As the story of the European University in St. Petersburg currently demonstrates, universities serve as potent symbols. More than mere providers of upper-level education, universities build micro communities dedicated to values of free thought and discussion. In Terra Universitatis, E. A. Vishlenkova, S. Iu. Malysheva, and A. A. Sal’nikova work together to prove the significance of the university by focusing on one particular model of it, Kazan State University. Their work of cultural anthropology, attempting to define the many facets of university life, suggests strongly that universities are bastions of independent thought and valuable contributors to their surrounding societies. From the 1800s to the present day, the authors show a remarkably stable institution, marked by extensive links to their community, tight bonds within, and eagerness for independent thought.
To analyze this institution, the authors take a multi-faceted approach, essentially splitting the six-chapter book into three different fields of methodology: architectural history, more traditional social/cultural analysis, and an anthropological discussion of campus symbols and rituals. The first chapter, on the building of the university, is a useful addition to our knowledge of architectural history. Whereas William Craft Brumfeld and others have studied chiefly Moscow and St. Petersburg, the authors of Terra Universitatis looked at a provincial university. In the discussion of the university architecture, the authors show how a handful of buildings erected before 1800 were turned, as a nod to Alexander I’s Western European tastes, into a grand example of neoclassicism by 1804. In the following years, utility took over prestige, however, as new buildings were designed to meet special needs, like the astronomy observatory, or the anatomy theater. The most important buildings were not just within the university campus: the authors make the point quite persuasively that the outlying area of the city of Kazan was inspired as an extension of the university. They include both non-academic buildings (Gostinyi Dvor, located on the same street as the main university campus) and academic buildings (the suburban observatory) to show this. While the thrust of their analysis is in the first century of the university’s existence, they do not omit the present, noting that the Faculty of Chemistry building was built using student labor in 1954, and suggesting that the entire university’s presence is a landmark for the city of Kazan – an architectural-memorial zone, in the authors’ words (Р. 81).
While the first chapter dwells on the physical structure of the university, chapters two through five deal with issues related to social and cultural history, each zooming in closer towards everyday life at the school. This is a novel contribution to Russian scholarship, which has yet to extensively study the cultural life of the university. (Rebecca Friedman’s study is the most recent example of this^[1]). Chapter two is a study of the people in the university, which is presented as a «world» of its own. This chapter, analyzing the sociability within the university, highlights the familial nature of life on campus: from the professors’ association, to the presence of professorial families on campus, to the students’ organizations, to even the servants on campus. The authors are careful to make note of new patterns of social organization: for example, they point out how the practice of official graduation exams and diplomas in gymnasiums influenced university acceptance policies and grading (P. 108). In addition, they take pains to note how these inner associations overlapped one another, as in the case of religious groups on campus (e.g. the German church, P. 92). The challenge of Soviet society was to erase these inner differences and resolve the newly created problems, in particular, the difference between the older imperial-era students and the post-1917 students who came from the Soviet educational system for workers (rabfaki). These students, considered the «devil incarnate» by some professors, challenged the organization and values behind the structure of the university (Р. 124), suspecting the university of representing «feudalism» (Р. 138). Only the experience of World War II helped to overcome these tensions, bringing the university body together again.
Chapters three, four, and five build on this sketch of the people on campus, filling in our knowledge of their life – their relationships with the state, their lifestyle in terms of economic status and recreation, their interaction with one another. Again, these chapters employ social and cultural analysis to stress the university’s existence as a community. In chapter three, the authors show how the university emerged with an ambition of becoming an imperial think-tank, but under Nicholas I had to reconsider its role (with professors being eager to retreat into their specialties, and students aspiring for a greater political independence). A similar crisis of collective identity happened in the 1930s, at the peak of Stalinism. The authors point out that this was the most dangerous time for the university, particularly because of the accusations of cosmopolitanism and sympathy with the West (Р. 212). The situation was further complicated by the faculty demonstrating a local brand of patriotism, where love of the university was a more significant motivating factor than loyalty to Stalin’s regime (Р. 213). As to the financial standing of the professors and their students, the authors concede from the start the perpetual plight of student poverty. By comparing the cost of local goods with the salary of professors after the acceleration of inflation in Kazan after the war of 1812, the authors demonstrate that income was lagging behind the cost of life. By World War I, even the most well-paid faculty members must have kept their jobs out of love for their profession, rather than because of the money they earned.
This is the major point of the book: both professors and students loved their work because the university was a truly functioning community. In the fifth chapter, dedicated to the lifestyle and mores at the university, Vishlenkova, Malysheva, and Sal’nikova describe how university members forged these lasting bonds. Family background played a role; they point out that children of staff raised on campus often intermarried or chose students as partners (Р. 325). Living quarters, dormitories and apartments alike, brought students together, as did social events like dance parties and holiday celebrations. Nearby public spaces, like the campus gardens, permitted outdoor socializing among the university population. This was a truly introverted culture, the authors argue, based on a belief, both before and after the Revolution, that the educated class formed a social elite (Р. 311). This belief was commemorated in public rituals and symbols, discussed in-depth in chapter six, from the diplomas conferred upon students to the memorable ornamentation on the chief building’s façade.
Terra Universitatis succeeds as a work of cultural anthropology, demonstrating that the university, despite internal tensions, existed as a single community, with its own ideals. (Indeed, as the authors point out, even their own student songs!) The work’s chief drawback is simply its breadth; the authors cannot go into every topic as deeply as one would like. Because the intent of the authors is to show the depth of the Kazan campus community over time, they rarely use examples from outside the Kazan University, and therefore restrict the breadth of conclusions one can make from the work. For example, how did the rest of Russia, and later the Soviet Union, regard the students of Kazan University? There is little evidence, how the university itself was viewed in comparison to, for example, St. Petersburg University, or other universities of the Empire/Soviet Union, or compared to the universities of Western Europe, on which it was modeled. Similarly, the authors describe the tension between the «new» and «old» students during the transition from the imperial to the Soviet eras. The hostility between the two groups of students, and the two visions of intellectual life they represented, begs for a larger comparison. Was such friction typical for other former imperial universities? Likewise, how typical was the Kazan State University experience of the Stalinist terror?
Moreover, because of the breadth of their work, the authors often only superficially touch upon potentially fascinating points, making thematic coverage uneven. For example, what were the attitudes towards female students and faculty? We know there was confessional diversity early on in the school’s history, but what about at the end of the nineteenth century? (As Benjamin Nathans demonstrated in his 2002 Beyond the Pale, Jews were prominent on campuses and court alike, but this topic is not discussed at any length here).^[2] And what of religious diversity in the modern era? Indeed, the authors are quiet about the relationships between the state and society in the recent decades.
These reservations notwithstanding, Terra Universitatis does support its major claim that the university was a true community that survived attacks from outside and debates inside. Although the work is limited in its comparison to the schools and communities outside of Kazan State University, E. A. Vishlenkova, S. Iu. Malysheva, and A. A. Sal’nikova do show through analysis of the people, buildings, and culture on campus that the university, as a society dedicated to intellectual discussion, will continue to endure criticism from within and without.