A scholar's plan and court channels
The foundation of Moscow State University resulted from the interaction of academic planning and imperial administration. In 1754, Mikhail Lomonosov and the court official Ivan Shuvalov discussed establishing a university in Moscow. Surviving correspondence shows that Lomonosov had read a draft of Shuvalov's report to the Governing Senate and proposed changes based on his experience at European universities. Shuvalov handled presentation of the proposal, coordination, and the pursuit of imperial support.
Lomonosov argued that the plan should look to the future rather than limit staffing too severely because of the immediate shortage of scholars. Money saved on temporarily unfilled posts could help build a library. He proposed three faculties, law, medicine, and philosophy, with twelve professors. The approved plan ultimately provided for ten, demonstrating that the recommendations in the letter and the authorized institution were revised stages, not the same text.
Approval, promulgation, and opening
Empress Elizabeth approved the founding plan on January 12, 1755, and issued the corresponding decree on January 24; these dates follow the Russian Old Style calendar used in the documents. An opening ceremony took place on April 26, with the affiliated secondary schools beginning first. Students subsequently arrived, and Nikolai Popovsky began lecturing in philosophy that year, advocating instruction in Russian. Legal establishment, public celebration, and the launch of university courses were therefore distinct stages.
The first premises occupied the old pharmacy building near Red Square, not the tall main building familiar from present-day photographs. The founding declaration explained Moscow's advantages: a large noble and non-noble population, a central location for travel, relatively manageable living costs, and the possibility for many students to lodge with relatives or friends. These practical conditions entered the decision alongside the aim of educating personnel needed by the state.
Practical arrangements for funding and governance
The 1755 plan allocated 10,000 rubles annually to the university and its secondary schools. Under the empress's protection, the university answered directly to the Senate. Shuvalov and Blumentrost were curators, and Argamakov served as director. The director managed revenues, arranged courses with professors, and referred relevant matters to the curators for approval. This was an academic institution with imperial patronage, not a community independent of state administration.
The plan granted teachers and students certain exemptions from ordinary jurisdiction and service obligations, while requiring professors to meet regularly over courses and student affairs. Teaching systems and authors used by professors required collective and curatorial approval rather than unrestricted individual choice. In October 1756, the professorial conference began operating in practice, discussing public lectures, teaching hours, and the needs of the secondary schools. Regulations, personnel, and everyday coordination together constituted university governance.
Who could enter the university?
The university first had to address the inadequate preparation of prospective students. Lomonosov's letter emphasized the need for affiliated secondary schools, and the official plan established separate schools for nobles and non-nobles. University applicants reported first to the director and were examined by professors to determine whether they could follow lectures, then assigned suitable courses. The system sought to connect basic language training, entrance assessment, and higher study.
It admitted non-nobles without abolishing boundaries of social status. The plan explicitly excluded people still held in serfdom. A landowner wishing to send a talented young person had to issue a manumission document first and pay living expenses during the course of study. Article 27 also provided that such students could be returned to their former owners for misconduct. Nobles and non-nobles remained separate in the secondary schools but attended university lectures together. Open admission must be understood within these legal conditions of an estate-based society.
Teaching in three faculties
Under the approved plan, the law faculty taught general law, Russian law, and political relations between states. Medicine included chemistry, natural history, and anatomy, while philosophy comprised philosophy, physics, rhetoric, and history. Theological matters were left to the Synod's institutions, with no separate theology faculty. Today's familiar disciplinary boundaries cannot simply be imposed on this arrangement.
Professors were required to offer public lectures without additional fees, in Latin or Russian. Fee-paying private instruction could not interfere with public classes. Courses for each term were to be announced, students were to take part in regular disputations, and outstanding annual essays could receive medals. The plan combined classes, examinations, public speaking, and rewards into a training system. These provisions expressed institutional aims, however, and do not prove that every professorial post was filled from the opening.
Knowledge beyond the classroom
In 1756, the university added a printing house and bookshop, publishing speeches and Moskovskie vedomosti. Its library also admitted readers interested in learning, opening for reading on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. The university thus reached urban society not only by enrolling students but also through books, newspapers, and public events.
The movement of teachers and books was equally important. In 1756, Schaden from Tübingen and Fromman from Stuttgart arrived by invitation, taking part respectively in secondary-school and philosophy teaching. Schaden also helped the university bookshop establish links with Tübingen to obtain teaching books. The significance of early Moscow University lay in organizing imperial funds, local students, foreign teachers, and print circulation into continuing educational activity, while still retaining the constraints of the imperial social hierarchy.
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