Lev Kasso is one of the most controversial figures who ever headed the Ministry of Public Education of the Russian Empire. In the short period of his leadership of the ministry, student unrest of 1910-1911 occurred, the «defeat» of Moscow University, the intensification of confrontation between professors and the government, the return of the practice of sending graduates to continue their education abroad. All these events and the reaction to them of LA Kassau led to an active response to the activities of the minister in sources of personal origin - memoirs and correspondence. For greater completeness, the authors of the article reviewed letters, diaries, and memories of both political figures and representatives of the faculty of various higher educational institutions of the country. The analysis made it possible to come to an observation about how the image of LA Kasso in the minds of the bureaucratic and intellectual elite of the empire. The study revealed the main discourses associated with the figure of the minister and broadcast among his contemporaries, an attempt is made to show how the public view of L.A. Kasso was formed, the main content of which was the conviction that the minister is an odious person and does not correspond to his position.