This book is a posthumous collection of works by St. Petersburg historian and sociologist Alexei Markov (1967–2002). The main part of the book is a monograph published for the first time about Petrograd students of the 1910s - the first half of the 1920s as a special social group with its own set of values, ideological and communicative practices. The appendix contains articles devoted to the evolution of education, “body politics” and the history of sexuality in Russia at the end of the 19th - first third of the 20th century, as well as problems of modern Russian humanities. In all of A. Markov’s works, he was characterized by a non-trivial research approach and a methodologically sharpened vision. Therefore, his book may be interesting and necessary not only for specialists, but also for all readers interested in the intellectual history of Russia.