Alexei Butyagin

Alexei Butyagin
Алексей Сергеевич Бутягин
Director / Rector of Moscow University
In office 1934–1941
Preceded by	Vasily Kasatkin
Succeeded by	Boris Orlov (acting)
Rector of Moscow University
In office January 1943 – 3 December 1943
Preceded by	(acting rectors, 1941–1943)
Succeeded by	Ilya Galkin
Personal details
Born	6 or 7 April 1881 Yelets, Oryol Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	26 September 1958 Moscow, Soviet Union
Education	Moscow University (1906)
Occupation	Mathematician, academic administrator
Awards	Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1940); Badge of Honour

Alexei Sergeyevich Butyagin (Алексей Сергеевич Бутягин; 6 or 7 April 1881 – 26 September 1958) was a Soviet mathematician and government figure in higher education who served as director and later rector of Moscow University between 1934 and 1943, overseeing major reforms to Soviet higher education before leading the university through the disruptions of the German invasion and evacuation.

Early life and career

Butyagin was born on 6 or 7 April 1881 in Yelets, Oryol Governorate. He graduated from the physics and mathematics faculty of Moscow University in 1906 and went on to earn a doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences, teaching continuously at higher and secondary educational institutions in Moscow from that year; he was elected a member of the State Learned Council and of the Higher Attestation Commission under the RSFSR People's Commissariat of Education (Narkompros). In August 1917, he moved from the Menshevik party to the Bolshevik party. He worked at the Moscow City Soviet from 1917 to 1920, and in 1920 was appointed rector of the Podbelsky Institute of Communications, in whose creation he had taken part, serving until the institute merged into the Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU) in 1924. He was acting rector of MVTU (the forerunner of Bauman Moscow State Technical University) from 1924 to 1929.

Director and rector of Moscow University

Butyagin became the 38th head of Moscow University in 1934, continuing the campaign begun by his predecessor, Vasily Kasatkin, to restore the university's position as the country's leading higher education institution, with a focus on the qualitative improvement of teaching and research and on raising the standard of its graduates. His post was initially titled "director," in keeping with the terminology used before the early 19th century, but from 1939 he was known as "rector."

Territorial and space constraints remained a persistent theme of his tenure, and in the mid-1930s a plan for a "new university" was linked to the general plan for the reconstruction of Moscow, although little progress was made before the war intervened. A series of reforms during his time in office proved lasting: restrictions on university admission based on social origin were lifted (1935), entrance examinations testing secondary-school knowledge were introduced (1936), and the university gave rise to the academic olympiad movement that helped identify promising applicants (1935). Butyagin introduced the examination as the principal method of assessing student knowledge, administered by the professor responsible for a course, together with the zachyotnaya knizhka (student grade book) issued alongside the student identification card (1936); the four-point grading scale of "excellent," "good," "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory" followed in 1938. Diploma defences for graduating students, introduced in 1934, were replaced by state examinations before a state examination commission in 1936, with top students awarded first-class diplomas and a three-year mandatory work assignment introduced for graduates; these changes contributed to the nationwide closure of workers' faculties (rabfaks), including at Moscow University, in 1936–1937.

Butyagin also prioritised the expansion of the university's research activity, arguing publicly for dedicated government funding to allow the university's institutes and laboratories to move beyond contract work for industrial organisations. In December 1934, on the initiative of Butyagin, the Academy of Sciences' permanent secretary Vyacheslav Volgin and academician Alexei Borissiak, an agreement was concluded committing the Soviet Academy of Sciences to actively support the university's development. Student research conferences began in 1937, with the first university-wide student conference held in April 1939 — a tradition that evolved into the later "Lomonosov" international conference for students and young scientists. In 1937, Soviet government decrees introduced staff positions for university teaching faculty, and Moscow University was granted special authority to accept doctoral and candidate dissertations for defence in a range of specialities.

These efforts culminated in the adoption of a dedicated Charter for Moscow University in 1939 and the ceremonial celebration of the university's 185th anniversary in 1940, when the university was awarded the Order of Lenin "for outstanding service in the development of science, culture and the training of highly qualified specialists" and given the name of Mikhail Lomonosov.

Political purges

Butyagin's tenure coincided with the Great Purge, during which the university's physics dean, Boris Hessen, and its history dean, Grigory Fridlyand, were caught up in show trials as alleged "enemies of the people"; the university's leadership under Butyagin was criticised at the time for failing to learn lessons from the affair and for a lack of political vigilance. The mid-1930s also saw rising tension within the university's biology faculty as the views of Trofim Lysenko became established as state doctrine.

The Second World War and evacuation

On 23 June 1941, the day after the German invasion began, Butyagin signed an order reorganising the university's teaching and research work for wartime conditions and addressed a general meeting of staff, pledging that the university's scholars would devote all their strength to the practical needs of the moment. Round-the-clock duty was established to safeguard university buildings, and students and staff took up training in communications, anti-tank warfare, nursing and military translation, while also helping build defensive works around Moscow and working in fields and factories; around 2,000 members of the university volunteered for the front in the war's opening days.

On 15 October 1941, as the evacuation of Moscow's factories and institutions began with the university's destination set as Ashgabat, the RSFSR Commissar of Education, Vladimir Potemkin, unexpectedly ordered Butyagin removed from his post and placed on trial for leaving Moscow without authorisation, after he accompanied the first group of evacuated professors following a colleague's refusal to do so. Although Butyagin was taken off his train and returned to Moscow, no trial took place; he remained at liberty but was refused reinstatement on repeated occasions, leaving the university without its principal administrator during a critical period, its acting leadership divided across the war-separated Moscow and evacuated sections of the institution. The orders removing him were finally rescinded in January 1943, when he was reinstated as rector and oversaw the re-evacuation of the university's faculties from Sverdlovsk back to Moscow. He was relieved of the rectorship again on 3 December 1943 on his transfer to other duties.

Later career

After the war, Butyagin worked within Soviet government structures responsible for higher education from 1944 to 1953, and served as editor-in-chief of the journal Vestnik Vysshey Shkoly ("Herald of the Higher School") from 1951 to 1954. On his retirement in 1954, he returned to Moscow University, where he was appointed a professor, without a teaching load, in the department of Soviet-period history of the USSR, remaining associated with the historical faculty into the late 1950s. His publications included the co-authored University Education in the USSR (1957).

Awards

Butyagin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1940 and the Badge of Honour.

Death

Butyagin died in Moscow on 26 September 1958.

References

This article "Alexei Butyagin" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Alexei Butyagin. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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