The article is a review of the book by E.A. Rostovtsev “Metropolitan University of the Russian Empire: an academic class, society and power (second half of the 19th – early 20th c.)”. The book is based of archival sources, memoirs and existing studies, and is focused on the history of the St. Petersburg University, from 1884 to 1917. The genre of “collective biography” allows to reproduce the structure of the university and the university corporation (“senior” and “younger” teachers, students), relations with the “external environment” (Ministry of Education, city administration, political parties, public and scientific organizations); the participation of academics in the “liberation movement”, etc. “Collective biography” is divided into a number of “collective portraits” of the university faculties. Details are given of the “crisis” periods in university history, the “mobilization of intellect” during the First World War, the “struggle for autonomy” and its dismantling in the post-revolutionary period.