Empress Elizabeth Petrovna signed the founding charter for Moscow University on January 25, 1755, fulfilling a proposal championed by the polymath Mikhail Lomonosov. Conceived to educate Russians regardless of social class, the university became the country's premier institution of higher learning, and Russians still celebrate January 25 as Students' Day in its honor.
Mikhail Lomonosov, a fisherman's son who became one of Russia's greatest scientists and poets, had lobbied for years for a university that would break from the aristocratic exclusivity of European academies. He envisioned an institution open to talented commoners, teaching in Russian rather than only Latin, and covering practical sciences alongside classical learning.
Empress Elizabeth's decree, signed on Saint Tatiana's Day, gave the school three faculties: philosophy, law, and medicine. It opened later that year in a building on Red Square before eventually moving to its iconic campus on Sparrow Hills. The date stuck in the national imagination — January 25 became Tatiana's Day, an unofficial holiday for Russian students marked by parties and the traditional toast 'Gaudeamus,' celebrating survival of exams and the pleasures of academic life.
Key people: Empress Elizabeth of Russia, Mikhail Lomonosov