Home – Home – Jornals – "Philosophy of Education" 2025 number 3

Introduction. The analysis of the problem of increasing the salaries and adequate remuneration of teachers in the education system in general, and higher education in particular, requires comparative studies of the level of teachers’ salaries now and a hundred years ago, in the last peaceful year of the Russian Empire. The question of “What has our country achieved or lost over the past time?” is not only of academic interest. The experience of the past allows us to adequately understand the present, given the potentially vast amount of statistical information on the entire education system. The purpose of this article is limited to a comparative study of the financial and social situation of the professorial group of higher education institutions in the pre-revolutionary period of the Russian Empire and in modern Russia. Methodology. A comparative analysis of literary sources containing information about the salaries of teachers and their social status in the Russian Empire, as well as in modern Russia, was conducted. Discussion. The salaries of professors/doctors of science vary both by region and by position or by the “weightˮ of the university in the Russian education system. Currently, in Russia, for a salary ranging from 100,000 to 200,000 rubles per month, we can see that in 1913, the salary of a professor/doctor of science was no more than 50 % of the material wealth of a professor in the Russian Empire a century ago, not to mention the social prestige and recognition of professorial work. Conclusion. The status of a modern professor is completely different from its status 110 years ago: its characteristics are mostly negative. There can be no talk of “belonging” to elite social groups (with rare exceptions such as academics or rectors).