The Smolny Institute provided "the state with educated women"

On May 16 (5 by the Julian calendar), the Imperial Educational Society for Noble Maidens was founded in St. Petersburg. Later it was called the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens. The name "Smolny" is associated with the Smolny Palace, which Peter I built near the village of Smolny.

The Presidential Library’s collections contain materials on the history of the Smolny Institute. These are modern studies, works and documents of the 18th – 19th centuries, unique photographs, the documentary-historical film “Smolny”, the video lecture “250 years of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens”.

Already in the Petrine era, the first schools for girls were established, but the decree on the creation of the Smolny Institute was signed as a true achievement in the field of female education in Russia. “On May 5, 1764, a decree was signed on the establishment of an Educational Society for 200 noble maidens at the Voskresensky Novodevichy (Smolny) Monastery...”, - wrote one of the pupils of this educational institution Nina Raspopova in “Chronicle of the Smolny Monastery during the reign of Empress Catherine II” (1864), available on the Presidential Library’s portal. “...For a woman to better fulfill her wonderful assignment in the family and society, one should not limit her development to managing and keeping track of one physical education of children”.

Ivan Betskoy not only initiated the creation of the Smolny Institute, but also developed a “Charter for the education of two hundred noble maidens, established by Her Majesty the Empress Catherine the Second, the autocratic All-Russian of the fatherland, and other” (1764). This unique document is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

The Charter, among other things, lists the qualities that should be brought up in girls: “Obedience to the rulers, mutual courtesy, meekness, abstinence, equal behavior in goodness, a clean, inclined and righteous heart for good, and finally decent modesty and generosity to noble people, and in a word, the removal from everything that can be called pride”.

The educational program according to Charter “...should teach them Russian and foreign languages, so that they can read, write and speak properly; Arithmetic, Geography, History, Poem, and partly Architecture and Heraldry, and in the arts instruct drawing and miniature, dance, vocal and instrumental music, all kinds of sewing, knitting and weaving silk, thread, wool and paper; and to this must be added all the parts of economy”. 

All these noble girls had to comprehend from the age of 6, in three four-year classes, and the parents or guardians of the students had to give the head of the institute “a decent commitment that they, at their own will, and seeing the future for their daughters, benefit from this upbringing "in custody completely, 18 years of age, so that until the end of that twelve-year time, they will not begin to demand them under any kind of back". Thus, the empress wanted to protect the pupils from the influence of the environment in which they grew up.

In 1765, at the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens, designed for noble women, in a separate building erected by architect Yuri Felten, was opened a branch for the bourgeois maidens (non-noble estates, except serfs).

Catherine II took a large part in the affairs of the Smolny Institute, supplied it with money, she also met and talked with classy ladies and pupils, was interested in the successes and problems of the institution.

After the death of Catherine II, Smolny for 32 years has been headed by the wife of Paul I, Empress Maria Feodorovna, who changed a lot in its activities. First of all, the rules for admission and residence at the institute changed. Now girls were accepted for training from about 8 years old, and it lasted not 12, but 9 years.

In 1806–1808, a special building was constructed for the Smolny Institute, designed by architect Giacomo Quarenghi.

In October 1917, the Institute, headed by Princess Vera Golitsyna, moved to Novocherkassk. The Petrograd Revolutionary Committee was located on the 3rd floor of the building in St. Petersburg, and Vladimir Lenin worked on the 2nd floor from November 1917 to March 1918. Then the building was occupied by the city government - the Leningrad City Council of Workers' Deputies and the city committee of the CPSU (b) / CPSU (until 1991). Today, the Administration of St. Petersburg is located in Smolny.

In St. Petersburg, the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens has been opened for 153 years. Over a century and a half 85 institute’s graduates took place, and many of maidens became famous in one or another field of activity.