The volume is dedicated to research on the urban context of the evolution of universities in the Russian Empire during the pre-Revolutionary period. Historians from Russia, Germany and Estonia demonstrate how the life of a “university person” at the beginning of the 20th century was connected with his environment. Grounding themselves in theory, the researchers reframe the history of science as the history of the conditions for the production of knowledge, as well as its institutional origins. From a variety of perspectives they analyze the local roots of universities in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan and Tartu (Dorpat, Yuryev), and move away from the usual approaches focused on departments and faculties or ideology and politics. The abundant comparative materials and the German accent are present for a reason: Germany and its universities were at that time the model (or jumpingoff point) in the shifting social milieu of the Russian university.