The Formation of Russia’s National System of Higher Education: A Historical and Legal Analysis of Seventeenth–Eighteenth-Century Sources

The article examines the prerequisites and key stages in the formation of Russia’s national system of higher education in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries through an analysis of normative legal acts and other sources governing the establishment and operation of early educational institutions. It identifies the distinctive features of early regulation, notably the predominance of individualized supreme acts defining the legal status of academies, universities, and schools, as well as the rules on governance, instruction, and staffing. The study argues that the development of higher education combined an orientation toward European institutional models with their adaptation to domestic state objectives, public order requirements, and confessional and cultural conditions. It concludes that the historical evolution of legal forms of educational regulation reflects the consistent consolidation of the state’s public interest in training qualified personnel and ensuring the stability of educational institutions.