Abstract
The article presents results of an ongoing study of centers of intellectual innovations in post-Soviet Russia. Using the European University at St. Petersburg as the main object of their analysis, the authors demonstrate how new models of academic careers, which became available in the 1980s and 1990s, were eventually institutionalized as new models of knowledge production and educational practices. Supported by American foundations, this private university had to invent a new institutional structure and to position itself within the field of higher education, still mostly dominated by the state.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Jadov (2008) Accessed April 12, 2009.
“Pod ugrozoy suščestvovanie unikal’nogo učebnogo i issledovatelskogo centra…” Polit.ru. February 21, 2008. Electronic document: <http://www.polit.ru/dossie/2008/02/21/eu.html> Accessed April 12, 2009.
Demina (2008) Accessed April 13, 2009.
At the moment, the European University awards bachelors and candidate of science degrees in political sciences and sociology, economics, anthropology, and art history.
At the request of the respondents, their names have been changed or concealed, with the exception of those of the rectors and founders of the university.
Take the example of Moscow State University (MSU), one of the oldest and most prestigious centers of learning in the country, where the most prestigious academic careers are to be had in the faculty of the Mechanics-Mathematics Department as well as in the natural sciences. The math department compares favorably with the best in the world and regularly organizes independent comparative research. Mechanics-Math and the natural sciences account for the university’s reputation abroad and their members enjoy the top administrative positions in the university, including the Rectorship. The most prestigious of the “backwards” humanities departments are philology, history, and economics. At the bottom of MSU are the social sciences, which collectively serve as the perpetual butt of criticism, ridicule, and irony. A similar state of affairs exists at other major state universities. These differences in intellectual prestige between departments, with some modifications, are maintained at major Russian universities and are strengthened by the structure of the division of labor between the departments: Mathematics and the natural sciences bring the university international acclaim and maintain its position in the international rankings of educational institutions (as measured, for instance, by the number of professional citations the faculty accrue). The social sciences, with their low standards for students and teachers alike, exist largely to bring in money that is then used to secure the financial solvency of graduate students pursuing more prestigious diplomas. The departments of philology, history, and economics reside somewhere in between these two poles, with the same division of labor between sub-departments (kafedry) operating within each department.
Interview with Boris Firsov, the founding Rector of EUSP. Conducted in August 2008.
Anatoly Aleksandrovič Sobčak (1937–2000)—Russian politician during perestroika and first mayor of St. Petersburg. For details see: Anatoly Sobčak. For a New Russia: the Mayor of St. Petersburg’s Own Story of the Struggle for Justice and Democracy. New York: Free Press, 1992.
Leningrad Tribune was organized in 1987 as a social-political club for the liberal-democratic intellectuals of the city.
Interview with Boris Firsov, first Rector of EUSP. Conducted on August 20, 2008.
Interview with Nikolaj Vakhtin, Rector of EUSP. Conducted on August 25, 2008.
Interview with Boris Firsov, first Rector of EUSP. Conducted on August 20, 2008.
Interview with a professor at EUSP. Conducted on August 24, 2008.
Interview with Boris Firsov, first Rector of EUSP. Conducted on August 20, 2008.
Precise figures are, unfortunately, unavailable; however, one respondent outlined the situation for us: It used to be the case that student stipends were grater than the salaries of professors at state universities, “but now loaders in warehouses make more than EUSP professors.”
(Interview with Nikolaj Vakhtin, Rector of EUSP. Conducted on August 25, 2008).
By Western standards, the workload of professors at state universities is immense. Lectures and seminars may take upwards of 20–25 hours per week, and many professors are forced to teach in several universities and colleges at once to maximize their income. This leaves absolutely no time for research.
Unlike in Soviet universities, scholars associated with the Academy of Sciences spent all their time doing research. Funded by the state, research institutions did not admit undergraduate students, but accepted a small number of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who were expected to collaborate closely with their academic advisors.
Alexandrov (2006) Electronic document Accessed April 13, 2009.
Interview with a professor in the Department of History. Conducted on September 10, 2008.
Interview with the dean of the Department of Art History. Conducted on September 18, 2008.
Bourdieu (1984).
“Talented scientists, professionally advanced scholars… were convoyed—it can’t be said in other way—by the institute’s directorate to the department (sektor) of the regional problems of socialist competition.” (Boris Firsov. Interview with Vladimir Kozlovskij, Žurnal sotsiologii i sotsial’noi antropologii, 1999. Vol. 4. P. 5–22).
Interview with a professor of DPSS. Conducted on August 25, 2008. All names have been changed.
Interview with a professor of DPSS. Conducted on August 10, 2008.
The Café Saigon was legendary in the 1970s and attracted many representatives of Leningrad’s (St. Petersburg’s) counter-culture. For details see: Elena Zdravomyslova. “Kafe Saygon kak obščestvennoe mesto” in Graždanskoe obščestvo na Evropeyskom Severe: ponjatie i kontekst. Spb.: CNSI, 1996. Electronic document: http://www.cisr.ru/files/publ/wp3/wp3_Zdravomyslova.pdf. Accessed April 13, 2009.
Interview with a professor of DPSS. Conducted on August 15, 2008.
For instance, for the future sociologists DPSS, interest in social movements and the fieldwork that resulted provided far more reliable data than did the questionnaire surveys that dominated traditional sociology. Suddenly there existed a “sociology of social movements” and the constructivist method with in-depth interviews.
For instance, despite the fact that one of DPSS respondent had a rocky relationship with traditional social science, she well understood and commanded early on the cultural competencies needed to be a scientist. Her father was one of the pioneers of academic sociology in the USSR, and she had studied philosophy at Leningrad University (now St. Petersburg State University). She also learned English early in her career (like her colleagues in the Department of Social Movements at the Institute for Socio-Economic Problems) in order to communicate with international Sovietologists who came to the country in the late 1980s and who first exposed her to Western sociology.
The Department was established at the Institute for Socio-Economic Problems (ISEP).
One respondent recalls: “At the end of the 1980s there were suddenly opportunities for contact with the outside. Political scientists came from all over wanting to examine the reality of the Soviet Union. They came to write their dissertations and hoped to do empirical research. On the one hand it was really interesting, and on the other it was competition. They were coming from Berkeley, these teachers. They wanted to get to know us, as we were the front line. We knew English and we studied social movements. They were dragging through the literature; we’d talk about everything with them…”
Interview with a professor in the Department of Sociology at the Russian State Humanitarian University. Conducted on July 18, 2008.
Interview with a professor in DPSS. Conducted on August 27, 2008.
Interview with a professor in the Department of History. Conducted on September 27, 2008.
Interview with a professor in DPSS. Conducted on August 19, 2008.
The teachers at DPSS would put on the syllabi of required readings names that would never even be heard spoken in the sociology departments of state universities (for instance, Foucault, Latour, MacIntyre, etc.). EUSP’s private status meant that DPSS faculty could bring Western practices to Russian soil and design courses according to their interests. In Russia until 2007, state university syllabi had to be approved by a central Ministry of Education. As a result, EUSP syllabi could be built around specific sets of authors (for example, there were courses on the “theory of praxis” and “comparative mafia”) or around themes currently of interest in the West. Whereas the departments of sociology at state universities had very vague and general courses like “Value Attitudes of Moscow’s Youth” and “Globalization and Russia,” EUSP started off with a very different standard. Typical graduate-level courses included “The Communal Apartment as a Social Institution” and "Soviet Underwear: Between Ideology and Everyday Life.” It is interesting that several key social scientists from the RAS openly admitted the superior quality of the work being done at EUSP while reprimanding the seemingly frivolous scope of the research agenda.
Interview with a professor of DPSS. Conducted on August 20, 2008.
Interview with a professor in the Department of Art History. Conducted on September 20, 2008.
For instance, for information of the latest financial scandal to rock St. Petersburg State University see:
Anna Puškarskaja. “K Medvedevu obratilis za popečitelskim sovetom”. Kommersant, March 25, 2008. Electronic document: <http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1143559&NodesID=7>. Accessed April 13, 2009.
Interview with a professor in DPSS. Conducted on August 28, 2008.
Interview with a professor in DPSS. Conducted on September 9, 2008.
Interview with a professor in the Department of History. Conducted on September 28, 2008.
Since the Soviet period, every employee has had to have such a book, which is issued and subsequently updated by his/her employer. It is an official document used for calculating retirement benefits.
Interview with a professor in DPSS. Conducted on September 10, 2008.
Interview with Nikolaj Vakhtin, Rector of EUSP. Conducted on August 25, 2008.
Interview with Professor of DPSS, the vice-rector for development. Conducted on September 24, 2008.
References
Alexandrov, D. (2006). “Učenye bez nauki”. Polit.ru. Electronical document: http://www.polit.ru/science/2006/03/06/aleksandrov.html.
Bikbov, A., & Gavrilenko, S. (2002). Rossijskaia sotsiologija: avtonomija pod voprosom. Logos, N. 5–6.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Homo academicus. Paris: Minuit.
Demina, N. (2008). “Požarnaja trevoga dlja izbrannykh…” Polit.ru. Electronic document: http://www.polit.ru/analytics/2008/02/29/požar.html.
Jadov, V. (2008). “Evropejskii universitet - odin iz nemnogikh v strane…” Polit.ru. Electronic document: http://www.polit.ru/dossie/2008/02/21/jadov.html.
Penzin, A. (2008). Zaterjannyj mir ili o dekolonizatsii rossijskikh obščestvennykh nauk. Ab Imperio, N. 3.
Sokolov, M. (2008). Rossijskaja sotsiologija posle 1991: institutsional’na nauka i intellektual’naja dinamika “bednoi nauki. Laboratorium, N. 1.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Trans. From the Russian by John Nelson.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhuravlev, O., Kondov, D. & Savel’eva, N. The European University at St. Petersburg: a case study in sociology of post-Soviet knowledge. Stud East Eur Thought 61, 291–308 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-009-9091-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-009-9091-1