All-Russian Lyceum Student Day

Every year on October 19, the founding of a unique educational institution is commemorated — of the Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. «For the common good!» — this became the Lyceum’s motto, the decree for its establishment was signed by Emperor Alexander I on August 24, 1810, and on October 19, 1811, a wing of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo began a life the likes of which it had never known before.

From 1811 to 1817, Pushkin was educated here; it was here that he found devoted friends who remained true to their unbreakable Lyceum brotherhood for the rest of their lives, here, "near waters that gleamed in the stillness," the "muse began to appear" to the young poet. The first graduating class of the Lyceum — later known as Pushkin’s class — proved to be the most brilliant. The names of many of Pushkin’s classmates have gone down in history. Among them were the diplomat A. M. Gorchakov; the poets A. A. Delvig and V. K. Küchelbecker; the admiral and historiographer of the Russian Navy, F. F. Matyushkin; and the Decembrist I. I. Pushchin.

The opening of the Imperial Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum marked the beginning of a system of elite education that was fundamentally new to Russia, which combined a university curriculum with humanistic values. The Lyceum's charter, for the first time in Russian practice, strictly prohibited any corporal punishment of students, which ran counter to the harsh customs of that time.And instructors were selected not based on their background or rank, but on their personal talents and knowledge.

*The holiday was revived in the early 1990s. October 19th is now observed as All-Russian Lyceum Student Day.

«My friends, our union is beautiful!
Like the soul, it is indivisible and eternal —
Steadfast, free, and caring,
He grew together under the shadow of friendly muses.
Wherever fate may cast us
And wherever happiness might lead,
We remain the same: the whole world is a foreign land to us;
Tsarskoye Selo is our fatherland».

Alexander Pushkin, “October 19”, 1825