The Poles in the Academic Corporation of St. Petersburg Imperial University (the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century)
The Poles in the Academic Corporation of St. Petersburg Imperial University (the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century)

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this article is to formulate the principles for the future «collective biography» of the Poles in the academic corporation (lecturers) of St. Petersburg University from 1819 to 1917 (including the development of the selection criteria and methodology). The article examines the problems of the number of the Poles in the academic corporation, of the Polish identity and the criteria of its assessment, of the distribution of the Polish scholars across the University departments and fields of knowledge, and also the types of academic and life strategies of Polish lecturers. The article analyzes 3 strategies — the strategy of opposition, the strategy of loyalty and the strategy of integration. The author concludes that is possible to identify two groups of scholars of Polish origin, although the line between them is thin. The first group comprises those Poles who placed an emphasis or, at least, were conscious of their Polish identity. The scholars in the second group remembered about their Polish roots, but perceived themselves rather as Russian scholars (as a rule, they came from the families where several generations had lived in the Russian environment). The article shows that the revolutionary events of 1917 raised the issue of ethnic identity most acutely, the author supposes that a choice of «staying» in a new political environment in Russia for Polish scholars meant, among other things, a choice of assimilation; at least it was what it led to in reality.

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