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Regular version of the site

Igor Fedyukin Spoke about Peter the Great and his ‘Projectors’ at Columbia University and the University of Virginia

The Director of the HSE Centre for Source Studies presented his research on the role of ‘administrative entrepreneurs’ in the development of early education and other state institutions in Russia under Peter the Great.

The lectures were based on Dr. Fedyukin's forthcoming monograph on the role of ‘administrative entrepreneurs’ – or ‘projectors,’ as they were often called – in driving the institutional evolution of early modern Petrine schools, and the development of early modern institutions in Russia in general. New secular elite schools are traditionally presented as a trademark of Peter's reign and policies, yet the reformer monarch's own decisive contribution to shaping schools is often assumed, rather than proven. Historical documents do not bear witness to his role in providing a vision for the schools. 

On April 5, 2016, Igor Fedyukin gave a lecture entitled ‘Prozhektery: “Administrative Entrepreneurs” and Modernization of Education in Russia from Peter the Great to Putin’ at the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), the University of Virginia.

On April 13, 2016, he spoke at the Harriman Institute of Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies at Columbia University. The title of his talk was ‘The Schools that Peter I Built: "Projectors" and the State in Early Modern Russia’.

Igor Fedyukin is Director of the Centre for Source Studies at the HSE Faculty of Humanities. From 2015-2016, he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. From June 2012 – May 2013 he was Vice-Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. He received his Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in 2009 and has held appointments as a Diderot Fellow at the Foundation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris and a visiting fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. He has authored or co-authored articles in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Cahiers du Monde Russe, Journal of Social History, and Journal of Interdisciplinary History. His current research focuses on the history and politics of education.