Академическая система России в контексте международной традиции: генеалогия российских университетов

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The academic system of Russia is characterized by a certain specificity that determined its development for many years, up to the present time. It is a binary structure of scientific knowledge production, which includes the Academy of Sciences and universities, the relatively late formation of academic institutions, which began to open only in the 18th century, and state character of their governance. The article is devoted to the history of Russian universities and is devoted to the study of the construction of their historical identity in different epochs, which was expressed in emphasizing the connection, or its fundamental absence, with the previous educational tradition by correcting the date of foundation of the educational institution and replacing it with an earlier one. One of the first was Moscow Pedagogical Institute, which changed its founding date from 1930 to 1872. In the perestroika and post-perestroika period, the idea of continuity and the appeal to prerevolutionary history was actualized, which was expressed in the archaization of the university "chronology". Researchers began to identify St. Petersburg University with the Academic University, and to consider the date of its foundation not 1819, but 1724, which made St. Petersburg University, "the first Russian university", in spite till the end of the 20th century that status belonged to Moscow University established in 1755. The new principle of dating, caused a certain conflict between the capital's universities, each of which considers itself "the first", as can be seen on the official websites of St. Petersburg State University and Moscow State University. Soviet innovations in the field of pedagogical education were also revised during the perestroika years. For many years, the founding date of the Russian State Pedagogical University was considered to be 1918, when the 3rd Petrograd Pedagogical Institute was established on the initiative of A.V. Lunacharsky and M. Gorky. In the postperestroika period, the date of foundation was changed to 1797, the time when the Maria Feodorovna, the wife of the reigning monarch Paul I became the patron of St. Pe-tersburg Educational Home. The new dating not only to lengthen the history of the university and abandon the "Soviet" character of its origin, but also to include the activities of many pedagogical institutes of the 18th and 19th centuries in the history of Herzen State Pedagogical University. The conventional nature of the criteria that may be used to fix the date of a university's origin has repeatedly led to discord in the dating of the founding of the world's oldest universities – Bologna, Paris, Oxford, but this discussion usually did not go beyond scientific discussions. In Russia, the predominantly state character of higher education could influence the universities’ relations with the in the contexts of historical events, which could bring not only status dividends, but also certain material benefits.