«Witch-hunt» in the Tomsk academic microsociety: to the problem of the mental existence of the russian professors under conditions of deformation of class identity during the 1920s

In the article the process of "mutation" of the lifeworld of the "old" professors in the Tomsk academic microsociety during the 1920's -period of the implementation of the "red dystopia" is considered on the materials of archival documentati on, periodicals, sources of personal origin. It is emphasized that the change in the construction of everyday life included a sharp break with the corporate imperatives formed in the pre-revolutionary era. We mean a change in the system of relations between professor and student, which was associated with the proletarization of higher education; impoverishment; transformation of ideas about private space and connections with the world of things; marginalization of the previously elite Corporation of professors. The acute shortage of food, clothing and footwear, items necessary for research activities (paper, ink, books), the severance of scientific communication with the central citie s of the country and abroad have become an instrument of deformation of the collective psychology of professors. It is noted that a new feature of being in Tomsk University and Tomsk (since 1925 - Siberian) Institute of technology became looting and robbery, as well as, in the early 1920s, requisition and resettle private apartments. This determined the process of devaluation of such concepts as private space, security of property and life. The damage was done on the religious basis, which under the old regime occupied a prominent place in being of the Corporation. This was manifested in the special attention of the party structures to religious professors, in the adaptation of the former premises of the Home Church of Tomsk University under the provincial archive in 1921, and then in the requisition of Church property. It is important that in the conditions of falling living standards and total nationalization professors assumed the role of petitioners. The main addressee of petitions became local and central authorities and the party. Hoarding and material viability as elements of the everyday life of the "old professorship" became signs of "class" hostility. This was reflected in the party characteristi cs of Tomsk professors N.I. Gorizontov, A.A. Opokin, A.N. Zimin, etc. The culmination of "witch -hunts" were attempts to deprive the oldest professors of the city of personal pensions and demands "to get rid of them as scientists surrogates". It is concluded that the radicaliza-tion of the lifeworld has become a method of "mental repression" aimed at the fundamental basis of the community of the old professors: the religious component, patriarchal life style, the discourse of security and material independence, the role of moral and intellectual authority in society. This method enter the mental being of the community into a state of depression, which was no less effective than the "physical" repression.

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