The Fate of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary P.V. Zlobin and the Projects of the Belarusian Higher School (1918–1920)

The events of the 1918–1920s were the final stages in a series of revolutions, wars and destructions that reduced the education system in the Belarusian provinces to the level of primary school. The drained personnel of industry and agriculture required not only skilled workers, but also technicians and engineers capable of setting up the entire production process. In such circumstances, public organizations and political parties have raised the issue of creating a national system of higher education. The key figure in the development of the Belarusian university project was Pavel Vladimirovich Zlobin, deputy chairman of the Minsk Provincial Zemstvo Council, who was responsible for the work of the education department in 1918. Under his leadership, the Minsk University Commission began to be created, he supported the project of the Belarusian University, presented by Professor M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky. Largely due to his position, the project of the Minsk Polytechnic, presented by the chairman of the Minsk branch of the All-Russian Union of Engineers, the first director and future academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR A.D. Dubakh, received strong support. The fate of P.V. Zlobin was closely intertwined with the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, his life was affected by the struggle of the Bolsheviks in the 1920s for the creation of a one-party system.