Personal Commemorations of Soviet Higher Education in the 1920–1930s Based on Leningrad State University Periodics’ Materials

Abstract

The article deals with the personal commemorations at Leningrad University in the late 1920s and in the 1930s. The purpose of the research is to define the role of the commemorations in the sovetization of higher education. Therefore, periodicals affiliated with the university were taken as the sources. To address the problem, we developed the classification of personal commemorations based on the biographical principle. The analysis of the birthday and professional commemorations, but also memorialization practices of death revealed that they responded to the demands of the Soviet State. They declare support of science, broadcast socially approved images of different groups’ members, and they are parts of Soviet cultural and ideological campaigns. During the period under review, the commemorative scenarios related to communist and Komsomol members are taking shape. At the same time, the Bolsheviks’ science-centrism contributed to the preservation of pre-revolutionary commemorations forms at Soviet universities, as most clearly seen in celebrations in honor of the professors and their commemorations.