Institutional and socio-cultural integration of higher education into urban space (on the example of the State Institute of Public Education in Chita during 1921–1923)

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms of institutional and socio-cultural integration of the State Institute of Public Education into the urban space of Chita during the existence of the Far Eastern Republic (1921–1923). The relevance of the study is due to the need to examine the survival experience of academic institutions under conditions of «crisis urbanization» and political instability. The purpose of the study is to identify strategies for the adaptation of higher education to the conditions of «buffer» statehood and to prove the role of the university as a city-forming factor. The methodological basis of the work consists of the approaches of historical urbanism and spatial analysis of the «Plan of the City of Chita» of 1923, supplemented by the study of the State Archive of the Russian Federation funds and periodicals of the Far Eastern Republic. As a result of the study, it was established that the location of the institute in the «stone core» of the city (the building of the former Female Gymnasium) had symbolic significance, legitimizing the new government, and performed a communication function by connecting the railway station with the administrative center. It is proved that in a situation of institutional collapse, the academic corporation transformed into an autonomous economic entity. Through the organization of educational and production workshops (carpentry, bookbinding), independent fuel harvesting, and the development of an agricultural farm, the institute replaced degraded municipal services and ensured food security. The role of the university in the transformation of the social structure is revealed: the State Institute of Public Education served as a channel of vertical mobility for peasant youth and formed a new cultural landscape through public lectures and the phenomenon of an «oral library» It is concluded that the experience of the State Institute of Public Education represents a successful model of revitalization of the urban environment by the intellectual community, which was interrupted only due to changes in the geopolitical situation and the Sovietization of the region.