The slow, painful death of liberal arts in Russia

A flagship Russian college has ended its liberal arts programme, marking the formal end of a top institution – and the death knell for a once promising form of education in the country, scholars believe.

Smolny College, established as a department of Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU) in 1999, was one of a small handful of liberal arts programmes to emerge in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Taking a lead from US liberal arts, it represented a significant departure from Soviet-style learning, allowing students to choose courses in various disciplines, emphasising critical thinking and smaller seminars over large lectures.

Over the summer, its administration reportedly announced that a new curriculum would replace its liberal studies programme – a move it said was meant to comply with federal accreditation standards. Going forward, Smolny students will be able to choose 10 of 12 courses. Out of 21 English courses, only two remain, according to the Save Smolny campaign.

Academics said the move was part of the institution’s ongoing demise, which has mirrored broader changes in Russian higher education, with a growing anti-Western agenda and crackdown on dissent, which was already palpable before Russia’s war on Ukraine, but has since intensified.

Smolny has experienced a sharp change in fortune in the past two years. In 2021, Alexei Kudrin, previously Russia’s finance minister and then dean of Smolny, announced it would become an independent institution. The Kremlin’s official approval, though, never came through. That June, its US-based partner, Bard College, was named an “undesirable organisation” by Russia’s government, forcing Smolny to stop giving out dual degrees.

The change marks a stark contrast to the thriving Smolny of just a couple of years ago, which boasted 12 majors and 129 courses, with 500 students receiving dual degrees from SPBGU and Bard.

Gone now are courses in topics “undesirable” to the prosecutor’s office, including gender studies, courses with a “problematic interpretation of World War II”, and those on current politics, feminism and human rights, said Marina Kalashnikova, who worked at Smolny for 12 years before becoming a dean in a similar liberal arts programme at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES), which was also forced to shut down by the Russian government.

“I’ve seen the new 2023 curriculum that this year’s freshmen will be taking – it’s a disaster,” said Professor Kalashnikova of Smolny’s new offerings.

“There is nothing there from [liberal arts]. It’s politics from the administration. They haven’t closed down the faculty and programme – but they’ve strangled it. There are still some students and faculty who remember what it was like. They are trying to fight, but this struggle is doomed; new generations of students will no longer study at Smolny.”

Dimitry Dubrovsky, a fellow at the Central and East European Law Initiative, Prague, and professor at Latvia’s Free University (Briva Universitate), agreed.

“Smolny was different from the rest of the university because students [had] the right to choose courses – and it was a broad list of courses. Now they lost it,” he said.

He noted that nearly a third of its previously 100-strong faculty have left over the past couple of years because of the changes.

Greg Yudin, professor of political philosophy at the MSSES, noted that even before the most recent changes, many academics involved with Smolny “considered the project dead” even if hope remained among its students.

He said that a similar process had taken place at his own institution, when government officials came and asked the university to “remove all mentions of liberal arts”. Administrators, he said, “tried not to change the structure of the programme but it eventually changed anyway”.

The Kremlin’s squeeze on liberal arts comes in spite of student appetite for interdisciplinarity, which offers an alternative in an otherwise narrow focus early in education, he said.

“There was a clear demand for liberal arts education in Russia,” he said. “It absolves you from choosing your future job at the age of 16 – this is what applicants face. It’s very stressful.”

Like Dr Dubrovsky, Professor Yudin did not believe liberal arts would return to Russia any time soon, saying, “Not under Putin. Zero chance.”

But although there appears to be little hope for liberal arts in Russia, there are efforts to revive the discipline outside its borders.

Philip Fedchin, a strategist in international education at Bard College Berlin and previously a senior lecturer at Smolny College, said that the “Smolny Beyond Borders” project was born in November 2022 as an “emergency response” to “preserve” the institution.

While its scale is still “quite small”, going from 15 courses in 2022 to 35 this year, he was optimistic about its growth, with 700 students enrolled and 200 of them receiving certificates. Learning is mostly online, with the faculty largely ex-Smolny staffers and Bard among the funders.

Professor Kalashnikova, currently dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Montenegro, is involved in a similar project, which awaits accreditation. While she was pessimistic about the continuation of liberal arts in Russia, she praised her peers who remained, despite it all.

“Some courageous faculty members and students continue in their hearts to be faithful to the principles of [liberal arts], she said. “I admire colleagues who stayed in Russia and continue to teach students in accordance with their values.”

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com