Students of Moscow University in the Mid 19-th - Early 20-th Centuries: Legal Status, Everyday Life and Welfare

Student: Fadeeva Marina

Educational Programme: Bachelor

Year of Graduation: 2014

Fadeeva Marina.Students of Moscow University in the Mid 19-th - Early 20-th Centuries: Legal Status, Everyday Life and Welfare Russian 19th century students were widely considered by public opinion as poor and deserving care. How true were these stereotypes? Current literature pays insufficient attention to this topic. The work describes the students from their legal state and everyday life on the basis of a variety of primary sources. The analysis of different spheres of students life and an attempt to look at them from different perspectives provided me with a possibility to describe students welfare.A remarkable number of historians have devoted their works to the role of students in the revolutionary movement. However, little work has been done on students everyday life. History of the development of Russia's legislation in the nineteenth century has already found its researchers, but an attempt to reconstruct students' place in the legislation has not yet taken place in the historiography.In order to fill in the gap in the studies of some spheres of everyday life of the Moscow university students I have formulated my work's general goal as an attempt to reconstruct the students legal status and variety of everyday life spheres. I have specified this main goal in a number of research objectives. Among them there are evaluation of scholarships, granted for students from state and society, analysis of their legal status, based on legislation.Some spheres of everyday life were distinguished by the students' legal status as, for example, family status or students’ organisations. I have also assessed the average student on statistical materials, described two ideal types of student's monthly budget, housing problem, diet, reconstructed daily routines. My study is based on a variety of primary sources including statistical data, administrative documents, memoirs, legislation, regulatory instruments, periodicals, police manuals and records.I have made an attempt to reconstruct an average student’s image from historiographical point of view in addition to the descriptions of their contemporaries. With help of statistical data these characteristics were supplemented with figures. Also students were evaluated here in the correlation with the society especially intelligentsia and people of varias ranks. Students were analysed, on the one hand, as totality of ordinary Russian subjects, who were subordinated to the general legislation and, on the other hand, as a special group concerning which the authorities had pursued special policies. Financial conditions of students were described in details. I have analysed the different ways of replenishment of the budget and necessary students' expenditures. Such data provided me with a possibility to reconstruct the students’ variations of monthly budgets. The housing question and daily routine, students' state of heath and outward appearance with the student's sexual question and authorities’ attitudes to the student marriages were also studied.

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