THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN MODERNISATION PROCESSES AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF ATTEMPTATIONS OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE (60s-70s of the XIX Century)

Abstract

The article highlights the role of universities as centres of intercultural communication in the broader context of analysing the reformist experience of the Russian Empire in the 60s and 70s of the nineteenth century on the basis of the study of memoirs, periodicals of the nineteenth century, as well as documents of the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv, which were first introduced into scientific circulation. The conclusions emphasise that despite the implementation of peasant, judicial and military reforms, and the introduction of elected local government, the Russian empire did not undergo a radical modernisation of socio-political life, and the authoritarian principles of state governance remained unchanged. Attempts to implement liberal reforms remained half-hearted and incomplete, and the idea of establishing a constitutional monarchy proved unviable in the realities of an autocratic police state. At the same time, during the nineteenth century, in the Russian empire, the role of universities as factors of modernisation and a wide range of socio-cultural processes related to the development and implementation of scientific ideas, scientific and theoretical support for economic development, the formation of staff potential and the cultivation of social consciousness focused on political emancipation was established. The development of a university corporate culture based on the principles of autonomy was in sharp contrast to the foundations of the russian imperial autocracy. Despite the fact that imperial universities were founded to implement the autocratic (in particular, Russification) policy, they became the source and catalyst of modernisation processes, ensuring the rise of the educational and cultural level of society by training personnel for the most important spheres of social life – science, pedagogy, public administration, various sectors of the economy, legal activities, medicine, literature, journalism, etc. Universities were powerful instruments of westernisation processes, centres for the development of international scientific and educational cooperation, and conductors of scientific knowledge, technological innovations, and ultimately the legal principles and socio-cultural values of European civilisation. Representatives of the teaching corporation and university graduates were actively engaged in educational activities, popularising scientific knowledge among the general public, giving public speeches and open lectures, participating in the development of book publishing, periodicals and public scientific organisations, thus influencing public consciousness and developing the scientific and theoretical basis for modernisation reforms. The university environment provided fertile ground for the rise of opposition to the autocracy, national and cultural movements, and the cultivation of socio-political thought consonant with the European ideological trends of the time.