translation from German. In the preparation of anthology, besides compilers, took part most of the members from Moscow and Kharkov project teams.

Biographical Dictionary “Foreign professors of Russian universities (second half of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries)” allowed for the first time to combine about 100 biographies of foreign (mostly German) professors who taught at Moscow, Kharkov, Kazan and St. Petersburg Universities. During the work on the biographies, archival sources were involved (service records, personal files), lists of works were verified, as well as teaching programs, formal attributes of a career in Russia (grades, awards and other awards); for many professors first were established the facts of their subsequent career after returning home from Russia. The collected material allowed not only to present the biographies of academic scientists (for many of them biographies were missing by now), but also to give a collective portrait of people who acted as intermediaries in the transfer of university practices from Europe to Russia. All the project teams took par in the work on the dictionary.

Individual monographs illuminating scientific findings on specific aspects of the project in accordance with its task, became the books by A. Yu. Andreev , A. M. Feofanov L. Yu. Posokhova .

All this allowed to bring the main objective of the project - writing the final monograph, which was published at the end of 2012 . Preparing the book for publication was made by the authors of this article, but, in fact, this has become a collective monograph, since it included the results of every participant. In particular, the book would have been impossible without the great search work (including archival one) carried out by the project participants A. M. Feofanov, D. A. Tsygankov (Moscow), L. Yu. Posokhova, V Yu. Ivashchenko (Kharkov), K. A. Ilina, T. V. Kostya (Kazan). Of course, during the interaction there were contradictions between the project participants, there were also the debates on principle issues, but the result was a text that can be called “final”, and for which we, authors and editors, carry full responsibility.

We are not going to rate the results of our work, but considering the fact that after the book had been published, in the press began to appear the first reviews of it, we will give some opinions about its content. In particular, we pay attention to the opinion of V S. Bakirov who sees value of the monograph in the following: “Firstly, in this case, the history of Russian universities is inscribed into the European context. Moreover, it is important to emphasize that this is not a simple copy/move, but adaptation of university idea in a different social-cultural space. The authors explore the complex process of perception of new cultural forms, the approval of the university as “their”, adopting local university traditions. Secondly, the study is based on a broad source base, recent works, including foreign authors, and contemporary methodological principles (speaking of the latter, we note the use of the principles of comparative and cultural history). Thirdly, and perhaps what is the most important, the monograph contains a number of fundamentally new opinions, estimations, characteristics. For example, we note the concept of “Northwestern” and “Southwestern” shuttle vectors, interpretation of “university corporation”, “university autonomy”, “university lifestyle”, “university space” and so on, which act not as empty abstraction, but as a concrete historical concepts inscribed in their temporal context; we draw attention to fixing by the authors the mechanisms of the university as a social institution and its interaction with non-university environment” . We are pleased by such assessment. After completing a difficult and ambitious task people always want to hear good words, but in this case, we note that the accents are made in accordance with our understanding of work tasks. But we also know that the study of the history of Russian universities, including current period, is far from completion, there is still a lot of complex and controversial issues. However, it is obvious that this research cannot be completed in principle. A university is not only the most important social institution, but it also largely characterizes the state of the society in which it operates and is associated with thousands of threads.

In conclusion, we would like to express our deep gratitude to all the staff at the German Historical Institute in Moscow, and especially its founding director Professor Bernd Bonwetsch and director since 2010 to Professor Nikolaus Katzer, researcher Andrey Doronin, Brigitta Ziehl. With sincere appreciation, we appeal to the German scientists who, through their scientific and organizational assistance helped with the project - Trude Maurer (Goettingen), Hartmut Rudiger Peter (Halle), as well as employees of the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Professor Ian Alexander and Kusber Kaplunovsky.

We are convinced that the university subject is a good basis for cooperation not only for researchers, but for all those people who are seeking for mutual understanding, see the important role of dialogue among cultures and want to make life better. In this regard, we hope that founded by the German Historical Institute in Moscow publishing series about universities is destined to have a long life.

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