The Student Movement and the Current Political Situation A student strike was proclaimed at St. Petersburg University. It was joined by a number of other higher educational institutions. The movement has already spread to Moscow and Kharkov. Judging by all the data that

In February-March 1899, student unrest swept the entire Russian Empire. The universities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kyiv, Tomsk, Kazan, Kharkov, Warsaw and Odessa protested. In the capital, other educational institutions also joined the strike, including the Military Medical Academy, the Higher Women's Courses, and even the Theological Academy. understands the causes and consequences of those events.

“They won’t hang us because of these bastards of students!”

It all started on February 8, 1899 (hereinafter all dates are in the old style), when St. Petersburg University solemnly celebrated its 80th anniversary. On the eve of the anniversary, the university posted an appeal from the rector, ordering students to "obey the laws, thus protecting the honor and dignity of the university", and warning - "The perpetrators may be subjected to: arrest, deprivation of benefits, dismissal and expulsion from the university and expulsion from the capital."

The haughty and arrogant tone of the rector outraged many, and two days before the anniversary, the crowd tore down and destroyed the ill-fated announcement. The meeting in honor of the 80th anniversary of the university ended in a scandal - the audience booed the rector Sergeevich, forcing him to interrupt his speech and leave the podium. After the end of the solemn part, students in small groups began to leave the building to have fun celebrating the holiday in the city.

However, an unpleasant surprise awaited them on the street - the exit towards the Palace Bridge and pedestrian crossings across the ice of the Neva were blocked by the police. Apparently, the authorities were trying to prevent a repetition of the incidents of past years, when students with songs and shouts marched past the royal residence towards Nevsky Prospekt. But the police cordon was organized extremely illiterately and stupidly: no one was able to explain to the puzzled students in which direction they should disperse.

Confusion arose, an impressive crowd of disorganized youth gradually accumulated in front of the university building, until they finally moved along the embankment towards Rumyantsevsky Square and the Nikolaevsky Bridge. Seeing this, the police authorities ordered, just in case, to accompany the students with two horsemen, the sergeant major Skolmeister and the policeman Mishin. This outraged the already embittered young people, who decided that the police were also going to block the Nikolaevsky bridge. In addition, the students were offended by the fact that "they are being escorted like prisoners."

Image: Valentin Serov / Dispersal of demonstrations by Cossacks in 1905

Further events, according to an eyewitness, were described by the famous publicist of that time, Vladimir Chertkov:

“There were exclamations: why? what do you need? back! Down with! Snowballs flew, several people grabbed the brooms that were at the junction of the horse-drawn carriage guards, and waved them. The horses of the two riders were frightened by the screams, turned around and, with loud laughter from those around them, rushed back to where the squadron was stationed. Several minutes passed. The crowd was already moving on; many were already crossing the footbridge to the other side ... - when suddenly the rear saw that a squadron of mounted policemen set off and began to approach at a trot. Everyone stopped again. There were shouts, exclamations ... and, when the squadron approached, snowballs flew at it again, and one of them, as it turned out later, had the leader's face bloodied.

"March-march!" - unexpectedly commanded the officer (apparently, this was the sergeant major Skolmeister - approx. "Tapes.ru"): “They won’t hang us because of this bastard of students!” The squadron launched into the quarry and crashed into the crowd, knocking over and trampling students and private individuals who filled the street. Whips flashed in the air ... One old man, a respectable gentleman, was crushed a horse, and, already lying on the ground, was hit with a whip; ... one young woman, clinging to the bars of the square, received a blow with a whip from a guardsman who galloped near; ... in the park a student was lying on the snow, whose coat was nothing but rags, before that it was slashed and torn."

“The case has grown from a school prank to the degree of a social phenomenon”

Outraged by the violence committed, the students went on strike, and the rector Sergeevich did not find anything better than to call the police to the university, thereby setting a significant part of the teachers against themselves. Several dozen of the most active protesters were arrested, others were expelled and expelled from the capital. The brutal reprisal against the student youth caused anger and indignation in society.

As the same Chertkov wrote, “the uplift of spirit, which began at school, spread first to relatives, friends and acquaintances of offended young men; then, in expanding circles, it spread further and further; until at last the whole society was agitated under the influx of a long-unknown feeling of indignation. Even in the most inveterate bureaucratic and aristocratic circles, a murmur of indignation was heard.

Finance Minister and future Prime Minister Sergei Witte persuaded the tsar to appoint an investigation into the events of February 8, which was headed by former Minister of War Pyotr Vannovsky. “Speaking of this very unfortunate case,” Witte noted. “I cannot fail to note that ... that real riots ... are apparently devoid of any political overtones ... As a result of everything that happened, the case has grown from a school prank to the degree of a public phenomenon.”

The Vannovsky commission, despite some public prejudice, worked unexpectedly conscientiously and objectively, and in its report criticized the activities of the police. She found that the police authorities were initially set up for a hard dispersal of students. For example, before the start of the action, the lower ranks of the mounted police were given whips, which were usually used only during night patrols. However, the authorities did not dare to publish this report.

Events in Moscow

After the closure of St. Petersburg University, on February 15, 1899, students went on strike in solidarity with its students. As in the capital, the authorities responded with mass arrests, expulsions and deportations. A representative of St. Petersburg University who arrived in Moscow met with. The famous writer, despite his work on the novel "Resurrection", was keenly interested in student protests.

According to Saltykov's memoirs, Tolstoy was sympathetic to the youth rebellion, "he was especially interested in the form in which the movement took shape, and the student strike seemed to him one of the forms of non-resistance to evil by violence." On February 22, the writer's wife Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya bitterly complained in a letter to critic Stasov: “We are all in great agitation here, like the whole of Russia, about the closure of all educational institutions. Annoyed the youth without any fault on their part; what a pity and how careless.

At the end of March, large-scale repressions against students in Moscow seemed to have done their job - the strike died out. However, on April 6, a tragedy occurred in the solitary confinement cell of the Butyrka prison: 22-year-old final-year university student Herman Lieven doused himself with kerosene and set himself on fire. The reasons for this act remained unclear: his friends claimed that he could not stand the bullying of the prison guards, and the authorities explained the suicide of the prisoner as an exacerbation of mental illness. After the memorial service, the students moved from the church up the boulevards with political slogans, but near the monument to Pushkin they were dispersed by the police.

Lieven's funeral in Nizhny Novgorod, where he was from, also escalated into a student demonstration of many thousands. , who was absent that day in the city, later wrote to Chekhov: “Here the public is outraged by the death of student Lieven, who burned himself in prison. I knew him, I know his mother, an old woman. This Lieven was buried here with pomp and defiance, a huge crowd followed the coffin and sang all the way.

"Terror not only in prisons, but also in the barracks"

Student unrest in 1899 was severely suppressed by the authorities. The apotheosis of government arbitrariness was the approval by Nicholas II on July 29, 1899 of the "Temporary Rules on the Serving of Military Service by Pupils of Higher Educational Institutions, Removed from These Institutions for Mass Disturbances". Violating almost all the norms of the current legislation, this document ordered that any rebellious students be sent to the soldiers, "even if they had a privilege due to marital status, or education, or did not reach military age."

It is not known for certain how many destinies were then crippled by this lawless act. According to Chertkov's apt expression, "the government, instead of making amends for its crimes against the students ... creates a new terror - the terror not only of prisons, but also of the barracks." Lenin later wrote that "The Provisional Rules of 1899 tear off the pharisaic mask and expose the Asiatic essence of even those of our institutions that most closely resemble European ones."

But, having suppressed the unrest of the student youth, the government of Nicholas II won a Pyrrhic victory. Demands to protect universities from police brutality gradually gave way to political slogans. The popularity of radical ideas has sharply increased among the youth. The American historian considers those events the prologue of the first Russian revolution and the bloody revolutionary terror that swept Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Among the students expelled in 1899 were the future terrorists Ivan Kalyaev, who in 1905 killed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in the Moscow Kremlin, and the Socialist-Revolutionary militant Boris Savinkov.

Vladimir Chertkov, who has already been mentioned more than once, prophetically remarked in those days: “Along with the growth of reaction, dissatisfaction with the regime also grew, the seeds from which the current movement grew, and we saw what dimensions it assumed. This is not a momentary outburst of an offended sense of dignity, this is a conscious protest, deep in its idea, great in its size and significance ... All these young men are preparing to enter into life, and, already standing at its door, they peer and listen to what awaits them beyond the threshold of higher education ... Now they all want the truth, everyone wants to believe that in the future they will begin to implement ideal principles, that they will always be on the side of justice and goodness ... Such is already a common property of youth, and a country in which youth would lose this feeling must surely decay and perish.”

Engaged in persecution of student organizations.

In May 1832, the Hambach Festival was celebrated near Neustadt an der Weinstrasse with 30,000 participants, many of whom were students. Along with the attack on the Frankfurt prison in 1833 to free the students imprisoned in it, Georg Buchner's revolutionary pamphlet "Hessian Landbot" (German. Der Hessische Landbote) this was the event that led to the revolutions in the German states in the city of

Canada

Students in Tiananmen Square, 1919

Student movements played a central role in the so-called. "color revolutions" that have taken place in recent years in post-communist countries: the Serbian "Otpor", formed in 1998 in response to repressive education and media laws issued that year. In September 2000, during the presidential election campaign, this organization carried out its campaign "Ready je" (Serb. " ran out”), which aggravated the dissatisfaction of the Serbian population with the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, which led to his defeat in the elections.

Student groups also played a key role in Suharto's ouster in 1998, staging large demonstrations that fueled popular discontent with their president. The students of Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Medan and others were the first to speak publicly against the militaristic government at that time. The student movement was one of the main participants in the political scene of that time. For example, the new President Habibie, who succeeded Suharto, made a series of unsuccessful attempts to pacify students persecuted under Suharto by meeting with their leaders and the families of students killed by security forces during demonstrations.

Iran

Student followers of Imam Khomeini actively propose solutions to various political national and international events, criticizing them or giving them support.

In the May 2005 Iranian presidential election, the largest Iranian student organization, the Unity Consolidation Service, called for an election boycott. After the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the country, protests against the government continued. In May 2006, up to 40 police officers were injured when they clashed with students at a demonstration in Tehran. In 2006, Ahmadinejad forced students to organize campaigns to purge liberal and secular faculty from universities.

USA

In the 1960s The student movement has been significantly politicized. A particularly significant phenomenon of that period was the emergence in Ann Arbor (Michigan) of the organization "Students for a Democratic Society" (Eng. Students for a Democratic Society - SDS), which dealt with the problem of universities as a social agent that suppresses society, and at the same time potentially develops it. The SDS also gave rise to an underground group called the Weathermen. Another successful group was Youth Liberation in Ann Arbor, an organization calling on students to demand the abolition of public education programs. Another notable organization was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which fights against racism and for the integration of public schools in the United States. All these organizations ceased their activities in the mid-1970s.

In the early 1980s a number of organizations, notably the University Success Opportunity League. Campus Outreach Opportunity League - C.O.O.L.), introduced neo-liberal models to the student movement throughout the country. These organizations considered it important for students to identify possible public service areas. community service) in the field of higher education and the development of competition among students.

The surge of the student movement in the United States was observed again in the 1990s, when students became the conductors of Bill Clinton's neoliberal public service policies. The Public Education Reform Movement revived the populist student movement against standardized testing and instruction, and other more complex issues, including the military-industrial complex, industry and the penal system, and the influence of the army and corporations on the quality of education. Attention was also paid to ensuring that the adopted changes were stable, education funding was improved and the policy or leadership of the relevant structures was changed, which would allow students to be involved in decision-making processes in schools and universities. Most notable at present are campaigning for funding public schools, against higher college fees and the use of sweatshop labor in school supplies factories (e.g. the United Students Against Sweatshops campaign), to involve students in the planning, implementation education and educational policy-making (eg Roosevelt Institute), as well as informing the public about the humanitarian consequences of the Darfur conflict. Also noticeable is the activation of students around the problem of global warming. In addition, the anti-war movement re-emerged, leading to the creation of the "University Anti-War Network" (Eng. Campus Antiwar Network) and the revival of SDS in 2006.

Great Britain

The student movement has existed in Great Britain since the 1880s, when student representative councils emerged to represent student interests. Unions were later formed from these councils, many of which became part of the National Union of Students (Eng. National Union of Students- NUS), formed in 1921. However, NUS was originally conceived as an organization that stood aside from political and religious issues, which reduced its importance as a center of the student movement. In the 1930s students became more involved in politics after various socialist societies began to appear in universities, from social democratic to Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist. Communist Brian Simon became the head of the NUS.

But until the 1960s. the student movement in British universities was of little importance. The Vietnam War, racism, as well as various local abuses of power - raising tuition fees and lowering student representation rates - caused the revitalization of student organizations. In 1962, together with the CND, the first student protest against the Vietnam War took place. However, the really active activity of students began in the mid-1960s. In 1965, 250 Edinburgh students picketed in front of the US Consulate and held a protest against the Vietnam War in Grovesnor Square. The first teach-in was held in Oxford, where students discussed alternative non-violent ways of protest, as well as a protest at the London School of Economics against the government of Ian Smith in Rhodesia.

In 1966, the Radical Student Alliance and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign emerged and became the centers of the protest movement. The first student sit-in was organized at the London School of Economics in 1967 on the occasion of the expulsion of two students. The success of this action, as well as the 100,000th student demonstration that same year, was the beginning of a massive student movement. It operated until the mid-1970s, during which time it organized an 80,000 demonstration in Grovesnor Square, anti-racist protests and takeovers in Newcastle, the destruction of demonstrator movement control systems, the forced closure of the London School of Economics and the election of Jack Straw (eng. Jack Straw) head of NUS in South Africa. But there are two important things to note about the student movement and the UK. Firstly, the majority of British students continued to believe in the democratic system, and the authorities did not treat them too harshly, since the student actions were quite peaceful and well organized. Secondly, many of the protests made demands of a more than local nature, such as a norm of student representation in college governance, better social support, lower tuition fees, or even canteen prices. This is the difference between the student movement in the UK and other countries.

Greece

Ukraine

The student movement of independent Ukraine originates from the "Revolution on Granite" in 1990, which was the first major campaign in which students, as well as students of technical schools and vocational schools, participated. Having set up a tent city on October Revolution Square (now Independence Square) and declared a hunger strike, the protesters put forward a number of political demands, for example, the nationalization of the property of the Communist Party of Ukraine and the Komsomol, re-elections of the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR on the basis of a multi-party system, etc. The government was forced to meet the demands of the protesters.

On April 12, 1995 in Moscow, at an official rally in front of the "White House", "Student Protection" put forward demands for the abolition of Viktor Chernomyrdin's decision to deprive successful students of the right to a scholarship; refusal to adopt a law on conscription of students and graduates to serve in the army as privates for 2 years; expansion of student self-government in universities; participation of students in control over the financial activities of universities; ending the practice of reducing free study places and leasing hostels to commercial structures. During the rally, the authorities detained the leaders of the "Student Protection", which caused a new "march to the Kremlin" of 3,000 students present. At the intersection with the Garden Ring, clashes with riot police began, about 1,500 students broke through to the Old Arbat and went along it to Arbatskaya Square, where they threw improvised means at the building of the Ministry of Defense and painted the asphalt in front of it with anti-war slogans. Then, the students who again came out to Novy Arbat and reached Manezhnaya Square were dispersed by riot police, police and soldiers of the internal troops. More than 400 people were detained, 30 of them were tried, more than 200 students received injuries of varying severity. Chernomyrdin reacted to the riots with the phrase: "Revolutions do not start with miners' strikes, but with student riots." The decision to deprive high achievers of scholarships and the draft law on conscription of students into the army were repealed.

On April 12, 1995, spontaneous student riots also took place in Irkutsk. The rally of the official Association of Trade Union Organizations of Students (APOS, a division of the FNPR) turned into an unsanctioned protest march of 2,000 students to the building of the regional administration. The Irkutsk governor Yu. Nozhikov came out to the demonstrators, who was complained about the actions of the university administrations. The students created an initiative group for negotiations with the governor and dispersed, but the negotiations between the administration and the initiative group were unsuccessful.

On March 27, 1997, at a trade union rally in Murmansk, members of the local branch of the Student Defense and the left-wing organization Red Guard Spartak blocked traffic in the city center for several hours, tried to set up a barricade and put forward a demand - to pay the delayed scholarships. After the authorities promised to fulfill their obligations, the riots ended.

In the autumn of 1997 - in the spring of 1998, student demonstrations began in the country, provoked by an attempt to carry out an education reform (the so-called Asmolov-Tikhonov reform). The reform assumed the commercialization of education, including the use of reading rooms and gyms, computer classes, libraries; transfer of universities to self-financing; a sharp reduction in their number and staff of teachers; the abolition of scholarships and all social payments to students.

The first mass protests, caused by the introduction of fees for the use of computer classes, reading rooms and gyms, were held in early November 1997 by students from the Novosibirsk Technical University. The performances lasted several days and spread even to the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok. On October 22, 10,000 unsanctioned student rallies took place in Voronezh. Its participants demanded the abolition of the reform. In the fall of 1997, student demonstrations took place in Arkhangelsk, Cheboksary and Omsk, and already in April 1998, riots began in Yekaterinburg.

Our days

Modern student movements differ in the composition of participants, size, and the success of their activities; they involve students from all forms of study, all races and socio-economic backgrounds and political views. The most important areas of their activity are the fight for increasing the role of youth in politics and government, student rights, funding for educational institutions, drug policy reform, anti-racism in education, raising college fees, supporting campus workers in the fight for rights, etc.

Examples of contemporary student movements:

• Autumn 2004: student movement in the French community of Belgium against the "overcrowding" of higher schools, and then for the reform of teaching.

• Quebec student movement in Canada 2005-06 and the 2005 Quebec student strike against the replacement of scholarships with education loans.

• Autumn 2005: student movement in Italy against university privatization.

• Greece is against the privatization of universities and a labor contract for the disabled, such as the "first hire contract" in France.

• June 2006: Student movement in Peru against the dismissal of a professor at the Franco-Peruvian Lyceum.

Criticism

An extensive critique of the student movement concerns errors of categorization based on a simplistic view of the role of students as agents of the transformation of the whole society, and on the isolation of individuals as students who do not recognize other aspects of self-identification and one-sidedly demonize the objects of their protest, which the student movement throws down its challenge.

In addition, university students usually belong to a privileged sector of society. Student activists are usually portrayed as spoiled rich kids who simply rebel against authority over them. It is also often said that this movement reflects

Students of the Institute of History of St. Petersburg State University are protesting due to the reduction of the teaching staff. They are trying to establish a dialogue with the St Petersburg University administration and demand that Rector Nikolai Kropachev cancel the order on elective disciplines issued by the university leadership in April 2019. According to it, the course opens only if at least ten students have signed up for it. The university management calls what is happening at the faculty optimization and does not see a threat to scientific and educational activities.

Order No. 3773 and layoffs

In total, the Institute of History has about 80 disciplines, half of which are attended by less than 10 people - among them are antiquity, medieval studies, source studies, and ethnography. The order coincided with a competition for positions among teachers at the Institute of History of St Petersburg University, the requirements for which have also become tougher. As a result, a wave of staff cuts and layoffs followed. According to the chairmanStudent Council of the Lia Farahova Institute of History, the notorious order and the reduction of teachers' rates cannot be considered separately. This is a deliberate destruction of small areas in learning.

“We are told that at least ten students should study in the direction. But we don’t know - they took the figure from the ceiling, or is it really some kind of calculation? Nobody gives us data. The situation with cuts speaks for itself. At the Department of Ethnography, there are four teachers for a whole profile, for a master's degree, for four field practices - this is a disaster. There is no one in the department of archeology to read the Paleolithic - a huge piece of history. The level of education suffers from this,” says Liya Farahova.

According to the St Petersburg University Student Council, 15 teachers of the Faculty of History have left or are in the process of being fired. There are three reasons for leaving - “of one's own free will”, non-admission to competitive selection or failure to pass the competition. But the requirements for the competition were sharply complicated only in April. Liya Farahova explained that rates are lowered for the entire institute, not only teachers of the institute of history, but also third-party applicants can apply for them.

“It was not the candidates and professors who suffered the most, but the so-called young rates. Never before has there been a requirement for an applicant for a senior lecturer's position to have a Ph.D. These people are respected by their colleagues and students, they are excellent teachers, but they are forced to apply for assistants - and this is four people for one position, ”said the chairman of the student council.

According to her, one teacher was not allowed, because he had confirmation of the degree of candidate of sciences only at the academic council, and not at the time of the start of the competition. Another teacher, a prominent specialist in the Caucasus, left on his own, as he was a part-time worker. The resigned teachers do not get in touch with the press - they do not lose hope that the order will be canceled and they will be able to return to their disciplines and students at St Petersburg University from September.

A strike is coming

The head of the Institute of History, Abdul Daudov, claims that many teachers left of their own accord, while the rest had low qualifications. “University is not tutoring,” he emphasizes. A professor at the Institute of History, who wished to remain anonymous, said that "leaving of one's own free will" is most often forced and occurs due to excessive requirements for candidates.

“There are some teachers who are simply tired of all this and leave, but this is cunning. In fact, this is due to increased requirements, they understand that they will not pass the competition, and simply do not submit documents, they leave. It is beneficial for the administration to say that this is the decision of the teacher.

According to the source “North-West. MBH media, andThe administration of St Petersburg University has already proposed to assign the courses of the dismissed teachers to the remaining teachers. Teachers in response plan to start an Italian strike.

“Any fired teacher - minus 8-10 courses. The authorities tell the students that there are no layoffs, that we will take other teachers to this place, we will write down the load on those who passed the competition. Now the collegiate position of the teaching staff is being formed - the heads of the departments refuse to paint the load on the rest. There is an option that the administration of the university itself will sign. But the teachers decided that they would not come to the courses of those who were fired anyway. This is an Italian strike, and it has been planned since the first of September.”

The building of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg State University

Collection of signatures

Order No. 3773 caused a flurry of open indignation among students, primarily because it was adopted without taking into account the opinion of the student council of St Petersburg University. In response to the layoffs of the faculty of the Institute of History, students placed a petition against the ill-fated order and collected more than 4750 signatures for its cancellation. But the signatures were ignored by the administration. Students of the university came with them to a meeting with the first vice-rector for educational and methodological work, Marina Lavrikova.

“What they brought, what they didn’t bring, no one even looked at them. They were sent to the rector, but this also had no effect. We convened the student council of the Institute of History, the meeting was attended by about 300 people - students, some teachers and students from other faculties. There we adopted a resolution, which we sent to the Rector of St Petersburg University Kropachev. In it, we demand to cancel the order and stop the reduction of teachers. The administration of the reduction denies, but they are! When you have 18 teachers conditionally for 7 positions, isn’t this a reduction in rates?” Liya Farahova believes.

Historians have rich experience in the struggle - in 2013, students and teachers opposed the merger with the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University and won. G Lava of the Student Council of the Institute of Historyshe assured that if the administration did not respond to the resolution, the protest would spill over into the streets - students would go to rallies and pickets. And while aboutthe drive of protest moods spread to othersfaculties of St. Petersburg State University.

A student of the Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Museum Affairs, Viktor Ershov, said that there are a lot of areas at their faculty, where only four or five people study.

“Order No. 3773 is catastrophic for us as well. We have a lot of directions in philosophy, where up to five people study. These are Sinologists, Germanists, culturologists. It is clear that for them a plan of 10 people is an absolutely unrealistic figure. Now there are problems with the departments of ethnology, the history of culture, our museum work. The university simply does not listen to students and this is the main problem. The order, which is not even discussed with us, was sent to the previous student council president, who has been out of office for a long time. What is it - ignorance or mockery? ”The student asks.

Optimization

According to the student council, not a single representative of the administration comes into contact with the student community, an important branch of government at the university. The director of the Institute of History was put to "execution", he is forced to respond to all the claims of students with formal excuses. The preamble of the order refers to the financial and economic activities of St Petersburg University. In other words, there is an optimization.

One of the arguments of the administration of St Petersburg University is that the reform of the education system did not start yesterday, this is a nationwide trend. But the teachers of the leading St. Petersburg university hoped that the status would allow them to retain the staff of teachers. “Everything depends on the attitude of the university administration to the reform. Here at Moscow State University it is possible to keep the faculties, the evening and correspondence departments, and to prevent mass layoffs. And we have a different attitude to everything, only financial interest, ”shared an anonymous source.

St Petersburg University students protesting over the cuts in teaching staff. Photo: Georgy Manzhikov

protests

The current teacher of the Institute of History of St Petersburg University and our anonymous source are sure that only mass rallies and an Italian strike will save the situation. However, init all depends on the consolidation of students and teachers.

“We are watching the students and there is a desire to protest. The students are bolder, they have no contracts, but the main thing is that there are more of them and they are more radical. The administration and authorities of the city do not need protests on the streets, rallies, especially in the fall - after all, the elections are on the nose. And they are afraid of any kind of protest activity,” the source said.

The systematic reduction of staff at various faculties of St. Petersburg State University has been going on for several years, but only the history department has traditionally remained a hotbed of protest. The icing on the cake was the statement of the Rector of St Petersburg University Nikolai Kropachev about his intention to create a new faculty - mathematics and computer science. And this is despite the negative conclusion of the commission and the Academic Council of St. Petersburg State University. The emergence of the new faculty is being lobbied for by 48-year-old mathematician Stanislav Smirnov, a Fields Prize winner. St. Petersburg State University already has two mathematical faculties - Mathematics and Mechanics and the Faculty of Applied Mathematics - Control Processes. Their deans believe that the university does not need a third faculty. But according to information obtained by Gorod-812, mathematician Smirnov is backed by presidential aide Andrei Fursenko. This even more offends distinguished teachers who are forced to leave the university in search of a new job. It seems that the administration of St Petersburg University values ​​not qualified personnel and the level of education, but political connections and financial benefits.

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