Students giving classes: students of Imperial Moscow University in search for means of existence

The history of students traditionally is the history of the "younger generation" of revolutionaries. With this approach, this complex phenomenon is reduced to a very schematic image. The history of everyday life, its methodological and conceptual approaches to the study of the past allow us to take a fresh look at the life of students. The microhistory method makes it possible to attempt to reconstruct one of the areas of student's everyday life and to identify strategies of students for obtaining means of existence. Correspondence of students with police officers and university authorities, student announcements found in newspapers, reports of the “Society for Assistance to the Imperial Moscow university students in need”, memories of the students themselves outlined the range of sources on the basis of which it has become possible to carry out this reconstruction. Students of the Imperial Moscow university, being alone in Moscow, could resort to the following three strategies for self-sufficiency: firstly, they could engage in sub-work (legally, if they received a special certificate from the police); secondly, they could get support from philanthropists (state or private) and thirdly, they could be provided with money by their own parents or other relatives. The history of everyday life allows the researcher to move away from conceptual schemes and turn towadrs the object of study. Everyday life of the students of the Imperial Moscow university was diverse because of students’different social and geographical background, dependance on their academic performance, loyalty to the authorities and simple luck. The revealed strategies for providing one's own material needs can not describe the full students’ experience, but can serve as one of the framework by which a historian can reconstruct the everyday life of Moscow students. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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