“The line of Uvarov” vs “the line of Magnitsky”: ideological struggle in the Ministry of Public Education in 1817–1821 and the first resignation of S. S. Uvarov

Abstract

The article discusses the resignation of S. S. Uvarov from the post of trustee of the St. Petersburg educational district in 1821, a kind of fork in the history of the capital district, but also in the entire policy of education of the Alexander reign. Since the establishment of the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Public Education in 1817 and the appointment of a trustee of Emperor A. N. Golitsyn, the composition and mode of operation of the expert body of the MNP — the Main Board of Schools — has changed. In it, active exposing activities were launched by new members of M. L. Magnitsky and D. P. Runich, who became the mainstay of Golitsyn, in essence, his personal experts. S. S. Uvarov fought for several years with the “Golitsyn party” for the preservation of the principles of school and university reform, laid down in the legislation of 1802–1804. The confrontation within the MNP, which determined for a decade the fate of not only the metropolitan university, but also the general course in the management of education, unfolded between the “Magnitsky line” and the “Uvarov line” and began as early as 1817 on the issue of the “second category” of the Main Pedagogical Institute, in which Uvarov intended to concentrate the training of elementary school teachers using the Lancaster method. The confrontation turned into open forms in 1819 on the issue of closing the Kazan University. In the second half of 1819, Uvarov's opponents blocked a constructive discussion in the GPU and the adoption of a special charter for St. Petersburg University. In 1820, the confrontation between the two parties was aggravated by the history of the prohibition of the book of Professor A. P. Kunitsyn “Natural Law” and the exclusion of the subject itself from the program not only of St. Petersburg, but also of other universities. Then the Noble boarding school at St. Petersburg University became the object of denunciation, which led to personnel changes, a change in the mode of education and a tightening of disciplinary supervision. Based on archival and published sources, a chronicle of the dramatic events of the turn of the 1810s–1820s is presented, when, as a result of ideological sabotage, M. L. Magnitsky and D. P. Runich, there is a change in the vector in the policy of education in the direction of fighting the principles developed in 1802-1804: the autonomy of universities, the European orientation in scientific and personnel policy, the selectivity and softness of the class framework in the school system.