The Origins of Modern Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786-1855

As minister of education and president of the Academy of Sciences, Count Sergei Uvarov was one of the most important statesmen in nineteenth-century Russia. But, because he has often been labeled as a reactionary and sycophant, his ideas and policies have tended to be dismissed as examples of the bankruptcy of the Russian cold regime.

Whittaker’s intellectual biography, based on research in Russia and Finland, offers a striking reinterpretation of Uvarov’s career and of the quality of Russian intellectual life in his age and in assuring his country’s place in the mainstream of European educational development. With its wealth of new insights, The Origins of Modern Russian Education will be of interest to readers, specialists and nonspecialists alike who are concerned with nineteenth-century Russia and with the history of education in general.