Daily university life from the pages of the diary of Mikhail Korelin

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of M. S. Korelinʼs diary. The diary of M. S. Korelin was published in 2014 by the author of this article. The diary still has not been studied by historians as a whole text. The diary reveals the creative laboratory of Korelin and in comparison with other materials connected with his personal activity, allows for the study of Korelin’s intellectual biography during an important and in many ways a defining moment of his life (1889–1895). According to the diary, Korelin achieved relative material well-being in the mid-1890s and did not attach decisive importance to this factor when assessing the efficiency of his own intellectual life. Korelin paid much more attention to the general conditions for scientific investigation at Moscow University. Korelin pointed out that the University Corporation at the Moscow University was hostile and extremely conflicted. The University ambience was fatal for his research activities. The discrepancy between the high purpose of science and its real situation in Russia lead Korelin to a spiritual crisis and to gloomy foreboding in the diary. The tone of his later letters confirm this statement. Refs 18.