This article uses vast archival sources to investigate the history of the founding of the Main Russian Astrophysical Observatory in 1920–1922 and the role of the astronomer V. V. Stratonov in the process. The case study illustrates important reforms in the disciplinary and institutional structure of academic science which enabled serious shifts in research programs during the early post-revolutionary period. The story reveals how Stratonov manipulated bureaucratic and academic conventions in order to create an institutional space for the then underdeveloped research in astrophysics, alongside the better established and recognized fields of astrometry and geodesics.