"Our department in no way duplicates the Academy of Fine Arts". Department of Art History, St. Petersburg State University, in the pages of periodicals.

The goal of this research is to analyze the cultural and historical development of university art studies based on the materials of the departmental newspaper "Leningrad University," the first issue of which was published in 1929. Over the past 98 years, the newspaper has been published almost continuously and has responded quickly to events occurring in the life of the university. The object of the study is the history of the Department of Art History at St. Petersburg University in the 20th century. The chronological scope allowed for an examination of the development of the Department of Art History within the cultural and educational space of the university. Special attention was paid to the reflection of events in the newspaper, the interpretation of which is challenging to understand in official documents. The newspaper materials substantiated the continuous functioning of the department as a structural unit in the pre-war years and its restoration as a large division after the university's return to Leningrad in 1944. Various methods of material study were employed for the research, such as retrospective, aimed at delving into the past, problem-chronological, and biographical, to understand the development paths of the department and the growth of professionalism among the faculty and their students. As a result of the study of this historical source, new facts regarding the history of the department’s existence during the Soviet period were uncovered. The newspaper clearly traces the change in the cultural space of the humanities during the mid-1920s to late 1930s, as well as the ongoing search for new teaching methodologies after the collapse of the old imperial education system. This source has never before been used for a systematic analytical review. More than 200 elements and pieces of information, presented in various newspaper genres, were identified from the source. They reflected not only significant events but also the "living" content of history – photographs of faculty and students, and the results of their creative and professional activities. A very small number of other publications were also involved in the research. The novelty of the study lies in the inclusion of an unconventional historical source in the scientific and cultural overview, created directly within the "body" of the university and developed with the active participation of students. The materials obtained can be utilized for studying the development of cultural space within scholarly communities.