19. sajandi Tartu ülikool kui seisuste sepikoda: kõrghariduse ja ülikoolide asendist Vene seisuste ja riigiteenistuse korralduses.
Creators: name: Hiio, Toomas
Publisher: name: Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo küsimusi
Year: 2020

description: Historical research on the University of Tartu has focussed on the university as a centre of learning and scholarship. In addition, the influence of the University of Tartu on the emerging national movements of the minority nations within the Russian Empire in the 19th century, but also its role as a pillar of Baltic German national, religious and class identity have been explored in detail. Cut off from other countries in the past, Estonian researchers tried to prove that the university had international academic contacts, but also stressed its role as an academic mediator between Russia and the West. However, those topics have sometimes overshadowed taking note of the more material aims of 19th century students: joining state service and developing a career as a member of the growing Russian bureaucracy. In Imperial Russia, as in many countries in Continental Europe, the government treated the university primarily as an institution for the preparation of educated and qualified staff for the state’s needs. Since the first quarter of the 19th century, only young men with a secondary school certificate were enrolled in a university and a punishingly hard examination had to be passed for getting a diploma or first-level (candidate) degree. Often, a career in state service (comparable to contemporary public service) followed. Emperor Peter the Great introduced the table of ranks reflecting the 14 ranks of higher civil servants and military officers as early as in 1722 and it served as the scale describing state service until the end of the Russian Empire in 1917. In Russia as well as in many German countries, many fields of activity staffed by high-ranking professionals required higher education: physicians (who were required in particularly great numbers in the army), secondary and parish school teachers, university professors and other academic staff, and, naturally, government and local government officials. Protestant clergymen needed to have a university diploma or degree and the protestant church had its own service system. The privileged classes of the society—the nobility and clergy—were not able to cover the need for civil servants in 19th century empires. Particularly in Russia, the nobility served as officers in the military, while large landowners and Protestant clergymen were responsible for fulfilling the spiritual needs of the population. (However, during the 19th century the proportion of the sons of Orthodox clerics grew consistently among the general body of students in Russia). Therefore, more and more students had to be recruited from the lowerstanding rural and urban classes. This also mirrors the improvement of the material situation of the lower classes, particularly during the second half of the 19th century, because receiving instruction at a secondary school, not to speak of the university, was expensive despite of the scholarships for talented young men and the support system offered to poor students. Even the attempt of Emperor Nicholas I (reign 1825–1855) to prohibit the enrolment of young men from the lower classes did not work in the end. In Russia, universities attracted young men from the lower classes. It was one of the two main opportunities of being elevated from their subordinate social status. The second one was military career through voluntary recruitment and officer school. The main disadvantages of subordinate status even after the abolishment of serfdom (in 1816–1819 in the Baltic Governorates and in 1861 in all of Russia) were capital tax and potential unvoluntary recruitment to the army (swapped for general compulsory military service in 1874), and, last but not least, possible physical punishment in the case of committing an offence (abolished in 1904). State service offered many privileges. Owing to obtaining a university diploma or first-level degree, the student was released from his subordinate social status and could begin his service career along the abovementioned ladder of service ranks. Achieving a certain rank afforded a personal (non-hereditary) noble title and a much higher rank also gave the right to a hereditary title. Initially, there were only two privileged classes in Russia, the nobility and clergy. In 1832, one more was created—non-hereditary or hereditary honorary citizens, which became the estate of men from the middle and lower classes with a university education, even if they did not join state service. This class was attributed to all men who did not belong to the nobility or clergy when they received their university diploma. (Honorary citizen rights were also awarded to the upper middle class of the cities, mainly merchants and industrialists.) Moreover, state service guaranteed a state pension depending on the person’s rank from the day of retirement onwards. Rank also defined the way how a person would be addressed: Your Well Born, Your Blessedness, Your High Blessedness, Your Excellency etc. The importance of this in a class society could not be underestimated. An academic career at a university was part of the general state service system. By the end of the 19th century a Rector of a university got the rank of Active State Councillor for his service. The respective military rank was Major General. A full-time professor was a State Councillor, a professor extraordinarius was a Collegiate Councillor etc. As mentioned above, there were 14 ranks altogether. A university diploma gave the right to join the 12th rank of state service (District Secretary), a candidate degree afforded the 10th rank (Collegiate Secretary) and a doctoral degree the 8th rank (Collegiate Assessor). Another important step in the integration of university education and the state service system was the introduction of general examinations for obtaining a university diploma and university degree. Until the early 19th century, in Continental Europe degrees were mainly awarded by the universities themselves and the requirement of a prior exam, if it existed at all, was decided upon by the university. In Russia, examinations were introduced in the field of medical science (medicine, surgery, pharmacy and veterinary medicine) in 1808, in all other specialities in 1819. Service ranks and the integration of receiving and providing instruction at a university with this system survived with few changes until the end of the Russian Empire in 1917.
description: Tartu Ülikooli ajaloo küsimusi, Vol. 48 (2020): 100 aastaga pärisorjusest emakeelse ülikoolini