Moscow City People's University named after A. L. Shanyavsky

Alfons Leonovich Shanyavsky (1837-1905) - general of the Russian army, colonizer of the Far East, later - Siberian gold miner, bequeathed all his fortune to the creation of a university open to everyone, regardless of gender, religion and political security. “His main dream has always been to leave all his means to such a higher institution, where both men and women, and Russian and non-Russian, in a word, everyone who wants to study, could freely, without requiring certificates of maturity, etc. (L. A. Shaniavskaya). Shaniavsky died on November 7, 1905, having managed to sign a donation to the University for his own house on Arbat . After three years of struggle with officials, in 1908, the university opened in this house through the efforts of his widow Lydia Alekseevna . “The money side completely recedes into the background compared to the energy expended by Lidia Alekseevna ... if not for her moral authority, the university project in June 1908 would have been buried by the retrograde State Council” (letter from the University Board to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on April 27, 1920).

The university was open to all comers; no certificates and documents were required for admission there, except for an identity card, its main and only purpose is to obtain knowledge. True, the university did not issue documents to its graduates that they attended the course.

1911 was a landmark year in the life of the Moscow City People's University named after A. L. Shanyavsky. In connection with the conflict between the professors of the Imperial Moscow University and the Minister of Education L.A. Casso , a large group of teachers left the Imperial University, many of whom subsequently began to work at the City People's University.

The first years, the University operated in the Shanyavskys' house on Arbat , 4 (according to other sources - on Volkhonka , 14); in the first set there were 400 listeners. In 1912, Shanyavsky University moved to Miusskaya Square . The university had two departments: popular science and academic. Those who did not receive secondary education studied at the popular science, and the course of study took 4 years; At the academic department, students of their choice took one or another full university course in the cycles of natural and social-philosophical disciplines, and the course of study was 3 years ^[1] . Also, elementary knowledge courses for poorly trained students worked at the university. They trained specialists in local government, cooperative, library, refrigeration, etc. The fee for attending lectures - 45 rubles per year (shortened version - 30 rubles) - was quite affordable for the general population. “I entered the Shanyavsky University in the historical and philosophical department. But you have to get into trouble with the means ”- Sergey Yesenin , letter to A. G. Panfilov dated September 22, 1913 ^[2] . The students themselves decided which lectures they would like to listen to - there were no compulsory disciplines, and each student independently determined what he wanted to study.

The university was governed by a board of trustees, half of whom were approved by the City Duma, and the other half were elected by the council itself. The council consisted of six women (including the widow of the general, L. A. Shanyavskaya). Separately, there was an academic (scientific) council responsible for the curriculum.

Soon, the city allocated a plot of land on Miusskaya Square for the growing university. There, on the distant low-populated outskirts, on the site of the former timber depots, a new cultural center of the city arose. In 1898, the construction of the real school named after Alexander II began , followed by primary schools (1900), the vocational school named after P.G. Shelaputin (1903), and the Abrikosov Maternity Hospital (1909).

In the spring of 1910, L. A. Shanyavskaya donated 225 thousand rubles for the construction, all in all, 500 thousand were allocated for the construction. The construction commission, elected by the Board of Trustees, was headed by M. V. Sabashnikov ^[3] .

The jury of the architectural design competition included, in addition to members of the Council, F. O. Shekhtel , L. N. Benoit , C. U. Soloviev and other first-class architects. Of the twenty projects, five were awarded, but the Council considered that none of them met development plans; L. A. Shanyavskaya personally came out "against all." In January 1911, A. A. Eichenwald proposed his own project, which was adopted as the basis. Drawings of the facade and artistic decoration were carried out by I.A. Ivanov-Shits (which is called the sole author in most sources), the project of ceilings was advised by V. G. Shukhov , and the construction was supervised by A. N. Sokolov .

By the winter of 1911/1912, the box of the building was finished, and on October 2, 1912 it received the first listeners; there were more than 3,500 of them by this time. There were 23 classrooms in the building, of which three were amphitheaters for 600, 200 and 200 people. The Shukhov glazed cap over a large amphitheater was equipped with an electric-controlled curtain, which in a few minutes turned a bright audience into a cinema. The large amphitheater at that time was called the “philharmonic audience” - it often hosted open concerts of the university choir of students and teachers, as well as the best Moscow musicians. The building project was awarded at the competition of the best buildings of the II Prize and a silver medal held in 1914 by the City Council ^[4] .

Later, the Moscow Archaeological Institute (1915) also settled on Miusskaya Square, in the same year the first chapel of the cathedral under construction was consecrated. Alexander Nevsky (architect A.N. Pomerantsev ).

Among the leading university professors and teachers:

Famous graduates (listeners):

The last head of the board of trustees was one of its founders, P. A. Sadyrin ^[5] . In 1918, the university was nationalized, management passed from the board of trustees to the structures of the People's Commissariat of Education . In 1919-20, the former academic department of the university was merged with the faculties of Moscow State University, and the research and promotion department became part of the Communist University named after Y. M. Sverdlov , which occupied the building on Miusskaya ^[6] ; then his successor, the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU, was located there . Currently, the building is occupied by the Russian State University for the Humanities . The university’s biological collection in 1922 was transferred to the newly established K.A. Timiryazev Biological Museum .