The most interesting object of research is the intracorporate interaction of the academic class of St. Petersburg University. The cooperation of the members of the teaching corps was based on complex status relations. They were determined by their position, rank and support from the authorities. For the sake of increasing material wealth and intra-corporate influence, teachers entered into a struggle for departments and positions. The article reconstructs for the first time the history of the collision of the rector A.A. Degurov and professor T.O. Rogov for the teaching position. The focus of our study is also the confrontation between the two professorial coalitions of St. Petersburg University, which demonstrated the nature of the intervention of the trustee of the St. Petersburg educational district and the minister of public education in the university life. The author for the first time disclosed the features of the interaction of the members of the faculty of the capital’s university in the 1820s. In or