The article discusses the practices for election of the head of a university corporation in Russian universities at the first half of the 19th century. It is shown that the concept of the “rector position”, transferred from European, mostly German, universities, acquired in Russia new features and characteristics. It acquired a complex content: a rector should become at the same time a “patriarchal” head of the scholars and a senior official in the bureaucratic milieu of the educational department. University curators influenced greatly on the election of a rector, which lead to the progressive “bureaucratisation” of its position, the rector changing from ‘ primus ante pares ' to the chief above the professors. The different perception of this position, its functions and powers, by several groups among the professors and ministry officials resulted in many inner conflicts. Meanwhile a new portrait of a rector, proper to the ‘classical' university - a rector as a respectable scientist and personification of the university's dignity with regard to the wider society - did not develop in Russia until the late decades of 19th century.