WOMEN’S DIPLOMACY. HOW SOFT SKILLS HELPED L.A. SHANYAVSKAYA TO OPEN THE PEOPLE’S UNIVERSITY

Abstract

The article reveals the role of Lidia Alekseevna Shanyavskaya as the inspirer and organizer of the Moscow People’s University (1908). The author, relying on archival materials, recreates the higher educational institution process of institutionalization, which can be divided into 3 stages. The first stage (September–November 1905) relates to the activities of Alfons Leonovich Shanyavsky, who determined the democratic grounds for its opening (no restrictions on gender, nationality and religion), bequeathed funds for its maintenance and limited its opening deadline – November 3, 1908. At that stage, Lidia Alekseevna was officially tasked to represent her husband in organizing the work for opening the People’s University. The second stage (December 1905 – December 1907) is associated with the work of a specially created Commission consisting of the best representatives of the intelligentsia: M.M. Kovalevsky, S.A. Muromtsev, A.N. Reformatsky, V.K. Rot, M.V. Sabashnikov, N.V. Speransky, K.A. Timiryazev, A.N. Sheremetievskaya, V.E. Yakushkin. The Commission had to overcome the resistance of the Ministry of Public Education, which tried to take control over the appointment of the rector and teachers, as well as the discipline content, and the Interior Ministry, which was afraid of lifting all restrictions and turning the university into a forge of unreliable citizens. At that stage, Lydia Alekseevna’s role was to restrain attempts to open a university covertly bypassing the authoryties obstruction in violation of Shanyavsky’s will for an educational institution where systematic lectures would be given according to the sanctioned curricula. The third stage (January–November 1908) belongs exclusively to L.A. Shanyavskaya. Thanks to the skill of women’s diplomacy, she managed to build a dialogue with the Minister of Education A.N. Schwartz and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers P.A. Stolypin and open the People’s University