ABSTRACT
Though the first changes outwards from the Soviet system of higher education occurred immediately after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, a radical reform began in Russia more than a decade later. This reform was closely linked to the new phase of the country’s modernisation introduced by then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in his article ‘Go Russia!’ (Medvedev 2009).1 For Russian universities, the idea of the reform on its own meant that the former monolith and unified model, which for decades symbolised the advantages of Soviet education and science, now came into question. Why and how did the need for the reform emerge? What alternative for the Soviet model did it offer? What factors complicated its implementation? To answer these questions this chapter provides a historical overview of the function of Russian universities in different stages of the country’s modernisation: in the reforms first initiated by Peter the Great and then continued by Catherine the Great; in industrial, social and cultural developments of the long nineteenth century; in implementation of the communist project in the twentieth century; and in transformations of the post-Soviet period.
