From assistant professor to «university's elders»: age of the professors of the imperial Kazan university (second half of XIXth - beginning of XXth century)

Professors of Russian universities of the second half of the XIX -nbeginning of XX-th centuries represented a special social group, distinct from other officials of the Russian Empire. The aim of this study is to examine the age characteristics of the professorial corporation of the Imperial Kazan University. The following tasks were set: to determine the age of accession of teachers into the corporation, to define the middle age of professors, and also to consider the specific conditions of the Kazan University that influenced the age indices of this community. For the solving of these tasks on the basis of the prosopographic method, a database was compiled with information about professors of the Kazan University from 1863 to 1917. The analysis was carried out using mathematic-statistical data processing (the method of simple and analytical groupings, the method of analysis of mean values). In the article materials of the office-work documentation from the National Archives of the Republic of Tatarstan were used, fund 977 (official lists, personal records of professors and teachers of the Kazan university, annual reports of the university). They contain information about the main stages of the career of teachers. In addition, sources of personal origin were used in the work: letters from Kazan teachers from the National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan, published memoirs of students of the Kazan University. During the research we have come to the following conclusions. In the period under review at the Kazan University, most of teachers had reached the position of extraordinary professor by the age of 30-39. The average age of receiving a professorial rank gradually increased. This was due to the growing demands for dissertational research and unfavorable material conditions, in which junior teachers often found themselves. Specific living conditions of the Kazan university promoted to the gradual increase of middle age of professors. Firstly, the process of preparing professorial personnel was developing rather slowly. Secondly, Kazan University was not compensating for a deficiency in professorial staff thanks to influx of professors from other Russian universities. At that time the main part of professors was represented by the Kazan University graduates, with the exception of the medical faculty, where there was a grate part of the graduates of the Medico-Surgical Academy (since 1881 the Military Medical Academy). As a result, the practice of hold of honored professors at work was formed in the Kazan University. During the period under review, their number in the professorial corporation gradually increased. It promoted increase of the middle age of professors of the Kazan University from 42 years in 1863 to 58 years by 1917th.

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