Protests were expected when last month authorities shut down St Petersburg's European University, one of the city's most respected higher education institutions. But the revolt unleashed by the closure may have exceeded authorities' worst expectations, reports RadioFreeEurope and RadioLiberty. Defiant students and professors have launched an all-out campaign to save the university using internet forums, blogs and videos to coordinate their efforts.

Russian national television channels, all of which are state-controlled, have largely snubbed the issue. But the internet has been instrumental in bringing the university’s troubles out in the open, and has become much more than just a platform for distributing information about the university closure.

One blog is run by an anthropology professor Ilya Utekhin, who says that many of the campaigners' initiatives were actually born on blogs set up by, among others, graduates, students and even university applicants. “People didn't meet and then decide to create a website. Things happened the other way around – people formed a community on the Internet and then started interacting."

One blog on the US-run blogging site LiveJournal – Russia's most popular Internet forum – has been collecting support letters and signatures protesting the university's closure. Utekhin's blog, also found on LiveJournal, contains a raft of pictures and videos documenting the campaign to rescue the university, including some of the activists' quirkier protest actions.

What prompted officials to close down the European University remains unclear. Some suspect local authorities of trying to get their hands on the university's building, an ornate, 19th-century palace in the heart of St. Petersburg. Others see the closure as a politically motivated attack against the Western-funded university, which has close links with universities in Britain and the United States.
Full report on the RadioFreeEurope and RadioLiberty site


Printable version
Email to a friend
Comment on this article

Disclaimer: All reader responses posted on this site are those of the reader ONLY and NOT those of University World News or Higher Education Web Publishing, their associated trademarks, websites and services. University World News or Higher Education Web Publishing does not necessarily endorse, support, sanction, encourage, verify or agree with any comments, opinions or statements or other content provided by readers.