Experience of the Enlightenment in Russia: the Humboldt Model of the University in the Mirror of the University Reforms enacted by A.V. Golovnin

Abstract

Although the Russian Enlightenment occupies an important place in the intel­lectual tradition of Russia, some of its periods and key representatives continue escaping the attention of scholars. One such example is the figure of Alexander Vasilyevich Golovnin, Minister of Public Education (1861–1866) during the reign of Alexander II. A liberal in his political views and a thinker of the En­lightenment in his frame of mind, Golovnin acted as one of the initiators and the main executors of the broad educational reforms of the 1860s. The central element of these reforms was the reform of university education, enshrined in the University Charter of 1863. The reform project itself partly followed the model of the “classical” university proposed at the beginning of the 19th cen­tury by Wilhelm von Humboldt and implemented by him by establishing the Uni­versity in Berlin (1810). The article discusses the key points of Golovnin’s
university reform and shows its connection with the Humboldt model of the uni­versity, which, in its main principles, reflects the ideals and values of the Ger­man neohumanism of the 19th century with its focus on the formation (Bildung) of the individual. It is noteworthy that the same Bildung ideal, which appeared as the conceptual paradigm of the Prussian reforms of secondary and higher ed­ucation in 1807–1814 also turns out to be the defining principle of Golovnin’s educational reforms, thereby confirming adherence of the Russian reforms to the goals of the Enlightenment.