Dmitry Tolstoy

Tolstoy's activities were aimed at backing the nobility, regulating peasantry's modus vivendi, and spreading his administration's influence over local authorities.

As one of the great counter reformers of the post Crimean period Tolstoy used his position as minister of education to promote study at university and secondary levels that would bolster Russia as a nation with honest people in power looking to maintain Orthodoxy and Autocracy: something in danger during Tolstoy's rule as the post Crimean period of reform amounted also to increasing rebellion and student dissent.

[citation needed] In 1871, Tolstoy was in charge of the college reform, which would result in the prevalence of the classical education (included Latin and Greek languages and ancient literature, among other things).

Feminist activists Maria Trubnikova, Nadezhda Stasova, and Anna Filosofova began pushing, in 1867, for Russian universities to create courses for women.

[1]: 671  Demonstrating "considerable skill in rallying popular support", according to the historian Christine Johanson, the women wrote a carefully-worded petition to Tsar Alexander II.

[2]: 38–39 The feminist trio also appealed to war minister Dmitry Milyutin, who agreed to host the courses after being persuaded by his wife, daughter, and Filosofova.