MIPLH and LIPLH: the Problem of the Emergence and Practice of Classicists Training

Abstract

The author, based on archival materials and published sources, studies the problem of the origin of humanitarian institutions in the USSR at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as their capabilities to train specialists in ancient history. The article explains the emergence of an established historiographical view of MIFLI and LIFLI as unique institutions for those years. The author is convinced that the Soviet government did not have a priority task to create elite humanitarian education; the creation of branch institutes allowed not to disperse financial means, but to provide purposefully priority educational programs in the conditions of industrialization. It turns out that initially, in 1931—1932, the Institutes developed only applied areas of training. As a result of the party struggle in 1932 there were changes in the practice of training specialists, there was an opportunity to increase the number of teachers and to form a specialization. This could only be achieved through a gradual transition, which did not materialize. If initially the system of specialization in classical studies was formed in MIPLH and LIPLH, after 1934 the professors viewed these institutes as a continuation of the reforms of the 1920s and directed their potential to the development of time-tested historical faculties of MSU and LSU.