Professional communications of academic intelligentsia: Relations with students (1920s)

O.A. Khabibrakhmanova

Kazan State Medical University, Kazan, 420012 Russia

E-mail: olgaah@yandex.ru

Received May 5, 2017

Full text PDF

Abstract

The problems of the relations between academic intelligentsia and students in higher educational institutions of Kazan in the 1920s have been considered. Fundamental transformations occurred in the professional space of academic intelligentsia, including its communication practices. The communication practices have been investigated with the purpose of revealing the social changes in the professional space of academic intelligentsia. The system approach applied to studying the communication practices of academic intelligentsia has allowed to discover not only new social and communication practices of academic intelligentsia with students, but also to find certain transformations in the processes occurring within the professorial corporation.

Using the archival documents, difficulties in the relations between the professorial corporation and students have been shown: though the occurrence of workers' faculties and the flooding of high schools in Kazan by the proletarian youth, as well as by the example of relations developing between students and professors and teachers of high schools during the study process and examinations. The obtained results demonstrate that the transformation of relations between professors and students initiated new social and communication practices. Upholding the academic values, the scientists reinforced old curriculums, which illiterate proletarian students of that time could not master. The attempts to turn proletarian students from the walls of high schools made professors and teachers to invent a whole variety of practices, starting from “failing” examinations by students up to open opposition.

As a result, it is clear that that the transformation of relations with students promoted the occurrence of new social and communication practices and, as a consequence, caused changes in the identity of academic intelligentsia. The analysis allows to reconsider the commonly accepted attitude towards the role of academic intelligentsia during social cataclysms and to define the degree of participation of academic intelligentsia in the events of the 1920s.

Keywords: academic intelligentsia, Soviet authorities, professional space, Kazan University, communications, students, workers' faculty, proletarian youth, professorial corporation, transformations

References

1. Sazonova L.A. Everyday life of a university professor in Kazan (1863–1917). Diss. Cad. Hist. Sci. Kazan, 2009. 217 p. (In Russian)
2. Vishlenkova E.A., Malysheva S.Yu., Sal'nikova A.A. University culture in rituals, symbols, and myths (based on the materials of Kazan University). Problemy Rossiiskoi Istorii, 2006, no. 7, pp. 386–417. (In Russian)
3. Malysheva S.Yu., Sal'nikova A.A. Russian university corporation in the 20th century as a sociocultural phenomenon. Eidos: Al'manakh Teorii ta Istorii Ukraini NAN Ukraini, 2009, no. 4, pp. 236–261. (In Russian)
4. Vishlenkova E.A., Malysheva S.Yu, Sal'nikova A.A. Everyday Life Culture of the Country Town: Kazan and Kazan Residents in the 19th – 20th Centuries. Kazan, Kazan. Gos. Univ., 2008. 252 p. (In Russian)
5. Khabibrakhmanova O.A. New communication practices in professional space (by the example of academic intelligentsia of Tatarstan in the 1920s–1930s). Vestnik Omskogo Universiteta, 2013, no. 3, pp. 84–89. (In Russian)
6. Chanborisov Sh.Kh. Soviet University System Formation. Moscow, Vyssch. Shk., 1988. 194 p. (In Russian)

For citation: Khabibrakhmanova O.A. Professional communications of academic intelligentsia: Relations with students (1920s). Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2017, vol. 159, no. 4, pp. 942–949. (In Russian)

The content is available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.