Educational Activities at the Geography Department of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the 18th Century: Training Professional Personnel

Abstract

Based on documents from the collections of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the article highlights a poorly studied issue in Russian historiography, namely, the educational activities of the Geography Department of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the 18th Century. The sources demonstrate that the Department was not solely occupied with the production of cartographic works: starting from 1740, they began training students as academic cartographers (geodesists) for their own needs. Later, at the end of the 1760s, the Cartographic Chamber was incorporated into the Geography Department, after which all work on engraving cartographic materials was concentrated in the Department. This, in turn, required training new specialists. The most skilful students were to become geodesists, while the less capable, apprentice engravers. Based on archival documents, the author calculated that over the six decades of its educational activities, the Geography Department had trained at least 30 students. At the same time, whether the educational process at the Department was effective is open to debate. Only one student received the title of adjunct professor (J. Truskott) and just a few attained the rank of praporshchik and became geodesists. On the other hand, it was the students and apprentices who were tasked with the routine daily work of mapping and engraving, and the effectiveness of the entire Geography Department largely depended on their contribution. The research demonstrates that teaching and training were important for the Geography Department, which highlights the multifaceted nature of the Department’s work and its multifunctional role, i.e. scientific and applied, educational, and artistic and technical.