Commemorations of Petrograd / Leningrad university: discourse formation and research perspectives

This article consists of a historiographical review of the literature devoted to commemorative practices of Soviet academic community and an outline of jubilee scheme of its history based on the case study of Petrograd/Leningrad University. The aim of the research is to identify trends related to the study of commemorations in historiography, as well as to reconstruct ideological scenario of university's jubilees. The implementation of this objective required to use a wide range of historiographical sources, which can be divided into several groups. First of all, these papers are those devoted to texts on the history of higher education, published on occasion of anniversaries. For instance, articles by E.A. Vishlenkova, a book of articles edited by P. Dhondt, and a series of papers devoted to the 220th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences. The study of commemorative narratives in the history of Russian higher education began with the reconstruction of pre-revolutionary university traditions in researches of Y.D. Margolis, A.E. Ivanov, S. Morrissey, I.L. Tikhonov, S.I. Posokhov, E.A. Rostovtsev, and others. Outstanding authentic articles on the history of higher education to illustrate the role of higher education in construction of a new society (article by S.Z. Mandel, V.V. Mavrodin) are valuable for the study of the commemorations of the Soviet university. They are accompanied by contemporary research on their role and place of higher education in system of Soviet ideology (article by T.V. Razina). Finally, subjects of interest are considered in literature devoted to social history of students (monographs by A.R. Markov and P. Konecny). Analysis of historiography shows that the most popular for researchers are jubilee commemorations of Petrograd/Leningrad University. This trend actualizes jubilee narratives published in university newspaper “Leningrad University” (before 1931, “Student's Truth”), which were analyzed in the second part of the article. We have shown that until the 1930s, anniversary was used to demonstrate the alliance between university and state. The 120th anniversary of the university in 1939 was celebrated by proclaiming that the country had raised its own socialist intelligentsia. Ideological myth about alliance between red intelligentsia and state was reflected in activities of centers for study of history of LSU - University History Museum and Library of M. Gorky. However, during the post-war years anniversary celebrations were not endowed with new actual meanings, as a result, celebrations, despite their pomp, were becoming increasingly formal in content. The conclusion is that historiography focuses on jubilee commemorations. In this context, study of personal commemorations and preparation of summative studies about practices of commemoration appear promising. At the foregoing, commemorations were an important tool of Soviet scholarly management, resulting in the close interconnectedness of historiography and commemorative practices of the Soviet era. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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